Continuing our site-wide BOM discussion, here’s one observation from my reading:
In Helaman 11, Nephi convinces the Lord to ‘bless’ the Nephites with a famine instead of a war in the hopes of awakening their remembrance of holy principles and repentance. We read that:
“…the earth was smitten that it was dry, and did not yield forth grain in the season of grain;” (Hel 11:6)
So, how widespread was this famine? Continuing on in the verse:
“…and the whole earth was smitten,”
Wow, the WHOLE earth? Really? Let’s read that again:
“…and the whole earth was smitten, even among the Lamanites as well as among the Nephites…”
Ah, I get it: The WHOLE earth–meaning the Nephites AND the Lamanites…
[Random Movie Tangent: This reminds me of the scene in "The Blues Brothers" where the BB band walks into a bar and asks, "What kind of music do you play here?". The waitress's reply: "Oh, BOTH kinds--country AND western!"]
It’s obvious that Mormon knows that the Earth (the planet) contains more places than just the areas where the Nephites and Lamanites live–after all, Lehi’s trip across the ocean from Jerusalem was well known to the Nephites as an essential part of their history. Obviously, from the context, Mormon is using the equivalent of “the whole earth” in his reformed Egyptian as a colloquialism for ‘the whole land’, meaning the entire land in which they live. (Or, alternately, added the second phrase as an immediate clarification for the first, making sure we didn’t think Nephi’s famine really covered the ENTIRE Earth instead of just the area where they lived…)
Is this significant at all? Maybe if we apply the same colloquialism to another section of scripture…
“11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
14 They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.” (Genesis 7)
My mission president (an archeology professor) has maintained through the years a number of beliefs that often put him at odds with other church members. Namely:
- There is no conflict between evolution and creationism. (i.e. evolutionary processes are part of the creation. I agree completely)
- Noah’s flood did not, in fact, cover the entire Earth.
He believes there was a prophet named Noah, certainly, who preached repentance and then built a boat to carry his family (and animals too), and that there was a flood, but that the flood that wiped out the people of Noah’s time was–like Nephi’s famine–based locally in one concentrated geographical area and did not cover the entire planet. Just like the (more common) belief that the ‘days’ in Creation were not exact 24-hour periods, he believes there is some middle ground between believing only the strict, literal interpretation of Noah’s flood (and other scripture stories) and discounting the scriptures entirely as fanciful myths and legends.
Is there room for such a non-literal interpretation of Noah and the flood? I think so…and it could be based on something as simple as the turn of phrase mentioned in Helaman. It is true the record says the Lord himself said the flood would cover ‘all the earth’, but it wasn’t the Lord (or even Noah) who wrote the physical record that became what is now Genesis in the Old Testament. Why couldn’t it be possible that the story of Noah, passed down to Moses’ time in (more or less) complete fashion came to be told as the waters covering ‘the whole earth’…meaning originally ‘the whole land in which we live’ and eventually became commonly understood as covering ‘the whole planet‘. If there were other people and places in the world not affected by the flood (or even other arks in various other locations…) then the Lord might not necessarily have told Noah about it ahead of time (or Noah himself might have known but not told everyone else. The Lord and His prophets keep secrets, of course…)
This is all speculation, naturally. We don’t want to fall into the trap of assuming the scriptural record can’t be true as written simply because it’s not ‘reasonable’. After all, many important happenings of the gospel are beyond reason. It is entirely possible that the flood covered the whole earth and destroyed ‘all flesh’ as written. But, is it necessary that the flood covered the whole earth? I don’t think so… Whether the flood was local or not is not consequential to the important principles of the gospel. (It does not compare to, say, the literal truthfulness of the Savior’s resurrection, for example…) Were I to find out in the next life that the story of the flood was literally true, or was not literally true, I would not be terribly surprised either way.
I’m not sure I care, either–beyond the level of a thought experiment to occupy my brainwaves for a time. I do believe this subtle turn of phrase in the Book of Mormon, though, can demonstrate how easily choice of words can affect differing interpretations of scripture–and the possibility of non-literal interpretations in other scriptural stories as well…
Interesting point Baron … I like the Blues Brothers country-and-western analogy and the comparison of this particular text to the story of Noah. Very interesting possibilities to think about.
But, is it necessary that the flood covered the whole earth?
Maybe. I have long believed that the earth was immersed in water (baptized), will be cleansed by fire at the seconds coming (Holy Ghost), and will eventually act as the Celestial Kingdom (exaltation). Now where I got those ideas I cannot remember anymore so they may be off the mark. If they are not, then it seems that it was required that the ENTIRE earth be covered in water, right?
What does “covered” mean, Russ? Does every tree and plant need to be covered or just the ground? If your theory is correct, and only the earth itself (and not the grass, or the trees, or anything not physically part of the earth) needed to be baptised, then that could be done without a global flood that was several kilometres deep. A simple global rain shower that covered the earth in even a thin layer of water would be all that is necessary.
Kim, that is an interesting point. I can’t agree with you though. If that is the case, then why do baptisms need to be redone when someone’s toe comes out of the water?
Kevin brings up an excellent — and I believe essential — point:
The scriptures are not written from God’s point of view, but from the authors’ point of view.
When Mormon says that the “whole earth” was smitten with famine, from his point of view it was — everything from horizon to horizon. Likewise Noah looks out of the window of the ark and sees nothing but water as far as the eye can see; from his POV, the whole earth was covered with water.
In our modern world we take for granted the existence of accurate maps of the world. They’re easy to read, readily accessible, and extremely accurate. But this is the product of modern cartography, assisted by the perspective of airplanes and satellites. In ancient times, there was no such thing as a map of the entire earth. To the ancients, the “whole earth” was what they could see and experience. They had no idea what was beyond the horizon, except for the strange tales that seafarers would sometimes tell.
This was an age of a much more limited experience; we need to read the ancient scriptures using this lens, and not presume that when Noah talks about “the whole earth” he means the entire globe. (He didn’t even know that the earth was a globe!)
As for the problems of a global flood, I highly recommend Duane Jeffery’s article “Noah’s Flood: Modern Scholarship and Mormon Traditions in the October 2004 Sunstone.
(And, yes, I believe in a local Flood.)
Often we hold onto the cultural retelling of the story instead of reading what the text actually says. Everybody always focuses on the rain and never mentions the “fountains of the great deep”.
From the Old Testament Hebrew of this verse:
Ma`yan = Fountain, well, springs
Rab = much, many, great
T@howm = deep (of subterranean waters), depths, deep places, abyss, the deep, sea
Baqa` = to split, cleave, break open, divide, break through, rip up, break up, tear
It seems to me that there was some kind of massive hydro-geological phenomenon going on involving a massive expulsion of previously subterranean waters. That phenomenon would have been the primary source of the flood and hurricane level storms would have been a secondary contributing factor. The subterranean waters would likely have been very hot (ever been to Yellowstone?) and that would have made the flood all the more deadly. Strong, widespread geological activity that caused the expulsion of the subterranean water could have also created multiple Tsunamis that simultaneously flooded coastal regions.
Between 70 and 75 percent of the earth surface is currently covered with water. The total world water supply is about 326 million cubic miles. That is a lot of water. If we could pour all of the world’s water supply on the United States it would cover the land to a depth of 90 miles. The point is that there is enough water on the earth that significant flooding, though perhaps not universal flooding, is conceivable.
While the flood may not have covered the entire planet, it could have been much, much more extensive than the few valleys surrounding a significant river that “local flood” proponents often seem to envision. If there was an expulsion of significant amounts of subterranean water, plus hurricanes, plus possible Tsunamis the flood could have effected a huge area of land.
I might add that misunderstandings of my previous point are frequently the cause of loss of faith among Latter-day Saints. The general assumption is that the scriptures are written from God’s point of view, and when Mormons find conflicts between logic and scripture, they believe the scriptures are flawed and therefore they’ve been deceived.
Example: The Book of Mormon says the descendants of Lehi “began to cover the face of the whole earth” (Hel. 3:8). The modern reader sees “the whole earth” and thinks (incorrectly) “all of North and South America.” When DNA studies come along that show that modern native Americans are genetically descended from Asians, dissonance occurs. The best way to solve that dissonance (IMHO) is to change one’s view of what “the whole earth” meant to the Book of Mormon’s authors. Sadly, some people attempt to manage their dissonance by discarding the Book of Mormon and the restored gospel altogether.
A little perspective goes a long way toward understanding the scriptures as they were understood by their authors, and not as we moderns would think of them.
Njord,
An understanding of ancient cosmology helps in this case. The ancients believed the earth was flat, and that vast caverns filled with water were under the earth. They also believed that there was an ocean in the sky, and that a solid dome (the “firmament”) prevented it from falling down upon us. There were windows in the firmament that could be opened to let water down in the form of rain (Gen. 7:11; 8:2; 2 Kgs. 7:2, 19; Mal. 3:10).
See this image for an idea of the ancient view of the universe.
I agree with Russ, in that I was taught that the flood was meant to be a sort of baptism for the earth. But, I also don’t remember where I got this impression, nor do I have any scripture to back it up. I seem to remember there being something in Revelations, but I’m too lazy right now to look it up. It makes sense that if the flood were a baptism for the earth then it would have to be by immersion.
I also really like how it was said that the scriptures aren’t written by God, and are therefore tainted by the limited understanding of the people who did write them. It makes some parts of the scriptures *much* easier to reconcile with modern revelation.
I agree with Kim, but I also think it’s possible the waters covered the whole earth. I base that on something I read somewhere, I think it’s Science and Mormonism. But maybe not. Somewhere. It talks about a new ice age happening very quickly. I think.
The earliest reference I can dig up equating the Flood with a baptism of the earth is in a sermon by Orson Pratt given on 25 July 1852:
This understanding has been accepted by many LDS leaders (Joseph Fielding Smith, John A. Widstoe, and Bruce R. McConkie, for example). However, it’s not based in revelation, but interpretation, so I’d hesitate to push the analogy too far (“the entire earth, to the top of the highest peak, was under water”).
There are some major problems with a global flood that go beyond “where did all the water come from.” They go to the incredible worldwide biodiversity and the impossibility of such diversity coming from a small sampling of animals getting off the ark in one location only 5,000 years ago. We also have the problem of the existence of freshwater fish when they would have all been killed off by the overwhelming salinity of an ocean-source flood.
Again, see Duane Jeffery’s article, referenced in comment #5.
I’m more interested in what this statement can mean for us in likening the BOM to all of us. As various individuals and groups went from righteousness to wickness, the technical differences between Lamanites and Nephites were pretty much annihilated. It became a symbolic difference. Certainly the whole earth is wasted if God’s plan is frustrated, individually and collectively.
Thanks Mike. Actually, ancient models of the cosmos is one of my areas of interest and I am quite familiar with them. You are over simplifying somewhat. True, one of the ancient Mesopotamian conceptions of the earth was a flat disk floating in the ocean. However, other ancient Persians thought that it was shaped like a seven-layered ziggurat–a cosmic mountain (perhaps with resonance to the idea of the “Mountain of the Lord”).
Pythagorus appears to have advocated a spherical earth five centuries before Christ. Aristotle noted evidence of a spherical earth nearly four centuries before Christ. Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth around 240 BC by using the difference in the angle of the position of the sun at noon in his city Alexandria to its angle as observed in the city of Syene at the same time.
Despite your strong assertion that Noah “didn’t even know that the earth was a globe,” it is certainly possible that he did–we simply don’t know.
Regardless of whether the ancients thought the lightening bolts were personally cast down by an angry god residing in the clouds, the lightening itself was real. Likewise, regardless of whether Noah thought the waters coming up through the ground came from a vast sea upon which the world was thought to float, or if he had a more correct understanding, the scriptures describe water bursting up from under the ground. That can be a real observable event independent of the cosmology used to explain it.
As for the baptism of the earth, see http://scriptures.lds.org/gsf/fldtnhst
I think that the idea is derived from a combination of D&C 88:17-27 and 1 Peter 3:20-21
“The earth . . . has been baptized with water, and will, in the future be baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost, to be prepared to go back into the celestial presence of God.” (Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, 603)
“The Lord baptized the earth for the remission of sins and it has been once cleansed from the filthiness that has gone out of it which was in the inhabitants who dwelt upon its face.” (Brigham Young, JD, 1:274)
As an interesting tangent, the idea that the Christians of the Middle ages thought that the world was flat and that Columbus proved them wrong is a modern falsehood that our education system desperately holds on to. Check out: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c034.html
Thanks for your comments and clarifications, Njord.
Greek cosmological thinking was on the right track, but their studies don’t affect the worldview of the Hebrews — they’re too distant and too late. The OT creation account is dependent on the flat earth/pillars of heaven/firmament model.
As to what Noah knew, you’re right that we don’t know his cosmology. His story in Genesis (even with the JST) isn’t first-person; it’s written from the perspective of a much later author who understood Noah’s experience from his own POV.
Another good article on this subject: “A Common Cosmology of the Ancient World” (American Academy of Religion web site).
Russ,
A person does need to be rebaptised if a toe comes out of the water, but that still does not negate the fact that the earth (that is the crust of the earth) could be submersed in water without all of the water coming to the height of Everest.
Thanks Mike. Actually, Pythagoras is thought to have gained most of his knowledge,including the theorem that now bares his name (and I believe the idea that the world was spherical too) from the Egyptian Priests. He lived in Egypt for 21 years. He was also probably introduced into their “mysteries” which influenced the formation of his secret society. I don’t remember for sure, but I believe that Socrates was said to have been initiated into the mysteries that were derived from those taught in Egypt as well.
So it is certainly possible that Greek cosmology was derived ultimately from Egypt.
The Pearl of Great Price teaches that Egypt was founded by the children of Noah’s son, Ham, and that the Pharaohs sought to imitate the order from antediluvian eras. That would include the mysteries rituals and perhaps cosmology.
I also believe that Abraham taught the cosmology he learned through revelation while he was in Egypt. We do not now the extent of his knowledge of cosmology, since we only have a small sampling in the Pearl of Great Price.
Later, Joseph the son of Israel was very influential in the Pharaoh’s court. and could have influenced the cosmology. And the Hebrews were in Egypt for many generations until Moses, who was raised in the Pharaoh’s court.
So while Greek cosmology may not have affected the Hebrew World View, as you say, the Hebrew World view may have indirectly affected Greek cosmology, via the proxy of Egypt.
Just speculative of course, but I would not rule out the possibility that Noah might have known more about the workings of our planet then we might think, and that Greek understanding of a spherical earth might have been derived indirectly from the revelations given to the ancient prophets.
In any case, to get back on topic, the point is that the views of the writers of the scriptures may not have been as limited and local as those who often preach the “local flood” view imply.
Kevin, Bill Hamblin has actually discussed this in terms of the underlying Hebrew being interpreted as land rather than earth. I don’t have my notes here at work, but I’ll add some comments later tonight. The idea is that earth in The Book of Mormon as well as in many OT passages (such as the story of Noah) is closer to our sense of the land around us.
Njord, that speculation has been around a long time. (And by a long time I mean you can find it in Christian writers at the end of the ancient era) There was a debate, for instance, over how Plato and company got the ideas they had. My feeling is that it’s pretty unlikely that Egypt got their ideas from the Hebrews. I’m also not entirely sure how to read the part of the Book of Abraham you quote. Some have speculated that this refers to a period when more semetic rulers took over Egypt. However the dates for that have been criticized by others.
Clark,
But what about the “that were under the whole heaven” in verse 19. The Hebrew word for heaven in this verse is Shamayim, which means the abode of the stars, the visible universe or sky.
Clearly the verse is meant to imply that all places under the sky were covered with water. So whether or not the word that is translated earth should be interpreted as “land”, the genesis account uses this “under the sky” construction, which at least implies that the flood covered the whole known world, and not just the particular local land in which they lived.
Just to clarify, I agree with you and Kevin that often when the scriptures say, the whole earth, they mean the land surrounding the author. However, I don’t think that verse 19, as cited in my previous comment, leaves that option open in the case of the flood story.
Njord,
For perspective on your comments in #19 and #20, we need to return to the rule I proposed in #5:
The scriptures are not written from God’s point of view, but from the authors’ point of view.
If the Genesis author meant to imply that the entire earth was covered, we need to remember that’s from his perspective, based in his limited understanding. It doesn’t necessarily mean the entire sphere we now call “the earth” was covered in water.
And cosmological issues are only one of the difficulties with a global flood. There are also issues of logic and science (including biodiversity) to consider. Again, I recommend Jeffrey’s article.
And WRT Abraham’s cosmology, Dan Peterson, Bill Hamblin, and John Gee have recently argued effectively that it is geocentric, not hierocentric.
(“‘And I Saw the Stars’: The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy,” in Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, FARMS, 2005.)
I can see that Njord, although to be fair that would imply that Dt 2:25 ought be taken to imply that even the Chinese feared Israel. I think we have to acknowledge that semetic languages tend to invoke a lot of hyperbole, and treat it accordingly. (Actually, not just semetic languages – I’ve been told I tend to do it in my speech fairly regularly as well)
The danger is to assume that scriptures never can use such phraseology.
The big problem with the literalist reading of Genesis 7 (beyond the equivalent issues when reading the Book of Mormon) is dealing with things like verse 20 that says all the mountains were covered with the water raising only 15 cubits. That’s not a lot of water. Now some take that to mean that the water was 15 cubits (~7 meters) above Mt. Everest. But at a certain point one has to consider that perhaps things aren’t the way the literalists are reading them.
As Mike said, a basic principle is to ask who is writing and consider their point of view.
My personal view is that Noah’s journey probably paralleled the Brother of Jared and Nephi’s more than the presuppositions one tends to find among certain strains of conservative Protestantism. I understand why that would be a natural way of reading that chapter. But there are obvious problems when one stops to think about it for a moment.
I agree with you to some extent, Mike. However, there are some things I do not like about your rule. It is too general and it assumes that our own point of view is categorically superior to that of those who lived before us–a notion which I strongly reject. It is too easy to take your rule and use it to dismiss anything in the scriptures that doesn’t make sense to us or sounds impossible from our own point of view as incorrect due to the ancient ignorance of the writer, his limited understanding, or exaggeration.
I am not saying that the flood did in fact cover the entire world. I recognize that the account very well may have been exaggerated during its propagation and retelling, and it may have been influenced by the world view of the writer. But at the same time, I think we show a great deal of arrogance when we assume that these writers were ignorant, isolated people whose entire concept of the world consisted of the little river valley in which they lived, and that when the river flooded they thought the whole world was underwater. I think we should give them some credit and some benefit of the doubt (seeing as we are displaced from the event in question by thousands of years, and they were actually present).
Rather than viewing them as a few tribes in a flooding river valley, I think we should at least allow the possibility of an actual cataclysmic flood that destroyed an entire civilization and the whole world as it was known to them–perhaps an area as large or larger than the U.S. or Europe.
As I said, I think it is arrogant to consider our own point of view categorically superior to theirs and to assume that everything that seems implausible to us is wrong and ignorant. Your rule provides no mechanism to distinguish that in the scriptures which does represent God’s point of view and that which is simply the limited view of the author–it simply asserts that it is all the view of the author.
In a contest between the point of view of the writer and our modern point of view, the rule assumes that the modern view always wins. It does not allow for the case where the author is absolutely right and our point of view is so prejudiced by historical displacement and limited by modern knowledge that we simply cannot accept things that are in fact true.
I am not opposed to Clark’s reading that makes Noah’s story closer to those of Nephi and Jared. I just think we need to be careful not to underestimate the writers and overestimate ourselves.
A very interesting discussion. Does anyone have any thoughts on this angle? I have heard that different cultures from around the world have flood lore. I know that the Native American’s have flood stories. Do these stories in any way support a global flood theory?
“Clearly the verse is meant to imply that all places under the sky were covered with water.”
I’m not sure it’s any clearer than the land/earth scriptures. After all, Noah didn’t see the entire sky “above” the earth, but rather only that which was not impeded by his horizon. From my perspective, it doesn’t seem to prove the global flood theory any more than the entire-earth scriptures do.
Excellent thoughts, Njord. I suspect we’re closer on this than one would suspect.
Interpretive reading of the scriptures is a balancing act, one that requires us to not to underestimate the writers, nor to overestimate them. It is an attempt to weigh faith and reason.
Should I discount Jesus’ miracles because reason says you can’t feed 5,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fishes? Of course not; it’s a miracle.
But when I’m forced to jump through multiple hoops of illogic to arrive at a certain conclusion — such as all the variations of animal life on the planet coming from one small set of fauna that came out of a boat 5,000 years ago — reason demands that I look for a more rational explanation to the story.
The book that I read referred to earthquakes causing a new ice age and also referred to oceans flooding due to the ice age. And I can’t remember which happened first, I think the earthquakes, but somehow it made the premise that the entire flooding of the earth would be caused by multiple catastropic events. Not to alarm anyone, I don’t think is what is going to happen, what was written was a scientific explanation of how the entire earth could have flooded very quickly.
Now I’m thinking I read it somewhere in blogging, after that movie about the ice age. Maybe I’m completely out to lunch, but I think it made sense.
Anne, that wasn’t a scientific explanation of how the earth could have flooded unless you are talking about what the earth was like hundreds of millions of years ago. The problem is the amount of ice versus the height of the mountains and the lack of residues in the caves not to mention the issue of animals.
Those adhering to a universal flood have to pretty much buy into a young earth model where God kills everything off, redoes creation while Noah was on the ark (making the saving of species by Noah odd), and then makes it appear like it never happened to test people’s faith.
The local flood model is the only one that can account for the evidence.
How does a local flood theory explain the distance travelled by Noah? Presumably, he started out in North America and ended up across the Atlantic in a mountain range (in Turkey?). It would take a large flood to get a boat to any mountain top, no?
We don’t know where he landed really. The argument for a local flood is bolstered by Joseph’s comments that Noah lived in the Carolinas, indicating perhaps that the flood was tied to a massive hurricane. But the idea that Noah landed on a mountain in Turkey or surrounding regions is pure speculation and (IMO) wrong.
Keep in mind that Noah was on the ark for over a year (it was the rain that fell for “forty days and forty nights” &mash; probably a hyperbolic statement). That’s certainly enough time to transit any ocean in the world.
An aside that has NOTHING to do with the subject of this thread, but everything to do with its title: THANKS for putting that song in my head.
“It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears . . . . .”
EEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Oh yeah, Clark, that’s what I mean, eons ago. I wish I could remember the reference. They said it could possibly happen again. Making some kind of case for the flood and the ice age.
Is anyone nervous watching the wildfires and the flooding of recent days? We sit in here in dry old Cedar City and I think even atheists are becoming believers. The weather is increasingly bizarre. We gave all our kids 72 hour emergency kits (which we assembed ourselves) with crank radios and flashlights, etc. for Christmas. They really were blown away.
Mike Parker (#5, #11),
Duane Jeffery, in his 2004 Sunstone article, has merely dusted off and is attempting to revive, criticisms of the flood that have been around for many years—the science is newer, but the arguments are old. In footnote 30, he dutifully mentions Joseph Fielding Smith’s chapter on the Flood (giving book title and page numbers), but Jeffery fails to mention anywhere that several of his “new discoveries” involve arguments against the universality of the Flood that were actually discussed quite thoroughly by President Smith in his now fifty-year-old chapter.
I also find it interesting that Jeffery frankly acknowledges he hasn’t found a single shred of prophetic evidence to support his “higher criticism” conclusions about the Flood.
By the way, three feature articles from the Church’s Ensign magazine are especially worth noting in this context: (1) F. Kent Nielsen, “The Gospel and the Scientific View: How Earth Came to Be,†(Ensign, Sept. 1980, 67-72), (2) Donald W. Parry, “The Flood and the Tower of Babel,†(Ensign, Jan. 1998, 35), and (3) Joseph B. Romney, “Noah, The Great Preacher of Righteousness,†(Ensign, Feb. 1998, 22).