Why is the ancient Flood as described in the Bible unrealistic? Noah was a carpenter who was instructed by God to build a boat of predetermined dimensions, specifically an ark, and to place a pair from each type of animal on it. This was because God wanted to bring a flood to the world and destroy sinful mankind. The flood did indeed occur, and only Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark survived.
The question, however, is whether this could have actually happened. One common argument is that similar stories are known in many cultures that were far apart and had no contact with each other. So why are there similar stories?
But here we need to examine whether there is physical evidence that such a massive flood occurred. And here we run into a problem. Not only that, but it has been proven that such a flood would have been impossible at the time.
But that is not the only evidence that this did not happen. The main one is the fact that geologic studies tell us otherwise. Simply put, the sedimentary and fossil layers have a very different distribution from that consistent with a flood of this magnitude.
There is also the fact that living trees that must be older than that flood still exist today. Not to mention relics from very old civilizations such as the Sumerians and Egyptians.
Of course, there is also the fact that none of the known animals experienced the so-called “bottleneck effect,” in which their populations drastically decline to a few animals and then start growing again. In this case, inbreeding is inevitable and problems arise. Cheetahs are a good example of this.
In other words, whether the enthusiasts of this myth like it or not, nothing like that happened in the Tertiary or Quaternary. It\’s a good story, to be sure, but that\’s all it is.