Genesis 8

• 1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;

Big problem here. The atmosphere can only hold about an inch of water in suspension as water vapor. More than one inch of water can be evaporated away if the saturated air is transported elsewhere by wind, but since the whole earth was covered by water in the Flood, there was nowhere for it to go. There is simply no way to evaporate 1.1 billion cubic miles of water. Fundamentalists do their hand wave and suggest that it all went underground into the aquifer, and perhaps the seas are larger now. But that still leaves a lot of water to account for. Other believers suggest that the mountains were only about a thousand feet high back in that time, and they've grown since then.

• 2-3- The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; and the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

James Irwin, the eighth person to walk on the moon, led a number of expeditions to find Noah's Ark on these mountains, to no avail. Sometimes you see pictures where they say, "We found a piece of Noah's Ark sticking up out of the snow, but when we tried to get back up there in July to verify it the Turkish authorities denied us permission." Or there is tribal warfare that makes it too dangerous. It's always something. Grand Conspiracy Theories always have a reason why there is no evidence. This plants the modern day search for Noah's Ark firmly in Art Bell woo woo territory with UFOs and Bigfoot. In the Great Depression they chopped up a lot of railroad ties for firewood. Imagine tribesmen finding a whole ark full of firewood up at the timberline of Ararat. They'd have burned it all up in short order, long ago.

• 5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

Mt Ararat is the highest mountain in the Middle-east but the Himalayas are much higher, and they would have been exposed by the receding waters long before Ararat.

• 6-7 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

Mr. Raven went out and got lost, but Mrs. Raven stayed on the ark, so I wonder how we got ravens today.

• 8-9 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.

Mrs. Dove went out, but had to come back because there was nowhere to land with trees. Noah waited a week.

• 10-11 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

Mrs. Dove came back with evidence of vegetation. Noah waited yet another week.

• 12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

So Mrs. Dove went out again and never came back. Good luck for her finding Mr. Dove, who stayed on the ark.

• 13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.

Noah saw the ground was dry on January 1st.

• 14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

No, now it says the ground was dry on February 27th.

• 15-17 And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

That's discipline. After months on the ark, feeding the animals and scooping their poo, Noah and his family waited for permission from God before leaving the smelly thing.

• 18-20 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him: Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark. And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Now if Noah only took the animals in "two and two" as the earlier text indicates, there would be no spares to sacrifice to God. And even if he took them by sevens, perhaps four females and three males, and only sacrificed a few of these, it seems that God put the ritualism of animal sacrifice at a higher priority over genetic diversity.

• 21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Creation was cursed after Adam's "fall" but here God has reversed his sentence. Creation is no longer cursed on account of man. Neither will God destroy every living thing.

• 22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

If God is true to this vow, then there never can be an end to the world.