7:19 The waters rose very high on the earth. All the high mountains that were under the whole sky were covered.

A Multidisciplinary Contextualized Analysis of Select Passages From Genesis Version 2.0

[This is an excerpt from a new edition of a study of the book of Genesis, the first edition of which can be found here. The purpose of this exercise is to compare a close reading of the text to our current understanding of language, paleontology, and the physical sciences. Constructive discussion on the elements presented is always encouraged!]

As it is elsewhere in the Bible, in nearly all of the instances where “earth” (“Erets” אָ֫רֶץ) appears, the equivalent translation is “land” in the context of a location as opposed to the entire globe. Among the thousands of times this root appears in the Bible, all are subject to context. We cannot claim to know for certain if the statement was meant to be global, but there is little if any paleontological support for an all-consuming worldwide flood having taken place. Including history as a contextual cue, it is my position that the intended context of the whole of the flood narrative is the “land” being the specific region deserving of God’s wrath.

There is also the geological practicality of where the amount of water necessary to fully envelope all land on planet Earth would come from. Geologically, changes to the Earth’s crust occur slowly. Inches or feet per year at the most. And if all of the ice on Earth was melted, the sea level would rise but not enough to submerge most land. God would have needed to force a massive amount of water above land to cover it in totality.

However, the end of the Younger Dryas geological period is one case where massive glaciers held a substantial amount of water above land in large lakes. These would occasionally fail suddenly, causing regional floods that decimated a region. Although not a total washout of all the Earth’s surface, communities favoring the fertile and warmer valleys wouldn’t stand a chance.

In regard to the mountains being “covered” with the waters, “Kasah” (כָּסָה) is also translated to hide or to cover in the context that something is hidden from view, not necessarily submerged. This provides a notably less drastic account of the events if we consider the perspective of the account being made.

The tradition of weighing the different segments of the Tanakh (Hebrew Old Testament) into the Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim suggests a rank of authority in the books. Similar to this practice, I weigh the authority of a passage on its apparent source. Direct statements of God including prophets are primary followed by detailed accounts of objective facts like specific names, quantities, or historical events. Tertiary is the subjective or relativistic observations of the author.

As opposed to ranking specific books or narratives as being more or less authoritative, the consideration of this analysis is more fluid. For example, in Genesis 2:18, God makes a direct declaration that is of absolute authority. But Genesis 2:19 is an observed result that is relative to the revelation given to the author. The claim that “every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky” were formed is statistically unlikely and climatologically impractical. This is not questioning the veracity of the passage, but qualifying it based on the voice.

That being said, God did not declare that he would submerge all of the mountains. Therefore, it is a valid translation of Genesis 7:19 that the conditions experienced by the witnesses on the Ark were such that the mountains became hidden from view. Whether the heavy rainfall significantly reduced visibility or the Ark was swept a distance away from the foothills by the waters, the tops of the mountains had simply disappeared from view in reference to the author’s perspective of the event.