Why wasn't there a Rainbow in Noah's Pre-Flood World?
Glenn R. Morton March 21, 2020
There are two statements that Biblical scholars don't often
connect and liberals dismiss as ridiculous.
I believe the Bible is a record of God's interaction with mankind. And I believe that it can be
scientifically/historically true, but not with the normal approaches taken by
Christians. I believe that the events of Genesis 2-9 took place on a land that
no longer exists, and that explains why these verses have appeared so
troubling. Let's look at the verses.
When
the Lord God made the earth and
the heavens— 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the
earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth
and there was no man to work the ground," Gen 2:4-5
There was no rain on the land upon which
God was about to place Adam, and this was a time before farming.
The second verse is Genesis 9:11
"I
establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the
waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
I do not like the translator's choice of
'earth' because 'eretz means 'land',
not 'planet earth'. the land that was
destroyed, therefore, could have been an area of earth that no longer exists,
but actually did long ago, when man's ancestors first appear in the geologic
record. It was the Mediterranean desert.
But let's look at the
other flood theories to see if any of them can explain a land with no rain and
no rainbow? The global flood idea has
the entire world flooded. Because
rainbows can be seen anywhere on earth's surface today, including the driest
area on earth, the Atacama desert, it is difficult to see how there would be no
pre-flood rainbows.
The
Mesopotamian flood is popular with many Christians who don't believe in the
global flood but want a real flood any way.
The problem is, there is rain in Iraq and rainbows in the sky. So again, one must effectively have God take
something that was already there and give it 'significance', but that isn't
very satisfying. Having God give
significance to something already there doesn't show his power to keep his part
of the bargain.
The answer to this question lies in the idea that Eden
existed in the Mediterranean Basin 5.3 myr ago.
The details can be found in the here,
but the world was different back then. The Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic
ocean and it evaporated to 3 or 4 large lakes. So you will know this large
desert is a mainstream idea, see Wiki and Wiki. The world looked like this:
Click to enlarge. Note that the Taurus
mountains are the Mountains of Ararat. The four rivers mentioned in Genesis
2:8-14 are found flowing into the same region of this Mediterranean desert and
what looked like a nutty geography to many Biblical scholars, like Ryle and
Radday:
"For
Ryle, 'The account...is irreconcilable with scientific geography.' Radday
believed that Eden is nowhere because of its deliberately tongue-in-cheek
fantastic geography." John C.
Munday, Jr., "Eden's Geography Erodes Flood Geology," Westminster
Theological Journal, 58(1996), pp. 123-154,p.128-130
The above scenario, recognized by modern
geology as real, says that those rivers once were together in the same area.
Details here.
Would there have been rain in that 5 km
deep, empty basin? Not likely. First,
the Mediterranean waters were mostly gone and the brine lakes remaining
probably had salt crusts limiting further evaporation (A. Debenedetti, Marine Geology, 49,1982, p. 94.).
There is river water pouring into the basin but, even today it is not enough to
keep the Med filled with water. It is truly a small amount of water in the
grand scheme of things.
Secondly, the Mediterranean is located in
the Horse Latitudes. Of them, it is
written:
"Horse
latitudes, subtropical ridges or subtropical highs are the subtropical
latitudes between 30 and 35 degrees both north and south where Earth's
atmosphere is dominated by the subtropical high, an area of high pressure, which suppresses precipitation and cloud
formation, and has variable winds mixed with calm winds." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_latitudes
You can see the 30 deg line along the coast of Egypt.
Thirdly, there is a very sharp rain shadow in all directions.
The yellow lines on Mediterranean map above are the mountain ranges that cause
a rain shadow.
From Wiki:
"A rain shadow is a dry area on the leeward side of a mountainous area (away from the wind). The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems and cast a "shadow" of dryness behind them. Wind and moist air are drawn by the prevailing winds towards the top of the mountains, where it condenses and precipitates before it crosses the top. The air, without much moisture left, advances across the mountains creating a drier side called the "rain shadow"." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_shadow
In addition as the air flows down into the basin the
relative humidity of that air drops, making rain even less likely. Britannica
says of the descending air mass:
"As it descends on the downwind side of the range, it warms again and its relative humidity is further reduced. This reduction in relative humidity not only prevents further rainfall, but also causes the air mass to absorb moisture from other sources, drying the climate on the downwind side. The ultimate result is lush forest on the windward side of a mountain separated by the summit from an arid environment on the downwind side. " https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/rain-shadow
As the air descended 5 km down into the Mediterranean basin, the
relative humidity would seriously drop, more so than anywhere today on the
present earth. Rain would almost be
impossible in such a basin.
No rain, no rainbow.
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