{"id":1165,"date":"2004-03-24T02:45:02","date_gmt":"2004-03-24T02:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2019-02-19T02:48:34","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T02:48:34","slug":"was-there-only-one-continent-before-the-flood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-there-only-one-continent-before-the-flood\/","title":{"rendered":"Was there only one continent before the Flood?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

Was the world in one piece before the Flood?<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

By this question, I am assuming that you are asking if all the continents were joined prior to the Flood. If you ever poured water over a pile of dirt as a child, you realize that moving water has great power to alter topography. The Bible describes the Flood as one that covered the entire planet’s surface for a period of about one year (Genesis 7:11;\u00a08:13). At its peak, it exceeded the highest mountain at that time by a depth of more than twenty-two and a half feet (Genesis 7:20). Such a large quantity of water, both in its rising and falling would have greatly altered the earth.<\/p>\n

The water for the Flood came by rain that lasted 40 days (Genesis 7:12) and by underground water supplies bursting forth (Genesis 7:11). In addition, the psalmist tells us, “You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters were standing above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled, at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away. The mountains rose; the valleys sank down to the place which You established for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass over, so that they will not return to cover the earth<\/i>” (Psalm 104:6-9). To remove the water from the earth, God raised the mountains higher and lowered the valleys in the seas. Hence, we can conclude that the world was flatter before the flood than it is today.<\/p>\n

There are scientists who theorize that the Flood could have been created by a sudden shifting of the geological plates, which would have split the land continents. (See “Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: A Global Flood Model of Earth History<\/a>” for one such proposal.) However, since the Bible does not record the specifics of how the Flood was caused, such theories must be built off the remaining evidence. There is no way to state with certainty that this is the way it happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: Was the world in one piece before the Flood? Answer: By this question, I am assuming that you are asking if all the continents were joined prior to the Flood. If you ever poured water over a pile of dirt as a child, you realize that moving water has great power to alter topography.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[264,223],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-flood","tag-geography"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":25880,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/couldnt-the-flood-have-been-a-local-flood\/","url_meta":{"origin":1165,"position":0},"title":"Couldn’t the Flood have been a local flood?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, Just thought I'd point out that in the Old Testament, terms that seem to at first clearly speak of the entire earth actually refer to only a localized region, such as the Babylonian Empire for example. Daniel, for example, plainly says that Nebuchadnezzar was king of the entire\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83314,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-flood\/","url_meta":{"origin":1165,"position":1},"title":"The Flood","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 18, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton \"By which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water\" (II Peter 3:6). The \"world\" Peter is discussing is not the world of Judaism. He is not speaking metaphorically of Judaism. That is sometimes read into the passage. It is not the matter under\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/The-Flood-300x300.avif","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":970,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-is-the-garden-of-eden\/","url_meta":{"origin":1165,"position":2},"title":"Where is the garden of Eden?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Where is the garden of Eden located? Answer: The garden of Eden is described in Genesis 2 as being located on the eastern edge of a region known as Eden (Genesis 2:8). Eden was the source of a mighty river that watered the garden and as it exited the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33895,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/science-confirms-flood-timeline\/","url_meta":{"origin":1165,"position":3},"title":"Science Confirms Flood Timeline","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 3, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Source: Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D., \"Y-Chromosome Study Confirms Genesis Flood Timeline,\" ICR.org, 17 December 2019. \"In this current study, the authors note that if humans have actually been around for several hundred thousand years or more, they should have accumulated 8 to 59 times the amount of mutations that we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Issues"","block_context":{"text":"Issues","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25028,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-the-flood-kill-sea-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":1165,"position":4},"title":"Did the flood kill sea life?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How did the flood kill animals from the sea? And if it killed them, how did Noah fit animals from the sea in a dry ark? Answer: \"And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1706,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-are-cush-and-havilah-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":1165,"position":5},"title":"Where are Cush and Havilah today?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 11, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Where are the land of Cush and the land of Havilah today, and what are their names today? Answer: The first mention of Cush is in Genesis 2:13\u00a0where the Gihon, one of the four mighty rivers flowing from the land of Eden, encompassed this particular region. Because the great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}