{"id":8331,"date":"2007-01-31T14:06:24","date_gmt":"2007-01-31T20:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=8331"},"modified":"2019-08-25T14:10:44","modified_gmt":"2019-08-25T19:10:44","slug":"when-was-the-great-flood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-was-the-great-flood\/","title":{"rendered":"When was the great flood?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

I’m finding so many conflicting dates on when the Great Flood took place and how far after that Sargon came into power. Do you have any insight on this for me?<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

I’m not surprised that you are having difficulty. Dating gets very difficult the further you go back in time for a number of reasons:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. There hasn’t been a consistent calendar for the entire history of the world. Various nations used various calendars and determining the overlaps is just plain hard.<\/li>\n
  2. Most ancient cultures told dates from major events, but oftentimes they rounded their numbers. For example, “Now Jehoram the son of Ahab became king over Israel at Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years<\/em>” (II Kings 3:1). “In the eighteenth year” could mean 18 years and 1 month or 18 years and 11 months. It could even be that eighteenth calendar year since Jehoshaphat had become king. Now rounding doesn’t make much difference in a short time span (say 100 to 200 years), but when you start measuring across 4000 years, those small variations can add up to some major variations.<\/li>\n
  3. Fortunately, the Bible and other ancient documents will sometimes mention a major event that coincides. If we can date those major events, they can serve as anchors to keep the small variations within a reasonable limit. But here again, we run into problems because people aren’t always objective in their dating. There are many archeologists who prefer older dates for their research, as older often get more money. Some have a strong bias against what the Bible states and given a choice will pick answers that conflict with the Bible, just because it conflicts.<\/li>\n
  4. Sometimes the wording of a passage is just vague enough to cause controversy. Vague means some people will understand the dating to mean one thing, and others will select something else. Of course, there is only one right answer, but without something additional to settle the dispute, you are going to get a variance on the dates selected.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The great flood of Noah’s day occurred, very roughly, over 4,000 years ago. I haven’t sat down to pinpoint a date and layout the justification myself. But, then, I haven’t run across an issue where the precise date is needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Question: I’m finding so many conflicting dates on when the Great Flood took place and how far after that Sargon came into power. Do you have any insight on this for me? Answer: I’m not surprised that you are having difficulty. Dating gets very difficult the further you go back in time for a number…<\/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":[264,279],"class_list":["post-8331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-flood","tag-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":51351,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-about-other-cultures-that-have-different-creation-and-flood-accounts\/","url_meta":{"origin":8331,"position":0},"title":"What about other cultures that have different creation and flood accounts?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hey Jeffrey, I have a question: I just started a daily Bible reading program and went back over the history of mankind, creation, and the generations. I am wondering: Are these the only people who were living on the Earth at this time? How would you compare Genesis with\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":17770,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-asa-and-jehoshaphats-reigns-overlap-in-judah\/","url_meta":{"origin":8331,"position":1},"title":"Did Asa and Jehoshaphat’s reigns overlap in Judah?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: From the dates I can find, King Asa and Jehoshaphat overlapped in their reigns as kings. 873 - 870. Is that correct? And why the overlap? Also, when Elijah was fleeing from Jezebel and went to Judah do we know for sure which king was reigning over Judah (Asa\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":21282,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-could-dinosaurs-have-evolved-into-hundreds-of-species-and-then-go-extinct-in-the-few-thousand-years-since-the-flood\/","url_meta":{"origin":8331,"position":2},"title":"How could dinosaurs have evolved into hundreds of species and then go extinct in the few thousand years since the flood?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: So you believe that two \"dinosaurs\" were on Noah's ark for over a year, left the ark (where there must have been little to no vegetation), multiplied, evolved into hundreds of different kinds of \"dinosaurs,\" lived for thousands of years, side by side with man, went extinct and became\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":9697,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-could-people-live-to-be-so-old\/","url_meta":{"origin":8331,"position":3},"title":"How could people live to be so old?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In the Old Testament, when people lived to be hundreds of years old -- did they really live years as we know it or did they count seasons as years? How could anyone have lived to be 400 years old? Answer: The word used for \"years\" did not change\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":25880,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/couldnt-the-flood-have-been-a-local-flood\/","url_meta":{"origin":8331,"position":4},"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":1165,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-there-only-one-continent-before-the-flood\/","url_meta":{"origin":8331,"position":5},"title":"Was there only one continent before the Flood?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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\/8331","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=8331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}