The Nature of the Flood

The Nature of the Flood Some models and proposed causes of the Deluge.
Flood Model	Source	Author	Comment
Atlantis legend	Sea	Plato	An account of a legendary city which suddenly sank beneath the waves of the sea. Some have connected Plato's tale with the story of the flood in Genesis.
Gilgamesh Legend	Subterranean waters	Ancient cuniform tablets from Nineveh, Mesopotamia.	Even more ancient than the Atlantis legend is the account of Gilgamesh, who built a boat and so survived the deluge.
Burnet's Sacred History of the Earth	Subterranean waters	T. Burnet	Burnet believed the flood was initiated by breating up of the earth's crust, and the outpouring of water from subterranean cavities.
Local flood theory	Rivers	L. Woolley D.A. Young	A well known theory about the flood is the account of the discoveries of clay sediments during excavations of ancient cities in Mesopotamia. See Woolley and the Flood.
Diluvial theory		G. Cuvier Sir James Hall W. Buckland R.I. Murchison H.H. Howorth	G. Cuvier proposed that the drift was evidenceof the Noachian flood. Hall interpreted streamlined hills of Edinburgh to catastrophic waves or currents from the sea, generated by earthquakes. The diluvial theory was applied to the study of caves of Yorkshire by Buckland. Supporters of the diluvial theory opposed Louis Agassiz in New England. Howorth believed the drift was distributed by a catastrophic flood which drowned large animals in huge numbers, such as the mammoth.
Drift or ice-berg theory		C. Lyell J.W. Dawson	In Lyell's view the drift was deposited from floating icebergs, during an extended period of submergence. Sir J.W. Dawson thought the Great Lakes were excavated by an Arctic current, and icebergs transporting boulders, which also piled up drift in moraines of Ontario.
Tranquil Flood	Sea	F. Filby	Filby pointed out evidence such as raised beaches or strand lines on coasts, (Pleistocene) which he identified as effects of the Noachian flood.
Post ice-age flood	Melting ice	G.F. Wright	Wright supposed that melting glaciers of the ice age caused the flood.
Cosmic Catastophe	Comet	I. Donnelly	Astronomical agents, a comet or meteorite impact, explains the drift and the flood.
Ice-dump hypothesis	Ice from space	D.W. Patten	Ice falling from the sky caused both the ice age and the deluge.
Hydroplate theory	Subterranean waters	W.T. Brown	Breaking up of the "fountains of the deep" released subterranean waters that flooded the earth, and produced the mid-ocean ridge system.
Black Sea deluge	Mediterranean Sea	W. Ryan W. Pitman	Waters from the Mediterranean Sea flooded the Black Sea, a region previously below sea level.
Miraculous flood theory	God, rain, and the "canopy".	H. Morris J.C. Whitcomb B. Nelson	This theory contends that the mechanism of the flood was miraculous. Also, the removal of the water afterwards needs no scientific explanation; the Bible account should be accepted "on faith".
Paleozoic interpreted as flood sediments		D.J. Tyler	Identifies Paleozoic sediments with the Noachian flood; the later rocks are post flood sediments.