Noah’s Flood and Population Growth

This discussion is taken from chapter 10 of my forthcoming book, Noah’s Flood and the Philosophies of Men.

Human population growth doesn’t fit with a story of the entire earth population being reduced to only eight individuals 4364 years ago. Throughout most of the earth’s history, population growth rates have remained below 0.1%. Historically, there were population booms in 1000 AD and again in 1500 AD; where the growth rate went up to as much as 0.2-0.3%. Using the growth rate of 0.1%, seen as a high mark throughout most of human history, beginning with a population of 8 people, there would only have been 413 total people on the entire earth in 1600, just before the modern population explosion.¹ If we then take an average growth rate of 1.0% (a rate two to ten times higher than the calculated rate for most of that period, and a rate not actually achieved until about 1930) since 1600 to the present, the total population today would be 25,920 people. What if we use a very optimistic growth rate of 0.2 % to 1600, followed by a 1.0% growth rate? That gives us a total population in 1600 of 21,323 people, and a total population today of 1,338,257 people. A 0.3% growth rate (that would be a sustained growth rate, which was only achieved briefly in 1500) before 1600 would give 1,094,393 people. The actual world population in 1600 was approximately 500-580 million people (there were 200,000 people in London alone in 1600). In order to reach that size of a population 3948 years after the flood, the population growth rate would have to have been 0.46%, a rate which was never achieved before about 1700. What if there was a huge population boom right after the flood, which shot up to 800 people and then tapered off to 0.1%. There would still only be 41,383 people in 1600. What if the population shot way up to 8000 early on? The population in 1600 would still only be 413,835. The only way to get to a population of 500-580 million in 1600 with a starting population of 8000 people would be to have a sustained population growth rate of 0.28% for 3948 years, which simply is not what we see in world history.

Furthermore, if we use the maximum known growth rate in human history of 2.2%, which occurred in 1962-1963, such a growth rate would have to have been sustained for 320 years after the flood to achieve a population growth from 8 to 8000 people. The numbers just don’t add up. It is not reasonable to assume that all humans, except eight, died out 4364 years ago, let alone all the plants and other animals. Our ancestors in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries had no understanding of the science of population growth, so they were unaware of the difficulties involved in their beliefs. As a result, they were able to perpetuate the Flood story with no undo concern about reality. Today, however, one has to ignore mathematics to make a universal flood 4364 years ago, with only eight survivors, work.

Proponents of Young Earth theology, like Ken Ham, who seems to be the self-appointed spokesman, have argued that we weren’t there so we can’t say what happened in the past. Well, none of us were there when Noah and his three sons stepped off the ark. If we believe the calculations of James Ussher, who wasn’t there either, the flood happened in 2348 BC. We don’t have to have been there to calculate population growth rates and the diversity of civilizations a mere 4000 years ago. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend that there is no history or mathematics, let alone science, and not read the Bible for yourself, but believe only people like Ken Ham, who claim that science is evil and if you are not a Young-earth Creationist you are damned.

The other problem with populations and a world-wide Flood is population diversity and spread. If we start with a world-wide population of 8 people in 2348 BC, then we have to explain how the descendants of those 8 people spread to Egypt and had enough people (some 20,000 – 30,000 actual laborers, not to mention all the support people) to build the Pyramids of Giza, either right before the Flood (2589 – 2504 BC, as most people think) or, as Young Earth Creationists believe, right after the Flood. At the same time, there were enough descendants of those same 8 people in central China to build what is now called the Erlitou Ruins of the Xia Dynasty (around 2000 BC). At the same time, there were enough descendants of those same 8 people in south-central England to build the Avebury stone henge complex (about 2850-2200 BC) on the Salisbury plain – a for-runner of Stonehenge some twenty miles to the south. If Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland, and similar monuments on the Iberian Peninsula, weren’t built before the Flood (around 3000-2500 BC) then there were enough descendants of those same 8 people in Ireland and Iberia to build those spectacular monuments immediately after the Flood. The Australian Indigenous rock art paintings stand as the oldest unbroken art tradition in the world. If the charcoal and ochre paintings were done before the Flood (some are as much as 28,000 years old), they would have been washed away by the waters that covered the entire Earth. If they were all made after the Flood, preposterous as that appears, then there were a lot of descendants of those same 8 people down there in Australia busily painting away—creating petroglyphs as fast as they could paint. At the same time, there were enough descendants of those same 8 people in India to build the pyramid, graves, reservoirs, and city at Dholavira (2650-2100 BC). At the same time, there were enough descendants of those same 8 people in Caral, Peru to build a great pyramid there (2600 BC). And the story goes on and on – where is your favorite Neolithic monument, when was it built, and who built it?

The problem is, we’re not talking about a population explosion right after 2348 BC, which shot the population 320 years after the Flood up to 8000 people in the Middle East, we’re talking about a population explosion that placed millions of people at numerous locations (with many thousands at each location) all over the world before 2000 BC, at most, 348 years after a universal flood. By 2000 BC there also were enough people around the world to build Ziggurat of Ur, Iraq; Dolmen Cava dei Servi, Italy; Rubha an Dùnain passage tomb in Scotland; and Bryn Celli Ddu in Wales. In short, the problem with the date of 2348 BC for a global flood is that by then, we’re into known pre-history when millions of people across the world were busily building monuments that have survived to this very day. The other problem is that, in many of those cases, monument building had been going on, uninterrupted by any apparent world-wide disaster, for centuries at sites such as Giza, Egypt; Dholavira, India; Avebury, England; Gavrinis tomb, Brittany; and Newgrange, Ireland.

Trent Dee Stephens, PhD

trentdeestephens.com

stephenstrent7@gmail.com

References

1.     All calculations in this chapter were done using the Population Calculator, metamorphosisalpha.com/ias/population.php