The Source of the Flood Water. “If all the water in the Earth’s atmosphere were to condense, only an average of one inch of rain would fall. Therefore, the Genesis flood raises two common questions: Where did so much flood water come from, and where did it all go? A canopy partially answers the first question.”
Response: No canopy theory claims to provide all the water for a global flood. Nor does any canopy theory explain where the water went after the flood. Somehow transporting this water back into outer space or suddenly forming deep ocean basins after the flood is hard to imagine or explain. However, the phrase “the fountains of the great deep” (Genesis 7:11) implies that the flood water came from subterranean sources. To learn where the water went after the flood, see pages 118– 157.
Many have rejected the Genesis flood account because they could not imagine where the flood water, which covered all preflood mountains, went. Canopy theories have contributed to this rejection of the flood account.
Drop in Longevity. “Radiation from outer space may cause people to age. If so, a preflood canopy might have shielded people from this aging process. Perhaps that is why life spans before the flood were about 900 years.”
Response: If radiation from space reduced life spans, we would expect an immediate drop in longevities after the flood. Life spans did drop, but for 12 generations after the flood, human longevity remained much higher than today. [See Figure 249 on page 514.] Even Noah lived 349 years after the flood. Some argue that perhaps radiation damage accumulated genetically over many generations. Few, if any, canopy proponents have proposed specifically what type of harmful radiation it was, how it reduced longevity so much without causing massive deformities and genetic diseases, why longevity leveled off at about 70 years instead of continuing to deteriorate, or how to test the proposed mechanism.
Most proposals for this drop in longevity are testable, but seldom tested. One test, which might have shown that cosmic or solar radiation reduces longevity, failed. Mice were raised in deep caves, shielded from both types of radiation. Neither those mice nor their offspring lived longer than other mice.2 Also, if radiation from outer space accelerated aging, then living at a lower elevation, where one is protected by a thicker blanket of atmosphere, should increase longevity. No such effect is known.3 (At sea level, our atmosphere has the same shielding effect as 3 feet of lead.)
Joseph Dillow’s book, The Waters Above, is probably the most complete, accurate, and up-to-date defense of any canopy theory. After explaining other problems with the “longevity claim,” Dillow concludes, “So it appears that canopy theorists have been in error when they appealed to the shielding effect of the canopy as a direct explanation for antediluvian longevity.” 4 Dillow also states, “We readily admit that Genesis does not teach the existence of a pre-Flood vapor canopy.” 5 [emphasis in original]
My explaination for why people lived to be about 900 years old before the flood is given on pages 510– 513.
A Uniformly Warm Climate. “A canopy may have given the Earth a uniformly warm climate. This might explain why fossils of temperate animals and plants (such as dinosaurs and large trees) are found in Antarctica and on islands inside the Arctic Circle.”
Response: At the end of the flood, mountains were suddenly pushed up. This imbalanced (and rolled) the Earth, shifted the poles, and brought temperate regions to today’s polar regions. [For details see “Earth Roll” on page 141 and Endnote 84 on page 154.] Also, during the global flood, some plants and animals may have floated to today’s polar latitudes where they were later fossilized.
Even if a canopy produced a warm polar climate, it would not satisfy another requirement for lush vegetation— sunlight in the winter. Polar nights are six months long, and when the Sun does shine, it is always low in the sky. How could large trees and dinosaurs (requiring long food chains) survive, let alone thrive, during the long polar night?
Despite much speculation, no one knows what temperatures would exist under a canopy. Today, even experts disagree on the extent to which carbon dioxide warms the Earth. Think how much more difficult it is to determine the warming, thousands of years ago, under a canopy of unknown thickness, reflectivity, content, and height above the Earth.
Venus. “We see canopies on other planets, such as Venus.”
Response: Some planets have atmospheres, but none have a canopy. An atmosphere has contact with its planet, but a canopy is a distinct shell above the planet’s atmosphere. Venus is shrouded by a thick, opaque atmosphere, consisting primarily of carbon dioxide (96.5%), nitrogen (3.4%), and traces of other gases. Venus does not have a layer of water, or any other relatively heavy substance, above its atmosphere.
Genesis 7:11–12. A lot of rain fell from somewhere. Genesis 7:11–12 states that “the floodgates of the sky were opened. And the rain fell ...” Doesn’t this imply a canopy?
Response: If it did, similar canopy interpretations should predate Vail’s in 1874. Where are they? Quite often it is hard to see alternatives once we have learned “the accepted explanation.”
Actually, Genesis 7:11–12 says that “all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. And the rain fell ...” Later, Genesis 8:2 states “the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained.” These events were probably in cause-and-effect order. That is, the fountains of the great deep caused extreme, torrential rain. Once the fountains stopped, this violent rain ended. Then milder, more normal, rain fell. In other words, “the rain from the sky was restrained.”
A cause and effect sequence is also given in Proverbs 3:19–20: “The Lord by wisdom founded the Earth; by understanding He established the heavens. By His knowledge the deeps were broken up, and the skies dripped with dew.” The same Hebrew word, baqa ((qab@f), is used for “broken up” and “burst open” in Proverbs 3:20 and Genesis 7:11. Baqa describes a violent and complete splitting, sometimes of the Earth’s crust (Numbers 16:31, Micah 1:4, Zechariah 14:4). Isaiah 34:15 and 59:5 use baqa to describe the breaking of an egg shell by internal pressure as a baby bird exits. This aptly describes events of the hydroplate theory—the globe encircling rupture splitting the Earth’s crust by internal pressure and releasing fountains of water.
The Hebrew word, matar, means normal rain. Violent rain is geshem (used in Genesis 7:11 and 8:2). It is sometimes accompanied by high winds and huge hailstones that can destroy mortared walls (Ezekiel 13:11–13). The hydroplate theory (pages 118– 157) explains this sequence in more detailed, physical terms. We have failed to appreciate the explosiveness, magnitude, and power of “the fountains of the great deep.” [See “The Origin of Earth’s Radioactivity” on pages 391– 429.]