For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness to be reserved for judgment; and didn’t spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly;
A global flood destroyed all civilization except one family, confirmed by multiple ancient authors.
Geology
25
passages in this field
Show this passage in
The cited passage
What current science says
Multiple people referencing the same story doesn't make it true — it means the story was popular. Ancient flood myths exist in many cultures (Gilgamesh, Deucalion, Manu) because ancient civilizations built near rivers that flooded. But there is zero geological evidence for a simultaneous worldwide flood: no global sediment layer, continuous ice core records in Greenland and Antarctica showing no flood disruption, continuous tree ring records (dendrochronology) going back over 12,000 years, and coral reef growth records spanning hundreds of thousands of years with no interruption. Independent confirmation requires independent evidence, not repeated citations of the same tradition.
What the text says
This comes from 2 Peter 2:4-5, which references a deity who 'spared not the old world, but saved Noah.' Young Earth Creationists cite multiple New Testament references to the flood as independent confirmation — but multiple authors in the same literary tradition referencing the same story is not independent verification.
Three honest ways to read this passage
-
As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
-
As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
-
As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.