How do Bible Literalists deal with trees older than the flood?

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Accepted answer

If it is a scientific certainty that a tree create one and only one ring per year, then this would be problematic. However, as you can read on Wikipedia, this is not always the case:

Alternating poor and favorable conditions, such as mid summer droughts, can result in several rings forming in a given year. Wikipedia

So, it would only take conditions to produce two rings in less than 1 out of 9 years to make up for the "missing" 500 years. So, the 4,844 rings (not years) appears to be within a reasonable variation to place the actual germination of the tree to be just after the flood.

Upvote:1

People presume all living things died in the flood. But the Bible does not say that!

Consider the following:

Before the flood came God said: "And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein [is] the breath of life, from under heaven; [and] every thing that [is] in the earth shall die" (Gen 6:17)

And talking about the aftermath of the flood, the Bible says:"And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils [was] the breath of life, of all that [was] in the dry [land], died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained [alive], and they that [were] with him in the ark." (Genesis 7:21-23)

Bible says:

  1. All flesh which had the breath of life was destroyed
  2. It further specifies four distinct groups which perished: man, cattle, creeping things, fowl of heaven

From this we can presume:

  1. Many of the creatures that breathe water (in whose nostrils the breath of life is not, though they have flesh) survived the flood
  2. Trees which have neither "flesh" nor "nostrils" might have survived (probably should have survived)

Furthermore speaking about the trees, the Bible says:

Job 14:7 "For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease."

So it's highly likely that many trees survived the flood just like the creatures that live in the water

Upvote:6

Assuming your date for creation and delta to the flood are correct, one way is to say the tree was not uprooted or killed by the flood. Perhaps it went dormant, as in winter. (If that fails, there's always supernatural preservation.)

After all, the dove brought back the olive branch as the sign that things were growing again shortly after the flood. So there is at least one tree that was not destroyed.

Upvote:6

There are alternative Bible theories which answer the question of the age of trees and other seemingly disagreeable facts without discounting the fact itself.

Gen 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

Gen 13:9 Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.

Gen 13:17 Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.

These scriptures all use the same Hebrew word for land and earth to describe the events during the lives of Noah first then Abraham. Its obvious by the text that while Abraham did walk the entire earth according to the text he did not cover the entire planet. Likewise while the flood did cover the entire earth it may not have covered the entire planet and at least one literal theory says it didn't. There are many other instances of the phrase "whole earth" predominantly being used in reference to the known earth rather than the entire planet in both Old Testament and New Testament.

In short while the word literally says "whole earth" concerning Noah and that must be true from the literal perspective. However we are allowed to question which "whole earth" is being referred to in order to have an understanding of what is literally written.

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