Dr. Hugh Ross’ Recent Claims About Noah’s Flood: Does Scripture Agree?

Summary

In a Facebook post on January 5, 2026, Dr. Hugh Ross made false claims about Noah’s Flood only being local.1 Yet God’s Word very clearly teaches that Noah’s Flood was a global cataclysm:

1. Just like the seas God created on creation day three, the land He created was in one place as a supercontinent (Genesis 1:9–10). We would expect that 1,650 years after Adam was created, his descendants would have migrated across the supercontinent. So to destroy all pre-Flood humanity required totally inundating that supercontinent.
2. After 1,650 years (Genesis 5–6), pre-Flood humanity undoubtedly numbered in the millions. And because they had the technological abilities and capacities to build cities, make musical instruments, and find and smelter metals to make tools (Genesis 4:17, 20–22), they undoubtedly would have spread out across that supercontinent. So again, to destroy all pre-Flood humanity required totally inundating that supercontinent.
3. God’s stated purpose for sending the Flood judgment, repeated several times, was to destroy the earth and to blot out man and every air-breathing living creature, including all the birds, which had to require a totally global Flood cataclysm so that birds had nowhere to survive (Genesis 6:5–7, 12–13, 17, 7:4, 21–23a).
4. God specifically says the Flood waters covered all the high mountains everywhere under the whole heaven while they prevailed for 150 days, which is far more in extent and duration than any local flood (Genesis 7:17–20, 24). And God promised to never send another such Flood cataclysm again (Genesis 9:12–15). Yet we have since had many local floods.
5. Both Jesus and the Apostle Peter clearly taught that the Flood was global when they both compared the extent of the Flood to Jesus’ future second coming (Matthew 24:37–39; 2 Peter 3:5–7).

Dr. Ross totally accepts the evolutionist view that the fossils are of animals and plants wiped out and buried in water-deposited sediment layers over billions of years before Adam and Eve were created. Thus, he is teaching that there was animal death and extinction over billions of years before God specifically tells us He brought the curse of death on the whole of creation that He had originally declared to be “very good” at the end of creation week (Genesis 1:31, 3:17–19; Romans 8:20–22).

In this article, we’ll discuss the points above, and in Part 2, we’ll delve into Dr. Ross’ underlying assumption and his scientific objections for denying a global Flood.

The Claim

In early January 2026, astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe made the following sweeping scientific and biblical claims about Noah’s Flood in a Facebook post:

All global flood models for Noah’s flood require vastly accelerated plate tectonic movement, from 2 centimeters per year to 24,000 kilometers per year. Such acceleration requires vastly accelerated radioisotope decay rates. The problem is that all plants, woods, and animals contain potassium-40, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238. The decay of these radioisotopes at such extremely accelerated rates would instantly vaporize all Earth’s life, both terrestrial and marine, the ark, and all Earth’s water. While God can and has superseded the laws of physics on occasion at tiny locales (e.g. the floating axehead; Jesus walking on water), Jeremiah 33, Romans 8, and Ecclesiastes assert that on a global scale the laws of physics are immutable.

Biblically, appeals to a global flood are not necessary. The Bible teaches that Noah’s Flood was universal, wiping out all humans and their animals except for those on the ark. Since humanity was not yet globally distributed at the time of Noah’s Flood, there was no need for Noah’s Flood to cover all Earth’s surface.2

These claims repeat succinctly what Dr. Ross wrote in his recently published book Noah’s Flood Revisited: New Depths of Insight from Science and Scripture in which he expounds and defends his local flood view. However, in this post (above), his claims are presented without detailed justifications or any admission of the assumptions involved. His claims are, in fact, fallacious. They deserve a scientific and biblical response.

The reality is that claims like these that deny the global Flood are not new, having been made numerous times in the past. And detailed responses have already been made several times.3 Professing Christians who accept the millions of years and non-Christian skeptics keep repeating claims like these because they either ignore the responses or repeat the claims anyway so their readers are made to think there are no responses. This is why we have to continue responding to their discredited claims.

The inerrant Word of our infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful Creator God must be our authority. No men (not even Noah) were present outside the ark to give us an eyewitness record of what happened outside the ark during Noah’s Flood. Yet the Genesis text of the Flood account describes details of what was happening outside the ark that only God as an eyewitness could provide us, and He never lies.

The claims of finite fallible men, however learned, must always be judged against what God’s inerrant Word tells us.

Thus, the claims of finite fallible men, however learned, must always be judged against what God’s inerrant Word tells us. So before we delve into Dr. Ross’ scientific claims, we must first carefully examine his biblical claims against what God’s inerrant Word tells us.

Universal or Global?

Dr. Ross claims that biblical appeals to a global flood are not necessary. He claims, “The Bible teaches that Noah’s Flood was universal, wiping out all humans and their animals except for those on the ark.” His justification for these claims? “Since humanity was not yet globally distributed at the time of Noah’s Flood, there was no need for Noah’s flood to cover all Earth’s surface.”4

How does Dr. Ross know so confidently to be able to say that “humanity was not yet globally distributed at the time of Noah’s Flood”? He was not a witness at the time to how far humanity had spread! Yet in the 1,650 years or so from Adam to the Flood, humanity easily could have spread globally. After all, how quickly did Europeans explore the globe and colonize it in less than 1,650 years after the fall of the Roman Empire? And even then, wherever they went, they encountered people who already inhabited the world globally (apart from frozen Antarctica).

However, Dr. Ross is assuming that the habitable lands before the Flood were distributed in the same continents as they are today! And he is also assuming pre-Flood humanity did not have the technological abilities and capabilities to explore and spread all around the pre-Flood globe.

Furthermore, he cunningly states that only “all humans and their animals except for those on the ark”5 (emphasis mine) were to be wiped out by the Flood. Dr. Ross thus restricts the purpose and scope of the Flood to God only wiping out man and the animals associated with man, presumably domesticated animals, which would normally be identified as many (but not all) of the mammals. His claim would thus exclude most wild beasts, most reptiles, and most birds from being destroyed by Noah’s Flood.

But what does God say in His Word about all these issues?

1. What God says about the pre-Flood earth’s surface when He created it on creation day three:

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:9–10)

The implication from God’s description is that if all the waters were gathered together into one place, then the dry land was also in one place. While we cannot be dogmatic that there was a pre-Flood supercontinent, the conventional geologists (whom Dr. Ross relies on and agrees with so much about the earth’s history and formation of its rock layers) point to abundant evidence that there was once a supercontinent early in the earth’s history.6 And Dr. Ross explicitly accepts that there have been supercontinents during the earth’s history because he accepts there has been plate tectonics.7 Thus, it makes sense that Noah and his family lived on a supercontinent, which means the animals they needed to take aboard the ark could easily have migrated to them. Indeed, there is even a hint in Scripture that God brought the required animals to Noah:

And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds . . . of every creeping thing of the ground . . . two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. (Genesis 6:19–20, emphasis mine)

To destroy all pre-Flood humanity would have required a flood cataclysm capable of covering the whole supercontinent.

So if Noah, the animals, and birds God describes were living on a supercontinent, then there is every good reason (as explained below in the next point) to expect that, in the pre-Flood era of over 1,650 years, Adam’s descendants had explored and migrated across that supercontinent and thus lived and interacted with many kinds of animals and birds on that supercontinent. Thus, to destroy all pre-Flood humanity would have required a flood cataclysm capable of covering the whole supercontinent. And in the process, such a flood cataclysm would have wiped out not only the animals and birds domesticated by Adam’s descendants but all the other land animals, creatures, and birds living across that supercontinent. Only the global Flood cataclysm as described in Genesis 6–8 would be capable of achieving this.

2. What God says about pre-Flood man’s technological abilities and capabilities:

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. (Genesis 4:17)

Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. (Genesis 4:20–22)

Pre-Flood man must have had the technological abilities and the necessary resources to build cities, to make and play musical instruments, and to forge instruments of bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) and iron. The latter implies that pre-Flood man had the skill to find economic deposits of copper, tin, and iron in the rocks and to mine, extract, and smelt these metals. Today, such exploits require knowledge of the rocks, great skills to explore and find economic metal deposits, the knowledge of the required processes, and the ability to build the necessary equipment to smelt the mined metallic ores to extract the metals. Furthermore, making musical instruments requires technological abilities and resources, and keeping and breeding livestock requires knowledge and skills.

Thus, pre-Flood humanity was highly intelligent and skilled. To explore for the needed resources, metallic ores, and other commodities, pre-Flood humanity would have had to spread out to search across the supercontinent they lived on. To limit pre-Flood humanity to some “primitive” existence living in some restricted geographical location is to ignore this clear description in the Genesis text of pre-Flood humanity’s technological capabilities and the implications. Therefore, since pre-Flood humanity, using their technological skills, must have spread out across the supercontinent they lived on, then only the global Flood cataclysm as described in Genesis 6–8 would be capable of wiping out all pre-Flood humanity. At least Dr. Ross agrees that Noah’s Flood wiped out all pre-Flood humans.

3. What God says about the purpose of the Flood:

The Flood was to destroy the earth and to blot out man and every living creature, not just man and their animals.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:5–7)

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” (Genesis 6:11–13)

For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. (Genesis 6:17)

For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground. (Genesis 7:4)

And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. (Genesis 7:21–23)

Notice that God repeatedly says He intended the Flood to “blot out,” that is, utterly destroy, all air-breathing flesh on the land and destroy them with the earth. He intended the Flood to “blot out” every living thing from the face of the ground. All flesh would die as a result, which included all animals, all birds of the heavens, all livestock, all beasts, all creeping things, all swarming creatures, and everything on the dry land “in whose nostrils was the breath of life.” While biblical taxonomy does not exactly coincide with today’s conventional taxonomy, God’s description is very comprehensive in covering all the animal kingdom and not just the animals that lived in association with pre-Flood humanity. Dr. Ross is ignoring what the biblical text actually says and downplaying what God explicitly tells us.

After all, why would God want Noah to take birds aboard the ark with him if it were simply a local or regional flood? In a local or regional flood, birds are totally capable of surviving by simply flying to a safer region, and then when the flood is over and the waters have subsided, they return. Only in a global Flood cataclysm would there be no place anywhere around the globe for the birds to fly to for survival. That is why God specifically mentions the birds repeatedly, thus emphasizing His Flood cataclysm would be global in order to achieve His purpose.

Only the global Flood cataclysm described in the Genesis text would be capable of achieving God’s objective.

And God specifically says that He intended the Flood cataclysm to destroy the earth when it blotted out every living thing on its land surface. Only the global Flood cataclysm described in the Genesis text would be capable of achieving God’s objective. So if God’s description of His purpose for the Flood cataclysm is trustworthy, then what evidence for Noah’s Flood would we expect to find today? Wouldn’t we expect to find billions of land animals and birds of all kinds buried in rock layers deposited by moving waters all around the globe? And wouldn’t we expect lots of sea creatures to also be killed and buried in Flood sediments? That is exactly what we find—billions of fossils of marine creatures buried with land animals and birds of every kind in sedimentary rock layers that were deposited by moving waters right across every continent, meaning the surface of the earth was also destroyed as it was eroded and then covered with these fossil-bearing rock layers.

4. What God says about the extent of the Flood:

The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. (Genesis 7:17–20)

And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days. (Genesis 7:24)

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (Genesis 9:12–15)

Notice again that God’s description of His Flood cataclysm is emphatic when God says that all the mountains were covered by the prevailing waters under the whole heaven. Remember that this account in the Genesis text is God’s description, not Noah’s. Noah could not see any mountains as he and his family had been shut up in the ark by God when God closed the door. How could Noah have seen the “fountains of the great deep” (the great deep being the ocean floor) breaking up? The text we have is thus solely God’s eyewitness account. And God says the Flood cataclysm was global in order to cover all the pre-Flood mountains everywhere under the whole heaven.

Furthermore, no local or regional flood continues for 40 days, nor do floodwaters in a region prevail for 150 days, the equivalent of five months. Even torrential rain only lasts in a region for about a week, and the floodwaters drain away within a few weeks, down rivers and out to sea. Yet Dr. Ross insists Noah’s Flood was confined to the region of Mesopotamia. If so, then wouldn’t the floodwaters have drained into the Persian Gulf carrying the ark with them? How then could the ark have landed in the mountains of Ararat, which are at a higher elevation in the opposite direction to the Persian Gulf–bound water currents?

And what of the rainbow covenant God made with Noah and “every living creature of all flesh”? The rainbow was to be the sign of God’s promise that “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” Thus, if Noah’s Flood was only local or regional, as Dr. Ross maintains, then God has broken His promise many times throughout post-Flood human history because we have experienced many local and regional floods, even many per year in many locations! But what we have never witnessed since the days of Noah is this: a global flood. Since God never breaks His promises, Noah’s Flood had to be of global extent, engulfing the whole earth by covering all the mountains under the whole heaven, just as God’s Word describes.

Once again, Dr. Ross ignores and/or downplays the clear meaning of the text and its stated implications as given to us by God via the Holy Spirit’s direction to Moses. Is Dr. Ross suggesting God somehow misled us? Or is human reasoning the superior authority over God’s Word? Of course, Dr. Ross would argue that we also interpret God’s Word just as he does. However, there’s a huge difference between our approaches. We let God’s Word speak to us as it was plainly written to communicate to “common” people and read according to the normal rules of grammar. Dr. Ross imposes on God’s Word an interpretation designed (twisted) to fit what the majority of scientists say about the earth’s history. After all, the majority of scientists ignore God’s Word when interpreting the earth’s rock layers to decipher their history (see below). Those scientists were not there in the past to observe the rocks layers form, nor are they infallible. But God is ever-present and all-knowing and never lies. He gave us His Word to communicate to us the history of His redemptive purposes leading to our kinsman redeemer who obeyed God when his and our ancestor Adam failed. So if the details of that history, including the global Flood cataclysm, cannot be trusted, then can the gospel message that history communicates to us be trusted?

5. What the testimony of Jesus and the Apostle Peter says:

God’s Word does not only report the global Flood cataclysm in the book of Genesis but confirms the historicity of Noah’s Flood and its extent with the testimonies of Jesus and the Apostle Peter.

We read Jesus’ testimony in Matthew 24:37–39:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Jesus was comparing his second coming to Noah’s Flood. Yes, his second coming will be sudden when people least expect it, just as the Flood came when the people of Noah’s day were not expecting it, even though they had been warned by Noah. However, here Jesus was also teaching that just as the Flood cataclysm was global, his second coming will also be global. Or to state that in reverse, just as his second coming will be global because he is coming to bring judgment to all the earth and its inhabitants globally, the Flood judgment was also global.

Now, one of those listening to Jesus’ words was the disciple Peter. His understanding of what Jesus was teaching is very clear and definitive. In his testimony in 2 Peter 3:5–7, the Apostle Peter writes of the latter-day scoffers:

For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

Peter begins by speaking of the earth being formed out of water and through water by the word of God, which is an unmistakable reference to Genesis 1:1–10. There we read that the earth when God created it by His Word was covered in water. And then by His Word, God created the dry land out of that water. Peter’s description of the earth’s creation and the formation of dry land is of a global event. Likewise, Peter says the heavens and the earth are being kept in readiness for the day of judgment, which will also be a global event. Not only will the ungodly be destroyed, but the whole earth will be judged by fire.

Peter also compares these two global events to the time between the earth’s creation and its final fiery judgment—when the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. He is unmistakably referring to Noah’s Flood because that is the only time recorded in God’s Word when the earth was deluged by water to judge the ungodly. Thus, to be consistent, if the earth’s creation was global and the earth’s final judgment will be global, then Noah’s Flood had to be global. Genesis 1 hardly refers to the creation of just a region of the earth, nor does Revelation (and 2 Peter) refer to fiery judgment of just a region of the earth. Thus, Peter is reminding us that Noah’s Flood was a global watery cataclysm, just as Genesis 6–8 tells us.

Does Dr. Ross, who professes faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord, know better than Jesus and the Apostle Peter? Peter could hardly be wrong when Jesus was his teacher. Or was Jesus mistaken and just accommodating his message to the understanding of his listeners? Out with the suggestion! Jesus is the very Word of God (John 1:1) and thus always spoke the truth because he is the truth (John 14:6). So if he was not speaking the absolute (and clear) truth about Noah’s Flood being global, then he cannot be the life and the way.

Conclusion

God’s Word provides God’s eyewitness testimony of what was happening outside the ark. It is very clear in its description of the global extent of Flood cataclysm by the repeated use of the global terms “all,” “every,” “whole,” “everywhere,” and “everything.” Pre-Flood humanity’s technological abilities recorded in Genesis 4 undoubtedly resulted in people spreading across the pre-Flood supercontinent with their livestock in search of metals and other resources and in building cities. So the Flood cataclysm needed to be global to totally destroy them, as well as all the other land-dwelling animals in the pre-Flood world, as God’s Word describes. Even representatives of all the bird kinds needed to be taken aboard because they would not have survived outside the ark due to the monthslong, global ocean. Both Jesus and the Apostle Peter testified to the Flood cataclysm being global.

According to God’s Word, the global Genesis Flood cataclysm was not local or regional!

In conclusion, Dr. Ross’ stated view that there was no need for Noah’s Flood to cover all the earth’s surface because humanity was not yet globally distributed at the time of Noah’s Flood is totally and absolutely incompatible with, and indeed is the exact opposite of, what God’s Word clearly teaches. According to God’s Word, the global Genesis Flood cataclysm was not local or regional!8 In Part 2, we will examine Dr. Ross’ underlying assumption and his supposed scientific objections to believing in the biblical global Flood.