Amazing Post-Flood Population Growth

In a discussion with Dewey Lye from the Darwin Ranch, I was attempting to change his mind about how the population grew after the Genesis Flood. (Trevor "Red" Schnapper stopped to listen just when it was getting good.) Dewey claimed that the Flood never happened because there were only eight people left alive in 2348 BC, there would not be time to build the population up to the current eight billion. The expression "do the math" is often used to tell someone to check the facts, and this case, it is also literal.

Plastic people figures under globe, RGBStock / Sanja Gjenero

Red asked, "The Bible records eight people, but to be blunt, weren't Noah and his wife done breeding at this point?" True, nothing is said about that old couple having additional children. Based on what we see in the rest of Scripture, including the Table of Nations (Genesis 10), there were only three couples having children.

Mr. Lye's prejudicial conjecture can be negated with a bit of math. I'll allow that creation science models have assumptions and speculations — just like secular models. We have seen that secularists tend to make assumptions that are unrealistic and in defiance of the evidence Creationists are called to a higher standard: They want to honor God in their work. Any assumptions and models should not reject important facts, and must be keeping with the Word of God.

Sometimes scoffers disparage the Genesis history of the global Flood by saying there hasn’t been enough time from the end of the Flood until now for Earth to repopulate to its present population of about eight billion. In fact, after the Flood, the total number of human generations is not that many—less than 200 successive generations have occurred since Noah and his family left the Ark.

Today, Earth houses more than 8,000,000,000 people derived from only eight. That means each passenger on the Ark is now represented by a billion people! Does that make mathematical and historical sense? The Scripture and the math say, “Yes!”

To see how it all adds up, finish reading at "Post-Flood Repopulation: From 8 to 8,000,000,000!" Dewey Lye didn't want to discuss other evidence for the Flood and suddenly remembered an appointment.