Debunking Gavin Ortlund’s Local Flood Liberalism

Gavin Ortlund is a popular “Christian” YouTuber, yet is also a rising star in Big Eva. Last year, Gavin Ortlund was announced as an inaugural fellow at the Tim Keller Center of Cultural Apologetics of The Gospel Coalition. Indeed this is not bestowed on those with orthodox theology, as the Tim Keller Center is comprised of theological liberals like Sam Allberry and Rachel Gilson. Gavin Ortlund went viral for showcasing his own theological liberalism with a video arguing that Noah’s Ark and the Flood was a local event.

Gavin Ortlund argues that a local flood can still wipe out humanity before arguing that Genesis 6-8 only destroys a small portion of the earth.

Ortlund nuances the usage of the Hebrew as “whole earth” has a wide semantic range. Yet when “whole earth” is used for a local context, there’s a focal point, in Scripture where the local context is clear. Genesis 6 does not have a focal point or geographical location.

He then makes his most compelling argument for this view by arguing that it was not an invention of liberal moderniest but could be found in antiquity. He points to Josephus and claims using a Jewish scholar that Josephus believed that other civilizations survived the flood and were encouraged by Noah’s descendants to come down from the mountains. This argument sounds most compelling but is a lie. In The Antiquities of the Jews, Flavius Josephus in Book 1 Chapter 3 clearly articulates a global calamity that wipes out mankind. Although he has some theological interpretations, his record is one of a literal and global flood. A local flood cannot be read into Josephus’s account of the flood. Chapter 4 is where Gavin Ortlund is drawing an argument from:

Now the sons of Noah were three,—Shem, Japhet, and Ham, born one hundred years before the Deluge. These first of all descended from the mountains into the plains, and fixed their habitation there; and persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the flood, and so were very loath to come down from the higher places, to venture to follow their examples. Now the plain in which they first dwelt was called Shinar. God also commanded them to send colonies abroad, for the thorough peopling of the earth, that they might not raise seditions among themselves, but might cultivate a great part of the earth, and enjoy its fruits after a plentiful manner. But they were so ill instructed that they did not obey God; for which reason they fell into calamities, and were made sensible, by experience, of what sin they had been guilty: for when they flourished with a numerous youth, God admonished them again to send out colonies; but they, imagining the prosperity they enjoyed was not derived from the favor of God, but supposing that their own power was the proper cause of the plentiful condition they were in, did not obey him. Nay, they added to this their disobedience to the Divine will, the suspicion that they were therefore ordered to send out separate colonies, that, being divided asunder, they might the more easily be Oppressed.

No other people groups are referenced in this section, let alone the chapter. Everyone mentioned is a descendant of Noah. Gavin Ortlund appeals to an obscure reading of “others” to make a case that people in antiquity believed in a local flood of partial destruction and that fundamentalists are unfounded in their interpretation. Yet this relies on a clear misinterpretation of Josephus.

At no time does Ortlund attempt to argue that Genesis 6-8 specifically calls the flood local, only arguing as for a reasonable doubt.

Multiplying Miracles

Gavin Ortlund’s second argument attacks the global flood position as “multiplying miracles” meaning this position teaches leads to miracles that are not explicitly stated in the text. The five “multiplied miracles” are as follows:

1. Animals (how they got there and back)
2. Kinds of animals (taxonomy)
3. Care for animals
4. Amount of water
5. Plants

All of these remain issues with a local flood theory, however they are smaller. And because these miracles would be smaller, they are more reasonable to Ortlund.

But most pressingly, if the flood is local what are the boundaries? Gavin Ortlund seems opposed to the flood being a sort of creation event. But a local flood does not allow for natural boundaries to contain the water which invites another miracle not stated in the text.

¹⁸ The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. ¹⁹ The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. ²⁰ The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered.

Genesis 7:18-20 NASB1995

The local flood view equally calls for miracles unspecified yet does not have the advantage of being the historical interpretation prior to the advent of modernity.

Gavin Ortlund insists that his view on Genesis is not compromised or liberal, and goes off on a Third Wayism argument about not placing doctrinal burdens that may turn people away. Yet the miracles in the Old Testament are components of Scriptrue’s inerrancy and authenticity as the Word of God. It would be logically inconsistent to believe that Jesus rose from the dead on the basis of Scripture but that God did not really flood the whole earth, part of the Red Sea, create the world in 6 days, or have the virgin give birth.

Gavin Ortlund, like Tim Keller before him, is an old-school theological liberal operating in Evangelicalism in the 21st century.