Ralph F. Stearley

The Lost World of the Flood

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“In The Lost World of the Flood, John Walton and Tremper Longman III continue Walton's earlier work in his Lost World series, in this case connecting the flood and Babel narratives of Genesis chapters 6–11 to the earlier chapters, Abraham, and even events and sermons recorded in the New Testament. Walton and Longman examine the Mesopotamian geographic and cultural context for the pre-Abrahamic Genesis narrative. They demonstrate that the deliberate employment of selected historical vignettes in the early chapters of Genesis is rhetorically shaped. Significantly, Walton and Longman establish the role that hyperbolic language plays in the Genesis appropriation of its cultural backdrop. By so doing, they explain why the flood of Noah must refer to a significant regional event, not a planetary-scale cataclysm. They press a strong claim that those who attempt to ignore the original revelatory clientele are arrogating authority to themselves. If they are correct, then many assertions by those proposing a global tsunami-like flood are overconfident at best and misleading at worst. Walton and Longman deserve a lot of praise for their insightful approach and therapeutic discussion of the Noah narrative.”