A Pocket Guide To The Global Flood — A Book Review by Michael J. Findley

http://www.answersingenesis.org/store/product/global-flood-pocket-guide/?sku=90-3-019

There is a larger book with a similar title, The Global Flood, by Dr. John D. Morris on the same theme, providing essential information on the flood. While both books cover the same information from the same point of view, the larger book is more detailed and more technical.
The book A Pocket Guide To The Global Flood was written by four authors, according to the various chapters. Ken Ham and Tim Lovett collaborated on the first chapter, “Was There Really a World-wide Flood?” John Whitmore wrote the last chapter with another author: “Should Fragile Shell Fossils be Common?” The rest of the book is by Andrew A. Snelling. Andrew A. Snelling updated and rewrote the Whitcomb and Morris 1961 classic, The Genesis Flood.
The first chapter “Was There Really a World-wide Flood?” uses the same techniques we use in our series The Conflict of Ages. It provides a brief overview with the basic questions and answers based on the Word of God, but no details.
The first chapter by Andrew A. Snelling provides an overview of his topics. Each of the next chapters examine one point in more detail; “High and Dry Sea Creatures”, “The World’s Graveyard”, “Transcontinental Rock Layers”, “Sand Transported Cross-Country”, “No Slow and Gradual Erosion”, “Rock Layers Folded Not Fractured”, and finally “A Scientific Look at Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: A Catastrophic Breakup and The Origin of Oil”.
“Many creationist geologists now believe the catastrophic plate tectonics concept is very useful as the best explanation for how the Flood event occurred within the biblical framework for earth’s history.” This is historic science. We retain the biblical framework for earth’s history and use the best explanation with the most current scientific information available. This is the correct attitude. More information might cause us to re-evaluate plate tectonics. But the biblical framework does not change.
“A catastrophic model of plate tectonics (as proposed by creation scientists) easily overcomes the problems of the slow and gradual model (as proposed by most evolutionist scientists).”
John Whitmore’s final chapter in the technical section is somewhat puzzling to me. Uniformitarians do believe in catastrophes, just as creationists do. “Near the end of the Devonian, a mass extinction event occurred.” http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/devonian/devonian.php They simply believe the catastrophes occurred millions of years ago. So John Whitmore’s statement just before his conclusion is puzzling. “One explanation that they did not consider, that would readily explain their results, is the catastrophic formation of much of the fossil record.” Uniformitarians actually believe there were five mass extinction events, as they call them. skepticalscience.com/Earths-five-mass-extinction-events
This is not a new or recent change in their position. The 1940s Disney movie Fantasia has a sequence depicting evolution set to Stravinski’s Rite of Spring. During this sequence, they show the dinosaurs being killed by a catastrophe something like the flood at the end of the Jurassic Period. The issue is not how, but when.
The flood timeline near the end of A Pocket Guide To The Global Flood is helpful, but requires some thoughtful examination. The final chapter “The Flood and the Gospel”, is something many works on the flood lack. Many Christians fail to understand exactly why this material is so important. The personal application is very good.