Expert: Dean Gade - 10/14/2007

Question
Did it rain before Noah built the big boat? or was this the first time it rained?

Answer
There is no certainty about rain before Noah's time.  The only passages which speak of it are:

Gen 2:4-7

When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens-- 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-- 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
(from New International Version)


Gen 7:4-5
4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made." 5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.
(from New International Version)




It would seem that the world before the Flood had a rather perfect "greenhouse" environment because there was a separation of the waters in the sea, under the ground and those above the "sky".

Gen 1:6-8
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day.
(from New International Version)



This water above formed the greenhouse which would make the whole of the land a lush green area able to support both man and animals...including the great dinosaurs of that time.

The waters above are described as being "opened" and falling for the forty day and nights.

Gen 7:11-12

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
(from New International Version)

In the KJV these waters are called a canopy.

Outside the Bible passages, we only have conjecture on how the Flood came about and where all the water was...and where it went.   Some believe that the world was turned on its axis after the Flood, the mountains were pushed up and the waters were gathered at the poles of the earth to allow there to be dry land on the earth.