Earth was Divided

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Big event, small verse

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And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg; because in his days the earth was divided: and his brother’s name was Joktan.   Gen 10:25

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This verse implies that if the earth was divided, then, before that, it was NOT divided, and one land mass.

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The bible seems to confirm, that in the beginning, there was only one body of water.

Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place,
and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and
the gathering of the waters he called seas; and God saw that it was good.
– Genesis 1:9-10 (NASB)

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Back to Peleg

This is a huge event, yet the bible does not say HOW the earth was divided.

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The earth is described in various verses as going through several changes, so when one talks about the age of the earth, they really need to distinguish which one they are talking about:

 

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We are here now:

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Since the division occurred at the birth of Peleg, it did not happen previously during the flood of Noah, which was the only catastrophic earth event described in Bible in ancient times.

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If the division was a slow process,  people would not have noticed it happening.

This is the slow version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geological_history_of_Earth

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It had to have been a quick process, because people noticed and recorded it.

It occurred at the time of Peleg’s birth, which is the reason for his naming (Peleg means division)

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So how did it happen?

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Unless YHVH God just moved his finger over the planet, something huge would have impacted the tectonic plates.

The tectonic plates could have been created during the flood, when the fountains of the deep were opened, and water burst forth and upward onto the land.

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Now, something occurred to pull them apart.

This, if a natural cause, could possibly be a large object passing by earth, with a tremendous gravitational pull on the plates below.

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Here is a view where the division is NOT physical:

http://www.icr.org/article/what-happened-days-peleg

Excerpt:

But any scheme of rapid separation would itself cause havoc on the earth. If the Atlantic Ocean opened up rapidly, the destructive tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanoes would make life impossible on earth.

For this reason, I am convinced that Genesis 10:25 should not be understood to imply that "In the days of Peleg the Atlantic Ocean opened up."

This would have caused devastation comparable to Noah’s Flood, and the Bible has no mention of it. If the continents separated, they did so during Noah’s Flood.

The traditional interpretation relates Peleg’s day to the division of language/family groups at the Tower of Babel. Comparing the lineage of Shem, which includes Peleg, to the lineage of Ham, which includes Nimrod, leader of the rebellion at Babel, we find it likely that Peleg was born soon after the dispersion (assuming the genealogies are complete).

Thus it would have been reasonable for his father Eber to name a son in commemoration of this miraculous event.

End of excerpt

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I do not agree with this, since there would have had to be one land mass for all people to come and meet at the tower of Babel.

The land mass division would have to occur after the tower of Babel.

First they rebelled, then they were dispersed, THEN the continents separated to prevent them from assembling together again.

Gen 10:25 defines the Babel event as a “scattering” (Heb. puwtz) rather than a palag “division.”

There must be a reason for this difference in the original Hebrew, and we must not minimize it to maintain a theory.

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So I believe in a physical separation of land at the time of Peleg, as the bible describes.

And Peleg was 5 generations AFTER the Flood.

If the earth was divided during the time of Noah, the bible would have said so, and not waited to mention it until Peleg was born.

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Again, what caused it?

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Possibly, after the flood and creation of tectonic plates, each continent area was floating on hydoplates, and they just, with some final stress, floated apart.

Possibly over time, the ability of the lands to cling together after the flood was decreased due to geological stresses, and they finally broke apart.

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The bible does not describe this breakup as a dramatic, violent one.

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The opposite view could be a force due to celestial forces.

Our geological history does show many craters and valleys where meteors and asteroids hit with force, creating physical changes in the earth.

A big impact would cause an unzipping of land masses held together at their tectonic plate edges.

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Anyhow, the bible does not mention violence, times of terror and devastation, or violent earthquakes.

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God does act in violent ways at times, but other times He is more subtle.

Only He knows how He did it.

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Maybe, when the earth is renewed by YHVH God, it will return to the Pangea formation, so that the world will be ONE landmass again.

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Suggested reading:

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2014/11/19/Making-Sense-of-the-Days-of-Peleg.aspx#Article

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