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if in the antediluvian period Mount Everest had about the same elevation above our present sea level (just
over 29,000 feet) and with all other mountain heights and the depths of oceanic trenches having the same
dimensions as today, then IN NO WAY could the flood of Noah have submerged Mount Everest or the
other high mountains. At least, there are no known laws of nature [read YEHOVAH] that would allow it. If
such a flood had occurred, the earth would STILL BE SUBMERGED TO THIS DAY under the same flood
waters and they would have remained at about the same height as in the time of Noah.

It is simply a physical fact that if Mount Everest (the highest mountain on earth) was submerged by the
flood, the waters would have had no place in which to drain so that our present "dry land" areas could ap-
pear (Solving the Riddle of Noah's Flood. Associates for Scriptural Knowledge, Portland, Oregon, p. 5).

Continuing to Genesis 8:3 we read: "And the waters returned from off the earth [ERETS-
LAND] continually." Here we can visualize water draining down from the waterlogged lands into
the oceans -- returning from off the LAND. If the PLANET earth was meant here, and waters
drained off it, then WHERE in the world did the they drain to??

Dropping to Genesis 8:13 we find another problematic verse if we understand "earth" to
mean the whole earth or planet: "...the waters were dried up from off the earth [ERETS]." Since
water makes up 71 percent of the earth's surface, if the ENTIRE earth was meant, the waters drying
up from the earth would even include the oceans! But when we understand that the word ERETS
means "land," then the whole verse makes sense. With the reading that the water dried up from off
the LAND, language is allowed to retain its normal flow of thought -- showing that the land that
was inundated had now dried up again.

Apart from all this, the sheer impossibility of a flood that covered the entire planet -- in-
cluding the highest mountains -- is clearly revealed when we look at the figures. To understand
this, we have only to analyze the story in terms of the number of inches of rain per minute that
would have had to fall on the entire surface of the earth to produce the results described in Genesis
7-8. We now know, for example, that Mount Everest is the highest mountain on planet earth. It
reaches an altitude of 29,028 feet -- which would be a height of 348,336 inches. For enough rain to
fall in a period of 40 days to reach the peak of this mountain, the source of the water would have to
drop 8,708 inches of rain per day uniformly over all the earth. This would amount to 363 inches
per hour or six inches per minute. Can any reasonable person believe that it once rained continu-
ously for 40 days and nights at an average rate of six inches per minute? A rainfall of six inches in
one day is a veritable downpour. What would six inches per minute sustained for 57,600 continu-
ous minutes be like?

Ralph Woodrow echoes this assessment:

In order to get a better idea of just how much water would be involved in a universal flood, consider the
following: Since Mount Everest is 29,028 feet, a flood fifteen cubits above this, would be about 29,050
feet of water above normal sea level. It rained forty days and nights, so this would work out to roughly 726
feet of rain a day! Thirty feet an hour! Six inches of rain per minute! An inch of rain every ten seconds!
(Noah's Flood, Joshua's Long Day, and Lucifer's Fall, p. 16).

Now let's take this scenario and see what would happen as the waters receded (if it possi-
bly could if the highest mountain was covered) after the rain stopped. The common understanding
of Genesis 7:20 and 8:4-5 implies that the water receded at the rate of 15 cubits in 74 days. If we

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