What Does the Bible Say About Tsunamis?

Millions of viewers were stunned by the devastation that took place as the debris laden tsunami rolled across the northeast coast of Japan. This catastrophe is remindful of the earthquake that triggered the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 which killed over 200,000 people.

When key phrases in the Bible’s account of “Noah’s Flood” are properly translated they tell how a comet impact caused a tsunami, which in turn caused the Flood! Physical evidence for this event comes from the recent discovery of an 18-mile wide impact crater at the bottom of the Indian Ocean that dates back to the time of the Flood. This crater is called the Burckle Impact Crater.

A 2008 History Channel documentary about the discovery of this crater concludes, “The cause of the Biblical Great Flood may have been a massive three-mile wide comet that crashed into the Indian Ocean 4,800 years ago.” An impact this large would have caused an earthquake tens of thousands of times more powerful than the Japanese earthquake and waves about 1000 times higher. A series of towering tsunamis would have gone out in all directions for months due to aftershocks. Tsunamis several miles in height would have raced north toward the land of Noah and up the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in Iraq, before slamming into the “mountains of Ararat” in Turkey and falling back to flood the land. The raging waters of successive mega-tsunami waves could have easily reached high enough to temporarily cover the mountains.

In addition to the impact crater, physical evidence for this event also comes from unique chevron shaped tsunami deposits that have been found far inland in Africa, Australia and India. These tsunami deposits contain deep water shells mixed with unique materials from the comet’s impact. One deposit is over 600 feet high, covering an area twice the size of Manhattan.

The Bible prophesies that another impact triggered tsunami will occur during the end times. The Second Trumpet of the Bible’s Book of Revelation (Rev 8:8-9) tells how “a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood (the word “blood” is being used as a metaphor for “death”) and the third part of the creatures in the sea . . . died, and the third part of the ships were destroyed.”

This prophecy seems to describe a comet or comet fragment resembling a mountain hitting the ocean which would set in motion a tsunami, where many creatures in the sea would die, and many ships would be destroyed. Geoscientists calculate that an oceanic impact would heat the sea water near the impact to over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Trillions of gallons of sea water thrown up into the air would produce a rapidly expanding fireball of steam and molten ejecta that would destroy ships in its path for a distance of several hundred miles. This conflagration would also drown animals and suffocate fish.

A growing number of astronomers and planetary scientists have begun to write about how the catastrophes of “Revelation” accurately describe different types of cosmic impact, depending on whether the land, sea or atmosphere is hit. Dr. John S. Lewis, a leading expert on cosmic impacts in his 1997 book (pages 11-13) “Rain of Iron and Ice” asks “Did John (the author of the Book of Revelation) somehow know more about impact phenomena than any scientist before the present decade?”

Dr. Jeffrey Goodman is an archeologist and geologist who has spent years researching the Bible’s stories of catastrophe. The author of “The Comets and God,” he says few realize that catastrophes brought by tsunamis are written about in the Bible.