Noah, A Global Flood, And The Case Against Racism

Feedback: Noah, A Global Flood, And The Case Against Racism

Bodie Hodge and Dr. Tommy Mitchell

Biblical Authority Ministries, March 10, 2026 (Donate) 

[Editor’s note: Here is an old feedback article I co-authored with a dear friend who I miss, who passed into glory years ago; all verses NKJV] 

Letter unedited: 

The Bible does not say that all races came from Noah and his three sons. Noah was white, he was perfect in his generation, he was a direct descendant of Adam. In Hebrew Adam literally means white man blood in the face red. Adam is the father of the white race, no other. Noah's flood was local. If everybody came from Noah than why did God condemn interracial relations and marriage. It shouldn't make a difference. Ask a doctor if you can receive a blood transfusion from a black man. He will say no because the blood types are not related. You could get very sick and die. All the races made it through the flood. This is an archeological, anthropological, and historical fact. Noah was a white man, and his sons were white. They cannot produce black children, asian children, or children of any other race.

T.G., U.S.A 

Response:

Thank you for contacting the ministry. We often receive correspondence such as this, and we are taking the opportunity to respond to this one in kindness to help correct the false theology in this letter.

The Bible does not say that all races came from Noah and his three sons.

There are two things wrong right off the start. First, the Bible doesn’t lump people into multiple “races.”

Second, the Bible does teach that people throughout the entire earth are descendants of Noah.

Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated (Genesis 9:18-19).

The Bible indicates that all people came through Noah and his sons since all other humans and land animals died in the Flood (Genesis 7:21-23). But let’s back up even further. On the sixth day of creation, God made the land animals and man. Thus, Adam and the Woman were made on that day. Genesis 3:20 says,

“And Adam called his wife Eve; because she was mother of all the living.”

Adam and Eve were likely middle brown in skin tone; Image requested by Bodie Hodge (ChatGPT)

Note that Scripture indicates that Eve was mother of all, not some, of the living. Obviously, this is referring to humans; otherwise, other so-called races of humans weren’t living! Therefore, all humans trace their ancestry back to these two people, Adam and Eve.

Different people groups developed after the Flood from the descendants of Noah. After the Flood, all people spoke the same language. Genesis 11 explains that God confused their languages at the Tower of Babel to force them to scatter over the earth. This scattering isolated portions of the human gene pool geographically.

The physical characteristics of various ethnic groups developed in these isolated groups due to the sorting and isolation of genetic information already present in man’s DNA. The information in that DNA had originally been present in Adam’s DNA and has just been shuffled and sorted. Therefore, the development of so-called races has nothing to do with molecules-to-man evolution. All people groups are still humans, descended from one original human. The book of Acts confirms that humans are all related:

"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings (Acts 17:26).

All men are related and of “one blood” through Noah and, ultimately, Adam and Eve. Even secular scientists are finally realizing that all the so called “races” are, indeed, one blood.[1]

Noah was white,

The Bible does not say that Noah was “white”. In fact no one is “white”, we are all brownish in tone—some more some less. The Bible never describes Noah’s physical appearance. He could have just as easily had a variety of features. To make such a dogmatic claim without a Scriptural basis would imply that you are omnipresent and omniscient.

National Geographic lined up a bunch of girls to show that skin tone was largely based on a brownish pigment called melanin; Adam and Eve were likely in the middle; Credit: National Geographic's "Skin Information and Facts"

he was perfect in his generation, he was a direct descendant of Adam.

Everyone, including Noah, was a direct descendent of Adam, but that didn’t make them perfect in their generation. Everyone, including Noah and Adam, was a sinner. Noah was called perfect in his generations because he found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8-9). Hebrews 11:7 explains that Noah’s righteousness was by faith. In other words, like all people in his generation, Noah was a sinner.

But unlike the other people, Noah trusted in God’s forgiving grace. As a result, as Genesis 6:9 says, Noah walked with God. Noah was even a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5). Noah escaped death in the worldwide Flood because of his faith in God’s grace, not because he was a white man, directly descended from Adam.

In Hebrew Adam literally means white man blood in the face red.

Strong’s Concordance says that Adam’s name in Hebrew means “to show blood in the face, red, ruddy, rosy, a human being.” This Hebrew word has nothing to do with being white.

According to the Bible, the life of the flesh is in the blood. When God breathed life into Adam, Adam became a living soul. Perhaps the association of life with blood explains God’s name for Adam. Some have tried to make the assertion that Adam was red-skinned or red haired, but there is no reason to think his name referred to these features over the red life-blood. God’s name for the first man implied nothing about white skin.

Adam is the father of the white race, no other.

What do you mean by “white”? Irish? Russians? The claim that Adam was “white” is pure conjecture and totally unsupportable. Nothing in Scripture suggests that Adam was “white” or that Adam was the father of only “white” people.

Adam and Eve, and later Noah and his wife, probably had skin tones closer to middle brown. Adam’s DNA had to contain information for a wide variety of skin tones. Only in this way could human DNA possess the genetic variability to produce the many skin tones we now see. Shuffling and sorting of this genetic information produces a variety of skin tones.

Potential style of Babel; Image requested by Bodie Hodge (ChatGPT)

After the scattering of people from the Tower of Babel, genetic information was sorted and isolated into many geographic areas. Certain groups lost the ability to produce children of other skin shades because the genetic information for those skin shades was not present in their population group.

Noah's flood was local.

Noah’s flood was global, not local. But don’t take our word for it; let's see what the Bible has to say.

The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered (Genesis 7:18-20).

Image from Presentation Library

Additionally, there are many problems with the claim that Noah’s Flood was local. For instance:

1. Why did God tell Noah to build an Ark? If the Flood had been only local, Noah and his family could have just moved to higher ground or over the mountain to avoid the flood waters.
2. The wicked people that the Flood was intended to destroy could have escaped God’s judgment in the same manner.
3. Why take all the birds on the Ark when they could have flown over the hill!
4. If the Flood were local, then God would be a liar, for God promised in Genesis 9:11 never to send a Flood to destroy the earth again. Yet the world has seen many local floods.

Over the years, we have found that there are primarily two groups of people who promote a local flood for Noah’s day:

1. Those who believe that the geologic layers represent millions of years instead of a global Flood.
2. Those that are “racist” and insist that people of a particular shade of skin are not Adam and Noah’s kin, and survived outside the Ark.

Why take such preconceived beliefs to the Bible to try to twist Genesis 6-9? I want to encourage readers to read these passages and then ask: how, biblically, can people get a local flood out of these chapters? The Bible should be starting point, not an afterthought for our theology.

If everybody came from Noah than why did God condemn interracial relations and marriage. It shouldn't make a difference.

Where did God condemn “interracial” marriage? He doesn’t. God doesn’t lump people into multiple “races” anyway. The concept of “races” is a man-made idea.

Since there is only one race of humans, “interracial relations” makes no difference from a biological point of view.[2] However, from a spiritual point of view, marriages make a huge difference. God told the children of Israel not to intermarry with people from other cultures who were not godly (Deuteronomy 7:3–4). These were pagan cultures with their own customs and their own gods and would lead people astray. God knew that intermarrying with these people would soon lead them away from the worship of the one true God.

One only need look to the life of Solomon, who far exceeded others in wisdom (1 Kings 4:29-32), to see the effect that taking strange wives had on his life and his descendants. To maintain Israel as a peculiar people, God wanted separation from pagan cultures, but not by “racial” division. After all, Rahab (Canaanite) and Ruth (Moabite), who were not Israelites, were incorporated when they changed to serve the true God.

In the Bible, there is only one type of marriage that is forbidden. That is a marriage between a saved and an unsaved person:

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14).

Again, this mimicked the command to the Israelites to not marry people who are not seeking after God and would lead both the person and their children astray.

Ask a doctor if you can receive a blood transfusion from a black man. He will say no because the blood types are not related. You could get very sick and die.

I (Dr. Tommy Mitchell, a medical internist) don’t have to ask a doctor. I am a doctor. What you state is absolutely incorrect. Blood is not typed on the basis of race. It is typed on the basis of antigens found on the red blood cells. It is ultimately more complicated than this. This is the basis for the ABO blood grouping and the Rh antigen typing classifications. When one needs a blood transfusion, the donor blood is checked for these various antigens to determine if it is compatible with the recipient’s immune system.

A transfusion of improperly matched blood can lead to a serious reaction (and sometimes even death) to the person receiving the blood. However, this has absolutely nothing to do with “race.” In fact, it is common in transplant medicine to find the closest tissue match from someone from another “race” as was the case in Blood brothers.

All the races made it through the flood. This is an archeological, anthropological, and historical fact. Noah was a white man, and his sons were white.

I agree that all the “races”, if such a term could even be used, made it through the Flood, but not at the sake of forsaking Genesis 6-9 as a local Flood. The authors’ term here would be “people groups”, not “races” anyway. All people groups are the descendants of Noah and his family. These eight people ultimately gave rise to all people groups on earth. Thus, we would agree that it is an anthropological and historical fact.

But we will go one step further. Archaeologically and anthropologically, most of the people in Africa are descendants of Cush, Mizraim, and Phut, three of Noah’s great grandsons. Mizraim is still the Hebrew name for Egypt. Parts of modern day Libya and Morocco is the land of Phut and was Libya was renamed for one of Mizraim’s sons named Lybyos (Lehabites). Ethiopians still calls themselves Cushites today! The indigenous African continent is primarily inhabited by people who go back to Noah’s son Ham outside some places on Mediterranean coast. This has rarely been disputed in history, and even Josephus, writing nearly 2000 years ago confirms this.[3] In fact, Noah’s descendants’ names can be found in many parts of the world, if one takes the time to look. The following chart shows a few:

	Early Descendant of Noah	What is it?[4]
Aramaic	Aram	This language came out of Babel and still survives, likely with changes down the ages. Some short parts of the Bible are written in Aramaic. Jesus spoke it on the cross when He said: “ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” (Mark 15:34)
Cush	Cush	Ancient name of Ethiopia. In fact, people of Ethiopia still call themselves Cushites.
Medes	Madai	People group often associated with the Persians
Ashkenaz	Ashkenaz	This is still the Hebrew name for Germany
Galacia, Gaul, and Galicia	Gomer	These regions are the old names for an area in modern Turkey, France, and Northwestern Spain respectively, where Gomer was said to have lived. His family lines continued to spread about across southern Europe. The book of Galatians by Paul was written to the church at Galatia.
Gomeraeg	Gomer	This is the old name for the Welsh language on the British Isles from their ancestor, Gomer, whose ancestors began to populate the Isle from the mainland.
Javan	Javan	This is still the Hebrew name for Greece. His sons, Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim (Chittim), and Dodanim still have reference to places in Greece. For example, Paul, the author who penned much of the New Testament, was from the region of Tarshish (Acts 21:39) and a city called Tarsus. Jeremiah mentions Kittim in Jeremiah 2:10 and is modern day Cyprus (and other nearby ancient regions that now have varied names such as Cethim, Citius, Cethima Cilicia). The Greeks worshiped Jupiter Dodanaeus from Japheth/Dodanim. The Elysians, were ancient Greek people.
Meshech/ Moscow	Mechech	Mechech is the old name for Moscow, Russia, and one region called the Mechech Lowland still holds the original name today as does a state park.
Canaan	Canaan	The region of Palestine that God removed from the Canaanites for their sin and gave as an inheritance to the Israelites beginning with the conquest of Joshua. It is often termed the Holy Land and is where modern-day Israel resides.
Elamites	Elam	This was the old name for the Persians prior to Cyrus.
Assyria	Asshur	Asshur is still the Hebrew name for Assyria.
Hebrew	Eber	This people group and language was named for Eber. Abraham was a Hebrew, and the bulk of the Old Testament is written in Hebrew.
Libya	Lybyos	Mizraim’s son and modern-day Libya, the same region is also known as the land of Phut, one of Noah’s grandsons
Taurus/Toros	Tarshish	A mountain range in Turkey
Tanais	Tarshish	The old name of the Don River flowing into the Black Sea.
Mizraim	Mizraim	This is still the Hebrew name for Egypt.

 

They cannot produce black children, asian children, or children of any other race.

Since the sorting of genetic material that has occurred after the Tower of Babel, many darker skinned peoples have lost the ability to have light skinned children. By the same token, many light skinned peoples have lost the variability needed to produce darker-skinned offspring.[5]

Perhaps you did not know what the Bible teaches, or perhaps you have been taught these beliefs and didn’t test them against the Scriptures. I pray that you would consider what is written here in response and be like the Bereans who “searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).

In kindness with Christ,

Dr. Tommy Mitchell and Bodie Hodge

Originally at Answers in Genesis; Edited; Republished by permission. 

---

[1] “Dr. Venter (head of the Celera Genomics Corporation, Rockville, MD) and scientists at the National Institutes of Health recently announced that they had put together a draft of the entire sequence of the human genome, and the researchers had unanimously declared, there is only one race-the human race.” (Natalie Angier, Do races differ? Not Really, DNA shows, New York Times, Aug. 22, 2000.)

[2] In Leviticus 18, God forbade marriage between close relations. He knew, as one reason, that at that point due to mutations in the gene pool, the risk of birth defects would be greatly increased. Even though we all still marry a relative (as we all are related as descendants of Adam and Eve), a union between more distantly related people would be less likely to produce problems in offspring. This instruction from God has nothing to do with race.

[3] Josephus, The Antiquity of the Jews, 1st Century A.D. in: William Whiston, The Works of Josephus Complete and Unabridged, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA, 1987, pp. 36-37.

[4] Josephus, The Antiquity of the Jews, 1st Century A.D. in: William Whiston, The Works of Josephus Complete and Unabridged, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA, 1987, pp. 36-37; Bill Cooper, After the Flood, New Wine Press, 1995, pp. 170-208; Harold Hunt with Russell Grigg, The sixteen grandsons of Noah, Creation 20(4), September 1998, pages 22-25; there are many other references to these as well ,but this should suffice to get you started including James Anderson’s Royal Genealogies. 

[5] This is assuming they marry within their own ethnic/people group and little genetic material that had been lost is reintroduced into the gene pool. 

Wasn’t The Curse And Death A Good Thing To Keep The Earth From Being Over Populated?

Wasn’t The Curse And Death A Good Thing To Keep The Earth From Being Overpopulated?

Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI

Biblical Authority Ministries, March 9, 2026 (Donate) 

God knew Adam and the Woman would sin as God knows the future, which is why He already had a plan in place to redeem fallen man. The first prophecy of Christ is Genesis 3:15 being the seed of a woman/virgin birth. If you look closely at Genesis 2:17, it shows that God foreknew that mankind would sin— “for in the day you eat of it”.  It doesn’t say “if” you eat of it.

The path leading out of the Garden of Eden now laced with thorns and thistles; Image requested by Bodie Hodge (ChatGPT)

Human Overpopulation?

But hypothetically, let’s say that that sin did not happen—no sin, human population abounded, and filled the earth. Pay close attention to what God said: “fill” the earth, not “overpopulate” it (note: replenish used to mean “fill” in the days when the KJV was translated, not “refill” as it does today).

The command was to populate until the earth was full, and then it makes sense that reproduction was likely to cease. Similar statements govern sea creature (Genesis 1:22). 

Consider if someone asked me to fill up a glass of water for them. Would I fill it and keep putting water in it and let it overflow, overflow and overflow? No, I would fill it and not overflow it. 

The word “fill” basically places limits on them right from the start. So, it is good to be wary of uniformitarian assumptions and use caution when trying to translate them into the future. Nonetheless, if Adam and Eve didn’t sin (nor anyone else), then there is no reason to assume God wouldn’t have said “stop reproducing” once they would have filled the earth. 

God can and does change some civil rules to man from time to time—originally, we could only be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29), but after the Flood, God gave man permission to eat meat (Genesis 9:3). There used to be rigorous sacrificial laws, but now they are done away with due to Christ’s perfect sacrifice and so on. But such things are in a sin-curse world.

In a sin-cursed world, I’m not sure what God will do if the earth’s population begins to get full, which at this point is still a long way off. It is possible that He will command man to stop reproducing. But in a sin-cursed world where death currently reigns, it may not take long for the population to reduce again anyway. Sadly, sinful acts like abortion and murder and the blood spilled in the name of evolution (Nazis, Stalin, etc.) in the past century have made a dent in the population.   

Another possibility is that this sin-cursed world doesn’t make it that far. We are told that one day there will be a new heavens and a new earth. Interesting to think about…

Regardless in this sin-cursed world after the Flood, Genesis 9:1 and Genesis 9:8 also reaffirm that man was to reproduce and multiply and fill the earth as well.

The idea of overpopulation comes from uniformitarianism and projecting this into the future. Uniformitarianism has failed in the fields of geology and radiometric dating while looking at the past; and so on, so this should throw up a red flag.

There are plenty of open spaces around the world for man to inhabit like the large open spaces of West Texas; Image requested by Bodie Hodge (ChatGPT)

Regardless, God still knew what man was going to do (sin resulting in death) and knew that the future path wasn’t going in that direction. To deny this would be to deny that God knows the future, and that isn’t the God of the Bible who often tells the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10).   

Animal Overpopulation?

From Genesis 1:22 and Genesis 1:28, we can infer that man and sea creatures may have had lower initial populations, to have plenty of room to multiply. With humans, there were only two people to start with: Adam and the Woman (later named Eve).

Birds were to multiply but not commanded to fill the earth so it seems they may never have filled the earth before their reproduction would have ceased in a perfect world. But they had room to multiply too. Regardless, sin entered so such what if questions are merely for speculation. 

Land animals were not commanded to multiply or fill the earth in Genesis 1. I would humbly suggest that this infers that land animals were created in more abundance, with little or no necessity to have to reproduce in great quantities in the initial perfect creation. After sin though, the necessity was required, since death began reigning in animals with the first recorded death of an animal to cover Adam and the Woman’s sin (coats of skins in Genesis 3:21).

Sacrifice in the Garden; Image requested by Bodie Hodge (ChatGPT)

Later in the Bible, we find that land animals, on the Ark were told to multiply abundantly after the Flood, which had caused a massive worldwide graveyard of previous animals (Genesis 8:17). Since there were no land-dwelling air-breathing animals (Genesis 7:22) on the earth after the Flood (except for those in the Ark), this makes sense for the command to multiply—their populations were low for this new starting point.  

But again, these land animals were not told to fill the earth, but at this point they are in a sin-cursed world were death reigns, so an upper limit may have been unnecessary anyway.   

Box Turtle; Photo by Bodie Hodge

I hope these thoughts helps us realize that, contrary to much hype in the modern secular world, reproduction in man an animals is still a good thing and commanded by God.

□

Bodie Hodge, Ken Ham's son in law, has been an apologist defending 6-day creation and opposing evolution since 1998. He spent 21 years working at Answers in Genesis as a speaker, writer, and researcher as well as a founding news anchor for Answers News. He was also head of the Oversight Council.  

Bodie launched Biblical Authority Ministries in 2015 as a personal website and it was organized officially in 2025 as a 501(c)(3). He has spoken on multiple continents and hosts of US states in churches, colleges, and universities. He is married with four children.

Mr. Hodge earned a Bachelor and Master of Science degrees from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC). Then he taught at SIUC for a couple of years as a Visiting Instructor teaching all levels of undergraduate engineering and running a materials lab and a CAD lab. He did research on advanced ceramic materials to develop a new method of production of titanium diboride with a grant from Lockheed Martin. He worked as a Test Engineer for Caterpillar, Inc., prior to entering full-time ministry.

His love of science was coupled with a love of history, philosophy, and theology. For about one year of his life, Bodie was editing and updating a theological, historical, and scientific dictionary/encyclopedia for AI use and training. Mr. Hodge has over 25 years of experience in writing, speaking and researching in these fields. Originally at Answers in Genesis; Edited; Republished by permission.

 

AI—Always Be Wary!

AI—Always Be Wary!

Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI

Biblical Authority Ministries, March 6, 2026 (Donate)

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4-5, ESV)

Introduction

As Christians we are not only commanded to be aware of false arguments and opinions, but to demolish them—kindly of course. Sometimes Christian apologists have to deal with false arguments from individuals, religious leaders or organizations, or even dignitaries.

But now we have a new one and I wonder how many Christians recognize this novel voice that many go to today? It is AI. Yes, AI gives us opinions, arguments, and often states things as a fact…that aren’t true.

Don’t get me wrong, AI has its benefits. I often relate it as a brilliant child that needs correction. I’ve worked with AI for about 2 years now on a few projects and there are some fantastic things it can do—and I still have a lot to learn regarding its uses.

But I’ve also found that it can mess up and get things wrong in terrible ways that just needs to be blatantly corrected. Sometimes, it just can’t get it right. Some of this comes down to programming but in other cases, I wonder how it arrived at certain statements and I would suggest it might even be hints of spiritual warfare.

Wow What An Example!

Let me give you a great example. I was looking for something that I had written and I couldn’t remember if it was in a book or if I had written it in a web article. I pulled up my browser since I was sitting at my computer, and did some basic search terms and put my name Bodie Hodge as I was searching for this material.

Then an AI generated a summary of the beliefs of Bodie Hodge popped up—yeah me! Here is what it said about what I believed:

Yep, there it is! It says I (Bodie Hodge) am an “Evolutionist” and that I embrace evolution as a method of creation. This is dead false!

It was not even a small error, but a blatant flip of what I believe. It would be like saying Barack Obama is a Republican or Donald Trump is a Democrat! Or that Ken Ham is an evolutionist and Bill Nye is a creationist!

How is it that a creationist like myself with multitudes of books promoting creation, a website promoting creation, and videos promoting creation is somehow confused to a point where I am labelled an evolutionist by AI? I’ve been openly critical of an evolutionary worldview rather prominently for decades! Seriously, how could AI miss this!

And then, this AI model had the audacity to link to my creationist website as its reference! Did AI not even do basic research on the website that it suggested as a referent?

Six-day creationist Bodie Hodge awaiting the last eclipse, wearing a funny hat!; Photo by Bodie Hodge

Concluding Remarks

Can AI be trusted—no, you have to check it and after years of experience of working with it, one needs to be discerning in what it suggests. Can AI be used for good—yes; but use it cautiously with a discerning mind checking it’s claims first against Scripture and then verifying other facts and conclusions accordingly.

Can AI be used in spiritual warfare? If the programmers can, then so can AI which is developed by the programmers. I just want to encourage you in your use of AI—be discerning and use caution and don’t just follow it blindly.

□

Bodie Hodge, Ken Ham's son in law, has been an apologist defending 6-day creation and opposing evolution since 1998 helping out in various churches and running an apologetics website. He spent 21 years working at Answers in Genesis as a speaker, writer, and researcher as well as a founding news anchor for Answers News. He was also head of the Oversight Council.  

Bodie launched Biblical Authority Ministries in 2015 as a personal website and it was organized officially in 2025 as a 501(c)(3). He has spoken on multiple continents and hosts of US states in churches, colleges, and universities. He is married with four children.

Mr. Hodge earned a Bachelor and Master of Science degrees from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC). Then he taught at SIUC for a couple of years as a Visiting Instructor teaching all levels of undergraduate engineering and running a materials lab and a CAD lab. He did research on advanced ceramic materials to develop a new method of production of titanium diboride with a grant from Lockheed Martin. He worked as a Test Engineer for Caterpillar, Inc., prior to entering full-time ministry.

His love of science was coupled with a love of history, philosophy, and theology. For about one year of his life, Bodie was editing and updating a theological, historical, and scientific dictionary/encyclopedia for AI use and training. Mr. Hodge has over 25 years of experience in writing, speaking and researching in these fields.