If the story of the great flood (Holy Bible) is real - could it be that this is where all of the water has gone? Could this water some time in the future "rise up" once more and create a second worldwide flood?
Epic floods are somewhat of a staple in early mythology (not just the bible exclusively), but the thing to keep in mind is these civilizations did not have the means of detecting the scope of potentially global events. So even if flood myths are based on real events, they're most likely catastrophic but local occurences. This is supported by geological evidence which shows flood events in many regions over time, somewhat fluctuating sea levels, but never a truly global flood.
If the biblical account is accurate, then no, there won't be another worldwide flood, because God promised to never destroy the Earth with water again.
Good point. Since there's already been ice ages, that only leaves fire and earth ;-) Though then again, some people say the dinosaurs are extinct because of meteor strikes, so maybe earth is done too?
> could it be that this is where all of the water has gone? Could this water some time in the future "rise up" once more and create a second worldwide flood?
Science answers questions like this with evidence, but the inherent premise in your first question is that there was a world wide flood to begin with and there is no evidence other than religious anecdotes to support this.
Assuming that there was a world wide flood just doesn't make sense when there is no compelling reason to think there ever has been such a thing. However, what kind of process would you imagine would bring enough water out from under the Earth for 370 days and then make it go back. We are talking about an enormous amount of water. If you wanted to build a pump that could move such volumes of water out of the Earth, and then back in you are entering the realm of fantasy. Of course if you're willing to assume the work of supernatural powers that's where you started from.
There are a great deal of many problems with a world wide flood story, the origin of all that water is just one. Kangaroos making a trip from Australia to the Middle East and back for a boat trip is another.
There was an book by Graham Hancock, who is known mostly for very fringe theories on aliens and history, called Underworld where he argued that flood myths, which appear all over the world, were caused by an actual great flood caused by the melting of the ice sheets over North America during the last ice age. The reason it happened instantaneously as a flood and not a gradual rise in sea levels is because, or so he argues, the ice sheet melted and pooled in the middle (as ice does) and eventually broke through the ice walls.
Then, he claims that the water didn't go anywhere and argues that we have little evidence of human civilization and agriculture before the end of the last ice age is because the cities of humanity now currently exist under the sea, in areas which were once coastline before the sea level rose. He also argues that the greatest trove of new information about humanity is underwater, which on a whole has had very little archaeological research done.
> Could this water some time in the future "rise up" once more and create a second worldwide flood?
It could create a flood. Not a second one.
> could it be that this is where all of the water has gone?
No. The process doesn't seem reversible.
Analogy. If someone tells you they filled a balloon with water and pierced it, and later you see a balloon with water, you may believe they un-pierced it, unless you know physics and you learned that you can't un-pierce this balloon just like that. Then, the more likely explanation is either that someone filled another balloon, or that they didn't pierce it after all.
If the great flood had been real, either we'd find evidence of there being a lot less oceans in the Pleistocene (which we do not), or we'd come from another planet. (But then, how would we have traveled? Why is there no evidence of it? Why do we fit perfectly in a common phylogeny with all other species?)
All in all, that theory doesn't (puts on sunglasses) hold water.
> 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.
It isn't ambiguous under the commonly accepted scientific facts of the time, in that particular civilization.
They believed that they were on a flat earth under a dome that separated the atmosphere from huge amounts of water above (hence the blue color of the sky) and below (hence the oceans). They believed that the dome leaked sometimes, causing rain. They believed that the flat earth leaked too, causing rivers.
Seems dubious given the other half of the line. The author wrote "the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened". Did they mean "it rained, and also it rained"?
I'm by no means defending the lunacy, but it would be an efficient way of transferring such a huge amount of water: heat it up using the core or the holy kettle and let the steam rise up through the earth, which would then fall down as rain.
If the story of the great flood (Holy Bible) is real - could it be that this is where all of the water has gone? Could this water some time in the future "rise up" once more and create a second worldwide flood?