Isidore of Seville on Fossils and the Flood

Yesterday, I posted 5,000 words of reviews, so today I’m taking a breather. I’m going to share with you a little nugget from the medieval writer Isidore of Seville (560-636 CE), who was one of the very first to argue that fossils found atop mountains were “proof” of the reality of Noah’s flood. His claim appears in book 13, chapter 22 of the Origines (Etymologies). I have translated the section below, but if you would like to read the whole of chapter 22, you can find it on Google Books here. 

XIII.xxii.ii. Primum diluvium extitit sub Noe, quando hominum sceleribus offensus Omnipotens, toto orbe contecto, deletis cunctis, unum spatium caeli fuit ac pelagi. Cuius indicium hactenus videmus in lapidibus quos in remotis montibus conchis et ostreis concretos, saepe etiam cavatos aquis visere solemus.

13.22.2. The first flood occurred during the time of Noah, when the Almighty was offended by the sins of men, the entire earth was covered, all was destroyed, and sea and sky were a single expanse. Down to the present, we see evidence of this in the stones we have become accustomed to seeing on remote mountains, stones that have solidified around shells and oysters, and also often stones that have been hollowed out by the waters.  

Today, of course, we know that fossil shells atop mountains are the result of the ancient seabed rising up as the earth’s plates push together, but from Isidore down to modern creationists, these marine fossils served as evidence of the Noachian Flood. Many researchers believe that at least some flood myths around the world may have been inspired by early observations of such fossils and subsequent attempts to explain them. 


[Update: I've posted extended excerpts from Isidore of Seville in my Library.]