Did light not refract through water droplets or prisms before the flood?

Question

How do theists explain this unheard of physical phenomenon of light changing properties?

suspendor of disbelief: Venus still has its canopy??! Have you lost your mind. Venus is covered in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide. The temperature is around 900 degrees F. Are you telling me that these 1000 year old biblical people lived on an earth that had no rainbows and was 900 degrees?

Answer 1

It did, it just made those Walmart smiley faces instead of rainbows.

Answer 2

Prior to the Flood, it never rained.Genesis 2:6. The full light from the Sun was not yet getting through as the water canopy around the Earth prevented it. It's possible that light was refracted by droplets from the mist but the Bible does not state this one way or the other, so who knows?

Answer 3

Most people who I have have spoken to about this seem to assume that the Earth was completely covered in a thick blanket of clouds so that one could not see either the sun or the sky (hence, no rainbow since the clouds were too thick for one to see one).

One does not see any rainbows from the surface of Venus, either, even though the properties of light are the same there as they are here. The difference is the thickness of the cloud cover, stupid. Ever wonder where all the water for the flood came from?

This assumes that the sky was white, and that the lighting of the Earth was more diffuse than it is now.

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We know that the clouds of Venus are Sulfuric acid, not water. I don't think that this was the point that suspender of disbelief was trying to make. Sulfuric acid clouds as about as opaque as water vapor clouds.

Answer 4

Of course there were rainbows then. Religion just beat science to an answer of why while science needed another 3000 years to handle the how.
Gen. Flood is based in large part on the Babylonian Genesis and the Ugaritic Gilgamesh Epic. In those days, science and religion worked side by side to explain/control/understand the daunting world around them. It is still the case for people of good will.

Answer 5

Nope. There was a canopy over the earth, which stopped direct lighting from getting through to the earth. The phenomenon had never been seen before. (Venus still has its canopy)

Answer 6

I remember reading about this in one of the "Left Behind" novels. As I recall the passage, it supposedly had never rained before the flood, so there were no rainbows before then. I don't recall the specific details from the novel relating to the "firmament" (King James Bible, Genesis 1:6-8 - creation, second day), so I can't comment on the "canopy" I've seen mentioned here.
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Edit: This was in a "Babylon Rising" novel about searching for artifacts from Noah's Ark, not a "Left Behind" novel.

Answer 7

Sure...but it had never rained before the flood. Dew rose up from the ground, and watered the plants.

Answer 8

Either the nature of light changed or there existed some reason rainbows weren't seen before then. Possibly constant cloud cover. I don't know and am not going to make up pseudo-scientific reasons for miraculous stories.

Answer 9

I believe that rain didn't fall from the sky before the flood. The Bible tells us of a "dew" that gave the land/crops their water.

Answer 10

The key to your question is that it didnt rain tell after the flood.

Answer 11

actually many believe it never rained before the flood. =\

how plants got watered is beyond me.