The ice age was one of the most significant events in the earth’s history. Those who hold to an old age for the earth (4.5 billion years old) say the earth has gone through multiple ice ages over the eons, and we are currently in the middle of an ice age. The Bible says nothing about the earth ever experiencing an ice age.
The evidence for an ice age is significant and apparently beyond dispute. The ice age had a significant impact on the entire globe. Since the Bible includes stories of men since the beginning of creation why does it not mention the ice age?
Evolutionists and creationists are in agreement about the extent of the global ice coverage during the last ice age. At its peak the ice age locked a third of the world in snow and ice. In the northern hemisphere ice sheets crept down from the pole to cover most of Canada and reached into the northern American states. Some portions of the ice sheet stretched as far south as Iowa and Indiana. Northern Europe was covered with ice that spread into France, Germany and Poland.
The location of the northern ice sheets provides a clue to why the Bible never mentions the ice age. Scripture is not intended to be a complete history of the world. The Bible says nothing about most of the events that have taken place in the earth’s history. The Bible was never designed to tell everything significant that happened in the world.
Scripture does not say anything about the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Thera in 1600 BC. The volcanic eruption was relatively close and effected the climates of Palestine and northern Egypt. The Bible is completely silent on the Minoan eruption. The Bible’s silence on this and other historical matters does not reveal deficiency of information but precision of purpose.
God’s Word is concerned with the history of God’s working to redeem to Himself a people who will eternally praise Him. In relating the story of redemption the Bible touches on much human history with complete accuracy.
Most of the Old Testament is focused on God’s chosen people, the Israelites. The fathers of the Israelites lived in the region of Palestine which was 1,500 miles away from the ice sheets. The weather of that era would have been different from the weather in Palestine today. The summers were cooler and storms probably were more severe, but Abraham and his offspring would not have know they were in an ice age. Glaciers were not forming in the Negev and woolly mammoths were not roaming the hills of Galilee.
The world’s climate at the time God called Abraham out of Ur is not important to the story of the Bible. What is important is God’s promise of a kingdom, of worldwide blessing through a descendant of Abraham and of righteousness to those who believe Him.