How come before the flood light waves didn't refract when they passed through water?

Now that's interesting ...

also if you think about it:

since water supposedly already existed, it would all have to be in such a form (vapour) that it's refractive index was indistinguishable from air's, meaning that there could NOT have been liquid water until the flood occurred, meaning that life as we know it could not have existed what so ever!

Gotta love that :D

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?

It's actually the dust particles that collect the raindrops that refract the light that causes a rainbow...this would not occur from the ground dew arching upwards. It is also written that God provided the rainbow as a sign of His promise that He would never again destroy the whole earth by flood. (signs of His promise/covenant are common from God, so His people don't forget what He has promised.)

@Sol - wow! I totally get your reference to the symbolism of the ark to eternity - I never heard this before, it's really deep! They rejected both the existence and effect of rain, but then were consumed and found their own peril by the very thing they rejected -- yes, a true picture of what was to come in Christ and how those that reject Him will find their peril in the very same rejection! It wasn't the rain that condemned them to peril, since acceptance of the truth Noah preached for 120 years while building the ark would have provided them a place on the ark and saved them, but their very rejection that actually caused their condemnation and peril. Deep. Thanks, again!

There was no rain before the flood. This is why a rainbow was such a beautiful sign of God's promise. There was water beneath the heavens and invisible water vapour above, as the Bible states in Genesis.

Maybe the Earth was surrounded by a sack kind off like a baby in the womb. It was when this sack broke open that then allowed sunlight and water to enter and flood the Earth thus creating the first rainbow seen by mankind.

A rainbow had never appeared before the flood, this means that whatever causes rainbows had never happened before, the ability for a rainbow was waiting to happen..

Because the earth was flat and the planet was in the center of the universe. Refraction wasn't yet invented.

Who says it didn't?

Had it occurred to you that God gave the rainbow as the sign to Noah because it was a reminder of what the sky looked like before the flood?

If there was a vapor or particulate ice canopy surrounding the earth as the genesis account implies, the refraction effect caused by sunlight penetrating it would have projected one helluvan effect!

This question makes absolutely no sense.Is your assertion that there were no rainbows before Noah's flood?If so,prove it.

And anyway the rainbow would have been during the rain and flood, not at the end.