Gee. There's nothing to this Biblical Noah's Arc stuff. How could a flood possibly affect the whole world?
Here's an interesting site. This National Geographic web site takes this particular news item a bit more global. It's about Ballard's quest to find underwater archeological sites in the Black Sea that could shed light on the great flood, particularly related to the story of Noah's flood and the legend of Gilgamesh. The tie to this thread is:
Almost every culture on Earth includes an ancient flood story. Details vary, but the basic plot is the same: Deluge kills all but a lucky few.
• The story most familiar to many people is the biblical account of Noah and his ark. Genesis tells how “God saw that the wickedness of man was great” and decided to destroy all of creation. Only Noah, “who found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” his family, and the animals aboard the ark survived to repopulate the planet.
• Older than Genesis is the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, a king who embarked on a journey to find the secret of immortality. Along the way, he met Utnapishtim, survivor of a great flood sent by the gods. Warned by Enki, the water god, Utnapishtim built a boat and saved his family and friends, along with artisans, animals, and precious metals.
• Ancient Greeks and Romans grew up with the story of Deucalion and Pyhrra, who saved their children and a collection of animals by boarding a vessel shaped like a giant box.
• Irish legends talk about Queen Cesair and her court, who sailed for seven years to avoid drowning when the oceans overwhelmed Ireland.
• European explorers in the Americas were startled by Indian legends that sounded similar to the story of Noah. Some Spanish priests feared the devil had planted such stories in the Indians’ minds to confuse them.
I wonder if, just maybe, there's a bit more than we "enlightened" modern folk might have figured out by now? Just because Jerry Falwell can't find his butt with both hands most of the time doesn't mean that the Bible is wrong. I've always felt that any "conflict" between scripture and science was in our understanding, not in the word of God or in the scientific facts. Either we've interpreted the Bible wrong or we've got our Scientific facts wrong. "God is wrong" and "science is wrong" are neither acceptable statements. "Humans can screw it up every time" is always a safe bet.
Good, healthy out look.
The Biblical and Hindu "numbers" are the same, and we also find the Hindu "Great Fish" over in the Jonah story where it has been almost unaccountably misplaced. The Hindus also have the "snake", otherwise identifiable as Krishna, or the Messiah, in his guise as a "snake".
The rest of the Biblical Noah story is about how to use an abacus (count by 2 and 5), or develop your own personal memory garden (that's the Ark). Otherwise, the Hebrews and the proto-Hindus were pretty much in agreement, with the Babylonians having missed out on some of the more important elements.
This places the story in the context of the Black Lake flood event.
Careful - that will get you slammed with the "heretic" and "blasphemer" label in some threads.