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The great flood legends - ancient misreadings of the fossil record?
Antiquity ^ | June 2004 | Richard K. Jeck

Posted on 06/21/2004 7:49:48 AM PDT by aculeus

Over the past two decades there have been renewed attempts to search for remains of Noah's ark and to discover evidence of the biblical Flood itself. In the early 1980s, several expeditions led by an American astronaut and others ascended Mt. Ararat, the legendary resting place of Noah's ark in northern Turkey, in an unsuccessful search for remains of the ark. More recently, evidence has been reported that the Black Sea may have formed suddenly about 7500 years ago by break-through flooding from the Mediterranean Sea (Ryan & Pitman 1998; Ballard 2001). These authors speculate that this natural disaster (for the then dwellers of the Black Sea basin) was the source of biblical and other ancient deluge legends.

It has been generally assumed that since the Flood is such a detailed and epic part of the book of Genesis, the Flood must have really happened. But what if the ancients among whom the story originated simply, but falsely, inferred from perceived evidence around them, that a flood of such great magnitude must have occurred sometime in their past? Their seemingly irrefutable evidence may be no more than the presence of marine fossils in high elevations.

Fossils of marine organisms, especially shellfish like clams and other molluscs, and sometimes fish, can be found in relatively high elevations in many places around the world. They are found throughout the Near East and countries bordering the Mediterranean. These include Egypt and Libya (Turek et al. 1989:303-306), Lebanon (Case 1982:412-415), and in the mountains and hills of Armenia, Syria, Israel, Egypt and Jordan (deMaillet 1968:70,89,96,249,267,292,299,304). An extreme example in the Western Hemisphere is shown in Figure 1.

Now, to the ancients, fish and/or seashell fossils up in the hills and mountains naturally implied that water levels at some time in the past had to be that high. How else would those seashells get up there?

In the experience of the ancients, only a persistent, calamitous flood could account for such high water in a region that is otherwise largely desert, and where the nearest lakes and seas are far below the elevations where some of these fossils are found.

The world-wide occurrence of marine fossils in high elevations can explain why stories of a great flood are found in the folklore or legends of ancient peoples in diverse places around the globe (Bright 1961; Wickersham 2000: 66-69). It is understandable that primitive peoples had no other conclusion to draw than that a deep flood, one like no other in their experience, must have put those seashells way up there. They did not know about mountain building and the geological processes that can raise fossil-bearing, sedimentary rock strata to great heights. In their minds, the mountains and hills had always been there, just as they saw them, from the beginning of time. The mountains never changed over their lifetime or even over generations. They had no way of knowing about the slow geological processes that we know about today.

The occurrence of marine fossils in high elevations also explains the ancient conclusion that a flood that deep must have covered the whole earth. To the ancients, a global flood also seemed to nicely explain why seashells were found on the hills and mountains in distant countries as well.

In any case, if this fossil explanation is correct, then searches for any remains of Noah's ark and for evidence of the Great Flood will continue to be futile, despite the possible discovery of major, local events like the filling of the Black Sea. The evidence today is the same evidence the ancients had---marine fossils on mountains and hills. They needed a great flood to explain why seashells were up that high. We know today that those marine creatures lived in low-lying lakes or seas millions of years ago. Their fossilised remains were gradually lifted to present-day heights by slow, mountain-building processes that were totally unknown to the ancients.

So it is simply the lowly, or should we say lofty, fossil that is probably the culprit behind the Great Flood stories around the world. Some writers and thinkers from early Christian times to the present have cited fossils as evidence of the Great Flood (Halstead 1982: 10, 32, 70-72). But nobody seems to have considered the possibility that the ancient contributors to Genesis did the same.

References

BALLARD, R.D. 2001 Deep Black Sea. National Geographic, May 2001: 52-69. BRIGHT, J. 1961 Has Archaeology Found Evidence of the Flood?, in G. Wright & D. Freedman (eds.), The Biblical Archaeologist Reader, 1: 32-40. New York: Doubleday. CASE, G.R. 1982 A Pictorial Guide to Fossils. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. DE MAILLET, B. 1755. Telliamed. (English translation, 1968) Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press. HALSTEAD, L.B. 1982 The Search for the Past. New York: Doubleday. RYAN, W. & W. PITMAN 1998 Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that Changed the World. New York: Simon & Schuster. TUREK, V., J. MAREK & J. BENES. 1989. Fossils of the World. New York: Arch Cape Press. WICKERSHAM, J.M. (ed.). 2000. Myths and Legends of the World. Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.

E-mail: Jeckmail@juno.com


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: 300manyearsoflabor; adriennemayor; blacksea; blackseaflood; catastrophism; crevolist; dinosaur; dinosaurs; godsgravesglyphs; grandcanyon; greatflood; noah; noahsarc; noahsark; noahsflood; paleontology
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coal fired placemarker


21 posted on 06/21/2004 8:41:24 AM PDT by js1138 (In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. J Forbes Kerry)
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To: PatrickHenry

Thanks for the ping!


22 posted on 06/21/2004 8:42:04 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: PatrickHenry
Gilgamesh is actually based on the same legends.

I'm glad you brought up Gilgamesh, however, because there is a tremendous amount of literary evidence that parts of the Bible were modeled after passages of Gilgamesh.

I had a student once in a World Literature class I was teaching who compared Gilgamesh to the Biblical stories of Saul and Samuel.

The comparisons are striking, especially as to the characters.

23 posted on 06/21/2004 8:42:40 AM PDT by Military family member (Proud Pacers fan...still)
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To: Military family member

Right-o. Also, every single ancient civilization was built next to a river, or better yet, the confluence of rivers. Flooding was perhaps an annual event at the very least for almost every ancient city. That explains why so many different cultures have the flood stories, rather than say, blizzard or tornado stories.

Floods also were used for early farming techniques and were an integral part of ancient life. It's easy to surmise how the Noah story (and the others) came to be.


24 posted on 06/21/2004 8:51:52 AM PDT by whattajoke
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To: Military family member
The Babylonian accounts DO NOT predate the Hebrews by several thousand years. Actually, the accounts are most likely Sumerian, and they predate the Babylonians, a Semitic language speaking group who brought agriculture to Mesopotamia, gradually displacing the Sumerians who were primarily herdsmen.

The cognate languages for Sumerian are, interestingly enough Saami (found in Northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia), an ancient non-Han written language found in China, and the ONLY American Indian language to be successfully linked to an Old World language.

These languages in turn may be related to the Dravidian languages, and all of them related to the Uralic-Altaic group (although primarily in vocabulary, but not in grammar).

There are Saami petroglyphs in Finland and Russia drawn on the underside of cliffs that are estimated to be about 7,700 years old. With a bit of understanding of Arctic cultural customs and the place of the shaman in society, you can make out the Story of Lot's experience after the flood, including why momma turned to stone, and why poppa ended up in the tent with the daughters!

(Curious? The deal is the mother failed to make suitible arrangements for her daughter's marriages, hence she turned into stone and the girls slept with their father ~ certainly enough incentive for any woman to make sure the girls got safely married off.)

It's believed the Saami have been in the area up to 10,000 years (or back to the time when the North American ice sheet melted), and may have spent most of the last full glaciation in the area!

Their stories, if taken South as they followed the herds to Mesopotamia, would include a great flood from when Antarctica melted (which should have sent massive soliton waves up to 2 or 3 miles high crashing Northward into most of the populated places around the world in that day).

They'd also have stories of a slower rise in sealevels at the time North America melted. Once in Mesopotamia, they could have added to the basic flood story.

Note, too, the Lot story and the Great Flood probably came in the same package.

The basic Great Flood story among the Dravidian speaking peoples of India (which is incorporated in Hinduism where Krishna manifests himself as the Great Fish) is less elaborate than the Sumerian Flood story. It, too, is found in the most ancient written documents in that part of the world. Again, it's not surprising to find a Saami story showing up in the hands of folks speaking cognate languages.

25 posted on 06/21/2004 8:53:04 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: aculeus

Oysters Rockefeller ?

26 posted on 06/21/2004 8:54:10 AM PDT by dread78645 (Sorry Mr. Franklin, We couldn't keep it.)
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To: aculeus

GMTA.


27 posted on 06/21/2004 8:56:04 AM PDT by dread78645 (Sorry Mr. Franklin, We couldn't keep it.)
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To: aculeus
The premise of the article doesn't make any sense to me. Ancient legends don't develop because someone looks at fossils on mountaintops and decides to write a story in explanation. Legends develop from people attempting to make sense of their shared experiences, of the stories that have been passed down thru generations. It's obvious that the earth suffered a catastrophic flood sometime in its history. We know this from the fossil record and from similar flood legends spread over antiquity.
28 posted on 06/21/2004 9:15:09 AM PDT by Ciexyz ("FR, best viewed with a budgie on hand")
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To: ZULU

260 million years or so for bituminous coal. I think the anthracite is much older based on hardness and how folded the seams are today.


29 posted on 06/21/2004 9:18:58 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (STAGMIRE !)
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Comment #30 Removed by Moderator

To: aculeus

"Figure 1: Marine Fossils on Top of the Andes Mountains. More than 500 giant fossilised oysters were found 3000 metres (about 2 miles) above sea level in Peru..."

Try eating a dozen of THOSE!


31 posted on 06/21/2004 9:19:27 AM PDT by adam_az (Call your State Republican Party office and VOLUNTEER!!!!)
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To: PatrickHenry
Abraham came from ancient Sumeria, so presumably he -- and thus the ancient Hebrews -- already knew the Sumerian legends.

Great a myth knew about a legend...

32 posted on 06/21/2004 9:21:55 AM PDT by Lysander ( "Will the highways of the Internet become more few?" --GWB)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

Well, anthracite isn't necessarily older, the key thing is that it just received much more pressure and heating than bituminous; Eastern PA has anthracite because it was closer to the mountain-building episodes and plate/island collisions (hence the folding) than the Bituminous coal around Pittsburgh.


33 posted on 06/21/2004 9:25:35 AM PDT by Strategerist
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To: All
Flood Stories from Around the World.
34 posted on 06/21/2004 9:57:15 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Don't ask for evidence if you're going to ignore it when you see it.)
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To: Strategerist

I wonder if anyone has ever done a thorough study on the forces that created the various coals of the US. I've always thought the HGI and FSI measurements might be an indicator of age. Likewise various vol contents might indicate age and/or pressure.


35 posted on 06/21/2004 10:17:06 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (STAGMIRE !)
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To: PatrickHenry
many, many interesting Flood myths there. My favorite, from the Lenape Indians:

A deluge covered the whole earth. A few people survived on the back of a turtle which was so old its shell was mossy. A loon flew by, and the people begged it to dive and bring up some land. The bird dived but could not reach the bottom. Then he flew far away, came back with some earth in his bill, and led the turtle back to some dry land. There the people settled and repopulated the country. Those saved by the turtle became the Turtle Clan.

Then, just as it is now, Turtles all the way down!
36 posted on 06/21/2004 10:49:02 AM PDT by whattajoke
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To: Ciexyz
Ancient legends don't develop because someone looks at fossils on mountaintops and decides to write a story in explanation.

Huh? People were (and are) always coming up with stories to explain stuff they find (c.f. "faerie rings).

BTW, there is no physical evidence for a universal flood.

37 posted on 06/21/2004 11:48:44 AM PDT by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: civil discourse

One of the best ways to get information on the relationships of the Uralic-Altaic languages, as well as the Fenno~Ugric subset is to check experts at these universities.

Notice that the sole American reference is INDIANA UNIVERSITY.  The URL below will take you to a myriad of other sources., , http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3093/finnugor.html ,
Fenno-Ugristics or Uralistics departments at universities:
HelsinkiTurku  , Tartu  , Uppsala  , Lund  , Hamburg  , Munich  , Goettingen  , Groningen  , Vienna  , PragueBudapest  , Szeged  , Debrecen , SzombathelyFinno-Ugristics department of the Hungarian Academy of SciencesIndiana

Then you have http://www.lostlanguages.com/  which will give you a "Turk's eye view" of the whole business.  There are some claims here that are a bit over the top, but not as far as you might imagine.  Remember, the relationship between Sumerian and the Dravidian languages, and them with Turkish languages, is a relatively recent discovery. 100 years ago nobody even knew Sumerian existed!<P>To say the least, virtually none of the modern Dravidian speakers resembles in the slightest the ancient speakers.

If you are lucky you will latch on to some of the discussion boards where experts in this widely known field discuss the real relationships among the Finno-Ugric languages.  These guys get excited ~ pulling knives, kicking shins, oh, my the blood!

You might well look up "odin, thor, herb woman, raindeer man, and little redman" ~ then "soma" ~ this is the really old tyme religion ~ still practiced in some places!

There are books and books and books that detail how the Saami religious practices have spread throughout the world, even to the still primitive Indo-Europeans who were just then invading the Valley of the Indus thousands of years ago.

38 posted on 06/21/2004 12:19:30 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Lysander
It's fair to presume Abraham was an historical figure. After all, there's no evidence he isn't.

It's also fair to presume the Sumerians' ancestors survived at least one and maybe several "Great Floods" besides those they encountered in Mesopotamia.

Actually, the Sumerians and their Saami relatives might well have been among the few human beings to survive the melting of Antarctica. When that happened ocean levels rose hundreds of feet drowning all human habitation in our natural range ~ river estuaries!

39 posted on 06/21/2004 12:23:48 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: aculeus

If petroleum is supposed to be a non-renewable resource and a product of organic material that was buried, how come it only is found thousands of feet underground and below the fossil record?


40 posted on 06/21/2004 12:32:25 PM PDT by Chewbacca (There is a place in this world for all of God's creatures.....right next to the mashed potatoes.)
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