Posted on 05/12/2018 4:35:00 PM PDT by pcottraux
By Philip Cottraux
First, some background info.
A friend of mine posted a recent chat on her YouTube channel with an orthodox professor of Biblical studies who doesn't believe the first 11 chapters of Genesis should be taken literally. While he still maintains to be a Christian, he believes that the Garden of Eden, the flood, and the tower of Babel are myths that God used as symbols of his relationship with man.
I thought I would present historical evidence for Noah’s flood to contribute to their discussion (I've linked the following blog to them on Twitter to read and react to). As most of my readers know, this is a topic I’ve heavily researched, written, and spoken about in the past (in fact, I admit some of this is directly taken from previous blogs).
I’ve read that there are at least 250 flood legends from the ancient world. Skeptics are usually quick to point out that this disproves the flood altogether, since the Genesis account isn’t the oldest one.
Strikingly, most tell the same basic story: the god(s) becoming angry with humanity and deciding to wipe it out with a deluge. One righteous man is chosen to save our species, so he builds a giant ark and loads it with his family and animals to save from extinction (that his family is composed of 8 is also a recurrent pattern). The waters drown humanity but the ship is swept up to the side of a mountain where the flood hero worships and begins to repopulate the earth.
An interesting detail that often gets overlooked is that in many of these accounts, the hero also becomes the inventor (and in some instances the deity) of wine. In Genesis, Noah becomes the first to disgrace himself with alcohol. According to Richard Barnett:
“The fame of Urartian wine (it seems) had even reached the distant Hebrews in ancient Palestine, where its invention in Armenia was projected back to dimmest antiquity, as witnessed by their story of Noah disgraced by drunkenness on Mount Ararat. Indeed the wine grape, vitis vinifera, from which the cultured vine is derived, is believed to have originated nearby in the Caucasus region near the Caspian.”
The flood legends are almost universal to ancient cultures around the world. Obviously, the Hebrew and Christian version is the story of Noah. Sumeria produced the Ziusudra Epic. The Deucalion Legend comes from Greek mythology. From India comes the Manu Legend. Flood tales are found in China and even from the ancient Mayans, on the other side of the world. The most famous one after Noah is the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, which also most closely resembles Genesis, with the flood hero sending out a dove to see if the waters have receded. In all likelihood, the name “Noah” is borrowed from the Gilgamesh hero (a hypocoristicon of Ut-Nua-Pish-Tim). The oldest flood legend is probably the Atrahasis Epic, from Lower Mesopotamia. And here’s our first clue to get us closer to the actual flood around which these stories are based.
Granted, I’m biased as a Christian, but I find the traditional archaeological explanation for these coincidences lacking. The general narrative is that the flood stories are all borrowed from one another, while at the same time being based on different local floods. For example, a deluge striking Babylon inspired the Gilgamesh epic, while the details of the story are borrowed from other cultures. It’s often assumed that the Shurupak flood inspired the Atrahasis epic, which is the first example of the tale emerging from the ancient world.
I think this is wrong because it violates the principle that the simplest explanation is almost always the right explanation. Taken at face value, it’s kind of discombobulated and gives a more complicated solution than is necessary. There’s also a fatal flaw in the Shurupak claim: it’s a bit detailed for me to get into here without going off topic, but in chapter 5 of Legend: The Genesis of Civilization, David Rohl explains that the Atrahasis Epic actually predates the Shurupak flood.
However, while the Atrahasis version is the oldest flood legend, it’s not the oldest historical reference to the flood itself. As far as we have found, that prize goes to the Sumerian King List, which is on display at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. Translated by Thorkild Jacobson in 1939 and dating to around the early eighteenth century BC (end of the Isin Dynasty), this clay prism lists two of the first kings of Mesopotamia (Alulim and Alalgar), then casually states “Then the flood swept thereover.” So this is a sign that very far back in Middle Eastern history, the great deluge was considered a historical event.
The simplest explanation is that a real catastrophe of epic proportions nearly wiped out early Mesopotamian civilization, which serves as the historical basis for the flood legends. The next question is whether we can find evidence of such a disaster.
In 1929, legendary British archaeologist Charles Leonard Woolly made an amazing discovery in the ruins of Ur (the city of Abraham): a massive alluvian silt deposit. The strata ranges in depth from 8 to 11 feet (even a really bad flood will only leave a silt deposit of a few inches at the most). No other deposits from the ancient world have come as close in size and scope to this monstrosity; it is likely the worst flood that the human race ever encountered. The broken remnants of the earliest primitive Ubaid period settlements were found buried underneath it. Woolly (who was known for being somewhat theatrical) proudly proclaimed that he had found Noah’s flood, and dated the cataclysmic event at about 3100 BC.
His colleagues later disputed his claim, citing that it didn’t coincide with traditional Biblical dating (which would place the flood about a thousand years later, in the early 2000s BC). Woolly himself conceded as much, and the matter has rarely been brought back up since. However, according to Rohl, this flood needs to be re-examined as a candidate for the Biblical deluge. For one, unlike the Shurupak flood, this one is older than any flood legends. For another, this one was so gigantic that it would have easily been large enough to submerge all of at least Mesopotamia, with a water level deep enough to cover mountains, and bring early man to near destruction.
With the help of geologic history, we can even determine its cause. A massive volcanic eruption from the Aleutian Islands, possibly larger than any in modern recorded history, shattered the earth in 3119 BC, spewing billions of tons of ash into the air and blotting out the sun, triggering a mini-ice age. The Atrahasis Epic describes 6 years of severe cold that destroyed crops and brought famine that led people to resort to cannibalism: “When the second year arrived, they had depleted the storehouse. When the third year arrived, the people’s looks were changed by starvation. When the third year arrived, they served up a daughter for a meal, then served up a son for food.”
When the sun finally penetrated the dark clouds, the global temperature skyrocketed again and started a disastrous chain of events. Melting glaciers caused the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to swell and charged rapidly south. At the same time, the sudden heating of the atmosphere triggered an apocalyptic storm as frozen sulfuric crystals dissolved and fell to Earth. The Bible tells us that the “fountains of the deep opened up,” and it’s entirely possible that a giant underwater earthquake in the ocean could have triggered a tsunami from the South (this will explain the direction the ark was carried in). A perfect combination of elements had conspired to bring a flood the likes of which the world has never seen, wiping out everything in its path: towns, villages, farms and livestock. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered (Genesis 7:19-20). All that was left behind were the broken remnants of a failed civilization buried underneath a silt deposit that would not be seen again until 1928.
By the way, you may have heard that Robert Ballard (the same guy who discovered the Titanic) has proposed an alternate explanation for the flood legends. In 1999, he came forward with the claim that the creation of the Black Sea was the inspiration for the tale of Noah. According to his theory, this vast body of water was a small freshwater lake in a large fertile basin about 8,000 years ago, when suddenly a natural disaster caused a sudden inflow of salt water. Early humans who fled the incoming deluge concocted the story of the ark.
The problem with this it that the geologic event is far too early to line up with the Biblical timeline. It was also a slow-moving influx of water that probably took place over four decades. So with the Woolly flood in mind, I don’t think we have anything of any relevance in the Black Sea theory.
Since I’m satisfied that we’ve established the flood as a real historical event, the only question now is, was the flood hero and the ark real?
In most minds, “the ark” is synonymous with “Mount Ararat,” based on this scripture: And the ark rested in the seventh month, and the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 7:4). The quest has become as bizarre and fantastical as the tale of Noah itself. Two Russian pilots during World War I claimed to have discovered it and in the 70s, Jimmy’s Carter’s presidential staff allegedly spotted it while flying over Ararat in Air Force One. Governments have released satellite images and maps of the mountain, mostly showing nothing. Even a former Baywatch actress has nearly died in her attempts to locate it.
Our first problem, however, may be the location. Pay careful attention to the wording of verse 4: mountains (plural) of Ararat. “Mount Ararat” (real name Agri Dagh) does consist of two peaks; however, it wasn’t given that name until the thirteenth century by European explorers. Ever since, Agri Dagh has become an enduring pop culture icon as the Biblical site of Genesis 7:4. It is also the biggest obstacle to locating the real ruins of Noah’s ark.
In the Bible, “Ararat” is actually a translation of “Urartu,” a large area of land that includes the Zagros Mountain range. It’s unlikely that Genesis is specifically referring to Agri Dagh, which is why obsessive hunts for the ark have amounted to little more than wild goose chases.
But we do have clues from other ancient texts to help narrow our search. For thousands of years, Christians, Jews, and Muslims identified a different slope as the Mountain of Descent. Seventeen miles southwest of Ararat is a slightly smaller peak known as Judi Dagh. Mount Judi had been recognized as the mountain of the ark dating back almost to the flood itself until the unfortunate “Mount Ararat” misconception of the thirteenth century. Here are some of the many ancient historical references that site the decaying ruins of a giant shipwreck on the slopes of the mountain:
Babylonian historian Berossus (3rd century BC): “A portion of the ship, which came to rest in Armenia, still remains in the mountains of the Korduaians of Armenia, and some of the people, scraping off pieces of bitumen from the ship, bring them back and use them as talismans (this is very significant, because it coincides with Genesis 6:14: Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. “Bitumen” was often used in fashioning boats in the ancient world to prevent leaking, but is only produced in swampy lowlands. If bitumen was located on mount Judi as Berossus claimed, it would be hundreds of miles from any nearby sources).”
From Louis Ginzberg’s Legend of the Jews: “On his return to Assyria, Sennacherib found a plank, which he worshipped as an idol, because it was part of the ark which had saved Noah from the deluge. He vowed that he would sacrifice his sons to this idol if he prospered in his next ventures. But his sons heard his vows, and they killed their father, and fled to Kardu, where they released the Jewish captives confined therein great numbers.”
Ibn Haukal, 10th century Muslim geographer: “Judi is on a mountain near Nisibis. It is said that the ark of Noah (peace be upon him) rested on the summit of the mountain.” (Nesibin is north-west of Mosul).
Eutychus of Alexandria, 9th century Christian bishop: “The ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, that is Gebel Judi, near Mosul.”
The Nestorian Christians built the “cloister of the ark” monastery on Judi Dagh.
The Quran labels Judi Dagh as the mountain of the ark in Sura 11:44: “And the word was spoken: ‘O earth! swallow up thy waters! And, O sky, cease [thy rain]!’ And the water sank into the earth, and the will [of God] was done, and the ark came to rest on Al-Judi. And the word was spoken: ‘Away with these evil doing folk!’”
A tribe near the mountain called the Yezidis may have even been a living link to the antediluvian period. In 1846, Sir Austen Henry Layard described their annual pilgrimages to the sight of the ark where he learned of their ancient legends that eerily match the stories of Genesis. They claimed to be descendants of Noah, and worshiped a vulture-like god they described as a fallen being with many names, including “Lasifarus” (Lucifer) and “Shaitan” (Satan). Ancient Yezidi tales even described fallen heavenly beings who mated with humans and gave birth to giants!
If we’re to believe the Atrahasis Epic is reliable, being the oldest legend, then the flood hero constructed the ark near the city of Eridu (coastal at the time; today, its ruins are far inland due to changing sea levels). This means that as the tidal wave came, the raging torrent swept the ark upward at a journey of about 500 miles before depositing it on the slopes of Judi Dagh. Putting the puzzle pieces together, the Woolly flood is the only one in history large enough to carry the ship that far.
Remember when I mentioned earlier that the ancient Mayans had a flood legend of their own? If you look at the date they gave it according to their calendar, you can place it around 3100 BC, near the exact time as the Woolly flood!
I think the evidence is sufficient to call the Great Flood a fact of human history. I am also satisfied that the evidence is sufficient to support at least the basics of the Genesis story, that a real person built large wooden ship to save himself, his family, and animals from certain annihilation. If I didn’t believe in God, however, I would still be at a loss to explain how he knew the deluge was coming. Fortunately, I feel we have a great explanation in the Word of God: But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD (Genesis 6:8).
But what of the symbolism? That is, the world was covered with water in Genesis 1, the land emerged from the sea, then drowned back into the water to purify it from sinful humanity. It’s almost like a death and rebirth cycle that plays out in the early Biblical narrative. The only question is what the exact relationship between history and symbolic events is. By exploring the natural causes and archaeological evidence, I don’t intend to diminish from the meaning of the flood tale with regards to the Bible. Fortunately, we serve a God who is so great and mighty that He can structure real historical events and then present them in a way that has powerful symbolism that resonates with us forever!
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Sources:
-Rohl, David. From Eden to Exile: The 5,000-Year History of the People of the Bible. Lebanon, TN: Greenleaf Press, 2002, page 49-55.
-Tenny, Merrill C., ed. Pictorial Bible Dictionary. Nashville: The Southwestern Company, 1968, Page 285.
-Rohl, David. “Mountain of the Ark.” March 24, 2012. Davidrohl.blogspot.com, accessed March 17, 2017.
- Feiler, Bruce. Walking the Bible: A Journey By Land Through the Five Books of Moses. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2002, page 25.
-Rohl, David. Legend: The Genesis of Civiliziation. London, Random House Group, 1998, pages 141, 148, 155, 157
Thank you! Even if I don't change anyone's minds, that's at least what I'm going for...
I believe you're already on it.
I have been aware of The Flood narrative in many ancient cultures, but I have yet to see where the Egyptians have a record of it. The Egyptians were pretty far along with their civilization by the time this author claims when The Flood occurred. The Great Pyramid dates to 2650 BC...lots of hieroglyph-ing going on then, too.
I find it odd.
I think it’s important to understand that;
Just because something happened a long time ago, it doesn’t mean it took a long time to happen.
That is why I called out the person flipping the question. The underlying idea, that 8 people of 1 race could result in 3 separate races in only 3000 years time.
Another question.
Noah took at least 2 of each animal on earth to save. If that is the case, why is it that the 2 kangaroos he saved only exist 9000 miles in Australia? Ditto for Koala bears.
Why did the 2 Tasmanian Devils he brought back only exist on that island?
Why is it the Giant Panda is only found 4000 miles away in Western China? I mean, Noah opens the doors to the Ark 7 months after the rain begins, and 5000 years later, all the Giant Pandas in the world have migrated to Western China. Nowhere else.
I could go on and on with Bengal tigers and African elephants and so on.
Mighty neat trick that all these animals walked off the Ark 4500 years ago and and all gathered in one spot on the globe and nowhere else.
OK, last question about the great flood.
The flood covered the entire earth. That’s a lot of water. Now, when all that water covered the earth, it spread salt water to all the fresh water lakes, rivers, and estuaries of the planet.
We know that Noah did not take any fish on the ark. Just land animals.
So somebody please explain to me how all the fresh water fish and amphibians on the planet survived 7 months being subjected to salt water. Fresh water fish cannot survive salt water. There are only a handful of species that can survive in both environments, such as the bull shark and the saltwater crocodile.
I mean, how did all those bass and sturgeon and trout survive the great flood for 7 months living in salt water.
Oh, I know! “With God all things are possible”. So just magically, all of the laws of physics, biology, climatology, and physiology were just “magically” suspended for the 7 months the Ark was afloat and a long period of recovery afterward.
So 8 people produced 3 different races of man in only 3000 years. The Ark had room for 950,000 species of insect along with all the other various species of animals on the planet. They took no birds but the birds magically lived with no land access for food for 7 months. When the Ark finally landed aground, every species of the earth decided to just migrate to special places on the earth rather than fairly widely distributed over the globe. Yet all the freshwater fish on earth magically survived 7 months in salt water.
Got it. It’s magic.
It is my understanding that God wanted to wipe clean the entire population from man and start over again with just Noah. Just 8 people - a righteous man, his wife, and descendants. The ultimate reset.
If the flood was local to the middle east, then it would not have drowned anyone outside the middle east, such as the Chinese. If God’s purpose was to extinguish all man but Noah’s immediate family, then he would not have spared the Chines.
How does Egypt play into the great flood and the Ark.
Egyptian history begins around 3150 BC, or 150 years before the earliest speculated date for the great flood and Noah’s Ark.
So how did all Egyptians drown in the great flood, but continue their rich history right through that period without skipping a beat. Did Noah repopulate Egypt and just by magic, they reverted back to being Egyptian people doing what Egyptian people do with their hundreds of gods. Was their something in the water of Egypt that caused Noah’s single God people to revert back into worshiping myriads of crasy gods?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Ballard didn't play any role in the investigation. Since he was primarily looking for well-preserved ancient vessels +-below the anoxia layer, he agreed to look for remains of human habitations after Ryan's and Pitman's stuff came out.
Similarly, he'd found the Titanic by compleing a covert contract search for the DoD (he found the U.S.S. Thresher and U.S.S. Scorpion, then all involved used the Titanic as a cover for the entire thing). In the Black Sea search, they'd ID'd some search points using sonar, then would visit using their robotic submersible. They found their Dark Ages wreck on the last day -- masts intact and pointing toward the surface.
One general problem with identifying the Black Sea flood with the Noachian Flood is, there have been a lot of different massive floods, they've all had unique causes, and have all happened at different times and in different places.
A more specific problem is that after R&P's Black Sea flood took place, the old shoreline never reemerged.
But hey, I'm not trying to be difficult, I just am difficult. :^)
Not sure if you mentioned the Sumerian King List, but that lists kings before and after the Flood (explicitly) and similiarly to the Old Testament lists huge long lifespans. I suspect the number confusion is due to the unavailability of a lexicon for each city-state's number notation system (the Sumerians didn't have a number system per se, which is odd, because the cuneiform writing system was probably developed out of a need to keep an accounting system), such that the compiler of the list interpreted the use of reign lengths based on his own city's use.
It is couched in unsupportable assumptions when dealing with “origins.”
The fact of the creation of the universe is hung on a logical postulate: “Something” cannot result from “Nothing.”
Science can be a useful tool, as long as one recognizes its impenetrable limitations.
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There has never been any question RE: the flood in the minds of honest logical observers. The strong evidence for it covers the entire globe.
The Ark was found over 20 years ago along with its trail of anchor stones, by the late Ron Wyatt and his sons, in the mountains of Turkey. There is no question that it is a wooden ship, and local cultural evidence indicates that natives of the location have known that it is the Ark for millennia.
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>> “If the flood was local to the middle east, then it would not have drowned anyone outside the middle east, such as the Chinese.” <<
Other than the fact that the Ark is not in the “Middle East,” but in Turkey, your statement is correct.
Why would anyone wish to ignore global evidence, and assume a “local” flood?
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I'm the iconoclast sort, who doesn't necessarily subscribe to any particular school of thought or dogma, religious, scientific, or otherwise. Some things I agree with - many I do not.
“Something” cannot result from “Nothing.”
On that matter, I hew towards the supernatural. Matter, energy, and space cannot create themselves. I believe that they were thought into existence by someone(s).
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>> “ Matter, energy, and space cannot create themselves.” <<
Neither could time!
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There is nothing in the Bible stating that they were all one race. Furthermore some 1500+ years had already passed since Adam and Eve.
Assigning age to anything greater than 6000 years has no scientific basis either. Our historical artifacts and documents don’t support longer ages. Neither does scientific methodology where these things are observable, measured and repeatable.
Been corrected, Black sea. Thx. Like my history accurate.
There’s never been any question that there’s zero physical evidence of a worldwide flood.
No, the Ark has not been found, and it wasn’t found over 20 years ago. There’s a geological formation that is entirely natural, and that’s all that it is. That you say otherwise just shows you can’t be trusted.
Ron Wyatt’s geological formation:
https://wyattmuseum.com/wyatt/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/RONARK-Large-660x330.jpg
In the last ten years an evangelical group from China claimed to have been inside the Ark, even took photos of one alleged interior room, and in a “cattle stall” there was even some 1000s of years old straw Noah’s cattle laid on. It was of course a humbug, apparently built by some PT Barnum wannabee who lived in the area, and he knew an easy mark when he saw it.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Noah%27s+Ark+Ministries+site:freerepublic.com
A friend of mine posted a recent chat on her YouTube channel with an orthodox professor of Biblical studies who doesn't believe the first 11 chapters of Genesis should be taken literally. While he still maintains to be a Christian, he believes that the Garden of Eden, the flood, and the tower of Babel are myths that God used as symbols of his relationship with man.
Regarding Noah's ark, I regard that as a late introduction during one of the edits done to Biblical texts. As someone pointed out earlier, the Egyptian civ including its writing system had been around a while by the purported time of Noah, and the Giza pyramids date from about the time of his supposed flood. Even though the Egyptians must have all died in the flood, someone took over and picked up exactly where the deceased Egyptians left off, right down to the system of writing and their polytheistic religion. The usual way this is (poorly and partially) dealt wiith is to claim, quite ludicrously, that there were no writing systems prior to the flood, and that all inscriptions either postdate the flood, or are hoaxes.
The real event, the one that made such a deep impression on the Hebrews, is not the flood, but The Deluge. The great rain is the common story that survives in folklore and ancient religious works from outsiide the Biblical tradition. And trying to integrate claims that the flood story is universal runs aground, as it were, on the fact that there are not always survivors in the other flood stories (at least one from Precolumbian America), but even when there are, their tale of adversity is always quite different. There's no common righteous man aspect to the tales, at all. What it says is, there were survivors other than Noah and family, and they weren't all in the Middle East, and they didn't necessarily save any animals, and they didn't all build watercraft.
In 1929, legendary British archaeologist Charles Leonard Wooll[e]y made an amazing discovery in the ruins of Ur (the city of Abraham): a massive alluvian silt deposit. The strata ranges in depth from 8 to 11 feet (even a really bad flood will only leave a silt deposit of a few inches at the most).
If that had been anything other than a local event, it would have been discovered at the same level in every Sumerian city, indeed, would be diagnostic for dating purposes. It wasn't found, still hasn't been found. It was just a local flood of a city rather carelessly built in a flood plain. One version of this claims the layer is 334 METERS thick, and of clay. By and large (including in Woolley's acc't) it's silt, was laid down all at once, and is a few meters (between 3 and 4 meters) thick.
Woolley later retracted his identification of the Flood stratum, arguing that the deposit was too old to have resulted from the Biblical Deluge. The Ur-Flood? Uncovering the Deluge | Molly Dewsnap Meinhardt | Biblical Archaeology Review
As far as we have found, that prize goes to the Sumerian King List, which is on display at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. Translated by Thorkild Jacobson in 1939 and dating to around the early eighteenth century BC (end of the Isin Dynasty), this clay prism lists two of the first kings of Mesopotamia (Alulim and Alalgar), then casually states “Then the flood swept thereover.” So this is a sign that very far back in Middle Eastern history, the great deluge was considered a historical event.
The king list also attempts to establish a sequential history, where each great city has a turn as capital, as if of a single Sumerian empire. The problem is, the kings of different cities have been found to have been contemporaries, meaning the dynasties were contemporary here and there. Also, there's never been a time when a single human lived 50,000 years -- but if there had been, the dating of the flood becomes a big mess. It also isn't compatible with a 6022 year old Biblical creation.
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