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Posted on 12/10/2008 10:53:09 AM PST by Between the Lines
A deluge that swept the Land of Israel more than 7,000 years ago, submerging six Neolithic villages opposite the Carmel Mountains, is the origin of the biblical flood of Noah, a British marine archeologist said Tuesday.
The new theory about the source of the great flood detailed in the Book of Genesis comes amid continuing controversy among scholars over whether the inundation of the Black Sea more than seven millennia ago was the biblical flood.
In the theory posited by British marine archeologist Dr. Sean Kingsley and published in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society, the drowning of the Carmel Mountains villages - which include houses, temples, graves, water wells, workshops and stone tools - is by far "the most compelling" archeological evidence exposed to date for Noah's flood.
"What's more convincing scientifically, a flood in the Black Sea, so far away from Israel and the fantasy of a supposed ark marooned on the slopes of Mount Ararat, or six submerged Neolithic villages smack-bang in the middle of the Bible Land?" Kingsley said in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post.
He added that the site, which has been excavated by Israeli archeologist Dr. Ehud Galili over the last quarter-century, offers a "pretty convincing cocktail of coincidences," including submerged layers of villages in a critical location, and one that was known for its nautical revolution.
But Galili rejected Kingsley's theory, saying Tuesday that it could not be true.
"Based on our archeological finds, the village was not abandoned due to a catastrophic event, but due to the slow rise of sea levels which occurred all over the world," he said. "The pace of the increase in the sea level was very slow, so that it would not be significant enough for people to remember it in the course of their lifetime."
Galili noted that, following the major tsunami that hit Asia, there was a scientific trend in the world to hunt for mega-disasters that happened in the past.
"We did not find any proofs which indicate that a tsunami or other such catastrophe flooded the villages, even though there are proofs that a tsunami did occur in the Mediterranean Sea," he said.
Kingsley, a self-declared atheist, said he had begun studying the origins of Noah's flood five years ago as a result of his interest into "how mythologies came into existence," as well as a desire to connect the biblical story with global warming.
The alternate theory that the inundation of the Black Sea around 5,600 BCE was the source of the biblical flood is called into question by the fact that no villages, houses, cemeteries or graves have ever been found under its waves, Kingsley said.
Scholars agree the Black Sea flooded when rising world sea levels caused the Mediterranean to burst over land, turning the freshwater lake into a saltwater sea. The flood was so monstrous that it raised water levels by 155 meters and submerged up to 150,000 square kilometers of land.
But scholars are divided on when the flood occurred, and how rapidly. Most believe it took place about 9,000 years ago and was gradual.
The date of the massive flooding on the Carmel Coast, which Kingsley estimates to have taken place between the sixth and fifth millennia BCE, is another unknown.
"The precise timing of this localized flooding is still being worked out, but there is no doubt that the villages of the Carmel were lost not to earthquakes or tectonic movements but to killer waves," Kingsley said.
The lost villages cluster opposite the Carmel Mountains in depths of 12 meters. Atlit-Yam, 10 meters south of Haifa, is the largest submerged Neolithic village in the Mediterranean Sea.
Kingsley's theory about the origin of Noah's flood, an independent archeologist said, is interesting but dubious.
"Whether or not one can make a direct link between the biblical story and the submerged Neolithic sites is doubtful," said Prof. Shimon Gibson, an archeologist with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "But it does show that episodes of substantial flooding did occur in these parts of the world and that that kind of fear would have existed within the cultural conscientiousness [sic] of ancient peoples.
"The bottom line," he concluded, "is that overall evidence of [a] world submerged in flood does not exist."
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I wonder if Noah golfed? LOL. Interesting article.
If the flood wasn’t world-wide and supernatural in origin, then Genesis isn’t true.
It wouldn’t surprise me, there is alot of history in the bible. The myth probably started with an actual flood or tsunami. Didn’t they recently find Sodom and Gomorrah?
do you think he'll ever find that connection between global warming and how mythologies come into existence? I think he's on to something.
the Lord works in mysterious ways...say evolution perhaps. Just like the Pope tells me.
There's some debate among theologians whether the flood was geographically universal or anthropologically universal. It could have submerged all the areas that humankind lived at the time without being global in scope. The Hebrew word used (eretz, I think?) is like English "land", and can refer to the whole earth or a portion thereof.
It's clear the Med region has experienced a great many flood-like events, from tsunamis caused by volcanic eruptions (Santorini) to prehistoric "global warming" when the Pleistocene ice sheets melted and raised sea levels. Untangling the very complex past from current-day geological clues is a difficult and very long-term project.
No, it was global and no one knows what the land completely looked like back then or where “the fountains of the deep” sprouted from.
It’s literally true, but one has to know what it is about.
Multiple thread instances should be merged.
“Based on” an Assyrian epic I’m not sure of. I’ve done a little textual analysis in my day and you can usually tell when one text is based on another because it preserves certain idiosyncracies of the original. Like, you make a mistake and then I just copy the mistake.
There are obvious similarities between the two stories, but to my eye it looks more like they were both independent traditions that preserve an original, probably oral account of the event. And believing as I do in the infallibility of the Sacred Word, I know which account is correct. :)
But yeah, trying to attach this all to geological events is hugely difficult. I wish people would just keep their powder dry and not rush off to adopt wildly speculative theories to prove or disprove the Bible. Let’s make sure we have our exegesis right, and let’s make sure we have our geology right, and the rest will follow.
Then the whole animals on the ark thing was unnecessary
Good advice, Claud.
:’) thanks BtL!
Did Noah’s Flood start in the Carmel?
The Jerusalem Post | 10 Dec 2008 | Etgar Lefkovits
Posted on 12/10/2008 9:25:29 AM PST by BGHater
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2146233/posts
Did Noah’s Flood start in the Carmel?
Jerusalem Post | December 10, 2008 | Etgar Lefkovits
Posted on 12/10/2008 9:29:13 AM PST by NYer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2146237/posts
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“It could have submerged all the areas that humankind lived at the time without being global in scope.”
“Then the whole animals on the ark thing was unnecessary”
And maybe the people on the ark thing was also unnecessary. After all, even on foot, I reckon one could cover a considerable distance in 120 years!
A fair point, but there are problems with the other view as well, namely that freshwater fish would have died in saltwater and vice versa. And then there's the problem of getting all the species on the ark.
Complicated matter, overall; I don't pretend to know the answer but the question intrigues me.
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