In 1963 I attended Sir George Williams University in Montreal as an adult student. Adult Student was a code word for this guy never went to high school or never completed high school. I majored in Geography because I was good at shading maps. I took two important courses back then which led me to write this blog today: geomorphology and glaciation. Understanding these scientific principles directed me to a fuller understanding of Noah and his story. The question is: did the flood Noah and his family endured in Genesis actually happen?
During the last ice age glaciers covered almost one-third of Earth's land mass, with the result being the oceans were about 400 feet (122 meters) lower than they are today. During the last global "warm spell," about 125,000 years ago, the seas were about 18 feet (5.5. meters) higher than they are now. As a matter of interest, people lived where the English Channel and the Mediterranean Sea are today before they were then flooded. There is also compelling evidence that there was a natural dam across the entrance to the Black Sea which held back millions of gallons of water from the Mediterranean Sea. The dam suddenly gave way allowing a massive flood of water which flooded where people lived. The Mediterranean stories of a flood like Noah’s have an excellent historical origin. Christians who are more fundamental accept the story of the Great Flood as a tale which cast Noah and God as a team to save all the good of the world. A story of a flood like this is incorporated into every faith boarding on the Mediterranean Sea. In Greek mythology, Zeus decided to destroy all life with a flood. The king Deucalion was charged with building a boat. The religions of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers also had a flood story. Stories like Noah’s are by a group of civilizations who would have suffered from extensive flooding at some point in their collective history. At this point I would like to talk about civilization and glaciers. The last continental glacier melted over the course of thousands of years, finishing up about 10000 years ago. Civilization – an advanced state of human society - was born in three places in the world: The Fertile Crescent which included Mesopotamia to Egypt (approx. 8000 BCE), Central America (approx. 8000 BCE), and Yellow River in China (5000 BCE). Writing was an invention of civilization; prior to this, the only way to communicate history was orally. Our ancient brothers and sisters needed a way to explain the misconstrued happenings of history. The puzzling question of who we are and how we came to be here is answered in Genesis 1. Adam (meaning earth or soil) and Eve (life) filled the void of ignorance until the science of Darwin began modern history. Bishop Ussher began his timeline of the world calculation by adding the ages of the twenty-one generations of people of the Hebrew-derived Old Testament, beginning with Adam and Eve. He calculated the first day of creation to be October 23, 4004 BCE. What evidence is there that melting glaciers had anything to do with Noah and his flood? Nothing specific. However, in a time when oral tradition was the only way to communicate history, the records of sea rising would have carried over hundreds of years by one generation to another and remembered through oral history. There is one catastrophic event in the Middle East which may explain the flood, as I alluded to before. The melt water from the glaciers raised the ocean levels including in the Mediterranean Sea. At that time, about 9000 years ago, the channel between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (known today as the Bosphorus Strait) was still an earthen dam. Under the weight of the glacial melt water, the dam gave way and sent millions of litres of water into the Black Sea. This event may have been the seed of the Noah Story. Let’s look at Noah’s journey. Prior to Noah being chosen to lead the rescue of two of all creatures, he was the only righteous man in God’s kingdom. Noah found favour in the sight of the Lord. So, Noah built an ark to hold the animals of the earth. When the rains came, the ark floated and began its 40-day journey. Now we need to understand that whenever 40 is used in the scriptures, it means an estimated time, not a literal time. For example, 40 days means a long time. Forty years means a really long time. There was no rudder in the ark so Noah was at the mercy of the winds and currents. He was there but going nowhere. Life is like that for some people including the people left on the earth after the rains commenced. We have never found the remains of his ark.
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AuthorI'm Rev. Dr. Pirie Mitchell and I live in Ontario, Canada. Archives
May 2023
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