by echoe » 18 Dec 2010, 03:20
I remember some news articles that a professor passed along. Of course there were floods in the Mediterranean regions. In any place that has water. If we look to the bible, it's best to remember that it's pieces of memories. It's not the whole world. i'd believe that some guy was crazy enough to gather what animals he could, but not all, heck how was he gonna collect one each of the male or female versions of lions and tigers and bears without getting a lot of people killed? I believe there was a narrative of a flood that happened in the "world" they perceived, because they didn't realize there was a whole lot of more world than they'd recorded.
Okay, anyway... the articles passed along, they were about (the professor's dad was an archeologist and he was a professor of history) a Greek Island which is still there today. It linked the possibllity that this was the Atlantis, that everyone talked about as the middle of the large island was volcanic and it both exploded and then imploded sinking into the sea and taking a lot of people right along with it. Well, the timing of the volcanic eruption was actually recorded by the Egyptians, who saw it across the mediterranean because it burned that brightly. These were a people they'd traded with, so also in the heiroglyphics (the Egyptians were historians as well) and when the vocano had finally died down enough, they found no one any longer on the island. I'm sorry, I can't remember the name of the island, but nowadays, it's not uncommon for donkeys walking along with burdens to fall into a "cavern" which was once the house and room dated from the time of that volcanic eruption. Along with the eruption, came a huge tsunami that hit the entire mediterranean area. Well, let's just say it also conveniently hits the time period IF Moses existed that he would have been leaving Egypt, during Ramses. (the Egyptians may not have recorded it because they lost, but they did not record anything about Moses or the Jews leaving.) The tsunami took several days after the volcanic eruption was recorded. But ash (manna? Volcanic ash is also high in mineral content.) was also all over the place, in every region people were having trouble breathing and they were dying due to the ash in the lungs.
Does the tsunami also offer the possibility of an explanation for Moses having parted the waters? Plenty ot other explanations offered towards that too. But well, I figure Noah probably built an ark. I think he only took his kids and wife and the kids' wives, and only a few animals. Which nowadays would seem foolish as we don't know what we'd introduce in a new region. And realy, Turkey? Guy didn't get very far did he? For a world flood that is. What's it take to sail across the Atlantic? (I have no idea that, but it would seem not 40 days???) You'd think a sudden flood like that would cause at least SOME propulsion. Major lack of navigation skills there.
There are also stories of a flood in the Bretagne region of Mt. Saint Michel. It is said that it used to be a mountain, hence the name, and that there were huge and vast forests in the region, but that one day, around 500 BCE there was a huge roar and the sea rolled in covering all but that tiny tip of the mounain in sea sludge and erasing the whole forest and all of the people who lived there. I think these things are certainly possible even though we may not have proof of them.
I kind of chuckle at the perception of "world" from the earliest of days. The Europeans were blissfully ignorant of the existence of the Americas, but the Vikings weren't. The Chinese and the Mongols weren't. Native Americans weren't. Yet we chart the "discovery" of the Americas with Columbus missing his compass readings and probably drinking a LOT on that trip. I'd hazard an educated guess that Noah didn't realize that there was more than the Mediterranean region.
