The Evidence for Noah's Flood

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!

-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

You guys bombarded me with stuff here so after spending time with family last night (Mother's Day) and a busy work day today, I'm going to attempt to respond to both of you at once. Wish me luck.

First of all, SunkenCiv, my original post has gotten some mixed responses. Mostly, people are judging it on the title alone and then knocking down a "global flood" straw man, if you will. I thank you for not doing that but I still have a strange feeling you haven't read the blog in its entirety, because I did acknowledge some issues you brought up. For example:

Woolley later retracted his identification of the Flood stratum, arguing that the deposit was too old to have resulted from the Biblical Deluge.

...which is a point I brought up. My claim isn't that Woolly factually found "Noah's Flood," it's that his discovery needs to be re-examined as a potential candidate for the real event that the flood legends sprang from. In archaeology, when a theory is abandoned, it's rarely brought up again; but I think to do so in this case would be a fruitful exercise.

One version of this claims the layer is 334 METERS thick, and of clay.

I made no such claims. I've got a diagram from Woolly's own notebook; the flood strata averages about 8 feet deep (11 feet in some areas). That doesn't sound like much until you consider that this alone is the deposit of silt, indicating a water level above of several metric tons compacting it down, and the shattered ruins of a late Ubaid-period settlement buried underneath. What's especially noteworthy is that the pottery beneath indicates a late Ubaid settlement but the pottery sherds above indicate an early Uruk period civilization. This is a telling sign at just how catastrophic this particular flood was.

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.

This is a premature conclusion to jump to. You yourself said that this city was built precariously in a low-lying flood plain. Fair enough. But that to me is the best reason why it's the only place we have found a silt deposit. Evidence for floods, even destructive ones, is surprisingly hard to find. Water is precariously unpredictable and the results of raging torrents can be hard to pinpoint. Different cities in different elevations or with different topographies can have smaller deposits from the same flood, or none at all after this many thousands of years, depending on the circumstances. The question is from Ur, based on the depth of the silt strata, how big was this deluge? Woolly, after admitting it wasn't a global flood, still calculated it to have a 400 mile horizon. This would be easily large enough to cover most of Mesopotamia in the late Ubaid period. In fact, one of the tells to me that this might be the Biblical deluge is that *IF* the ark was real, it was transported 4-500 miles from Lower Mesopotamia to come to rest on the slopes of Mount Judi. And to date, Woolly's flood is the only one large enough to accomplish the task. Now imagine the effects this monstrosity would have on the late Ubaid period people as we know them. I don't find it at all implausible that this would be the real-life origin of the flood legends!

There's no common righteous man aspect to the tales, at all.

This is again a too extreme position to take. Certainly there isn't a righteous man in EVERY tale, but NONE of them? The Ziusudra epic, Atrahasis epic, Gilgamesh epic, Deucalion legend, and Noah story all tell strikingly similar stories of a righteous man saving his family and animals from the wrath of the gods on a wooden ship! And as I mentioned, another peculiar detail is in how many of them involve the flood hero becoming associated with wine in the aftermath.

In the end, I still have trouble believing that a real historical flood didn't inspire the different ancient legends, at least in regards to the civilizations to emerge from the Middle Eastern region.

Now, on to the dating and the flood's relationship with Egypt, where I'm going to open up a whole new can of worms...

Now, let me try to address the dating issue. Freedom brought it up first.

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.

I've researched Biblical archaeology for about 2 and a half years and taught a 12 part series on it at my church. And one of my conclusions is that the origins of Egypt play into some great misconceptions.

First is your date. It's part of the traditional chronology of Egypt (Ian Shaw), but a newly revised chronology has been proposed by David Rohl. Rohl's timeline hasn't gained widespread acceptance yet, but most archaeologist are sympathetic to his premise (the chronology needs reworking) but aren't willing to take it as far as he has. His book series, including Legend: The Genesis of Civilization and A Test of Time are very engrossing reads.

According to Rohl's proposal, we've placed the dawn of Egypt too early by about 230 years. He submits a new date of 2770 for at least the dawn of the first Pharaonic dynasty. He also makes the case that the events of Genesis have been mistranslated and that they play an intimate role in the dawn of Egypt. For example, "Babel" in Genesis is actually the Sumerian city of Eridu, the dispersement of which led to the Great Sumerian Migration in the following centuries.

One of the most intriguing claims he makes in the book is that the origins of Egypt are also misrepresented by the history books. We've long understood that the Egyptians were an indigenous people who one day just became civilized. But according to the discovery at Site 26 in the Valley of the Square Boat people (named after the ancient rock graffiti scrawled on the walls), the dynastic race were Sumerian conquerors who slaughtered the indigenous people and founded Egypt in a genocide not unlike the Europeans' arrival in the Americas. The reason this never gained widespread acceptance is because it makes people uncomfortable to think of ancient Egypt; the fact that Site 26 was found in the World War II era didn't help. But the evidence is there nonetheless.

My point being that if Woolly's deluge is the great flood at 3100 BC, that predates the Pharaohs by about 400 years.

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.

Of course it's a mess, but while I acknowledge that the Sumerian King List exaggerates the ages of its kings, it still shouldn't be discounted as a historical tool in at least figuring out the order of the Sumerian kings. In fact, an open mind can see the Biblical synchronisms: Genesis tells us that Cush was the first king of Babel after the flood, followed by Nimrod (builder of the tower). David Rohl proposes that "Cush" is a hypocoristicon of the first king after the "flood" line, MeskiagKASHer. The next king, Enmerkar (Enmer the Hunter) is the real figure behind the Biblical Nimrod.

But I've never fully bought the 6,000 year literal dating of the Bible, for a variety of reasons. For one, translating ancient Hebrew to modern English is incredibly problematic; Hebrew didn't have vowels or punctuation, and many Hebrew words have double meanings in English. For example, "aleph" could mean "thousand" or "tribal head," depending on its context (this has been used to question the English Bibles' 2-3 million population of Israel at the Exodus).

Let me go to one of Freedom's comments:

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.

That's because, while I'm sure you ridicule fundamentalist evangelicals, you're committing the same mistake they often do; confining "The Bible" to just the modern English translations. Looking at Genesis in its original proto-Sinaitic language, a solid argument can be made for a regional flood rather than a global flood ("world" and "land" are often interchangeable)--which means the "reset" you're referring to wasn't the whole human race, but the specific bloodline through which the chosen people (the Israelites) were to emerge. Immediately after the fall, Seth's lineage is chosen to eventually bring the Israelites into existence--and their longterm purpose is to bring the Savior, Jesus, into the world. So the local flood theorist can argue that God used different judgment--the flood, the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, etc--to get idolatry out of the ancestry of Christ.

Your other points on how a global flood is problematic were completely legit, and I was going to acknowledge that, until you said this...

Got it. It’s magic.

I don't know what your beliefs are, nor do I honestly care, but this kind of arrogant sarcasm turns me off to atheism. I encounter it all the time on social media and it doesn't nothing to persuade me (it's also wrong, because "magic" and "the supernatural" aren't exactly the same things...magic is the belief that humans have the ability to control the supernatural through certain incantations. "Supernatural" just means believing in something beyond nature--and I'm a huge skeptic of philosophical naturalism, but that's another argument entirely and I'm getting off topic).

I am not an atheist. I am a Christian. I just don’t believe literally every word of every tale included in the Old Testament. I didn’t think the laws of physics ceased to exist in the Old Testament.

You have added a lot. Off the top of my head I want to respond to one of your points — that a mis-translation of the bible allows for the possibility of a regional flood.

No. No way. No how. Not possible.

If possible, than the poor translation occurred multiple times in multiple instances of differently worded passages. I consider that a low probability event.

How could a poor translation change the meaning in several places from some humans to every creature on the earth, which is what the bible says including, “I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I created”, and “the end of ALL mortals has come”, “I am going to destroy them with the earth”, and “everything on earth shall perish”.

I refuse to believe 4 different passages could be misinterpreted in translation from meaning some people to all people, or some things to everything.

No, there is no way. The bible translation is unequivocal. If you want to claim otherwise, then you are going to have to list every single word of the original and how each word was mistranslated into the below.

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7 So the LORD said: I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I have created, and not only the human beings, but also the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air, for I regret that I made them.*

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13 God said to Noah: I see that the end of all mortals has come, for the earth is full of lawlessness because of them. So I am going to destroy them with the earth.

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14 Make yourself an ark of gopherwood,* equip the ark with various compartments, and cover it inside and out with pitch.

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17 I, on my part, am about to bring the flood waters on the earth, to destroy all creatures under the sky in which there is the breath of life; everything on earth shall perish.

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