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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

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.


The panel depicting the Deluge from Michelangelo Buonarotti's frescoed ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, painted circa 1508-1512. Photo: Courtesy

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."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: archaeology; atlantis; atlit; atlityam; blacksea; blackseaflood; calliste; carmel; carmelmountains; catastrophism; ehudgalili; eruption; etna; flood; glaciers; globalwarminghoax; godsgravesglyphs; grandcanyon; greatflood; gulfofsidra; haifa; ioniansea; israel; italy; landslide; mediterranean; mountetna; mtetna; neolithic; noah; noahsflood; paleoclimatology; santorini; seankingsley; shimongibson; sicily; thecarmel; thera; tsunami; tsunamis; tyrrheniansea; volcano; vulcanism
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1 posted on 12/10/2008 9:29:13 AM PST by NYer
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To: Salvation; narses; SMEDLEYBUTLER; redhead; Notwithstanding; nickcarraway; Romulus; ...
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list


2 posted on 12/10/2008 9:29:47 AM PST by NYer ("Run from places of sin as from a plague." - St. John Climacus)
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To: SunkenCiv

Ping!


3 posted on 12/10/2008 9:30:28 AM PST by NYer ("Run from places of sin as from a plague." - St. John Climacus)
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To: SJackson; Alouette; F15Eagle; 444Flyer; American in Israel; T.L.Sink; M. Espinola; Ancesthntr; ...

Ping!


4 posted on 12/10/2008 9:32:39 AM PST by Convert from ECUSA (RINO = Big government, blue blood, country club Vichy Republicans)
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To: NYer

“The bottom line,” he concluded, “is that overall evidence of [a] world submerged in flood does not exist.”

Uh-huh. Pay no attention to the 5,000 to 10,000 ft. deep layers of sedimentary rock and soils deposited worldwide, often in consistent formations stretching across a few thousand miles.


5 posted on 12/10/2008 9:34:39 AM PST by Elpasser
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To: NYer

DOesn’t anyone read their Bibles at all??

THAT world was destroyed, there is no way you can declare where it started, the land was flooded, turned over, rained out and covered with water for about a full year


6 posted on 12/10/2008 9:34:59 AM PST by RaceBannon (We have sown the wind, but we will reap the whirlwind. NObama. Not my president.)
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To: RaceBannon

Duplicate post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2146233/posts


7 posted on 12/10/2008 9:36:17 AM PST by Liberty1970 (Democrats are not in control. God is. And Thank God for that!)
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To: Elpasser
Pay no attention to the 5,000 to 10,000 ft. deep layers of sedimentary rock and soils deposited worldwide

Really? A 1-2 mile thick layer of sediment deposited in a single event? Wow!

8 posted on 12/10/2008 9:42:15 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: RaceBannon

Apparently not. He’ll find out one way or another.


9 posted on 12/10/2008 9:42:16 AM PST by Jaded
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To: Elpasser
Pay no attention to the 5,000 to 10,000 ft. deep layers of sedimentary rock and soils deposited worldwide

Or did you mean the layer, how ever thick, lies 1-2 miles beneath the surface?

10 posted on 12/10/2008 9:44:23 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: Elpasser

Could you provide a link to that one, please?


11 posted on 12/10/2008 9:48:16 AM PST by MyTwoCopperCoins
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To: SunkenCiv

ggg ping


12 posted on 12/10/2008 9:50:46 AM PST by Fractal Trader
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To: NYer
Was Paul Bunyan born in Pennsylvannia?
Did Buffy the Vampire Slayer grow up in Palo Alto?
Is Mickey Mouse from Florida?

13 posted on 12/10/2008 9:55:38 AM PST by JasonC
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To: NYer
"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."

Well I'm glad they didn't let this little fact get in the way of their sensational headline...

14 posted on 12/10/2008 9:56:09 AM PST by DouglasKC
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To: NYer

Since the Flood was global, hard to say where it began.


15 posted on 12/10/2008 9:59:26 AM PST by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America; the Islamization of Eurabia)
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To: MyTwoCopperCoins
"Could you provide a link to that one, please?

Sure, Holy Bible - Genesis. Highly recommended reading if you have not done so.

16 posted on 12/10/2008 10:00:05 AM PST by BipolarBob (Even the earth is bipolar.)
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To: NYer
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.

No biases here, nope. He's ever so much more erudite than fantasists looking for Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat.

17 posted on 12/10/2008 10:00:58 AM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: LiteKeeper

The Bible doesn’t say the “Globe” was flooded. It says the “World” was flooded. That would be the known world at the time. And it wasn’t that big. The flood of Gilgamesh coincides with the flood of Noah.


18 posted on 12/10/2008 10:02:49 AM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: NYer

Ping


19 posted on 12/10/2008 10:08:09 AM PST by MANO
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To: JasonC
Is Mickey Mouse from Florida?

He is registered there as a Democrat.

20 posted on 12/10/2008 10:08:40 AM PST by Fiji Hill
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