The panel depicting the Deluge from Michelangelo Buonarotti's frescoed ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, painted circa 1508-1512. Photo: Courtesy
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."
Ping!
Ping!
“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.
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
Duplicate post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2146233/posts
Really? A 1-2 mile thick layer of sediment deposited in a single event? Wow!
Apparently not. He’ll find out one way or another.
Or did you mean the layer, how ever thick, lies 1-2 miles beneath the surface?
Could you provide a link to that one, please?
ggg ping
Well I'm glad they didn't let this little fact get in the way of their sensational headline...
Since the Flood was global, hard to say where it began.
Sure, Holy Bible - Genesis. Highly recommended reading if you have not done so.
No biases here, nope. He's ever so much more erudite than fantasists looking for Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat.
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.
Ping
He is registered there as a Democrat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.