by Jon Dainty Sr.

Created on: October 03, 2007   Last Updated: February 26, 2009

Noah's Story Revised?

The biblical story of Noah and the Ark has captivated children and their religious elders for centuries. It tells of heroic events that changed the face of the earth and, in the process, started what remained of humanity on a path toward salvation by God. Until now, what that story did not have was archaeological evidence to demonstrate that its origin might be more than a mystery concocted by tribal priests.

Questions have persisted for many years about the existence in many cultures of flood stories, and most seem firmly lodged in the legendary genre based both upon their epic form and upon the wild claims of cataclysmic events they contain. Consider, however, what form a story would take that came from an area whose geologic shape was changed by massive flooding never before witnessed on such a scale.

Discovery in Turkey

In 1999, Dr. Robert Ballard discovered settlements 300 feet below the surface of the Black Sea, about 15 miles from the port of Sinop. How did they come to be there? Why are they under such an enormous volume of water? This is not as strange as you might think. Two scientists had earlier predicted that those settlements would be found at that place.

According to the Christian Science Monitor (15 September 2000), William Ryan and Walter Pitman, marine geologists with Columbia University, studied the area around the Black Sea. They theorized that the beach uncovered by Ballard disappeared 7,600 years ago when the entrance to the much smaller freshwater lake that once existed was breached. That entrance, what we now call the Bosporus, opened to unleash a flood that must have appeared to be the end of the entire world, particularly since the flooding may have continued for up to a year and engulfed 60,000 square miles of land.

Changes to the area included the destruction of the freshwater lake by the influx of saltwater from the glacier-swollen Mediterranean Sea. In point of fact, that lake does still exist, but researchers found it more than 300 feet from the surface of the Black Sea. People who lived in the area were either wiped out by the event or driven far from their homes when those were flooded.

How Much Can We Show?

The question remains: is there evidence for a "world-wide" flood? At this point, the answer is still "no." On the other hand, given the severity of this event from the perspective of those uprooted by it, oral histories would have painted a truly earth-shattering picture of great forces and towering waters. These may well have become part of the foundation of the biblical accounts of Noah-along with other cultures' flood narratives.

Does this answer the questions associated with this ongoing controversy? No, and they probably will continue to be posed for a long time to come. What this offers us is a reasonable explanation for the relatively widespread belief that the Great Flood covered the whole planet. It is a useful bit of information to add to our study of the distant past of our species. There will be others, as we continue to explore and examine our old haunts.

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