Noah - Global Warming 1.0

Noah is the story of the Great Flood that destroyed the earth. We all know the story and it has been retold by storytellers and movie makers for eons. Humans are all sinners and God has to destroy the world and start over. He chooses Noah as the savior of all creation. Note that early on God instructs him to find 7 pairs of each creature, etc, for the Ark. Later, however, he actually gathers only one pair, male and female, presumably because the Ark was not big enough for 7 pairs, or he decided that 7 pairs was just ridiculous and one pair would be fine. Who knows really.

The great flood is included within the folklore of nearly every tribe that lived in the Middle East and there is real scientific evidence that it may have happened. The Noah thing perhaps not so much.

The time was near the end of the Ice Age some 6000 - 8000 years ago. Mesopotamia and Eden, located as mentioned in my last post, were the cradles of "modern" civilization. The area was reasonbly heavily populated and was much more lush than it is today. See discussions on Egypt in a later text. So to the writers of the time, this area was "the World."

First lets look at a map of the Mediterranean Sea area and the Middle East. Go get a map or pull one up on your computer. Just go to Google Maps and enter Mediterranean Sea. That will allow you to focus in on certain areas if you wish. Go ahead, I'll wait . . . . . . . . . . .

There are 4 very tight straits surrounding the Middle East:

1. The Stait of Gibralter between Spain and Morroco leading into the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. Of course the Rock of Gibralter sits in the middle as a reminder to when this strait was closed off and the two continents were connected.
2. The Strait of Aden at the Arabian Sea, between Djibouti in Africa and Yemen leading from the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea. Note that there is a residual penninsula and several small islands denoting where these two areas were once connected.
3. The straits between the United Arab Emerates and Iran leading from the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean into the Persian Gulf, where Eden was and where Mesopotamia was at the north end. Again, the UAE still nearly reaches across this narrow passageway.
4. The many small straits in Turkey that lead from the Mediterranean Sea to the Black Sea.

So the theory goes that once upon a time these were all connected land bridges and that inside these basins that are now seas lived many many people on dry land, protected from the higher oceans by these natural dams. As the ice sheets melted, however, the ocean levels rose until nearly simultaneously they breached these natural dams. The resulting massive rush of water into the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf killed thousands and just as milk spashes out of a bowl if poured too fast into one side, the tsunamai-like waves of water would have rushed violently up the far sides of each of these seas, well up onto what is now dry land. There is a theory that the Caspian Sea, a body of water with no outflows fed by fresh water rivers, was partially filled by this on-rush of ocean water, explaining in part its somewhat high salinity, but who really cares. The water would have eventually receded, but not before there was mass destruction and death, including the complete and total destruction of Eden. All theories, but you can see how it makes a lot of sense.

There is quite a bit of archaeological evidence of established societies at the bottoms of the Mediterranean Sea and of the Black Sea, indicating that the rush into those bodies of water was not as swift as it was up the Persian Gulf and Red Sea valleys. There is very little evidence of prior civilizations in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, though there is some indicating the flooding was massive. The story of Atlantis is considered by some to have been based upon the destruction of the society living in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. 

Sooo, did Noah exist. Despite the existance of a structure well up in the Turkish mountains that no one has been allowed to investigate, it is likely that the story is just another way to show the Chosen People that God protects them, and to indicate that God will protect the non-sinners and we should behave as people. This was well before Abraham and the designation "Chosen" but Abraham and all of the Hebrews were traced descendents of Noah.

Personally, I think this was just one of those mass extinction events that the story-tellers had to explain to those who asked, "What kind of God would allow this to happen?" That is by far the most difficult theological question of all time. Of course the Noah story became a huge success and was undoubtedly elaborated upon over the years even through today and the creativity of our modern movie-makers.

Anyway, I thought that was kinda interesting. Bottom line, at least arguably God had little to do with the Great Flood. Luckily the new flooding as a result of current Global Warming will likely be comparatively more gradual. Other than the edges of Holland, there are no areas like this where a nearly simultaneous breach of several sea walls will create such massive and immediate death and destruction. So we got that going for us anyway . . .