Sybarite
Well-Known Member
This story has long bothered my credulity as a Christian and a sailor. There is just not enough water to cover the Earth after just 150 days of rain – no matter how hard it rains.
Suppose though that the flood story takes place on the shores of the Black Sea instead of in Sumeria in Mesopotamia.
In the past, the Black Sea was much smaller than it is today. There was a land sill which prevented the Aegean (and thus the Mediterranean Sea) from communicating with the Black Sea. Then around 5600 BC there was a build-up of Mediterranean Sea levels which led to the breaching of the sill, like a dam bursting, and water flowed in at a catastrophic rate. This could of course be associated with the heavy rains mentioned in the Bible.
Suppose Noah had built his Ark on the pre-flood western shores of the Black Sea. Within weeks or months the new shoreline would have been over a hundred miles further west - around Constanza in present day Romania – and of course out of their sight. Suppose again that the Ark drifted then with the prevailing westerly winds, they would have drifted the 700 miles across the Black Sea following the clockwise currents generated by the wind, all the time remaining out of sight of land. When they finally touched land it would have been on the Eastern side of the Black Sea in present day Armenia. Also supposing that the flood waters surged above present day levels before settling back down again over time, this would have placed the Ark in the foothills of the Ararat mountain range. QED…!
Extracts from Wikipedia
“The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea circa 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus Strait.” …
“In 1997, William Ryan and Walter Pitman published evidence that a massive flooding of the Black Sea occurred about 5600 BC through the Bosporus, following this scenario. Before that date, glacial meltwater had turned the Black and Caspian Seas into vast freshwater lakes which were draining into the Aegean Sea. As glaciers retreated, some of the rivers emptying into the Black Sea declined in volume and changed course to drain into the North Sea. The levels of the lakes dropped through evaporation, while changes in worldwide hydrology caused sea level to rise. The rising Mediterranean finally spilled over a rocky sill at the Bosporus. The event flooded 155,000 km2 (60,000 sq mi) of land and significantly expanded the Black Sea shoreline to the north and west. According to the researchers, "Ten cubic miles [42 km3] of water poured through each day, two hundred times what flows over Niagara Falls ... The Bosporus flume roared and surged at full spate for at least three hundred days."
Samplings of sediments in the Black Sea by a series of expeditions carried out between 1998 to 2005 confirmed the conclusion of Pitman and Ryan. These results were also completed by the Noah project led by the Bulgarian Institute of Oceanography …. Furthermore, calculations made by Mark Siddall predicted an underwater canyon that was actually found.”
Suppose though that the flood story takes place on the shores of the Black Sea instead of in Sumeria in Mesopotamia.
In the past, the Black Sea was much smaller than it is today. There was a land sill which prevented the Aegean (and thus the Mediterranean Sea) from communicating with the Black Sea. Then around 5600 BC there was a build-up of Mediterranean Sea levels which led to the breaching of the sill, like a dam bursting, and water flowed in at a catastrophic rate. This could of course be associated with the heavy rains mentioned in the Bible.
Suppose Noah had built his Ark on the pre-flood western shores of the Black Sea. Within weeks or months the new shoreline would have been over a hundred miles further west - around Constanza in present day Romania – and of course out of their sight. Suppose again that the Ark drifted then with the prevailing westerly winds, they would have drifted the 700 miles across the Black Sea following the clockwise currents generated by the wind, all the time remaining out of sight of land. When they finally touched land it would have been on the Eastern side of the Black Sea in present day Armenia. Also supposing that the flood waters surged above present day levels before settling back down again over time, this would have placed the Ark in the foothills of the Ararat mountain range. QED…!
Extracts from Wikipedia
“The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea circa 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus Strait.” …
“In 1997, William Ryan and Walter Pitman published evidence that a massive flooding of the Black Sea occurred about 5600 BC through the Bosporus, following this scenario. Before that date, glacial meltwater had turned the Black and Caspian Seas into vast freshwater lakes which were draining into the Aegean Sea. As glaciers retreated, some of the rivers emptying into the Black Sea declined in volume and changed course to drain into the North Sea. The levels of the lakes dropped through evaporation, while changes in worldwide hydrology caused sea level to rise. The rising Mediterranean finally spilled over a rocky sill at the Bosporus. The event flooded 155,000 km2 (60,000 sq mi) of land and significantly expanded the Black Sea shoreline to the north and west. According to the researchers, "Ten cubic miles [42 km3] of water poured through each day, two hundred times what flows over Niagara Falls ... The Bosporus flume roared and surged at full spate for at least three hundred days."
Samplings of sediments in the Black Sea by a series of expeditions carried out between 1998 to 2005 confirmed the conclusion of Pitman and Ryan. These results were also completed by the Noah project led by the Bulgarian Institute of Oceanography …. Furthermore, calculations made by Mark Siddall predicted an underwater canyon that was actually found.”
