The Biblical
story of Noah’s ark is fairly well known to a very large portion of the
population, including those who have little or no familiarity with the Bible. Even those who do not believe it recognize
the terms. Worldwide, there are other myths
of global, prehistoric catastrophe resembling the Noahic Flood.
A point that
is often missed in the story of Noah is the fact that, in one way or another, the
earth has experienced what are referred to as evolutionary bottlenecks. Some of these are geologically recent, for
example the human population bottleneck of 70,000 years ago. See
Prior to
that event, there were several mass-extinction events, most famously the
massive meteor strike that triggered the worldwide calamity that killed off all
the dinosaurs. There were other events
as well.
What I wish
to point out here is that the account of Noah’s Flood was written long before
(as far as we know) there was any scientific knowledge of meteors, extinctions
or population bottlenecks. So were the
myths, not only of extinctions, but of the Biblical war in heaven, which is somewhat
mimicked in the Greek mythology of the Titans.
The point is
that, even in ancient times, there seemed to be a widespread sense of an unseen
history that predates modern humans.
Why should this be?
One idea is
that there were books available that recorded these events, perhaps written by
eye witnesses. Two libraries that were
destroyed were the one at Alexandria, Egypt, in 48 BC (exact year is disputed) and
the Mayan Codices in 1562 AD.
There are
other theories of prehistoric civilizations, one of them being that the Sphinx
was constructed long before the rise of the Pharaohs, and that it was subjected
to heavy rainfall before any such rain in Egypt’s written history.
Even the
great Pyramids at Giza contain the unsolved mystery of their technology and
purpose. (There is no evidence of
interment of corpses.) Standard theories
of their construction by use of copper tools are considered implausible by
many, and in fact, no one in modern times (AFAIK) has ever demonstrated how
such tools could have produced the many thousands of precisely carved stones in
the time frame necessary. Indeed,
attempts to make such demonstrations only undermine the standard theory, in the
opinions of critics.
Furthermore,
the pyramids contain numerous other mysteries, for example, the inclined
passageway inside the structure, the lack of hieroglyphs where one would surely
expect them, and the absence of any signs of soot, the product of torches, when
no other means of illumination were known to exist.
No one of
these mysteries is decisive in itself, but in the aggregate, it seems
unreasonable to cobble together a credible theory that explains all of them.
Getting back
to Noah’s ark, the Biblical story seems to be far more detailed than would seem
necessary to someone concocting a myth.
The details of the maritime construction alone are impressive. While some say that the myth was copied from
earlier sources, the same details in those accounts would seem superfluous,
unless they were true.
Moreover,
the same author of the Ark story (presumably Moses) detailed the construction
of an entirely different kind of ark, the Ark of the Covenant, in such exacting
detail that modern engineers were able to construct a copy, and the copy
exhibited some amazing electrical properties that fit the (also seemingly superfluous)
Biblical story of a man touching the ark and being apparently electrocuted
thereby.
Göbekli Tepe is another example of
prehistoric technology that defies standard explanation on more than one
account. First, it was apparently built
by hunter-gatherers, an implausible theory.
Second, it seems to have been buried after construction. It is implausible that this was intentional,
and more plausible that it occurred due to a natural catastrophe.
Undoubtedly
(to me), the several surviving examples of ancient technology, including the
amazing Anti-Kythera device, are proof that ancient societies, which we might
consider to be technologically primitive, were in fact, capable of astounding
technological achievements. For example,
when the Anti-Kythera mechanism was first found, many historians tried to
explain it away using theories that were themselves less believable than the
eventual, unavoidable explanation.
Nor are the
things I have mentioned so far, isolated singularities. There are too many to list here, so many in
fact, that some have resorted to such easy excuses as space aliens, time
travelers and other unnecessarily fantastic explanations that are worse than
the normal theory, that a global catastrophe concealed or camouflaged an
unwritten history of humanity.
Whether one
believes in the Biblical account or not, of Noah’s ark, the accumulating
evidence suggests that, at the very least, it (and other stories in the Torah)
give us a window into a forgotten past.
It, along with other windows, provide an opportunity to open our minds
to further research.
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