The Biblical story of Noah and the Flood is taken by some as truth and others as pure myth. The story does not just occur in the Old Testament but also in other Middle Eastern epics – and it is possible that it has a basis in historical fact. Scientific studies of sea level change have begun to cast light on the flood and what may have caused it.
What the Bible Says About the Flood
The story of Noah, the ‘righteous man blameless in his generation’ who pleased God and was chosen to be spared from the catastrophic flood with which God punished the unrighteous is told in the book of Genesis (in chapters 6 to 8). The story is well-known and oft-repeated and describes how Noah was instructed to build a large boat (the Ark) and take two of every animal to repopulate an earth cleansed of wickedness.
According to Genesis, rain fell for forty days and forty nights and the flood continued for forty days more, until ‘all the high mountains on the whole heaven were covered…fifteen cubits deep’(Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version). Eventually the waters receded and the Ark came to rest on the slopes of Mount Ararat, allowing Noah, his family and the animals to emerge and begin afresh.
The Flood: A Global or Regional Event?
Major floods are by no means uncommon: archaeologists such as M. E. Mallowan (cited in Raikes) documented evidence for a number of historic floods in Mesopotamia, where much of the Old Testament material is thought to have originated. But evidence for an individual flood, or more than one, does not constitute conclusive evidence of the flood detailed in the Bible.
A global flood must be regarded as scientifically impossible. Morton looks in some detail at the scientific objections, and they are many. Among them are questions such as:
- where did the water come from to cover the whole earth?
- how was it possible for rain to fall continually over the entire globe for 40 days and 40 nights?
- how did the plants survive such an inundation?
Morton also examines problems with a regional flood, though these are more logical than scientific. For example, addressing why an ark was needed at all in such circumstances, and how the Ark could possibly have been deposited on a mountain as high as Ararat by a local event. Scientifically, the conclusion must be that if the flood took place it was regional.
Theories Regarding the Flood in the Black Sea
There are several natural mechanisms for major floods, including storm surges and tsunamis but, as Coe notes, these events are by no means uncommon and may have occurred repeatedly (as the archaeological evidence indicates). A flood so large as to feature in the literature of several cultures must surely, therefore, have been a truly unusual occurrence to have left such a great impression.
One such possibility is a catastrophic flooding caused by the sea breaching the land surrounding a major inland basin. In 1993 the proposal was put forward by two Americans, Walter Pitman and Bill Ryan, that just such a major inundation may have occurred around 5600 BC when rising sea levels in the Mediterranean forced a breach through the Bosporus, flowing north-eastwards into what was then a freshwater lake and is now the Black Sea (Coe).
Although the cause for the rise in sea levels has not been identified, the scale of the flood is thought to have been truly spectacular. It is argued that around 100,000 square kilometres may have been flooded in a matter of months, with an average daily increase in lake levels of 15cm. In some areas, depending on the topography, the shoreline may have receded by as much as a mile a day.
The details of the findings are disputed, but the evidence for such a significant event is supported by scientific findings, reported by Coe. These include:
- fossil evidence indicating a change in the marine environment of the Black Sea from fresh water to sea water
- a universal layer of flood-carried sediment on the floor of the Black Sea
- subsequent discovery of flooded human settlement.
Other options have also been put forward. Morton, for example, suggests that the flood may have been the inundation of the Mediterranean via the Straits of Gibraltar – an event which is known to have occurred on several occasions as sea level fluctuated (Open University) although this process seems likely to have been completed millions of years before the Black Sea inundation.
The Truth About the Flood?
The available archaeological and scientific data as to the location of a major flood event which gave us the story of Noah are inconclusive - but there is certainly enough scientific evidence to suggest that a major inundation did take place somewhere in the Middle East during a period of human settlement there and that it was sufficiently impressive to pass into the literature of several cultures.
Sources
- Coe, Angela, The Sedimentary Record of Sea Level Change Cambridge University Press/Open University 2003
- Morton, Glenn R, “The Mediterranean Flood” Science in Christian Perspective 1997, asa3.org accessed 17 April 2011
- Open University Course Team, The Ocean Basins: Their Structure and Evolution Butterworth Heinemann 1989
- Raikes, RL, “The Physical Evidence for Noah’s Flood” Iraq 1966, jstor.org, accessed 17 April 2011
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