In Search of Noah's Flood

[cormac mac airt]

22 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

Even when identified and mapped by archeologists?

Doug

You’ve neither shown evidence that there ever was a trickle stream nor that it originated in Eridu. Your source doesn’t claim that. Actual archaeological and satellite evidence however has shown there were multiple channels of the Euphrates that flowed very near. 
 

cormac

[+Hammerclaw]

31 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

In order to look for an event, you must assume that it happened, then figure out the details.  Does observable fact comport with the legend?  I don't believe any of you doubters have even attempted to look for the facts.

As of right now, I have no evidence that there even was a biblical flood.  There is an available time slot where one could have happened, but as of now, I don't have a flood to put in it.

My reading of Gilgamesh didn't help - it barely mentions a flood and gives nothing at all about how extensive it might have been.  Maybe it was just a garden-variety hundred-year flood.  Also implies that there were cedar trees around - doesn't sound like the Mesopotamian plain to me.  I don't think Gilgamesh will help, but there are two or three more pieces of Mesopotamian literature I still have to read.

Doug

You have no facts, only assumptions based on assumptions. 

[+Hammerclaw]

Genesis Myth of Eridu

The Genesis Myth of Eridu is an ancient Sumerian text written around 1600 BCE, and it contains a version of the flood story used in Gilgamesh and later the Old Testament of the Bible. Sources for the Eridu myth include a Sumerian inscription on a clay tablet from Nippur (also dated about 1600 BCE), another Sumerian fragment from Ur (about the same date) and a bilingual fragment in Sumerian and Akkadian from Ashurbanipal's library in Nineveh, about 600 BCE.

 

The first part of the Eridu origin myth describes how the mother goddess Nintur called to her nomadic children and recommended they stop wandering, build cities and temples, and live under the rule of kings. The second part lists Eridu as the very first city, where the kings Alulim and Alagar ruled for nearly 50,000 years (well, it is a myth, after all).

 

The most famous part of the Eridu myth describes a great flood, which was caused by the god Enlil. Enlil became annoyed at the clamor of human cities and decided to quiet down the planet by wiping the cities out. Nintur warned the king of Eridu, Ziusudra, and recommended he build a boat and save himself and a pair of each living being in order to save the planet. This myth has clear connections to other regional myths such as Noah and his ark in the Old Testament and the Nuh story in the Koran, and the origin myth of Eridu is the likely basis for both of these stories.

Eridu Genesis - World History Encyclopedia

 

[+Hammerclaw]

The Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis is intriguing.

Black Sea deluge hypothesis - Wikipedia

[cormac mac airt]

If one is paying attention the Eridu flood, weathered by its king Ziusudra is in opposition to the Epic of Gilgamesh’s Ut-Napishtim as its king and the two are only equated much later, both having allegedly been responsible for creating a boat in their respective cities to survive a flood. 
 

cormac

[cormac mac airt]

6 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

The Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis is intriguing.

Black Sea deluge hypothesis - Wikipedia

Sadly though it wasn’t as devastating as originally believed. 
 

cormac

[Doug1066]

1 hour ago, cormac mac airt said:

The problem is that you can’t definitively equate a Nile flood with a Hekla caused flood nor a Mediterranean flood regardless of timeframe and therefore claim it’s Noah’s Flood. The best you might be able to accomplish is nothing more than a possibility, that’s it. And that’s all dependent on the story having originated from one single flood which IS NOT a given. 
 

cormac

I doubt that I can ever say for sure that "This was Noah's Flood."  At best, I can say that a particular flood meets all the known qualifications.

The Hekla4 eruption occurred in 4260 +/- 20 BP.  So did the flood at Lake Accessa.  And the one in the Tarim Basin and the one at Bear Creek.  This one also matches up nicely with the highest reading on the Palermo Stone.  That's not absolute and never will be, but the odds of it being wrong approach zero.  Was it Noah's Flood?  I think it was too late to be Noah's Flood; although it might have influenced the legend.

The Hekla5 eruption occurred in 6036 BP and nicely matches up with a Nile flood, the middle of a set of three.  I have not yet checked tree ring records, but there are several that go back that far.  Large volcanic eruptions leave evidence in tree rings and in rainstorms, cold and floods around the world.  These are GLOBAL events.  I doubt that there is any human record of this flood.  A GLOBAL event would easily leave evidence in both Mesopotamia and Egypt.

There was a  5811 BP eruption of the Lairg volcano in Iceland that matches up with the 5800 BP Nile Flood.  The last two still need confirmation that they actually caused floods in other places.

And we haven't even mentioned floods in the Indus valley.  If Noah's Flood was real, it should have left evidence there, as well.

But, at least, I have the time-frame for Noah's Flood bracketed.  Now it's just a matter of finding sediment cores confirming those floods.

Doug

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by Doug1066

[Doug1066]

23 hours ago, Doug1066 said:

Eridu doesn't have anything to do with the search for The Flood. 

That may be wrong.  There's the Eridu flood legend I have yet to consider.

Doug

[Doug1066]

20 hours ago, SHaYap said:

Shouldn't the topology and elevation of the area be more of a concern? 

~

It should.  Figure 6 from Post 27 shows a tope map of Eridu.

Doug

[Doug1066]

1 hour ago, Hammerclaw said:

How do you know the Biblical flood is based on a real event and how are calculating the date it occurred?

I'll know it was a real event when I find physical evidence of it (and it meets criteria established in the Bible).

I have a listing of Nile megafloods that have occurred since the beginning of the Younger Dryas.  These were obtained from sediment cores.  Some of these were probably the doing of the Indian monsoon, rather than volcanos.  I also have Manetho's statement that there was a flood just before the beginning of the First Dynasty and two water marks on the temple at Karnak.  There are a variety of dates to choose from in archeological records (I'm wondering how many of those are the same flood.).

Hekla4  4260 BP  Palermo Stone, Lake Accessa

Unknown about 4500 BP  Kish?

Unknown about 4800 BP

Unknown about 5200 BP

Lairg2  5811 BP

Hekla5  6036 BP

Unknown about 6200 BP

That's the list.  Definite dates are from tephra analyses confirmed from Nile sediment cores.

Some further hints:  In the Faiyum Basin, the Faiyum A culture is separated from the Faiyum B by a flood layer.

At Ur, the Erech culture is separated from the al-Ubaid culture by a major flood layer.

 

At any rate, I think that physical evidence plus Egyptian records are enough to establish that the 4260 flood was real.

Doug

Edited September 23, 2023 by Doug1066

[Doug1066]

1 hour ago, cormac mac airt said:

You’ve neither shown evidence that there ever was a trickle stream nor that it originated in Eridu. Your source doesn’t claim that. Actual archaeological and satellite evidence however has shown there were multiple channels of the Euphrates that flowed very near. 
 

cormac

Have it your way.

Doug

[cormac mac airt]

26 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

That may be wrong.  There's the Eridu flood legend I have yet to consider.

Doug

Probably should have been your first consideration but be that as it may one should keep in mind that ALL FIVE CITIES were destroyed at the same time according to the Eridu Genesis; those cities being Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larak, Sippar and Shuruppak. There’s no evidence of that being true. 
 

cormac

[Doug1066]

1 hour ago, Hammerclaw said:

You have no facts, only assumptions based on assumptions. 

I have a bibliography of scientific papers on the topic.  I have not listed them because it is a hassle and if I decide to publish, I will need to protect copyright.  If you guys don't have that list, you will not be able to beat me to it.

Doug

[cormac mac airt]

2 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

Have it your way.

Doug

It’s not my way, it’s what the evidence shows. 
 

cormac

[Doug1066]

3 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

ALL FIVE CITIES were destroyed at the same time according to the Eridu Genesis; those cities being Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larak, Sippar and Shuruppak.

That's the legend, but is it fact?

Doug

[Doug1066]

1 minute ago, cormac mac airt said:

It’s not my way, it’s what the evidence shows. 
 

cormac

Then you need to look for more evidence.

Doug

[cormac mac airt]

Just now, Doug1066 said:

That's the legend, but is it fact?

Doug

You’ve got to start with what was written first. And since it predates the Biblical account it’s the one that should have been investigated first. 
 

cormac

[cormac mac airt]

2 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

Then you need to look for more evidence.

Doug

I’m not the one trying to validate a myth. You were just plain wrong, sorry. 
 

cormac

[Doug1066]

8 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

You’ve got to start with what was written first. And since it predates the Biblical account it’s the one that should have been investigated first. 
 

cormac

Agreed on the writing, but seeing as that is not too reliable, I have to use geologic data.  If that does not confirm a flood, then I cannot conclude that the flood was real.

The problem in Mesopotamia is that there were MANY floods.  Trying to tell one from another can be a real challenge.

Doug

Edited September 23, 2023 by Doug1066

[Doug1066]

7 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

I’m not the one trying to validate a myth. You were just plain wrong, sorry. 
 

cormac

When I started this, I was trying to validate a legend (In the case of Gilgamesh, I doubt there is anything solid enough to validate.).  But now it seems that a history of megaflooding in the Near East would be far more valuable.

Note that no megafloods have occurred anywhere on earth during the Late Holocene (4300 years).  Yet there were six or seven during the mid-Holocene (4500 years).  Why?  Something about the climate system has changed.  What was it?

The science is always more interesting than the myths.

Doug

Edited September 23, 2023 by Doug1066

[cormac mac airt]

1 minute ago, Doug1066 said:

Agreed on the writing, but seeing as that is not too reliable, I have to use geologic data.  If that does not confirm a flood, then I cannot conclude that the flood was real.

Doug

If you haven’t investigated the writing using geological data FIRST then you’ve attempted your investigation bass-ackwards.  The first thing should have been to confirm or deny that the cities were flooded and destroyed simultaneously. Then looked into near-simultaneous flooding. Then proceeded, or not, from whatever you found. One has to wonder why you did none of that? 
 

cormac

[cormac mac airt]

3 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

When I started this, I was trying to validate a myth.  But now it seems that a history of megaflooding in the Near East would be far more important.

Note that no megafloods have occurred anywhere on earth during the Late Holocene (4300 years).  Yet there were six or seven during the mid-Holocene (4500 years).  Why?  Something about the climate system has changed.  What was it?

The science is always more interesting than the myths.

Doug

Yeah, for one the African Humid/Green Sahara Period has completely ended. 
 

cormac

[Doug1066]

1 minute ago, cormac mac airt said:

If you haven’t investigated the writing using geological data FIRST then you’ve attempted your investigation bass-ackwards.  The first thing should have been to confirm or deny that the cities were flooded and destroyed simultaneously. Then looked into near-simultaneous flooding. Then proceeded, or not, from whatever you found. One has to wonder why you did none of that? 
 

cormac

First I have to collect the geologic data and there is an awful lot of that to look through.  Also, confirming one flood is not an accomplishment.  I need the entire flooding history of the mid-Holocene.  And that also means climate systems and what they were doing.

Also, I did look at the archeological data on Shurrupak, Kish, Ur, etc.  There was no agreement as to dates.

If there was only one flood during that time, then the 4260 flood was it.  But that doesn't fit the Mesopotamian stories very well.

Doug

[Doug1066]

3 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

Yeah, for one the African Humid/Green Sahara Period has completely ended. 
 

cormac

That's one.  What ended it?

I suspect that some of those African rivers and lakes carried water long after the mid-Holocene.  Herodotus (440 BC) mentions two rivers in west Africa that flow into the Mediterranean.  There haven't been any of those since the mid-Holocene.  The Argosy says that Jason et al. sailed across a big African lake.  There is such a lake, but it's bone dry now.

And there was a mid-Holocene lake in Arabia that was the source for what is now Wadi al-Batin.

So maybe things didn't change as suddenly as we think they did.

Doug

Edited September 23, 2023 by Doug1066

[cormac mac airt]

1 minute ago, Doug1066 said:

First I have to collect the geologic data and there is an awful lot of that to look through.  Also, confirming one flood is not an accomplishment.  I need the entire flooding history of the mid-Holocene.  And that also means climate systems and what they were doing.

Also, I did look at the archeological data on Shurrupak, Kish, Ur, etc.  There was no agreement as to dates.

If there was only one flood during that time, then the 4260 flood was it.  But that doesn't fit the Mesopotamian stories very well.

Doug

That should probably tell you something, that the stories were never meant to be taken literally but as an attempt to explain natural events by using the gods as their excuse for same. 
 

cormac