One of the most important events in Genesis is the story of the Flood. In the OT account the Earth was overrun with wickedness and God resolved to wipe it clean. However, Noah was found to be righteous, so God decided to save him by instructing him to build an ark. Into this ark went Noah and his family along with two or seven of every living creature. The ‘fountains of the deep’ and the ‘windows of heaven’ opened and poured water onto the Earth for forty days and forty nights, after which time Noah, his family and the animals emerged to repopulate the Earth.

Did this happen?

I believe that there was, without doubt, a major catastrophe involving copious amounts of water sometime in our ancient past. I will go on to explain why I believe this in the next section. The real question here is how accurate the OT account is, which I will go on to later.

Global Scope

The OT account, on first reading, leaves the reader in little doubt that the Flood was a global catastrophe.

All the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

It goes on to state that every non-aquatic animal was destroyed, save for those in the ark, which went on to repopulate the Earth.

If this account is literally true then there would be, at the very least, echoes of the story in the mythology of peoples from all over the world, as everyone would be a descendent of the survivors. On the other hand, if, as some have proposed, the Flood was a more localised event (see {Tollman’s Hypothetical Bolide}, for example) then the story of a flood would only be found in the mythologies of the regions affected.

Even a cursory examination of {flood myths from around the world} reveals that a great many elements of the OT account are found. Remarkably, especially given the long period of time since the Flood (see below), many elements of the story are repeated in many of the mythologies:

• Global flooding, which appeared from both the ground and the sky.
• A small number of survivors who then re-populated the Earth
• A wooden ark
• Pairs of animals saved
• Birds released at the end to see if the waters had retreated
• A ‘wicked’ earth beforehand
• A single righteous individual
• Giants and monsters that were destroyed by the Flood
• Animal eating/sacrifice instigated at the end
• The rainbow as a sign of God’s covenant

I should introduce a word of caution here. There is a very real possibility that some of these myths were ‘contaminated’ by early christian missionaries. Also, it is almost certain that any story of such epic proportions would naturally spread between populations, who often would adopt and adapt the story. Hence, it is perhaps not surprising to find the story most strongly paralleled in the mythologies of Europe and Asia. Perhaps more surprising is to find it in the stories of central and southern Africa and the far east. It is, however, quite remarkable to find it in the mythologies of the Americas and Australasia, where contact is presumed to have been non-existant.

It is also worth noting at this point that the flood myths of south America and Australasia tend to be somewhat less dramatic. Major flooding, even if a local event, is likely to appear in myths and legends and it may be that the appearance of OT-like elements is coincidence. This would render the OT Flood as a somewhat less global event. However, the parallels remain strong in the North American myths, countering this argument.

Another possibility is that the event was actually global, but that the effects were not uniform. This would mean that the Flood did not, literally, cover the whole Earth. I am more inclined to this idea, not least because, if the flood literally covered every piece of dry land, where did such an enormous quantity of water go? More on this later.

The prevalence of flood myths around the world convinces me that some event did occur. We must now examine the nature of this event and look for evidence of its occurrence and, thereby, attempt to find out when it occurred.

The World Before the Flood

Archaeological remains suggest that people were spread across the whole planet from very early times. Evidence for the existance of modern man is found everywhere dating back tens of thousands of years. The flood, therefore, either wiped out everyone and re-population was by the descendents of Noah, or the flood had a more local effect, leaving some populations unaffected.

The literal interpretation of the Bible places the flood at around 2650 BC. Carbon dating and dendrochronology has confirmed many civilisations existed long before this date and there is good reason to believe that these civilisations were continuous up to and beyond this date. This could only be reconciled if the flood was very localised, didn’t happen at all, happened considerably further back in time or that it was indeed global, but, almost immediately afterwards, people went back to where they had been living and carried on as though nothing had happened.

The archaeological evidence shows continuous occupation in many places back as far as around 9500 BC. If we assume that the flood was global (or nearly so) in its effect, we must look for an event that happened prior to this date.

According to the OT, after Man had been driven out of Eden, they were forced to struggle to extract their food from the ground. This continued until Noah and the Flood (Noah means ‘Rest’). So the period before the flood was one in which harsh conditions made everyday living difficult.

There is an event that matches these criteria: the Younger Dryas. This was the last event of the last Ice Age. Following a relatively mild period, temperatures across the globe suddenly plummeted around 11,000 BC. During this period the mean temperature in the UK was around 5°C, glaciers advanced over much of the northern hemisphere and the Middle East suffered severe droughts. This process took no more than a decade to complete, lasted around 1,300 years and then, in 9,600 BC, suddenly ended.

The OT is somewhat vague as to where the antedeluvians lived, but it is a reasonable assumption that it was somewhere around the Middle East. Whilst fossil evidence shows that people lived all over the globe, it is probable that many peoples were isolated or had limited contact. It is important to remember that human population was quite sparse at that time. The best estimates place a maximum global human population at around five million. If you spread this population across all of the inhabitable regions of the world you will find that the majority were living in small tribes of just tens or maybe hundreds of individuals. Most of these tribes would have had a limited range and a broad river or mountain would have almost certainly cut them off from contact with a neighbouring group.

In these circumstances, any group that had a slight advantage would have prospered significantly over its neighbours. We know from modern times that any tribe that feels itself superior to another tends to treat the ‘inferior’ tribe as less than human (the British in Africa, and the conacts with American and Australian indiginous populations are obvious examples). Therefore, if the people of the Middle East – who went on to write the histories that have come down to us in the OT – had had such an advantage, then they may well have considered any other human populations as inferior and, therefore, ‘sub-human’. In this context, for the flood to wipe out ‘all humans’, it would only need to affect these peoples.

This would suggest that the flood (as experienced by Noah) was not necasserily global – at least not in the sense of literally covering all the Earth. This need not contradict the OT account.

The Earth during the Younger Dryas was quite different to today. The ice caps were more extensive and glaciation occurred extensively, especially in the northern hemisphere. Sea levels were thus considerably lower than today. The North sea, for example, was dry land and evidence continues to be uncovered that human populations lived there. All around the globe, coastal regions extended far into what is now an ocean.

In the cold, harsh environment of an ice age finding food was the main preoccupation of all life. The mountainous regions would have yielded almost nothing and the higher hills would have been little better. Lowlands and coastal regions fed by rivers would have provided the best sources of food. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that most humans lived in these regions. As suggested above, these groups of humans would have been fairly isolated and would have considered ‘the world’ to be the sum of their own experiences. The ‘highest hills’, to any coastal-dwelling peoples, would have been the low mounds found near present-day coastal regions.

When the Younger Dryas ended there was a very rapid melting of glaciers and arctic ice. Inland lakes, previously blocked by ‘plugs’ of ice, would have burst forth, flooding the valleys below them. The rapid melting of huge amounts of ice would have filled the sky with heavy clouds. Coastal regions would be inundated.

If this process was sufficiently rapid (and especially if compounded by other factors – see below) then any coastal-dwelling peoples will have been wiped out. Isolated pockets of humans may have survived and, possibly, larger groups living on other continents may have survived, but, to the people at the centre of this event, it would seem that no-one survived who was not in the ark.

By the end of this event the oceans would have risen by many metres. During the event, in some areas, the waters would risen much higher, eventually to drain away into the oceans. Hence, to Noah, looking out of the ark, it is quite possible that every ‘high hill’ that he knew was covered. It would be a simple leap of logic for him to assume that the whole earth was covered by the event.

There is a people who lived in the region at the right time. These people are known as the Natufian culture. The Natufians are seen as quite remarkable, as they had a sophicticated culture, were clearly succesful in gathering food, developed organised settlements and had quite sophisticated tools. All of this was in contrast to other humans around the world, who, generally, were still hunter-gatherers. Such a culture would, without doubt, have seen itself as superior to other human groups.

The World after the Flood

The ark came to rest on the mountains of Arrarat, in Armenia. After emerging, Noah made a sacrifice to God and thanked Him for his deliverence. At this time there were two quite remarkable occurrences.

Firstly, God gave permission to eat meat. This may not seem hugely signficant, but it is of relevance to the cause of the flood. I will deal with this further below.

Secondly, a rainbow appeared, which God gave as a sign of His covenant with Man, that He would not bring another flood. This has been cited by those wishing to debunk the Bible as clear evidence of its mythological nature – after all, did the laws of physics suddenly change? Clearly not.

What the debunkers fail to appreciate is the dramatic change in the climate of the world and, in particular, the region. For around 1,300 years the region had been locked in the grip of an ice age. Most of the area was dry and arid and low temperatures meant there was little evaporation. Essentially, cloud formation was rare and minimal in the area. Quite simply, the peoples of the region would have very rarely, if ever, seen a rainbow in the sky.

The Natufian culture appears to have ended with the end of the Younger Dryas, consistent with the OT flood account. However, it appears that their knowledge did not die with them.

According to the OT, the grandchildren of Noah went on to father the various tribes that would re-populate the Earth and many of them spread abroad. It is probable that these went on to meet with other survivors of the flood (if any) and almost certainly taught them all that the Natufian culture had learned. It is no surprise, therefore, to learn that – almost simultaneously – around 100-200 years after the end of the Younger Dryas, numerous cultures appeared across Eurasia, north Africa and the Americas. Suddenly, across the globe, people started to settle down and form communities, build houses and begin farming.

Genetic research is providing evidence of the impact that this event had on human populations. The human race is one of the most homogenous on the planet. That is, we have one of the lowest variations in our DNA. The tiny amounts in which we differ account for the small variations that we see: skin, eye and hair colour; shape and size of nose, lips and forehead and so on. It has been shown that these differences can become fized in a population within just a few generations if that population is small and isolated. This, again, is consistent with small groups fanning out from a central group.

Further, the lack of great variation in our DNA can only (at present) be explained if all humans come from a very small group – a ‘population bottleneck’. This group, according to current estimates, would have lived between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago – a period that includes the Younger Dryas.

Estimates of human population have placed the last bottleneck at approximately 10,000 BC – the end of the Younger Dryas. At this time it is estimated that the global human population may have slumped to as few as 1,000 individuals.

Another interesting area of research is in mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal DNA. These represent only a small part of human DNA, but are significant because they are gender-specific. Y-chromosomes are passed down only through the male lineage and mitochondrial DNA only through the female line. This is significant because examination of large populations can produce statistical analysis of each gender line.

With each gender line the analysis can be traced back to a ‘most recent common ancestor’ (MRCA). This is an individual who is an ancestor of every living person of the same gender that is alive today. Note that this individual would not (necasserily) have been the ‘first’ man or woman – they would almost certainly have had many contempories alive at the same time. Some of these contemporaries would be ancestors of some humans alive today, but only one person is an ancestor to all.

The MRCA of females is expected to be older than that of males. Statistically, the MRCA of both males and females must be considerably younger than the MRCA of either. Current estimates place the female MRCA (dubbed ‘mitochondrial Eve’) at 140,000 years ago, whilst the male MRCA (‘Y-chromosomal Adam’) lived around 60,000 years ago. However, the MRCA of both genders lived in much more recent times. Some estimates place this individual as recently as just 2,000 years ago, but the common consensus estimates 15,000 to 5,000 years ago. Once again, the Younger Dryas falls within this period.

To qualify as the MRCA an individual’s decsendents must have had contact with humans living on all parts of the planet. If the MRCA was, indeed, Noah, then his descendents must have been able to cross the oceans to the Americas and Australasia. Whilst there may have been humans living in these places prior to the Younger Dryas, some of the MRCA’s descendents must have introduced their genetic material to these populations.

The Cause of the Flood

This may seem an odd question in the light of what I have written before, as it appears I have already answered it – the end of the Younger Dryas. However, the true cause of the flood is what ended the Younger Dryas so dramatically and this is the question I will attempt to address here.

From the OT acccount, we find several occurences that, taken in isolation are significant, but when put together represent a dramatic change for life on Earth.

Firstly, as described above, is the change from a cold, harsh environment to a warm, abundant one.

As hinted earlier, there is the significance of God granting permission to eat meat (The OT does not say meat was not eaten prior to this – only that permission was given at this time.) Immanuel Velikovsky has proposed that the events of the flood caused a reduction in the levels of atmospheric oxygen. This would have led to a form of anaemia, making the eating of meat a necessity. I am not convinced by his arguments ({In The Beginning}), not least because, at the time, the consumption of blood was specifically prohibited. The blood would have provided are better source of iron and oxygen. However, suffice for the moment to assume that the eating of meat became legitimate – and possibly necessary.

Although the OT suggests that at least two of every animal was saved in the ark, we can reasonably assume that some creatures did not survive the deluge. Firstly, many creatures would not have been native to the region in which Noah lived and he could not have travelled the globe in seven days to collect specimens – it’s a fairly safe bet that there was no kangaroo on the ark! Secondly, with a population of only two, it is unlikely that any species could recover population, according to current genetic theory. (However, see below.) It is possible that Noah took only his livestock into the ark and the story was embellished over time to become two or seven of every animal. Even if the OT account is literally true, it is quite probable that some species simply died out after the flood, not least because the dramatically changed environment may have proved unsuitable.

There is also the question of the {Giants}:

There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them.

According to Josephus, these ‘sons of God’ were fallen angels, who taught mankind all manner of wickedness, leading to what the OT describes as:

The earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. God looked upon the earth and, behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

This was the reason for the deluge. Man had become so corrupt and violent that God determined to wipe all flesh from the face of the Earth. The book of Enoch expands the story greatly, telling us that God commanded these fallen angels be bound up until the day of judgement.

Assuming that giants did exist (and I believe they did in some form – see {Giants}), then they ceased to exist after the flood (at least in their original form).

Finally, we must consider the lifespan of the antedeluvians (see {Ages of the Antedeluvians}). If we assume that they did, indeed, live up to a thousand years, then something changed at the time of the flood and lives became increasingly shorter until they reached modern spans.

So we have these five events: Sudden warming, the requirement to eat meat, the extinction of a number of species, the end of the giants and the shortening of lives. What does the science say?

Assuming the flood coincided with the end of the Younger Dryas, then the climatic changes have been noted above and are well documented scientifically.

Current archaeological evidence shows that animals were hunted throughout human history. In fact, much of the evidence we have comes from the tools made from animal bones. This might suggest that there was no real change at the time of the flood. However, there is evidence that the primary source of nutrition for early man was vegetable in origin and that food from hunting was something of a ‘bonus’. It is also possible that animals were hunted primarily for non-food purposes – for their bones to provide tools, for sacrifices etc. Further, as stated earlier, the OT does not say that meat was not eaten prior to the flood – only that their was no permission to do so. Given that the earth was ‘full of violence’ and ‘corrupt’ – the whole reason for the flood – we can assume that meat was, in fact, eaten, in contravention of God’s commandments.

So, it is not the case that Man suddenly switched from a vegetarian diet to an omnivorous one. Rather, we must assume that eating meat became necessary in some way. For some reason a purely vegetarian diet became insufficient. However, there appears to be no scientific evidence to support this.

What about mass extinctions? We do know that a significant number of species did become extinct at this time. There are, for example, the {megafauna} – giant varieties of species alive today – all of which died out at around the time of the Younger Dryas. Science remains somehwat divided as to the cause of their demise, although there appears to be a growing consensus that there were a number of factors involved. It is probable that the sudden climatic change simply finished off species that were already in decline. However, it should be noted here that it appears that the largest species were the ones most affected. It appears that, for some reason, being big became a big disadvantage.

This leads us to the question of the giants. If giant creatures did not survive, it is only reasonable that giant humanoids were also afflicted. ‘Giants’ do re-appear later in the OT, but these accounts suggest that their giantism was not on the same scale as the beings referred to prior to the flood. At present, there is no scientific evidence to support the fact of giants ever having existed. However, I would suggest that the numbers of these giants would have been relatively few and the conditions leading to fossilisation of bones is rare enough that it is quite possible that no fossil evidence of giants exists.

The lengths of antedeluvian lives is one element of the OT that many point at as ‘evidence’ of its mythological nature. However, there is no actual evidence to prove that people (or animals, for that matter) did not live longer.

Current research suggests that lifespans are determined by genetics – that, at the cellular or possibly DNA level, there is a ‘genetic clock’ that limits life. Is it possible that something happened to ‘adjust’ this ‘clock’? Josephus suggests that the reason the antedeluvians lived longer was due to diet. If this was the case, then what happened to the food?

In {In the Begninning} Velikovsky argues that for seven days prior to the flood the Earth was bathed in a brilliant light. He goes on to argue that this was caused by the explosion of Saturn. I disagree that this was the cause (although I do not dismiss it entirely.) However, there is a very real possibility that this light did occur.

When a sufficiently large star has burned enough of its fuel it will collapse catastrophically. As the core collapses, the outer layers are blasted away in a huge explosion known as a supernova. For a few days, maybe  weeks, that one star will shine with as much energy as a whole galaxy. It has been shown that if such a supernova were to happen too close to the Earth then life on this planet could be wiped out. In fact, as far away as 100 light years distance would be close enough to devastate the Earth. Such supernovae occur infrequently in our galaxy, less than one a century, but this is still frequent enough that over the course of thousands of years it is highly probable that one would have occurred close to Earth.

I am not certain of the science involved in a nearby supernova (and invite more learned men to contribute here), but if it occurred at the right distance then the Earth would certainly be bathed in light for several days. It would also have been bathed in radiation from across the electromagnetic spectrum. This radiation would have a dramatic warming effect and it would have many other consequences to life on Earth. If it were too close it would have wiped life out – too far away and it would have had negligible effects. Anywhere in-between and life would survive. One known consequence of radiation is genetic mutation. Could a nearby supernova have altered human DNA so as to speed up our ‘genetic clock’. Could it have affected all plant and animal matter, altering our food so as to render it less suitable for longer life? Either way, the effects would multiply over succeeding generations in much the way described in the OT. It is also possible that such mutation could have rendered giantism less likely. Pending further research, I cannot say with any certainty what the effects would be. Suffice to say, that a supernova event at about the right distance may well have caused the end of the Younger Dryas.

At present there is virtually no evidence to support the supernova idea. I present it here because it seems to fit the many threads of the flood story. Future research may back the idea up – or possibly refute it completely. There is little hope of finding the supernova – or any direct evidence of it. The cloud of dust and gas characteristically left behind by such events would almost certainly have dissipated beyond detection by now. However, indirect evidence must surely be available here on Earth if science should decide to go looking for it. Equally, the genetic mutation theory must have left some evidence, although this may need to wait until complete genetic material of an antedeluvian is found and analysed. The same applies to the giants.

Conclusion

Based on current scientific evidence, the end of the Younger Dryas is, to me, the most likely time for the flood. I believe that some astronomical event – probably a supernova – triggered the sudden warming of the planet and led to other consequences besides. There are too many elements of the story that match with the known science for me to conclude otherwise at this time. I remain open to new evidence (or better interpretation of existing evidence) and I constantly examine alternative explanations.

If I am right then we can now give a date for Noah’s flood. Based on dendrochronology (which can be shown to be highly accurate), the Younger Dryas came to an end in 9620 BC.

This places the flood considerably further back in time than previously thought. If it is right, then much of the OT dating will have to be re-thought.