The Great Forgotten Deluge

The story has been handed down for as long as anyone can remember - literally. Ancient texts the world over speak of a great deluge, a flood that covered the earth and reshaped the course of history as we know it. Skeptics scoff at the idea of such an event citing a lack of scientific evidence, but the non-believers were struck with another heavy blow recently as members of a brave Turko-Chinese expedition announced with notable conviction that – once and for all – the legendary vessel that may well have saved humanity from destruction had been discovered.

The deluge itself is known by various names, such as the Great Flood, and most people are familiar with this event through the Book of Genesis. Contrary to popular skeptical belief the Genesis telling is of great scientific importance. Sure, the story itself might be the stuff of legend and myth and in a literal sense can be rather difficult to accept; but rarely does a case get proven on the basis of one person’s testimony.

A credible investigator – and an honest, respectable freethinker – would not stop with one statement from one eyewitness to declare guilt or innocence. With a little effort, one piece of evidence could lead to other witnesses or clues. Genesis does exactly that, through an often forgotten and undervalued scientific field known as archaeology – the real kind, done in libraries: in fact Genesis leads straight to the texts it came from, older stories from Sumerian and Akkadian roots about characters called Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim, Ziusudra and Atra-Hasis.

In the varying versions of the legend, a basic theory can be deduced of what the real story of the Great Forgotten Deluge may have been. This deeper story is disturbing in its implications, stunning in its scientific worth, and could provide some real clues as to what possibly lies ahead for tiny Earth and her fragile civilizations. A summary of that story goes something like this:

Our solar system shows signs of having a major missing component, another large planet that dramatically returns every 3,600 years or so on its wide elliptical orbit. According to the overwhelming archaeological evidence left behind by many of our known ancestor civilizations, this object passes through the vast, asteroid-ridden region between our neighbors Mars and Jupiter. When this event takes place, the gravitational fields of the surrounding heavenly bodies are affected, including Earth’s. During one of these passes approximately 13,000 years ago this gravitational pull had an exceptionally catastrophic consequence.

Dr. John T. Hollin, based on what is now widely accepted science, theorized that the Antarctic ice sheet builds up over the millennia to incredible size and weight and, after creating enough friction and trapping enough heat creates a slush and mud layer underneath, then eventually slips off its base into the surrounding waters causing monumental tidal waves, severe and destructive weather, etcetera. According to his calculations, based on a one-mile-thick sheet of ice approximately half the size of the current Antarctic cap, an event such as this would suddenly raise the level of the world’s oceans by as much as sixty feet. Many other scientists have further developed and built on Hollin’s work and it does not take a genius to realize that this kind of catastrophe would create indescribable damage around the globe.

The unnerving slippage theory is augmented by another scientist, one A.T. Wilson of Victoria University in New Zealand, who proposed in 1964 that such ice slippages not only happen but cause the abrupt end of ice ages such as the one that concluded sometime in the era around 11,000 BCE. The resulting major temperature shift, the effect on all forms of life, and the ensuing destruction are concepts based on hard science and are most certainly the stuff of what one might call “biblical” proportions. If the theories of Hollin and Wilson are good enough material for global warming and climate change activists to use, presented through brilliant films such as The Day After Tomorrow for one vivid example, should anyone be so eager to dismiss the Genesis story of a Great Flood?

Despite all the cliché warnings about history repeating itself, there are those who reduce the Genesis story to mere fantasy. It is easier to disregard evidence and ridicule believers, to let the truth escape discovery without so much as making an effort to consider what may have once been; forget the fact that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all still share the amazing Noah legend into modern times. Denounce the Bible and Koran, and ignore that one is then forced to explain why the Hindu Satapatha Brahmana also tells of a great deluge; different names – same story.

The Philadelphia Freethought Examiner even went so far as to state that no “reputable” news organizations picked up the Ark discovery announcement. Of course she didn’t bother to identify sources she considers credible, but a simple keyword search contradicts her allegation. As my colleague Howard often says, “I hear the internet is on computers now.”  For those who are interested, the Christian Science Monitor’s article doubting the find is rather intriguing.

All the strange images and reports from previous expeditions to massive Mt. Ararat and the surrounding region of Eastern Turkey have kept the story a simmering historical mystery for millennia. From Marco Polo and Sir Walter Raleigh to Leonard Nimoy and Al Gore, the Ark itself – perhaps the best possible evidentiary link to prove the Genesis story – has been relentlessly sought and investigated. Former Vice President Gore offered up intriguing CIA satellite images in 1996 as possible evidence of the Ark’s location. Why? Is it possible the inconclusive images may have led him to his current unwavering stance on dramatic global climate change?

The ancient Sumerian and Akkadian and Hindu sources – and others around the world – provide staggering detail of a Great Forgotten Deluge and an extremely difficult challenge, for some an inconvenient truth. For if the Biblical flood – seen through a solid and accepted scientific hypothesis – was a real event, what of the statements about the few people who may have somehow managed to live through it?

It certainly appears that religion has once again outsmarted science using science as its tool, a lesson many rigid secularists will fail to pause and ponder. Meanwhile, serious investigators soldier on – such as those of the daring expedition team from Noah's Ark Ministries International. Even if they turn out to be wrong, we do know they did more than sit at home on their computers and guess.