Asymmetrical Information

I'm skeptical. A real epic flood that was assumed to be world-wide (it destoryed their known world) seems more likely.

I need to see more evidence that ancients knew what fossils were and knew what they represented. Otherwise those are just big rocks that just kinda look like clams.

and also, would people who lived in the mountains know what clams/shellfish were, anyway (excepting Rocky Mountain Oysters, of course)?

Makes sense to me. The first literary men who wrote down the oral legends that came to make up the Bible certainly would have been more sophisticated than the average shepherd. A wise man of 1000 BC or so would be able to look at a fish fossil high up in the mountains and say, "This proves that a world wide flood must have happened." As the article states, the wisest of men in those days would have no idea of the time involved in the fossilization process and the geological changes possible in that time, but even a pretty dumb guy could recognize a fish skeleton. When the dumb guy tells the wise man he found a fish skeleton high in the mountains, the basis for a flood myth would be established.

This is something I have always assumed, but I guess it's not really an established theory. I have also always assumed that the popularity of myths about dragons were attempts to explain dinosour fossils.

I'm sure it also helps that all the major early civilizations (Sumerian, Egyptian, Indian, Chinese) began in river valleys prone to flooding. In fact, I think that helps it explain it better than the fossil record.

And "dragons" must have existed, because here are their bones and graves. (Said of dinosaur fossils?)

Why not?

However, that a plausible even likely alternative exists doesn't prove the base story (Noah's flood) untrue.

Stephen Jay Gould shows how a "creation myth" grew up around Abner Doubleday regarding baseball. Gould proves that baseball actually sort of socially evolved, (by "punctuated equilibrium", IIRC) and that Doubleday entered the picture as the Creator well after the game was well established.

However -- BASKETBALL, as a game, was a special creation of Naismith -- it did NOT evolve naturally from primitive forms. (Though it has experienced rule changes and other micro-evolutionary processes since the Creation.)

That a particular Creation myth is a fable doesn't necessarily mean that all such myths are equally fabulous, and I suppose a reason for some "Flood" tales to arise in places where there was never a physical flood does NOT prove there WAS NOT an epic flood in, say, areas near the Mediterrian some 6000 to 8000 years ago.

Doesn't prove there was, either.

Must. Have. More. Data. ...

Makes sense as one possible factor.

If you take the biggie, the Bosporous Flood, other local, major floods, put them together with a lack of awareness of tectonics and uplift, then voila, you get an essentially worldwide, seemingly shared, great flood mythos.

The Med Sea was once dry land, Spain and Africa being connected by land. Whether by earthquake or water pressure that link was broken and the Med was flooded. Quite possibly the origination of the flood story since at one time most of humanity was probably within a comfortable distance of the Med.

The flooding of the Med was much, much, MUCH too early to be the source of the Noah's Ark flood (or of the flood mentioned earlier in the Gilgamesh epic, etc.). The Black Sea flood (ie. the Bosphoros Flood noted above), in contrast, is much more within the correct timeframe. It's actually 1-2 thousand years early, but perhaps the accounts we know of were themselves influenced by still earlier tales.

Oops. Meant 'Bosphorus', not 'Bosphoros'.

Mr. Bingley: ...would people who lived in the mountains know what clams/shellfish were, anyway...

The easiest explanation is that there are freshwater molluscs, too. But also, shells of sea creatures have been found far inland, used as decorative jewelry. They got there through trade with people living closer to the ocean.

I think Chris B is more likely right, though. A very large flood is assumed by the survivors to have been worldwide.

As for the giant oyster picture in Jane's link, this discussion casts doubt on the organic origin of those rocks. Although bivalves this big do exist. This company will sell you one, if you've got the dough (scroll down to "Giant Cretaceous Clam" and click to enlarge).

The Med Sea was once dry land, Spain and Africa being connected by land. Whether by earthquake or water pressure that link was broken and the Med was flooded.

That was Felice, after she got the golden torc. She blasted open the Med to destroy the Tanu. Certainly a very exciting scene! That was back in the Pliocene, though.

Julian May, Angie... but you may not.

Primitive people were not stupid ..the only way they survived was thru observation..
Finding fossils in mountains proved there were floods and even the greek myths were easily proved by dragging the non belivers out and showing them the fossils of the giants that previously ruled earth..

Without more evidence, I'm be reluctant to believe this explanation when a much simpler one is avaialable: most places experience flooding from time to time and tales get taller with the retelling.

When we look at markings on a rock, we experience them with a different perspective on the world than the ancients. We understand that the earth is old, almost beyond imagining, and has gone through many violent changes in its geologic history. We know the place we are standing could have been under a sea, and we understand the processes that compress mud, silt, and sand into rocks. We know that the dead body of a fish could be trapped in the mud, the flesh rot away, and the crevices in the bones fill with minerals, and we see in the markings on the rock a fossil.

Ancient man most likely didn't view the earth as we do. He knew the earth was old but had no idea of the time scale or the geologic forces that operated over time. He understood it to be formed sometime in the very distant past but most evidence points to him believing that it was created in the form he was experiencing it at that moment, not being shaped and reshaped over time. So he sees the markings and would most likely assume they have been there since the beginning, drawn by the finger of God, not as something that was created as the result of a natural process.

I feel that I must put in a word for the unheard majority - God made the flood and Genesis is the word of God. The fact that most humans lived in places where devastating floods occurred within living memory might have helped people to believe the story. The idea that some humans were possibly aware that marine fossils existed at high elevations might also have helped to sell the story to other doubters. Assigning the existence of these fossils any higher significance than that - that's religious belief of the same order that the author of the linked article clearly believes to be fatuous.

Belief in God is laughable to some. Belief in junk "science" to disprove the existence of a diety should be laughable to all.

I'm sure it also helps that all the major early civilizations (Sumerian, Egyptian, Indian, Chinese) began in river valleys prone to flooding.

One will note also the correspondence between the various Indo-European deities. Myths of giants floods would be transmitted and transmuted in the same way as IE gods and languages.

And I believe the common inability to spell "deity" should be lamentable to everyone.

(I know that is a truly mean nitpick, but this is a serious problem that is endemic to the Internet and needs to be fixed.)

Brittain33. While we are on the nitpick topic...

Endemic - Prevalent in or restricted to a particular region, community, or group of people.

I know this isn't a problem that is restricted to the Internet. :)

Here is my take.

The book to read on the Black Sea theory is here, Noah's Flood by Walter Pitman and William Ryan, mentioned in the article Jay Solo links. I'm not sure I'm convinced, but the book is a real pageturner if you like this sort of thing.

Hey ken ,your population problem does not exist..
People are being paid less in evry generation..
Gold used to be 2 buck an ounce and is now 300 of so bucks an ounce...
People are being paid less (in gold) and more with paper...which you think is money

When you are in the middle of a flood, it seems the whole world is flooded. For you, it is.

I too would like to put in a word for the Bible. I find it to be an intelligent and awe inspiring set of documents.

I think the modern age underestimates the brilliance of this book. Friends of mine, many of them brilliant in their fields, will obsess over a particular phrase of James Joyce - analyzing why he said it THAT particular way, etc. yet they dismiss the Bible as being a bizarre, unintelligible fantasy with no meaning. Joyce is coherent, but the Bible is not?

If you view the Bible with the same - dare I say love of the author, or at least a predisposition to be open to the author's point of view - you come out of it convinced there is a Creator of the universe who revealed something very specific and important about the meaning of life in a sequence of stories, poems, narratives, and events spanning several thousand years.

I didn't get the Bible at first, yet even while dismissing it, I was studying Semiotics via Charles Saunders Pierce and Saussure; I was absorbing the brilliance of Vygotsky and Wittgenstein on language and thought; I knew Latin and Greek. I later learned that a community of scholars used the very philosophical tools I love so much to understand and interpret the Bible. It was like a light switching on. You've got to think like a scholar. Treat it as an anthropological problem. Suppose an obscure King of the World wished to communicate a very important (but difficult) idea to his/her subjects, except the subjects didn't know he/she existed: how would it be done? I submit it would be done exactly as it WAS done.

The famous atheist Madeline Murray O'Hare said she became an atheist after reading the Bible cover to cover in a single weekend. I, on the other hand, became a devout Christian (of the Catholic species), after reading the Bible for 30 years. I like to think my approach had more depth and is therefore more compelling. But that's my ego talking.

Good post Jane Galt. Thank you.

Which raises the question, how would primitive land locked people know that a given fossil came from the sea as opposed to just being a neat looking rock?

Fish remains are all over in lakes and rivers. There is nothing about a trilobite that would suggest it came from the water. It could just be a different looking beetle.

I think actual flooding at the end of the last ice age, causing a global rise in sea levels is a much better explaination.

The reason so few have mentioned the Bible is because, if you take the story of Noah literally (with a flood so vast as to put the entire Earth under water so deep as to cover up the Himalayas, Mt. Everest, etc), you don't have a leg to stand on.

Were did all that water come from?
Where did it all go?(hint - there isn't enough water at the poles to supply but a small fraction of what would have been required.)
Where is the evidence of such a monumental global catastrophy?

Belief in God is laughable to some. Belief in junk "science" to disprove the existence of a diety should be laughable to all.

It's interesting that you refer to God as "a deity" - perhaps one among many others?

Brittain33 - By "problem" are you referring to bad spellers or that pesky "belief in God" thing? Because if it's the latter, I am all for pointing out the spelling errors of those expressing some sort of faith in order to convince them of my intellectual superiority. In fact, once I bone up on grammar as a whole, I imagine that a secular Internet will be just around the corner.

Problem with putting too much weight on the filling of the Black Sea theory:
World-deluging flood myths are found all over the world.

Problem with viewing these myths as simple extrapolations from smaller floods:
Why not, then, similarly widespread myths of worldwide destruction by fire, lightning, or windstorm?

Those who express skepticism over the ID of the marine fossils should keep in mind that the illustration used for the original article was dramatic but ill-chosen; in fact, marine fossil deposits in elevated areas are more often very much more recognizable as sea creatures: bony fish; scalloplike and snaillike shells; etc.

Uh maybe - but I doubt it.

Most modern flood myths in Western Civilization appear to come from the Epic of Gilgamesh. It's not impossible, I guess, but it does seem unlikely that the events described in the Epic of Gilgamesh were developed by ancient Mesopotamians finding marine fossils in the Tigris-Euphrates valley and saying "hmm, these fossils indicate that this area was once under water, so let's write about a flood in this Epic we're working on."

Personally I like the Younger-Dryas event better as a source of flood myths. The Younger-Dryas began very rapidly due to arctic melting (which could cause flooding), and when it ended, also very rapidly (in 9600BC) there was another episode of rapid sea level rise as the glaciers re-melted.

As an additional point in favor of the Black Sea theory, as opposed to the theory mentioned in this post (though an interesting theory), it is useful to remember that the floods there may have been close in time to the initial domestication of horses. And the domestication of horses probably occurred relatively close to (if not in) the Black Sea area.
The vast geography of the Indo-European language family is suggestive of the overwhelming power that the initial mastery of horses had, both for transportation and military reasons. If those same people also shared the kind of epic myth that would come from the flooding of the entire Black Sea, it would easily explain why so many cultures in that area have a flood story.

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