Noah Way

Recently, I saw a show titled something like "The Search for Noah's Ark". It turns out, lots of people have spent tons of time and effort to find "Noah's Ark". Satellite photos, hiking expeditions, attempted hoaxes. Lots of effort and excitement, but no results. The funny part is that the same people who shun carbon dating as a tool of the devil are using carbon dating on pieces of wood and whatnot that they find at 300 feet above sea level.

One segment showed a teacher explaining the story of Noah and the flood to young children, and it struck me how excited the teacher seemed. But he sort of glossed over the fact of an entire earth full of people being drowned by an angry God. Why does God keep getting so angry? Usually I get angry when something happens that I don't expect. Something ridiculous that catches me off guard. Somebody tracked mud into the house! Somebody broke my window! Somebody ate all of the pepperoni pizza and left only supreme! God shouldn't be surprised by anything. He's omniscient, right? Surely he must have known that his earth experiment was going to go horribly wrong. If I always knew what was going to happen, I can't imagine that I'd get very angry. But throughout the bible, God seems to continually have an anger management issue.

Anyway, the story of Noah's Ark is continually glorified, yet wouldn't it be the largest mass murder in history? If you count all of the Friday the 13th movies together, you don't approach the killed-to-saved ratio of the flood. But this massacre is honored yearly in churches, redneck school districts, and children's nursery bedding. Did you ever buy your child a Jason Vorhees quilt or a Manson mobile? Probably not. And I suppose "Children of the Corn" is also a feel good story since one guy gets away at the end.

Back to the story. People have been trying to reconcile a global flood with what we now know about science. There are numerous logistical problems for this flood that were explained by a few possible guesses (I know better than to say "theories" - A theory is actually "an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers". A "guess" is something you just pull out of your ass.) And let's forget the fact that modern shipbuilders say that a wooden ark of that size would likely break apart.

One was that water shot up out of underground wells in order to produce the flood. Another was that all of the water was suspended in the air above the earth. Another was that a comet hit the ocean.

Flood myths are rampant throughout history even before the alleged time of Noah, most notably the Mesopotamian story of Gilgamesh which tracks the story of Noah minus the moral aspect (sinners needing to be washed away).

Anyway, on to the most interesting part of the show. Scientists have determined through core samples in the Black Sea, that that body of water used to be fresh water and then suddenly became salt water around 7000 BC (You know, before the earth was even created). The thinking was that as the polar ice melted, the sea levels rose and the Mediterranean Sea spilled over the land bridge keeping it from the Black Sea. They guessed that it spilled over rather quickly, probably scaring the living shit out of anyone living along the Black Sea. Probably inspiring enough for the locals who survived to pass along the story.

I have seen how warped a story becomes after just 20 years, so I wouldn't be surprised if this "flood" story got a bit twisted over 7000 years. Noah's story was supposed to be around 2700 BC. Remember that God made rainbows after that to promise that he wouldn't flood the earth again? Why does God need to promise anything to man? I don't need to make promises to my dog. I just choose to not act like a raving lunatic to begin with. I've seen inspirational coffee mugs that say "God Keeps His Promises". Is it laudable when an abusive boyfriend beats or rapes a girl and THEN promises to never do that again? Even if he "keeps his promise"?

And rainbows? What, sunlight never contained a spectrum of colors before the "flood"?

And the ark? They ended up finding it at the end of the show. It was right behind me pot of gold all along!