NOAH'S REGIONAL FLOOD © 2024 Arthur Chrysler
CUNEIFORM TABLET IN CLAY ENVELOPE, UR III (c. 2050 B.C.), in the author's possession. The scene on the seal impression depicts a bareheaded worshipper (owner of the seal) being led by a minor goddess (lamma) into the presence of a seated man, possibly Ur-Nammu, king of Ur.
[Obtained at Geneva, Switzerland sometime after 1960 by F. Richards Ford III and purchased from his estate in 2021 by Arthur Chrysler.]
- “As early as 2750 B.C. clay envelopes were used for private letters and contract tablets, and it became the practice to rewrite the contents of the tablet on the envelope, then to close it with a private seal. The owner could be assured that the contents had not been tampered with, if the seal remained intact. Should a dispute arise the tablet within was examined” (P. J. Wiseman, New Discoveries in Babylonia About Genesis, 1936, p. 35).
Noah’s flood lasted for one year and occurred between 2243 and 2242 B.C. (less than 200 years before the tablet was written).
- (2343 B.C.) Genesis 5:32 – And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
- (2243 B.C.) Genesis 7:11 – In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
- (2242 B.C.) Genesis 8:13 – And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.
- Genesis 11:1-9 – The Tower of Babel
- (2241 B.C.) Genesis 11:10 – These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:
- (2206 B.C.) 12 And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah:
- (2176 B.C.) 14 And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:
- (2142 B.C.) 16 And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg:
- (2112 B.C.) 18 And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:
- (2080 B.C.) 20 And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:
- *(2050 B.C.) 22 And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor:
- (2021 B.C.) 24 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:
- (1951 B.C.) 26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
- (1893 B.C.) Genesis 9:28-29 – And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died. [Abraham would have been 58 years-old when Noah died.]
Archaeological evidence for Noah's regional flood:
Author Barbara Bell, who, in the early 1970s, published several journal articles on the connection of climate variability to the fall of Egyptian dynasties, wrote, “Although the details remain obscure and the primary cause open to dispute, some aspects of the trouble which occurred at the end of Dynasty VI (ca. 2345 BC–ca. 2181 BC) seem clear: texts from the period indicate that hardly any form of civil order was absent, ranging from strife between districts to looting and killing by infiltrating Asiatics in the Delta, to individual crime run riot, to revolution and social anarchy. Reference to famine occurs in several texts” (Barbara Bell, The First Dark Age in Egypt, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Jan. 1971), p. 7).
Miriam Tadmor, Senior curator of Chalcolithic and Canaanite Periods, Israel Museum, wrote, “The emergence of the Bronze Age civilization heralds a decisive departure from the earlier Chalcolithic culture. Reasons for these far-reaching and as yet unexplained changes have been sought in climatic fluctuations and in population influx from the north. Settlement patterns changed: villages in the semiarid northern Negev and in the Golan, abandoned at the end of the Chalcolithic period, were not resettled” (Miriam Tadmor, Treasures of the Holy Land, Canaanite Period, Bronze Age, 1986, p. 88).
“In the last stage of the early Bronze Age, there was a deterioration in traditional pottery forms... By the time of the Sixth Dynasty (ca. 2345 BC–ca. 2181 BC), Egyptian influence was virtually nonexistent, and Egyptian royal names are absent even in the copper mines of Sinai. The collapse of the urban order is synchronous with the fall of the Old Kingdom in Egypt and with the collapse of the Akkadian empire in Mesopotamia. The reason for such widespread destruction must have been manifold and complex. Ethnic movements from the north have been singled out as a decisive factor, but climatic and internal changes have also been emphasized. …Coppersmiths produced tools and weapons which, though seldom outstanding, were always effective and well made. It is therefore astonishing that so few objects of high artistic quality have been unearthed: a handful of human or animal representations, some bone carvings, a few small ivories and sculptures, and some jewelry. Cylinder-seal impressions add some lively designs but are simple and crudely made. There is a striking contrast between the somewhat utilitarian (practical) material culture of the Early Bronze Age and the richly artistic achievements of the preceding Chalcolithic period” (Miriam Tadmor, Treasures of the Holy Land, Canaanite Period, Bronze Age, 1986, p. 90).
Barbara Bell wrote, “In Egypt, where the chronology is best established, the first Dark Ages began around 2200 B.C., when at the end of Dynasty VI (ca. 2345 B.C.– ca. 2181 B.C.) Egypt, until then a very stable society, with seeming suddenness fell into anarchy. About the same time the Akkadian Empire disintegrated. …In western and southern Anatolia ‘the end of the Early Bronze II period is marked by a catastrophe of such magnitude as to remain unparalleled until the very end of the Bronze Age’ (Melcart 1962); widespread destruction is followed by general decline in material culture and a decrease of about 75 percent in the number of known settlements. We may probably include also the decline of the Indus Valley civilization.”
“…As supporting evidence for a dust storm interpretation, we note Butzer’s (1959b:66) finding that at Hierakonopolis, nearby, a predynastic cemetery was denuded by wind action, which removed up to 2 M. (6.5 feet) of fairly resistant silt and exposed the burials, probably sometime after the end of Dynasty VI. At Abydos, some 100 km. to the north, the ‘funerary palace’ of Queen Merneith of Dynasty I (c. 3150 B.C. – c. 2890 B.C.) suffered such denudation that its walls were reduced to only a few courses of bricks, partly buried beneath a layer of sand by the time of Dynasty XII, when a few small mastabas were constructed over the ruins. (B.J. Kemp 1966, JEA 52)” (Barbara Bell, The First Dark Age in Egypt, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Jan. 1971), 1-26).
Isn’t it more likely that the predynastic cemetery was denuded by the action of water? More than 6 feet of “fairly resistant silt” was removed to expose the burials. Regardless of what you believe about the flood, you must admit that, regarding this specific point in time, the parallels are remarkable between what Scripture says about Noah’s Flood and what archaeologists have found in the Middle East.
"Abrupt climatic change expressed by appreciable worsening of the drought occurred during the second half of Intermediate Bronze between 4200 and 3900 B.P. (2176-1876 B.C.). Results were more devastating than manmade changes during military occupation and produced the longest and most overwhelming cultural break recorded in Canaan and neighboring countries involving massive desertion and dwindling of Canaan's population (Kochavi, 1967; Kenyon, 1979; R. Amiran and Kochavi, 1985; Gophna, 1992). "
"Marked increase in aridity occurred abruptly also in north Mesopotamia at 4200 B.P. when extensive dry farming territories were deserted by local inhabitants who migrated toward south Mesopotamia, generating an economic disintegration process that led to collapse of the Akkadian Empire (Weiss et al., 1993). This period of drought and cultural hiatus lasted for 300 years ending at 3900 B.P. (1876 B.C.) when climatic conditions ameliorated. Deserted areas then were reoccupied under the rule of an emerging Amorite or Amurru regime. This sequence of events agrees with climatic chronology for the Dead Sea region at exactly the same time. Weiss et al. identified three earlier periods of drought at 7900, 6500, and 5000 B.P. based on similar cultural-sedimentological evidence in north Mesopotamia."
"An intensive resettling process then occurred in Canaan at sometime between 4000 and 3800 B.P. (1976-1776 B.C.) with the beginning of Climatic Wet Phase III" (David Neeve, K. O. Emery, The Destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Jericho - Geological, Climatological, and Archaeological Background, 1995, p. 117).
Biblical evidence for Noah’s regional flood:
THE WHOLE EARTH
Genesis 8:9 – But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth (ארץ): then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
earth. Strong’s 776; erets; to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land).
אֶרֶץ erets. Gesenius – (1) the earth, opp. to heaven. Gen. 1:1; 2:1, 4. Synecdoche for the inhabitants of the earth, Gen. 9:19; 11:1; 19:31. (2) earth, land, continent, opp. to sea, Gen. 1:28. (3) a land, country, Ex. 3:8; 13:5; Gen.21:32; Ru. 1:7. Any one’s land is that which is subject to any one, as “the land of Sidon,” Neh. 9:22; or which is consecrated (Jer. 2:7; 16;18); also that in which any one dwells, Deu. 19:2, 10; 28:12; or was born, “his native land,” Gen. 24:4; 30:25; Nu. 10:9; Isa. 8:9; …Also used of the inhabitants of a región, Isa. 26:18; specially of the wicked, Isa. 11:4. (4) land, piece of land, Gen. 23:15; Ex. 23:10. Used of the land belonging to a town, Josh. 8:1. (Gesenius’s Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, Translated by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, 1904, p. LXXXI).
- Synecdoche is when the word for a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing, or less commonly, the word for a whole is used to refer to a part.
Genesis 11:1 – And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
- “The king whose minister Joseph was did not reign over all Egypt; his power did not extend very far south of Memphis, and when the sacred text speaks of the whole land, it must be understood as meaning only the Delta and part of the neighboring territory. Formulas of that kind are often employed in speaking of oriental sovereigns, even Apepi himself, of whom a papyrus says that the whole earth paid him tribute” (Edouard Naville, Through Bible Lands, 1878, pp. 433-434).
Genesis 6:17 – And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth (אֶרֶץ), to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth (אֶרֶץ) shall die.
Genesis 7:19-20 – And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
Deuteronomy 2:24-25 – Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle. This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.
Matthew Poole's Commentary:
- under the whole heaven; which is a synecdoche and an hyperbole, but is explained by the following words, which restrain the sentence to those nations that heard of them.
Deuteronomy 11:25 – There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.
- the land. ארץ erets
2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:
7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth (ארץ): then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
- Noah’s dove was unable to reach land, so the ark must have rested in the water some distance from the visible peaks (v. 5). The word “earth” (erets,) here in verse 9, is not a reference to the whole earth because Noah had already seen the “tops of the mountains,” which were no longer covered with water. A better translation of ארץ erets, in this verse, would be “the whole land,” like in Deuteronomy 11:25.
11 And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
- Point to consider: The “olive leaf pluckt off” was from a thriving olive tree.
13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.
14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth (ארץ) dried.
- A better translation of ארץ (erets,) in this verse, might be “the land.”
Cuneiform tablet in clay envelope, Ur III (c. 2050 B.C.). The seated figure may be Ur-Nammu, king of Ur.
