National Geographic program on January 5 will explore the genesis of the biblical flood story

The angry god of the biblical flood - National Geographic

The angry god of the biblical flood - National GeographicMost people are familiar with the biblical story of a worldwide flood, where God destroyed all life on earth except the family of Noah and the animals that they boarded on an ark.

Scholars of ancient writings from Mesopotamia (now Iraq) point to texts written thousands of years before the bible that describe a flood and say that the bible story comes from those stories.

Others like archaeologist Jeff Rose say these pre-biblical stories have merit because the destructive forces of water in a once tropical region in Iraq, considered by some to have been the Garden of Eden, might have inspired the biblical story of Noah's Ark and the great flood. Dr. Rose believes that a massive flood once swallowed a landmass as big as Great Britain, created the Persian Gulf and sent tribes of Neolithic people into constant retreat from the ever-rising waters.

The documentary, Diving Into Noah's Flood, will air January 5, at 8 PM EST, on the National Geographic Channel.


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D. Beeksma

One of the growing crowd of American "nones" herself, Deborah is a prolific writer who finds religion, spirituality and the impact of belief (and non-belief) on culture inspiring, fascinating and at times, disturbing. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work. Her education and background is in business, ecommerce and law.

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  • http://thyselfknow.com Know Thyself

    Since the flood myth is universal, it is likely some flood actually happened and some survived to tell about it. It is also possible that the story is metaphorical

  • mortimerzilch

    Concept One: "the firmament" = the sky. Portrayed in scripture as separating "the waters below from the waters above." That always seemed weird: What are the waters above?
    But now we find water all over in space, lots of water in space. Why did the ancient people think there was water on the other side of the sky? Because it came in from the other side!! Concept two: "The sluice gates of the firmament opened." That means water came pouring in from space. It was global. 40 days and 40 nights. Not local, or regional. Maybe the Earth passed through a swath of ice particles in its orbital path around the Sun. As the ice particles crashed into the atmosphere, they would melt and and freeze and melt again as they descended to the ground. Noah's flood. Evidence of GLOBAL flooding must be, and by faith, I believe could be found. Just like the ark is still up there on some mountain near Mt. Ararat…. "the mountains of Ararat" it says, not Mt. Ararat. (I cannot read Hebrew or Greek, only approved Catholic translations – FYI) Mt. Ararat happens to be the tallest mountain on Earth (above sea level) from base to summit uninterrupted.