Flood Legends (8 page)

Noah is instructed to bring not just the animals but also "everything that is eaten" as food for himself, his family, and the animals. After the Flood, Noah and his family are told simply to come out of the ark with the animals and "be fruitful and increase in number upon it" (Gen. 8:17). In the Hebrew version, neither God nor Noah re-creates life. Therefore, any leftover seeds were more than likely planted in order to bring forth vegetation. As it turns out, however, replanting may not have actually been necessary.

The Hebrew word translated "flesh" in chapter 6, verse 13, is the word
beheme
, which refers only to nostril-breathing land vertebrates in general. The word
remes
, translated as "creeping things," refers most often to reptiles, and appears as well. This indicates two things. First, in the Genesis version, the only animals Noah brought aboard the vessel would have been nostril-breathing land vertebrates. Second, the only animals God said He would destroy completely would have been these nostril-breathing land vertebrates (see also 7:22). Therefore plants would not necessarily have been destroyed completely. In addition, as many have noted, the dove brought back an olive branch, indicating re-growth had already occurred. So it's easy to assume that the seeds were merely meant — as in the case with Manu — as food, and nothing more. Unlike Manu, though, Noah must bring along seeds for food
and
he must bring animals. Where Manu re-creates life, Noah must bring it on board with him. However, again,
both
men are instructed to carry seeds for food.

The Cargo According to the Kariña

In the Kariña myth, the survivors are told to stock the Great Canoe with two of every animal and "a seed from every kind of plant." These details recall — some would say
parallel
— the Jewish myth beautifully. The re-creation happens in this myth as well, calling to mind the Hindu version, but it is the god Kaputano who re-creates life, and not the survivors of the Flood. An interesting idea presented in the Kariña myth is the idea that Kaputano, the deity who sends the Flood, also helps to build the canoe
and
becomes part of the crew. This idea is reflected in the Hindu myth where Brahma physically steers and guides the ship through the "disordered earth" (some have suggested the Hebrew version implies this, as well, because the word "remembered" in Genesis 8 may mean, more literally, "to take care of"). In the Kariña myth, the seeds are not for replanting, nor are they used for re-creation. They are merely included as a food supply (again similar to both the Hebrew and Sanskrit versions).

This version does raise an interesting question: why did the Kariña need so much food? In the Hebrew myth, Noah is in the ark for 375 days, and in the
Mahābhārata
, Manu is on the ocean for several years. For these accounts, a large supply of food would be necessary for survival. In the Kariña account, however, the Flood lasts only a few days. If that were the case, why would such an abundant supply of food be necessary? The next section deals with that question.

Synthesis

In essence, we see three parallels in these stories. The first parallel we see is between the Sanskrit and Kariña texts, where the earth must be re-created after the Flood. In the Sanskrit text, it is mostly animal and plant life that must be re-created. In the Kariña myth, the animals survive, but Kaputano creates the rest of the world fresh and new — mountains, marshes, trees, and so on. This re-creation is not in the Hebrew version, but its presence indicates either that the Hebrew version
lost
that particular detail, or the other versions
added
that detail later on. Either way, its inclusion in these two versions indicates more than coincidence.

Secondly, we see the inclusion of animals in the Hebrew and Kariña texts. What is interesting about this particular detail is that it is included in a version in which a god — Kaputano, in this case —
does
re-create the world. Because Kaputano re-creates the earth, it is relatively unnecessary, from an imaginative standpoint, to include animals on board. The detail in the Kariña account is unnecessary. If I were inventing a story in which a deity re-creates the earth, I would
not
include animals on board. Rather, I would simply have them re-created along with everything else. Does this imply that, perhaps, the original historical Flood
actually
had animals on board? It most certainly does, and we will see more of this later on.

Lastly, in all three versions the seeds are used merely for food. In
not one
of these three versions
are the seeds used for replanting
. Why not? If we were inventing a story that we were attempting to pass off as truth, would it not make sense to have the crew plant leftover seeds? That would only seem logical. However, if we are dealing with an actual event rather than a well-planned and thought-out story, then some of the details may not make sense.
Particularly if this story is being passed down and retold.
One of these details that we looked at earlier — the amount of seeds present in the Kariña version — deserves a little more of our focus. The question we raised earlier regarding it is still a valid question: why would they need so many seeds?

Frankly, they wouldn't. What seems most plausible is that this particular detail — the detail of carrying seeds on board — has survived the diaspora long after the particular telling of the myth no longer required it. Where many unimportant details are abandoned ("unimportant" from the perspective of the narrating culture), the existence of a seemingly inane detail suggests an actual purpose for its inclusion in the first place. Why would the Kariña include such a detail unless it had been passed down to them? Furthermore, why would it have been passed down to them unless, at some point, the story required its inclusion? Could this also explain the inclusion of animals in the Kariña text? Why are there animals on board if Kaputano re-creates the earth?

It reminds me of the story of the Christmas ham. The story goes something like this: a young newly married man and his bride were having their first Christmas dinner. The man watched as his wife dutifully cut the ends off the ham before placing it in the roasting pan. When questioned as to why she would do such a wasteful thing, the woman replied, "It's how my mom always cooked the ham." That night, when the girl's parents came to dinner, the young man asked his mother-in-law why she always cut the ends off the ham before placing it in the oven. His mother-in-law thought a moment and then replied, "It's what
my
mother always did."

A prosperous and exciting year passed, and the young couple was to have Christmas dinner at her parents' house. To the young man's delight — for the ham situation, as he called it, was troubling him still — the girl's grandmother was there. As should be expected, during the course of the evening as the family was enjoying the baked but end-less ham, the young man asked the elderly matron about the curious tradition. The old woman stared at him for a long time before finally replying, "Because my pan wasn't big enough for the whole thing."

Long after the details are unnecessary for that particular version, they still appear. This is telephone mythology at work. Details remain, though they no longer make sense, and other details are distorted because the original telling no longer fits the "newer" versions. Why, if Kaputano is going to re-create everything, do the people need to bring animals? Why, if they are only on the waters for a few days, do they need such an abundant supply of food? These details only make sense if they had been passed down from earlier — perhaps more accurate — versions. Though the pans are now large enough, the ends of the ham are still removed. Though the length of the voyage is much shorter, the food supply hasn't been reduced. Such is the case in many of these details.

The Hareskin tribe of North America tells of an old man who builds a raft and collects the drowning animals two by two as he floats past them. This idea of a post-diluvian rescue is also found thousands of miles away in Victoria, Australia, where the aborigines in the Lake Tyers region tell of a pelican that journeys about in a canoe, collecting the refugees. Why is this detail not found in every version? Because the changing cultures either required its presence,
or
required its absence; the detail was either added or taken away later on, and the newer versions passed on the newer details. Animals are kept on board, seeds (but not plants) are used for food, and animals are rescued after the Flood starts, rather than before. In short, the story changes to suit the tellers.

One of the final aspects of the story to which we will turn is the final resting place of the vessel. If there were a Flood vessel, where would we expect to find it? In the mountains? On the plains? Which plain? Which mountain? Has the vessel been found, or would locating it be virtually impossible? Many have suggested that, after several thousand years of weather and possible dismantling, nothing would be left. The next chapter looks at this difficult problem.

Chapter 8

The Flood: The Resting Place of the Vessel

The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible

(Gen. 7:24–8:5).

Mountains. There is something majestic about them; their very presence commands our attention. They inspire a combined emotion of fear and breathless awe. It's the beauty of a city skyline mixed with the grandeur of the ocean. Perhaps it is their height as they rise above the surrounding landscape that does it. Perhaps it is the fact that they are solid — that their foundations are so secure. Perhaps it is also why the mountains are almost universally known as the final resting place of the Flood vessel.

This is not to say, however, that locating the final resting place of the vessel, based solely on the literature, is an easy task. Each account gives a different name to the resting place, and many accounts do not even
name
the mountain. In a handful of the versions, the mountains do not even come into play. How, then, are we to determine which mountain is correct? Can we? Or should we believe, as some have suggested, that the mountains in the different versions are merely
symbols
of something else, inspired and selected purely because of their majesty?

Ararats of the World

"The mountains of Ararat . . ." (Gen. 8:4). Located in Turkey, the Ararat range has overlooked the lands of numerous societies and empires: Babylon, Greek traders, the Roman Empire, and, of course, the Jews, to name just a handful of the many peoples that have walked in the shadows of this mountain range. During the writing of the Hebrew text, Mesopotamia was a thriving civilization, Nineveh was the capital of the great Assyrian Empire, and Babylon was slowly climbing the imperial ladder.

For decades, enthusiasts have been searching the slopes of Mt. Ararat in Turkey — specifically the area around the Ahora Gorge, on the southeastern side of the mountain — for the vessel known as Noah's ark. These searches have been encouraged in part by a World War I pilot who claims to have seen a large boat-like structure on the side of the mountain. The pilot, Lieutenant Roskovitsky of the Russian Imperial Air Force, was on a mission to observe Turkish troop movement throughout the region in early 1916. He and his co-pilot noticed what appeared to be the hull of a ship sticking out from a glacial lake on the southeastern side of the mountain. The other part of the ship was buried under the water. Since Roskovitsky's now discredited report of the incident, numerous groups have trekked up the mountain over the years attempting to catch a glimpse of "Noah's ark." All that remains, however, are questionable accounts and grainy radar images.

Unfortunately, what makes these accounts so questionable is that, first and foremost, they contradict each other. In a few versions, the vessel is, more or less, intact, while in others it has been dismantled in places and the wood carted off. In some, the vessel is half-submerged in a glacial lake, while in others, it is protruding from the side of the mountain, half-buried in the snow that covers Mt. Ararat nine months out of the year. In Roskovitsky's account, the vessel is leaning on its side, while later accounts tell that the ark is standing straight up, allowing some of the explorers to walk along the top of it. Had this been the other way around, I might be a little less skeptical. In other words, had the earlier accounts told of the vessel standing up, and later on the vessel had "keeled over," I could believe it. I cannot, however, believe that the vessel would
fight gravity
and
right itself
.

Secondly, no one has been able to bring back clear photographs of the "ark." Many have tried, but cameras have either been lost, film stolen, or — more alarmingly — the photographer fell off the mountain and, perishing, took the only film with him. Even the photographs sent back to Tsar Nicholas II in early 1917 by a team of Russian engineers never made it to their final destination.
¹
So we have basically two problems. First, the eyewitnesses cannot agree on what the object even
looks
like, or even how it is positioned on the mountain. Second,
no one
can provide proof of even
one
of the existing contradictory claims. Not
one clear photograph
has ever been produced, and the only images furnished are fuzzy radar images taken from 500 miles away. The images, at best, show a dark, box-like smudge on the side of the mountain, but it is impossible to tell if the smudge is man-made or merely a rock outcropping. There is, therefore, little evidence to suggest that the Flood vessel resides here. In fact, based
solely
on eyewitness accounts, I am inclined
not
to believe the vessel is on Mt. Ararat. I am not alone, for many have noted that Genesis reports that the ark came to rest on the "
mountains of Ararat
," not Mt. Ararat itself.