Chapter 9. NOAH’S FLOOD
Understanding
that the biblical flood was likely a localized event does not clarify why it
occurred. The narrative in Genesis offers partial insight. It attributes the catastrophe
to "God," who orchestrates the sources of excess water: rain from the
"windows of heaven" and a mysterious "great deep." Divine
intervention also brings a "wind," halting precipitation. Natural
processes follow: water recedes "backward," draining downward and
seeping into the soil, with the text noting a gradual decline in levels. The
event unfolds among mountains, as Genesis mentions emerging "peaks."
Eventually, evaporation dries the earth’s surface.
We identify
five phases of this apocalyptic tragedy. The first begins for an unclear
physical reason, lasting a week, as Genesis states: "seven days later, the
floodwaters were upon the earth." This precedes the deluge but follows a
prophecy: "in seven days, I will cause it to rain." Spoken on the second
month’s ninth day, rain begins on the seventeenth, meaning the ground near
Noah’s ark was dampening from the tenth to sixteenth day.
The second
phase sees torrential rain from the second month’s seventeenth day, Noah’s
six-hundredth year, lasting forty days. Assuming thirty-day months, rains cease
by the third month’s twenty-sixth day. However, the "windows of
heaven" closing and rain stopping are noted later.
Despite no
continuous downpour, water levels rise until the 150th day, marking the third
phase from the third month’s twenty-seventh day, spanning 110 days. Light
drizzle or sporadic showers may persist, with water reaching the highest peaks
and rising "fifteen cubits" further, as Genesis notes it
"prevailed exceedingly" for 150 days, suggesting sustained levels
post-forty-seventh day, possibly exceeding the fifteen-cubit mark.
After 150
days, winds blow, "fountains of the deep" and "windows of
heaven" close, and rain ceases. By the 157th day, the flood regresses,
initiating the fourth phase mid-seventh month, where the "ocean of
Noah" recedes through drainage, seepage, and evaporation. Water drops
fifteen cubits rapidly, nearing submerged peaks by the seventh month’s
seventeenth day, when Noah’s ark grounds in the "mountains of Ararat."
Highest summits emerge by the tenth month’s first day. From peak flooding to
the "global" ocean’s disappearance takes over five and a half months,
about 170 days, ending the first day of the next year’s first month, when
"the waters dried from the earth."
The fifth
phase concludes the catastrophe over fifty-five days, by the second month’s
twenty-seventh day, with residual pools gone, water evaporated, drained, or
absorbed into lower soil layers.
Per
Genesis, the calamity spans Noah’s six-hundredth to six-hundred-first year,
roughly 382 days. Phase one runs from the second month’s tenth day for a week;
phase two begins the seventeenth, lasting forty days; phase three starts the
forty-eighth day (third month, twenty-seventh) for 110 days, ending day 157;
phase four spans day 158 to the next year’s first month’s first day (day 327);
phase five follows from the first month’s second day for about fifty-five days,
resolving by the second month’s twenty-seventh.
These
durations bypass variations in Genesis’s composition. The "J source"
suggests a shorter disaster: signs appear seven days before forty days of rain,
which then stop spontaneously. Noah opens a window, likely in the ark’s roof,
releasing a dove thrice weekly; the third dove doesn’t return, signaling dry
land. The ark’s cover is removed, confirming the earth’s drying, and Noah
builds an altar on land. Thus, J implies a sixty-one-day event.
The "P
source" extends the flood to 375 days, omitting pre-rain flooding,
indicating a different timeline where rain and the deep’s fountains drive the
deluge.
Genesis
claims global scale, but Noah’s location is unclear. We propose he lived in
"Nod," where his ancestor Cain settled, building "Enoch."
Noah likely constructed his ark there or nearby, his family farming, suggesting
a sedentary life with no pre-flood migration noted.
We
previously argued Cain arrived in the Zagros’s Kermanshah Valley from
Mesopotamia’s plain, possibly Noah’s birthplace, where he farmed. The
narrative’s repeated mountain references and the ark’s lack of sails, oars, or
propulsion support this. Floating post-flood, the large vessel drifted slowly,
likely grounding near its origin. Noah disembarks in the "mountains of
Ararat," perhaps his homeland, though we find this less likely.
Our view of
Noah’s home derives from analyzing the disaster. The narrative reflects a real
catastrophe, but its prototype, location, timing, and scale remain elusive.
Here, we align Genesis with science to address these riddles.
We
hypothesized the flood stemmed from extreme inundation in Kermanshah Valley,
drained solely by the Seymare River, formed by the Gamasiab and Gharehsoo.
Blocked drainage alone isn’t enough; an uncompensated inflow—exceeding
evaporation, seepage, cavity filling, subsurface flow, or freezing—is needed. Only
both factors could cause the described hydrological crisis in a mountain basin.
Genesis
attributes water influx to the "great deep’s" fountains, likely the
planet’s depths per Egyptian cosmology, and atmospheric "windows of
heaven," raining forty days. A third, mysterious source—pre-rain
floodwaters—is unspecified, with no mention of its cessation.
Floods
arise from river blockages (ice, soil, animal dams), reservoir dam failures,
storm surges, tsunamis, rapid ice/snow melt, glacial lake outbursts, or heavy
rain. Downpours, often with hail, wind, thunder, and lightning, caused the
wettest recorded day on January 7–8, 1966, at Foc-Foc, Réunion
(21°06'51"S, 55°32'51"E), where cyclone Denise dropped 1,825
millimeters per square meter.
Denise’s
six-day rampage from January 3–9 brought destructive clouds, pressure drops,
180 km/h gusts, landslides, overflowing streams, lake formation, and
infrastructure damage, killing three. The longest cyclone, John, lasted
thirty-one days in 1994’s Pacific. Pre-satellite, tracking such storms was
limited.
In the
Indian Ocean, 87% of cyclones form between 20° north and south, two-thirds in
the northern hemisphere. From 1975–2003, they peaked April–May and
October–November, with May seeing most rain, amplified by La Niña, though its
interaction with El Niño lacks consensus.
NOAA’s
Climate.gov defines El Niño and La Niña as warm and cool phases of a recurring
Pacific tropical pattern. La Niña involves Niño-3.4 region sea surface
temperatures 0.5°C below average for five overlapping three-month periods, with
strong easterly trades, dense Indonesian clouds, and increased rain. El Niño
reverses this, boosting Pacific rain. These oscillations influence Indian Ocean
weather, including the Indian Ocean Dipole, where cooler eastern waters drive
western rain clouds, enhancing African monsoons. La Niña and a positive Dipole
amplify Indian monsoons.
Genesis
dates the flood’s onset to the second month’s seventeenth day. In Babylonian
and Hebrew calendars, the first month, Nisan (March–April, thirty days), aligns
with Aries, spring equinox around the sixth or fifteenth. The second month,
Iyyar (April–May, twenty-nine days), places the flood’s start in late
April–early May, peak northern Indian Ocean cyclone season.
We propose
a series of cyclones hit the Zagros, with Genesis noting forty days of intense
rain, water persisting to day 150 due to runoff, soil filtration, and highland
lake drainage—gravitational effects common in nature, reinforcing a mountainous
setting.
Another
explanation is melting snow and ice on Zagros peaks, as pre-rain humidity
suggests warming. Terms like "dried" and "was dry" support
this. The disaster lasts 382 days: 157 days of rising water, 225 days receding.
This
implies water pooling in a closed valley, with extreme weather blocking
drainage via landslides, avalanches, or soil shifts. Lake Waikaremoana, New
Zealand, formed 2,200 years ago when a 2.2-cubic-kilometer landslide dammed the
Waikaretaheke River, creating a 55.7-square-kilometer, 248-meter-deep lake.
Landslides
stem from slope instability, snowmelt, rain, runoff, soil saturation, and pore
pressure. Snowmelt and rain cause 85% of landslides, with 25% soil moisture
triggering events like the 2019 Morzarrin River landslide in Iran’s Zagros,
forming a 3.3-square-kilometer lake.
Mapping
Seymare’s upper reaches reveals past landslides, notably near Garmab
(34°05'21"N, 47°25'52"E), where a canyon wall collapse at
34°04'57"N, 47°25'40"E blocked flow. A larger slide at Kani Mar
(34°00'07"N, 47°28’34"E) involved four collapses: two from Kuh-e Sar
Bareh (1,788 meters) and two from Kuh-e Goleh (2,546 meters) and Kuh-e Shari
(1,944 meters), forming dams 500–800 meters long, 200–300 meters high, at
1,300–1,440 meters elevation. These likely blocked Seymare’s 1.5-kilometer-wide
canyon, flooding Kermanshah, Mahidasht, Sahneh, and Mianrahan-Kamyaran valleys
up to 1,430–1,440 meters, with overflow via Ban Galan to the Sirwan River
stabilizing levels. These blockages, with heavy rain and rapid snowmelt, likely
caused the biblical flood’s prototype.
We
hypothesize a pre-rain temperature spike from global warming 11,270 ± 30 years
ago (9270 ± 30 BCE), raising air temperatures 4 ± 1.5°C. Iberian sediment
accumulation and chemical shifts from 11,300 years ago, plus intensified Indian
monsoons 12,400–10,400 years ago, confirm a warm, wet climate shift, degrading
Zagros ice. This melting—Genesis’s "floodwaters were upon the
earth"—swelled rivers, springs, wells, and swamps, noted by observant
farmers and herders as "fountains of the deep," meaning subsurface
waters like rivers and geysers. The author’s "deep" refers to the
underworld, studied via caves, mines, or faults.
This
warming melted Northern Hemisphere and Antarctic glaciers, raising sea levels.
Cold Pacific currents—California (1,000 km wide, 500 meters deep) and Peruvian
(700 meters deep)—cooled equatorial waters, potentially triggering La Niña,
increasing Indian Ocean rain and April–May cyclones. Genesis’s second-month
rains align with this season, suggesting a cyclone, fueled by La Niña and the
Indian Ocean Dipole, hit the Zagros with monsoon-like deluges, opening the
"windows of heaven."
Accelerated
melting saturated soils, triggering avalanches, landslides, and rockfalls. Four
massive slides at Kani Mar dammed Seymare, with the largest crest at
1,430–1,440 meters, flooding the region gradually, not magically, as expected
in religious texts.
The
disaster killed many via drowning, landslides, avalanches, rockfalls, and
mudflows. Genesis’s "fountains closed" and "wind" reflect
normal weather shifts. Rains stopped after forty days as the cyclone moved on,
but water rose 150 days due to warming-driven snowmelt, soil moisture release,
and drizzle. Levels hit 1,430–1,440 meters, stabilized by Ban Galan overflow.
From day 157, Seymare’s dams eroded, draining south, with evaporation and
filtration drying the land by day 327. By day 382, the earth was fully dry,
aided by sustained warmth.
The
Zagros’s tectonic activity and erosion over 11,000 years reshaped Seymare’s
canyon, restoring flow. Noah, aged 600, likely 30–32 years old (typical
hunter-gatherer lifespan), with teenage sons, foresaw the flood, perhaps
divinely warned, and built the ark.
This extraordinary event, circa 11,270 years ago, followed warming that melted Zagros ice, amplified by a La Niña-driven cyclone. Landslides blocked Seymare, flooding Kermanshah’s valleys, creating a temporary sea—Genesis’s flood prototype, possibly awaiting archaeological confirmation in the Zagros.
Retelling done by Grok, an artificial intelligence developed by xAI.
Author:
Arkhipov S.V. – candidate of medical sciences, surgeon, traumatologist-orthopedist.
Citation:
Архипов С.В. Дети человеческие: истоки библейских преданий в обозрении врача. Эссе, снабженное ссылками на интерактивный материал. 2-е изд. перераб. и доп. Йоэнсуу: Издание Автора, 2025.
Arkhipov S.V. Human Children: The Origins of Biblical Legends from a Physician's Perspective. An essay with references to interactive materials. 2nd revised and expanded edition. Joensuu: Author's Edition, 2025. [Rus]
Purchase:
PDF version is available on GooglePlay & Google Books
Keywords
ligamentum capitis femoris, ligamentum teres, ligament of head of femur, history, first patient, injury, damage, Bible, Genesis
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