by
Damien
F. Mackey
To search for traces of Noah’s Ark on
Mount Ararat in Turkey,
as do hopeful Arkeologists, is a
non-biblically-based exercise in futility.
Introduction
According to what I have written in earlier articles on the Genesis Flood
well-intentioned ark-eology can be a misleading waste of time:
For a long time my view of Noah’s Flood was shaped by books like The
Genesis Flood, that classic by Whitcomb and Morris, and other
like-minded writings on the subject. When the full implications of these
writings hit me – of our terrestrial globe being entirely overflown by water,
with a massive boat astride it all keeping safe the last eight humans, plus
pairs of every known species of animal – I was like a man in a daze:
overwhelmed. What an incredible image! Nothing in human experience seemed
comparable to it. Later also I became intensely interested in the search for
Noah’s Ark, and was quite convinced that a boat-shaped object that had been
found on so-called ‘Mount Ararat’, or Agri Dagh (Ağri Daği) in (south) eastern
Turkey, was indeed Noah’s Ark. In those days I was often in touch with one of
the key Ark-eologists (as they have been called), Dr. Allen Roberts, who was
then making news with his visits to the Agri Dagh site and his colourful
adventures there (allegedly being taken captive by bandits on one occasion).
Dr. Roberts and I customarily exchanged phone calls and also articles. I even
used to tell enthusiastic school children in a Scripture class that I was
taking in a Sydney (Australia) suburb that Noah’s Ark had now been discovered
on Mount Ararat; and we hopefully imagined that one day we might hire a
helicopter and go visit the site.
At this particular time I probably entirely fitted the image of the Ark
tragic whom Professor Ian Plimer has described in his book, Telling
Lies for God. Reason vs Creationism (Random House, Australia, 1997),
chapter 4, “The great flood of absurdities”. I give firstly Plimer’s
provocative description of an Ark-eologist – bearing in mind that he has a
certain extreme type of Flood/Ark seeker in mind – followed by that of the
latter’s naïve disciple [p. 97]:
To be an ark-eologist is not easy because one has to abandon logic,
abandon history, forget geography, abandon interpretation of the Bible, abandon
knowledge, abandon modern science and have a blind unreasoning faith that a
mythical stupendous maritime wooden vessel sits atop a mountain in eastern
Turkey.
Plimer continues [pp. 97-98]:
One can only admire those, who against all odds, go looking for wooden
boats on mountain tops. There are those, notwithstanding, who sit at home
waiting patiently for their favourite ark-eologist to return with tales of
horrors, dangers, divine guidance and supreme success from yet another
unsuccessful expedition to eastern Turkey. These devotees already know that
Noah’s ark rests on Mt Ararat, have been reassured by the unconvincing
‘evidence’ and acquiesce to supplementary purse-opening ark-eology ceremonies.
Yes, I could once identify with most of this.
But, over time, ever so slowly, I came to question: (a) this ‘global’
scenario for the Flood, and (b) the so-called Ark on the mountain – and, more
recently (c) “Mount Ararat” as being the actual mountain of the Ark’s landing,
or even of its ever having been submerged beneath the Flood – since various
lines of research I was pursuing, and methodologies, generally biblical, seemed
to be conspiring against the possibility of such a scenario and were indeed
pointing in the direction of a different model –indeed a far less vast one.
The Ongoing Genesis Flood Debate
The Testimony of King Ashurbanipal
The Flood Tablet of Mesopotamia
“King Ashurbanipal was not only a hunter, but also a warrior who
conquered Egypt. He took great pride in being able to read and write, at a time
when usually only scribes mastered the intricacies of cuneiform writing. He
also amassed a huge library of tablets such as this one, which his agents
collected throughout the country, especially in Babylonia.
The Flood Tablet depicts the Babylonian version of a flood story, which
is somewhat related to the story of Noah’s flood as recounted in the biblical
book of Genesis. When the King’s palace was burnt down at the time of the fall
of the empire in 612 BC [conventional dating], the library crashed into the
room below, and this tablet was broken and burnt. However, whereas a parchment
or paper archive would have been destroyed, the baked clay tablets survived and
are now in the British Museum.
Ashurbanipal claimed:
“I have been initiated into the secrets
of writing.
I can even read the … carvings from the
days before the flood.” …
This statement by the highly cultured and antiquarian king Ashurbanipal
suggests that the Mesopotamians were aware of the Flood, as
opposed to the various minor floods that would occur from time to time in that
region, and that also there were extant in Ashurbanipal’s time pre-Flood
writings.
Now, generally, global floodists believe that the Genesis Flood wiped
out all previous traces of civilisation. And this appears to be the case with
U.S. Creationist, Bob Sungenis.
Along similar lines, Fr. Brian Harrison has written to Hugh Owen who is
the Founder and Director of The Kolbe Center For The Study Of Creation (and
forwarded on to me):
Thanks, Hugh.
As you know, I agree with you rather than Damien on this issue.
Like you I have very little time available to devote to this issue, but
I did want to make the point that, as I noted to Bob Sungenis a while back,
whether or not the beds of the pre-Flood Tigris, Euphrates, etc. may somehow
have survived identifiably under all the sediment, the believer in a global
Flood is in any case under no burden of proof to demonstrate the
physical/geographical identity or proximity of the pre- and post-Flood rivers
bearing those names.
It is entirely possible that after the Flood, supposing all trace of those
original rivers had been obliterated, Noah and/or his sons and descendents
could have given the familiar old names to new rivers.
This is a natural human tendency for those colonizing a ‘new world’ with
nostalgia for the ‘old world’ of their origins. All over the US, Australia,
Canada and New Zealand there are countless place names copied straight from
those in Britain thousands of miles away. (I grew up in a town, Armidale, that
was named after a big landed estate in Scotland. And it’s in a region called
“New England” in the NE of the State of New South Wales!)….
Of course it is perfectly true – as Father says – that old world
colonisers, such as the British, frequently replicated names such as the
Armidale (N.E.) case in Australia. But, as I [Damien] once proposed to Bob
Sungenis (who has espoused this replication argument), this is not what the
post-diluvians had intended in the case of the four rivers. Moses, having led
the Middle Bronze I Israelites out of … Egypt right to the edge of the Promised
Land, had added some editorial notes to the ancient documents of his
forefathers (the toledôt) for the sake of his people who would
shortly occupy this land. Moses himself well knew the region, as he had already
spent 40 years with the Midianites in the southern Paran desert. And he had,
prior to that, led Egyptian armies into the Sinai and southern Palestinian
regions. That part of the Exodus story, Moses’ sojourn in Midian, was picked up
in the famous Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe which professor Emmanuel
Anati has rightly noted “shares a common matrix” with the Exodus account,
though it also differs from it in some very important details.
So Moses, whilst respectfully preserving the original Abrahamic history,
for instance, in which the “Valley of Siddim” is mentioned – it being the
location for the wicked Pentapolitan cities (Sodom, Gomorrah, etc.) – adds ‘in
brackets’ “(which is the Salt Sea)”. Genesis 14:
Bela (which is Zoar) verses 2 and 8.
Valley of Siddim (which is the Salt
Sea) verse 3.
En-mishpat (which is Kadesh) verse 7.
Hobah (which is on the left hand of
Damascus) verse 15.
Valley of Shaveh (which is the King’s
Dale) verse 17.
For, since the original account had been written at about the time of
Abraham, a dire catastrophe had rent the peaceful and prosperous Valley of
Siddim, which had sunk beneath fire and brimstone, its place having been taken
by the eerie Dead Sea, or Salt Sea.
{Russian researchers have hopes of making a sub voyage beneath the Dead
Sea, on its Jordanian side (politics are typically involved here), where they
say that satellite imagery has revealed the sunken cities}.
Perhaps Moses did not want his people blundering into the Dead Sea when
expecting, from those ancient Abrahamic records, to find there instead a
fertile valley.
Now, the same word that I have translated as “which [that]
is” [the Salt Sea], Hebrew hu, is the word used by Moses to
connect the ancient Genesis rivers to places named after the Flood, such as the
river Tigris connected to “Ashur”, and the river Gihon to “Cush” (which Bob has
previously agreed must refer to Ethiopia). But Bob had also astounded me in the
past by his claiming that I believed “that the rivers of Paradise mentioned in
Genesis 2 didn’t exist in Paradise, since the Flood would have taken any trace
of them away, and Moses wouldn’t have know[n] about them”. Robert had said the
very opposite of what I actually hold on the subject, since I have written:
But there are other biblical-minded writers who, as I noted in “The
Location of Paradise”, consider that Genesis 2 does indeed preserve a definite
geographico-hydrological link between the pre- and post- Flood worlds. We saw
that the four rivers referred to in the antediluvian Adamic toledôt are
actually named by the postdiluvian Moses as real rivers, running alongside (or
around) real geographical locations. Moreover, Moses uses the very same 3rd person
masculine singular Hebrew pronoun hu (comprising the Hebrew
letters, he waw aleph), meaning ‘he’ or ‘himself’
(itself), in every one of the four cases, thereby directly
connecting Adam’s four rivers with four known rivers of Moses’ time. Now,
this hu is again the exact same Hebrew pronoun that editor
Moses would use in his geographical modification of Abra[ha]m’s history, where,
in that famous case of Genesis 14:3 he advises his people that the site that
was in Abram’s day “the Valley of Siddim” had now become the
Dead Sea. Thus Moses: “Valley of Siddim (that is, the Dead Sea)”; the
Heb. pronoun hu here being translated quite appropriately into
English as, “that is”. But even though the Bible seems to be
interpreting itself for us here, I have found that ‘Creationists’, whilst
willingly accepting the view that Moses was, in the case of Genesis 14:3,
pointing to the very same geographical region that was
intended in the Abra[ha]mic history (though now with considerable topographical
alteration), will strenuously deny any geographical connection whatsoever in
Genesis 2 between the pre-Flood hydrography and that later connected there by
editor Moses with the pronoun hu.
Moses’s Additions to Adam’s history
Apart from the toledôt, and catch-lines, Moses
also apparently added to this revered history of his primeval ancestor Adam the
first of his geographical explanations. These typical Mosaïc parentheses –
added for the sake of his people emigrant from Egypt [the Middle Bronze I
nomads of archaeology], coming into unfamiliar eastern territory – will be
especially noticeable in Genesis 14, the story of Abraham (owned or written by
Ishmael). To the most primitive statement (Genesis 2:10): “A river flows out of
Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches”,
Moses will add 4 verses of geographical detail. [Professor A.] Yahuda saw
clearly, as have others, that this was a scribal addition to the original
document (though he included verse 10):
“The whole passage 2:10-14 though belonging to the story itself has so
far the character of a gloss in that it does not refer to Paradise itself, but
to the relation of the four rivers to this one river of Paradise. Indeed, many
critics have already a clear inkling that by this passage the flow of the
narrative is interrupted and that accordingly it must have been inserted here
from another version [sic] of the Paradise story; but in spite of all this it
is connected by them with Paradise itself and they assume that the four rivers
belong to Paradise”. ….
So, from what editor Moses is telling us here we can assess that this
is not a case of nostalgic replication of old Adamic world
rivers in different new world Abrahamic or Mosaïc regions. The replication
argument falls down in this case on the strength of biblical consistency. Hence
it is not a waste of time trying to identify the Paradise scenario in a modern
landscape.
And even some global floodists are now starting to bend to this
viewpoint, including a mainstream Creationist magazine, Creation
Research Science Quarterly. See
Creationists Now Espousing Link Between Pre and
Post Flood Worlds
The Ark
Creationists (Ark-eologists) devote much time, money, thought and
promotional energy to presumed Ark sightings on Mount Ararat (Agri Dagh). And I
myself used to be fascinated by that very boat-like structure located there
seemingly complete with (http://www.arkdiscovery.com/noah’s_ark.htm)
“petrified wood, as proven by lab analysis … high-tech metal alloy fittings ….
Aluminium metal and titanium metal ….Vertical rib timbers on its sides,
comprising the skeletal superstructure of a boat. Regular patterns of
horizontal and vertical deck support beams are also seen on the deck”.
Indeed, if one peers hard enough, one might even discern oars and
life-jackets.
The reason that geologists are at war with Creationists is because
they know that this boat-shaped feature is a rock: variously,
a geosyncline or autochthonous block. So, if we want to avoid being labelled
autochthonous blockheads, we would do well to check the Bible once again – as
in the case of Moses’s directional signposts listed above – and there find out
where Noah’s Ark really landed. It landed, not on a mountain,
but on “the mountains of Ararat”; “Ararat” being the
land of Urartu (var. Aratta), well known to king Ashurbanipal since Urartu’s
king, Sarduri, had sent greetings and gifts (read tribute) to the Assyrian
King.
And “the mountains” belong to the land of Urartu’s Zagros range.
The best traditions have the Ark arriving at Mount Judi (Çudi) Dagh in
the Zagros, north of Mosul (near Nineveh), in Kurdistan. It was from there that
Ashurbanipal’s grandfather, king Sennacherib, used to collect the bituminous
wood of the Ark. From David Rohl’s excellent explanation of the true place of
the Ark’s landing, we should not expect to find anymore a whole Noah’s Ark
“… what would be the real clincher to prove, beyond doubt, that Noah’s
Flood was a genuine historical event? Of course, the discovery of Noah’s Ark,
what else?”
and he then goes on to explain:
You may think that this is a bit of a joke, but people have been
searching for Noah’s Ark for decades and have been coming up with all kinds of
extraordinary claims, some of which have made headline news or had TV
documentaries lavished upon them. Virtually all these ‘discoveries’ have been
focused on or around Mount Ararat in north-eastern Turkey. The problem here is
that Mount Ararat was not the original traditional landing site of the Ark. It
was only in the 13th century AD, when Vincent de Beauvais, Friar William of
Rubruck, Odoric and Marco Polo came this way, that Mount Ararat superseded a
much older and widely recognised location for the Place of Descent.
The first thing to note is that the Biblical text itself does not
identify Mount Ararat as Noah’s mountain. What Genesis 8:4 actually says is
that ‘the Ark came to rest on the mountains (plural) of Ararat’ – in other
words somewhere in the mountainous terrain of the land of Ararat. Biblical
Ararat is recognised as being identical with the region that the 1st millennium
BC Assyrians called Urartu – a land which covered much of the central section
of the Zagros range. According to Genesis, therefore, the Ark must be searched
for in modern Kurdistan, not hundreds of miles to the north on the volcanic peak
we know today as Ararat in Armenia. Ararat is a late Christian name for the
mountain; its local name is Agri Dagh. What is more, Jewish Talmudic writings
of the 6th century AD consistently interpret the Biblical Ararat to mean
Kurdistan and not Armenia [Targums of Genesis 8:4, Isaiah 37-38 and Jeremiah].
So, where does everybody else, other than post-13th-century
Christianity, locate the Place of Descent?
The Koran (8th century AD) calls Noah’s landing site Gebel Judi
(‘Mountain of the Heights’) and the 10th-century Muslim writer, Ibn Haukal,
observes that ‘Judi is a mountain near Nisibis. It is said that the ark of Noah
(peace be upon him) rested on the summit of this mountain’. Nisibis is modern
Nesibin or Nusaybin, one hundred miles north-west of Mosul on the southern edge
of the Zagros foothills.
The early Nestorian Christians (followers of Nestorius, 4th-century
patriarch of Constantinople) knew this to be the true landing place of the Ark.
The pilgrim saint, Jacob of Nisibis (also 4th century) – note the link
with the town claimed to be near Gebel Judi by Ibn Haukal – was the first
Christian to look for the mountain of the Ark. His search concentrated in the
‘district of Gartouk’ which scholars recognise as a late spelling of classical
Carduchi which, in turn, derives from Kardu – the ancient name of Kurdistan.
But we can narrow down our search even further. Hippolytus (AD 155-236)
informs us that the landing site of the Ark was located in ‘those mountains
called Ararat which are situated in the country of the Adiabeni’. The Greek and
Latin sources place Adiabene in the mountains to the north of Mosul where the
Hadhabeni tribe still live today.
One hundred miles due north of Mosul, just across the Iraqi border into
Turkey and ninety miles to the east of Nesibin, the 7,000-feet peak of Judi
Dagh (‘Judi Mountain’) rises from the Mesopotamian plain. This surely has to be
the landing site of Noah’s Ark referred to in all the early, Jewish, Christian
and Islamic sources.
Judi Dagh is a place of real mystery and fascination for someone like
me. Around this holy mountain there are devil-worshipping cults, giant rock-cut
reliefs of Assyrian kings, and, near the summit itself, the ruins of a
Nestorian monastery called the ‘Cloister of the Ark’. Needless to say, I am
keen to mount an expedition to investigate but, unfortunately, that isn’t
possible at the moment. Not only is Judi Dagh on the northern edge of the
Kurdish autonomous zone of Iraq (currently a no-go area for British and
American nationals) but it is also smack in the middle of the area being fought
over by three different Kurdish military factions.
….
In the 1920s the Reverend William A. Wigram and his son Edgar spent some
time exploring the region around Mosul. In their book, The Cradle of Mankind,
they record ascending the ridge beneath the summit of Judi Dagh on the 14th of
September to witness a gathering of Muslims (both Sunnis and Shias), Sabaeans,
Jews and the Satan-worshipping Yezidis for a great annual religious festival.
The English explorers watch each group of pilgrims deliver a sheep for
sacrifice as ‘the smoke of a hundred offerings goes up once more on the ancient
altar’ where the Kurds believe Noah made sacrifice to God for his deliverance
from the Flood.
The Babylonian chronographer, Berossus (3rd century BC), tells us that
in his day Kurdish mountain-folk ‘scraping off pieces of bitumen from the ship
(i.e. the Ark), bring them back and wear them as talismans’. The practice of
local women wearing bitumen talismans was still observed as recently as the
beginning of this century according to European travellers’ reports. Bitumen is
the oil-based ‘pitch’ with which the Ark was sealed against the seepage of the
flood-waters [Genesis 6:14].
The mystery here is that the nearest source of bitumen lies hundreds of
miles south of Judi Dagh in the swamps of the Iraqi lowlands. So by what
mechanism did quantities of the black tar reach a mountain ridge on Judi Dagh?
– unless, that is, it was a genuine survival from the wreck of Noah’s floating
refuge.
Finally, we have the ancient Jewish legends surrounding the powerful
Assyrian ruler, Sennacherib (705-681 BC), who, during his military campaigns
against the Kurds, ‘found a plank, which he worshipped as an idol, because it
was part of the Ark that had saved Noah from the Deluge’. If this tale has some
historical truth to it, then knowing the approximate find spot of Sennacherib’s
sacred relic would be very useful. It is interesting, therefore, to note that
giant figures of King Sennacherib were discovered in 1904, carved into the
cliffs at the foot of one particular Kurdish mountain. Yes, you’ve guessed it –
Judi Dagh. Aren’t you just itching to get out there? ….
Writers such as Michael Hawley and Tim Martin are very unimpressed by
what they consider to be hypocrisy in the former Answers In Genesis and
in the very origins of Creationist work, with Morris and Whitcomb. See e.g.
“Henry Morris’ Deception” (http://www.searchingfortruthwithabrokenflashlight.com/Henry_Morris__Deception.html)
And see also on this same controversy:
Answers in Genesis’ integrity seems to be missing
We recall that sometimes Creationists can go over the top in pushing
their case, just as atheists are wont to do as well, prompting professor Ian
Plimer to write a book, Telling Lies for God (Random House,
1994), that curiously presents, I believe, a more reasonable model for the
Flood and the Ark than do the global floodists. Bob Sungenis thinks, on the one
hand, that the ancient Adamic rivers could have maintained their basic shape
beneath global Flood waters, though he wants to have a ‘two bob each way’ bet
when arguing the replication case. But what about the rivers keeping their
shape under a supposed six miles of sediment? Moreover, Bob is not sure that
the Noachic Flood even produced ‘turbulence’. That seems strange.
Professors Carol Hill and Ian Plimer seem to me to be far more realistic
about this.
Here is Hill, firstly, explaining global floodists’ own scenario:
…. To explain this universal flood, flood geologists usually invoke
the canopy theory, which hypothesizes that water was held in an
immense atmospheric canopy and subterranean deep between the time of Creation
and Noah’s Flood. Then, at the time of the Flood, both of these water sources
were suddenly released in a deluge of gigantic, Earth-covering proportions.
Along with this catastrophic hydrologic activity, there was a major geologic
change in the crust of the Earth: modern mountain ranges rose, sea bottoms
split open, and continents drifted apart and canyons were cut with amazing
speed. ….
Next Ian Plimer (from our ‘Genesis Flood’, emphasis added): “…. Did Noah
really have the mathematical skills to solve the differential equations
necessary to understand the bending moment, torque and shear stress associated
with the roll, pitch, yaw and slamming expected in the turbulentglobe-encompassing
flood?”
And, if the Flood were ‘global’, Plimer writes (Telling Lies For
God, p. 75), then:
…. every oil well, every coal mine, every drill hole in sedimentary
rocks and every cliff profile would show a gradation from basal conglomerate to
sand to uppermost siltstones, mudstones and claystones. … [but they don’t,
Plimer maintains] – in the record of rocks, we see evidence that some
sedimentary rocks (and fossils therein) are formed in freshwater environments
whereas other sedimentary rocks are formed in saline marine water. This
presents a slight insuperable problem as the fictitious flood fluids were
either fresh or saline but unquestionably could not be both.….
A global Flood would of necessity mix disastrously, everywhere, sea and
fresh waters.
Global Floodists apply the same sort of totality that they have read
into the ancient account for the extent of the Flood to the extent of the
animals taken on board the Ark, giving ‘maximum value’, as is their wont, to
phrases like “every living thing”, “every kind”, and “every creeping thing on
the ground” (Genesis 6:19,20). It is really quite painful and embarrassing to
read, or view on TV, explanations by well-meaning ‘Creationists’ as to how
every single species of living creature had to be fitted into the Ark. I have
even seen proponents of this view on TV with a model of the Ark and toy
dinosaurs having to be fitted inside, alongside lions, tigers, giraffes and
kangaroos ….
This is Fundamentalism taken to the extreme. Sometimes Fundamentalists
are not all that fundamental.
“Dogmatic fundamentalists do not reflect Catholic
tradition,
and dogmatic evolutionists do not fairly represent
science”.
James B. Stenson
Evolution: A Catholic Perspective.
….
Noah would have had to fit on the Ark only such animals as would have
been needed for food, and later on for sacrifice, and for breeding and farming
purposes: domestic animals, (cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, etc.) the type that
are named in other versions of the Flood.
Plimer of course has a field day with the ‘Creationist’ version of the
Ark’s menagerie, and rightly so inasmuch as it is embarrassing, non-scientific
nonsense. In his section, “The Freighter’s Cargo” (ibid., Ch.4, pp.
109-134), Plimer raises such points as:
How did Noah build a system to preserve Eucalyptus leaves for the Koala
passengers from Australia, which was then undiscovered, and had an unknown
flora and fauna?
Whales would have bloated with clay as they tried to strain for the odd
krill which had not choked and sunk. The flood waters would have been so muddy
that light could not have entered the top centimetre of water, hence aquatic
animals would die.
Some organisms just don’t survive as a couplet. For example, bees, flies
and other organisms live in swarms and without community activity they can
neither function nor survive.
…the literal interpretation has no exceptions – not one species of
bacteria to be omitted, no 80-tonne Ultrasauri, no Tyrannosaurus rex, no
whales, no maritime organism. Nothing!
Some organisms only eat live food and, if it is not available, then they
eat their partner (for example, praying mantis).
Many carnivores need to gnaw on bones to avoid dental diseases and many
animals such as rodents need to gnaw to stop teeth overgrowth. Did the
thousands of known rodents gnaw on the timbers structurally supporting the ark?
Another problem was clean potable water. A bucket could not really have
been thrown overboard as it is felt that there would have been mass carnage if
all organisms were fed on 1:1 saline water-mud mix.
Many animals are so sensitive that they do not survive in zoos, and yet
they managed in this wildly lurching overcrowded ark for a year.
The magnitude of the feeding task is astronomical. If the crew of four
males worked 24 hours a day for the 371 days at sea, then each animal would
have received a total of six seconds of attention for the whole year.
It is a little difficult to calculate the volume of excreta generated by
extinct animals, however even the most basic calculations shows that thousands
of tonnes of urine and excreta were generated on a daily basis by those
unwilling passengers. We must remember that the ark had a ventilation port of
one square cubit. …
And then there are those manifold varieties of termites ….
But Plimer will also have much fun at the expense of the ‘Creationists’
in regard to the aftermath of the Flood (ibid., p. 91):
…the maiden voyage of Noah’s love boat was a dreadfully harrowing
journey with no chance of survival for the passengers. It makes the maiden
voyage of the Titanic look like a Sunday afternoon ferry trip in calm waters.
This trip is recognized in the Yahwist’s version as traumatic because, once on
dry lands, Noah planted vines (Genesis 9:21)! It appears that the ark trip was
so harrowing than Noah reverted to periods of dreadful drunkenness and slept
naked in his tent (Genesis 9:21)! This I can identify with. Under the
circumstances, I think we can all forgive Noah for this minor peccadillo. Don’t
ask me where he got the vines from after the ‘Great Flood’ which destroyed the
world ….
A large dose of common sense is called for.
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