by
Damien F. Mackey
An anthropo-palaeontological study of Noah and the Flood, when fairly considered, ought to be of enormous assistance towards a necessary co-ordination of the Stone Ages and of those most troublesome and complex Geological (and Ice) Ages.
Introduction
A biblico-historical revision of BC time demands a multi-disciplinary approach, especially
with regard to the historical data provided in the Book of Genesis, with which this particular series is concerned. {The same will be found to be the case, later, for a necessary and satisfactory revision of AD time}. In order to do justice to early Genesis, one is required to revise, for instance, the conventional Stone Ages; the Archaeological Ages; the astronomically-based (Sothic) dating system; and the subsequent arrangement and sequence of ancient dynasties.
with regard to the historical data provided in the Book of Genesis, with which this particular series is concerned. {The same will be found to be the case, later, for a necessary and satisfactory revision of AD time}. In order to do justice to early Genesis, one is required to revise, for instance, the conventional Stone Ages; the Archaeological Ages; the astronomically-based (Sothic) dating system; and the subsequent arrangement and sequence of ancient dynasties.
Throughout this series I have had cause to praise - and to make heavy use of - Dr. John Osgood’s sterling efforts to revise the Stone Ages. He seems to me to have been a bit of a lone hand in doing this. Dr. Osgood, a Creationist, does also have a little bit to say about the Geological Ages. The latter (including the Ice Ages), an area that is crying out for a proper biblical co-ordination, is the subject of many Creationist articles. However, the general Creationist belief in a global Flood that erased all previous traces, permanently - which I think is actually un-biblical - tends to vitiate these well-intentioned efforts.
Such, at least, is my estimation of it.
The task of fully revising the Geological Ages is way too ambitious, however, for this present series whose primary purpose has been to attempt to unlock the mystery of Har Karkom, and thereby to discover, in professor E. Anati’s words: "Why this mountain? … The mountain is likely hiding still other messages". What are these "messages"?
And secondarily, in the process of attempting to do this - by speculating that Noah may also have been involved with this mountain - to bring some further (in addition to Dr. John Osgood’s efforts) coherence to the Stone Ages, and, in the case of the biblical Flood, to the Geological (and Ice) Ages.
The World of Noah
Two Genesis texts I immediately find to be of interest and special relevance here:
Genesis 4: 17-22
Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.
Genesis 6:4
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
If you want to write something attention grabbing on the Internet, just write about the Nephilim!
What the extract from Genesis 4 tells me (and I would be most surprised if I were the only one who has ever discerned this) is that the full sequence of customary Stone Ages had been represented already before the Flood.
The reader may be able to discern each one of these Genesis progressions in ‘civilisation’ in the following explanation by Dr. Osgood of the conventional Stone Ages ("A Better Model for the Stone Age"):
The stone age chronology is clearly evolutionary, and occupying a period of approximately 2,000,000 years, telescopes down as we get closer to the present. It begins, by definition, where our supposed ancestors finally developed into Homo Erectus. Homo Erectus occupies a large portion of the Lower Paleolithic until the theoretical development of Homo Sapiens or modern man, from which time cultural evolution is prominent.
These supposed time cultures have to be defined and this is done by means of artifacts. The following indicates how:
- Paleolithic. Usually defined on the basis of stone implements alone.
- Mesolithic. Defined in terms of stone implements and some evidence of building, usually with either rock or clay materials.
- Neolithic. Defined in terms of
- stone tools,
- some bone tools,
- early pottery development,
- evidence of early farming communities, and
- evidence of buildings and town structures.
- Chalcolithic. Defined in terms of stone and metal tools, bone tools and other artifacts, pottery, town and village communities and farming communities, but particularly the introduction of metal (mostly copper) used in weapons and other implements.
Both these time cultures are defined as hunting-gathering cultures.
The essential ingredients in putting together such a chronology as the above are:
- the assumption of a developmental history of mankind anatomically and culturally; in other words, an evolutionary framework as a first base assumption; and
- the acceptance of various dating techniques for absolute values in dating human habitation.
[End of quote]
Now, following through the Genesis narrative, the early simple existence (Abel was already a shepherd) turns Neolithic with Cain’s building of a city and also with Jabal’s livestock: "Jabal was the first nomad who introduced the custom of living in tents, and pasturing and breeding not sheep merely, but larger quadrupeds as well, for the sake of wealth". http://biblehub.com/genesis/4-20.htm
But Chalcolithic is also represented here in the expertise of "Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron".
Tubal-cain has rather convincingly been linked to the smithy god, Vulcan.
John R. Salverda mentions this (http://genesisflood.blog.com/2014/02/10/athena-is-the-ultimate-representation-of-naamah-as-the-one-who-brought-the-serpent%E2%80%99s-%E):
"It had been suggested back in 1976 that the name "Tubal-cain" is the origin of the Roman name for Hephaestus, "Vulcan" (Henry M. Morris, "The Genesis Record" Page 146)".
When we add to this ancient mix the fact that, as according to our other text (Genesis 6:4), there were giants also kicking about the land at the time, then the Noachic Weltanschauung might appear somewhat like that of Moses in the environs of Mount Sinai (especially if this area were also geographically relevant to Noah), with nomadic Kenites (relatives of Moses) - thought by some to have descended from Cain - and, more distantly, Nephilim giants. Numbers 13:32-33:
‘The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight’.
Moses, who - as discussed in Part One - wrote Exodus in part as ‘a miniature Flood story’, might even have been deliberately drawing a connection between the pre- and post- Flood Nephilim. That Moses was wont to forge vital connections between the old and new family histories, I have discussed in e.g.:
Editor Moses Added Vital Geographical Clues for the Genesis Flood and Sodom
And Moses’ hand is found at work in Genesis 6:4, which belongs to Adam’s toledôt, see:
The "Toledoths" of Genesis
when he adds to the ancient Adamic verse: "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days", his "- and also afterward", that is, afterward in Moses’ own days.
The Hebrew reference to the Nephilim on "earth" here:
הַנְּפִלִים הָיוּ בָאָרֶץ, בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם
uses the word eretz (אָרֶץ) for what is often misleadingly translated as "earth" - thereby encouraging the likes of Creationists to read "global" - when it should actually read as the more confined concept of "land".
Noah could perhaps have been living near Har Karkom (at Kadesh-barnea?) just as Moses later would, a neighbour to nomadic Cain-ites (Tubal-cain-ites?) (Kenites), and with those menacing Nephilim, too, living not so far away.
The full Stone Age sequence - a largely artificial construct, anyway - that apparently ran its course from the beginning of humanity to the time of Noah and the Flood, would have re-commenced after the Flood. For instance Abram, who lived roughly half a millennium after the Flood, was contemporaneous with a Late Chalcolithic culture in some parts, but a Neolithic Jericho. This can all be found in Dr. Osgood’s excellent article, "The Times of Abraham": http://creation.com/the-times-of-abraham including the following summary showing what a mix of cultures the Patriarch probably knew:
In summary, Abraham entered the land of Canaan at approximately 1875 B.C.. In his days there was a settlement of Amorites in En-gedi, identified here with the Ghassul IV people. This civilization was ended by the attack of four Mesopotamian monarchs in a combined confederation of nations, here placed in the Uruk-Jemdat Nasr period in Mesopotamia. They were a significant force in ending the Chalcolithic of Palestine as we understand it archaeologically, and Abraham and his army were a significant force in ending the Jemdat Nasr domination of Mesopotamia, and thus the Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia, by their attack on these four Mesopotamian monarchs as they were returning home. Egypt was just about to enter its great dynastic period, and was beginning to consolidate into a united kingdom, when from northern Egypt a surge of Egyptian stock, including the Philistines, moved north into southern Palestine to settle, as well as to trade, identified in a number of sites in that region (most notably in the strata of Tel Areini, Level VI then V) as the Philistines with whom Abraham was able to talk face to face. The biblical narrative demands a redating of the whole of ancient history, as currently recognised, by something like a one thousand year shortening - a formidable claim and a formidable investigation, but one that must be undertaken.
[End of quote]
The key consideration now is: If Noah were active in the region of Har Karkom, as here hypothesised, and most tentatively, then one may wonder which Geological Age, Stone Age, or Archaeological Age evidence at this site might represent that activity?
Geological evidence indicates that Har Karkom, which I agree was the biblical Mount Sinai, lay once, for a time, submerged completely under a shallow sea.
Could this be a further addition to those ‘watery traces’ of the Noachic Flood?
For other such ‘watery traces’, based on the findings of Dr. John Osgood, see my series:
If the devastating Noachic Flood, as described in Genesis 6-9, really occurred, then it must have left its watery traces over far-flung places. Dr. John Osgood, a master at pointing out early biblical eras in the archaeological record, appears to have well identified some of these traces.
Prior to the watery traces that Dr. John Osgood has identified in Iraq and the Middle East, Anatolia, Sinai and Egypt - all pointing to, for him, the great Genesis Flood … - these regions must have been, in my opinion, completely overwhelmed by a ‘Sea’ that had, as it eventually retreated, left this substantial wetness. ….
I am fully aware that it is quite a ‘long shot’ to try to develop any sort of Noachic connection also with the holy mountain that I think has been well identified as the Mount Sinai of Moses.
What has encouraged me to attempt this are the definite parallels with the Flood story that Moses has interwoven through various parts of the Book of Exodus. We saw that Kikawada and Quinn had referred to the story of Moses and the tebah, Ark, as ‘a miniature flood story’.
I also discussed professor Anati’s wrestling with the secrets of this mysterious mountain, leading to his query: "Why this mountain?", which I have taken as the very title of this series. Anati thought himself to have discerned, albeit dimly, a kind of "common denominator" repetition scenario at the site of Har Karkom:
It seems that the story of exodus, in exodus times, relied already on archetypes. The story of a great migration, which gave birth to the ‘nation’ is known from many mythologies in five continents around the world. The common denominator brings us back to the early migration of Homo sapiens leaving his place of origin to explore and conquer the world. From what is presently known, the whole of present-day humanity, entirely descending from Homo sapiens, acquired its consciousness, including its ability and need to produce art, when the early ancestors left their ‘Garden of Eden’. Har Karkom seems to provide both; the evidence of this primordial migration and of the one which is believed to have given birth to the Israelite nation. Is the coincidence fortuitous? ….
[End of quote]
That God sometimes uses major parallels along lines like this one, potentially, is apparent from, for one, the whole Old Adam and Eve and New Adam and Eve symmetry; or, perhaps more accurately, the ‘rival operation’ (an undoing of the bad knot), both incidents occurring in, I believe, the very same geographical setting. The Garden in Eden (see),
The Location of Paradise (Genesis 2:10-2:14).
the scene of human history’s first great drama, the Fall, was located at Jerusalem and its "garden" - " John notes that Jesus' death and resurrection also took place in a garden (19:41; 20:15): https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/John/Jesus-Is-Arrested - scene of the remedial Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Adam and Eve fell in the very geographical environs where the New Adam and Eve (Mary) stood. Symmetrical, but also inverse. (Various traditions support this geographical view).
One would expect, however, the quality and topography of the region to have greatly deteriorated since the pristine days of Adam and Eve. And the same comment would apply, presumably, for the region of Har Karkom in Noachic times as compared with it at the time of Moses – at least some degree of deterioration.
Now, as in the case of the same geographical location serving for the Fall and Redemption, might not, too, the Exodus Covenant (Exodus 19:5): ‘Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine’, have been uttered geographically at the same place as when God promised Noah (Genesis 6:18): ‘But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark …’? (Professor Anati’s "archetypes"?).
Did Moses, looking up at the awesome Mount Sinai, "a mountain … burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm … a trumpet blast … such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them … trembling with fear" (Hebrews 12:18, 19, 21), contemplate this as being the very mountain from which Noah had heard that doleful pronunciation (Genesis 6:13): ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth’?
As I say, such a parallelism is a ‘long shot’, but interesting, nonetheless, to consider.
Stone and Bronze Age Har Karkom
We know from the estimation of professor Emmanuel Anati, as set out in his Har Karkom. The Mountain of God, Rizzoli, NY, 1986), and elsewhere, that Moses and the Israelites, encamped at Har Karkom, belonged to the era of the Bronze Age.
Anati, having noted on p. 35 that the mountain "reaches a height of 847 meters", goes on to tell of the two ages most evident at the site (p. 412): "Two archaeological periods are particularly well-represented. The Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) …. The abundant remains dating to the Early Bronze Age and the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (the "BAC" period) …". The wandering Israelites were, as already discussed in this series, the Middle Bronze I nomads who conquered Early Bronze III sites in Palestine and (Early Bronze IV) Transjordan. Evidence for any activity during the far distant time of Noah would have to be looked for, therefore, significantly earlier than BAC. And, whilst I suggested that the long lifetime of Noah would have run through a fairly complete gamut of Stone Ages:
Now, following through the Genesis narrative, the early simple existence (Abel was already a shepherd) turns Neolithic with Cain’s building of a city and also with Jabal’s livestock: "Jabal was the first nomad who introduced the custom of living in tents, and pasturing and breeding not sheep merely, but larger quadrupeds as well, for the sake of wealth".http://biblehub.com/genesis/
But Chalcolithic is also represented here in the expertise of "Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron".
[End of quote],
the somewhat isolated Har Karkom region might not necessarily exhibit all such stages. The neat evolutionary-based linear succession of Stone Ages has been shown to be quite artificial, with primitive Stone Age cultures being at some sites contemporaneous with sophisticated cultures in other places.
I have argued, for instance, that the advanced material civilisation and culture of the ancient Akkadian rulers was contemporaneous with Late Neolithic, for example, in parts of Syro-Palestine:
Akkadian and Elamite Impact on Early Egypt. Part Two: Lost Culture of the Akkadians
Possible Evidence for the Flood
at Har Karkom and the Negev
From professor E. Anati’s The Mountain of God:
Appendix
P. 336
Summit Conglomerate
At the top of the highest peak of Har Karkom a surprising discovery was made. Preserved only within the upper 12 m of the mountain a few small occurrences of unconsolidated conglomerate was found that indicate a radical change in geological conditions following deposition of the Eocene carbonate rocks …. Elsewhere … traces of this sedimentary unit have been stripped away by erosion.
… similar units [conglomerate] are widespread throughout much of the Negev. The conglomerate on Har Karkom seems to best match description of the upper lithographic member of the Hazeva Formation … which is at least mid-Miocene in age.
P. 337
… an intensive river and lake system that drained much of the Negev and Sinai during the lower and mid-Miocene.
P. 339
… deposition of marine sediments took place throughout southern Israel up until the end of the Eocene, approximately 36 million years ago, at which time the seas overlying the Negev began to recede. We can now imagine the area of present day Har Karkom emerging slowly from a shallow sea ….
P. 342
After the regression of the Tethys Sea as a result of the Messinian orogenesis, the gateway to the north opened up again between 5.5 and 6 million years ago during the late Miocene period.
This massively estimated Eocene to Miocene period may be a good place with which to start. Evolutionists seem to have a greater reliance upon Zeros than the Japanese had during WWII.
The Noachic Flood ought to, as noted at the beginning, enable for a proper co-ordination of these runaway Geological Ages. It is a case, too, of lopping Zeros from the currently estimated figures.
