Noah, Atlantis, and Babylon (now with poll)

[MSTK]

Is it possible that the biblical legend known as Noah, the fantasy city known as Atlantis and one of the first great civilizations (known as Babylon) are all inter-related?

So we all know (or as the scientists say) that about fourteen thousand years ago, the last ice age was starting to end and the glaciers long frozen were thawing and releasing great amounts of water back into the ocean.
Around this time the civilization of men was not even a civilization -- far from it (about seven thousand years away, IIRC). Around this time, land bridges including the Bering Straight that scientists assume were one of the methods that humans got into the Americas were starting to close and sink under the waters.

These land bridges usually appeared in gulfs or straits where the water level was much more shallow than the current sea level. Two other such major places were the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia (not including the Americas, which you will see why eventually).

The Gulf of Persia leveled out pretty smoothly with the help of the Tigris and the Euphrates feeding it. However, the Red Sea was not such the case. Becase the Red Sea was gap created by the drifting apart of the Arabian and African Plates, there are ledges blocking the Mediterrainian Sea and the Indian Ocean from filling it up. As well, there are no major rivers feeding it.

Think of how the Red Sea must have been while the Ice Age was starting to end. A nice wetlands with seasonal floods. The perfect place for a civilization, becuase the conditions were ripe. So, naturally, humans who were ahead of there time started agriculture, farming, and irrigation (as Civilization III says so well ) very gradually, like any civilization starts.

But if civilizations start there, why are humans still hunter-gatherers for the next 7000-9000 years?

"Noah" was most likely someone who was at the right place at the right time. He traveled to the southern edge of what was to become the Red Sea and saw that the waters of the Indian Ocean were starting to seep in. Eventually, they will break through a dam-like structure created by the rift between the two plates. So he created a giant boat.

A big storm happened, and the ocean finally broke through. Within a day (a week at most), the Red Sea leveled. Noah lived to tell the story, which passed through oral tradition. Of course, the story changed a lot through multiple tellings, as Oral Tradition always does.

So...if you had just witness a giant wall of water swallowing the only civilization just as it started, what would you think? Ignoring the bible, you would think that the Gods did not want cities, agriculture, specialized labor, etc. So, people lived from then on under the shadow of the city that was laughed upon by the Gods.

Atlantis. It possibly was not a high-tech modern city, but just the first one in an age of the hunter-gatherer. The story might have spread throughout the entire world (except for the Americas). People started associating its location with ones familiar, and eventually it became somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

Eventually, a long time later, some people decided to build a city, still under the shadow of the smoten city. But they decided to make it so high that not even flood waters could reach it. It was known as Babel, (from the Bible, of course. You didn't think a Christian would completely dismiss it from the whole story, right?) and from it grew Babylon.

Yay. Too bad I found this in a science fiction novel.

So can someone clear this up and explain the validity of this story?

Bibliography: Pastwatch - The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card (which is convientiently a science fiction)

 

[Archer 007]

Interesting. Id like to see other people's comments.

 

[MSTK]

Can I add a poll to this?

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Well, I certainly can't explain the validity, as I wasn't there. It is a nice little story that conveniently ties together three fables. I will say that it's at least as plausible, if not more so, than most theories you hear regarding any of the three.

 

[blindside]

So people passed on this story of Noah for 10,000+ years? Ofcourse it got altered but it would be pretty amazing for any story to live on for so long. Perhaps this is one of the only from such a long time back (if any of this is true).

 

[MSTK]

Maybe tribal leaders used the whole "if-you-settle-god-will-smite-you" thing to keep their groups in line. It's a multipurpose thing, and maybe they even forgot how it originated.

 

[ainwood]

Can I add a poll to this?

PM me with the options you want.

 

[Duddha]

I've never heard that the Red Sea rift was dry in the late ice age. hmm, A possibility, need to look more into this. I've heard a similiar theory in relation to the Black Sea (minus atlantis), wasn't dry just much smaller and flooded. Legands about a great flood exists in all the mythologies of the region, so it must have been experienced by a group of people that dispersed into the surrounding region, not just one guy (Noah).

 

[Shadylookin]

your trying to validate a place that never existed with an event that never happend(the noah's ark flood thing, not the ice age) besides everyone knows that the earth is only 6000 years old rather than billions(or even 14,000) If I'm not mistaken the only reference ever to atlantis was from a greek philosopher(homer or plato I believe) around 44b.c. which not to insult them because they did their best at the time hardly proves anything. You get an A for effort though

 

[Perfection]

And it left behind no archeological evidence on the sea floor...

 

[h4ppy]

Think of how the Red Sea must have been while the Ice Age was starting to end. A nice wetlands with seasonal floods. The perfect place for a civilization, becuase the conditions were ripe. So, naturally, humans who were ahead of there time started agriculture, farming, and irrigation (as Civilization III says so well ) very gradually, like any civilization starts.

This is where your theory faulters. (besides conjecture geology) There were other places like this that did not develope civilization. Also the area was wetter back then so there would have been rivers flowing into the region from western Arabia. Wetlands aren't exactly good for farming. Also what does Babylon (where the Noah legend probably came from) have to do with this. Also ATLANTIS NEVER EXISTED AND IT NEVER WILL.

 

[King Alexander]

@Shadylookin: Plato, took the notes of Critias(who in his turn, based his notes Solon's notes, when the later had visit Egypt and had spoken with Egyptian priests). Plato reffered to Atlantis to his books "Critias" and "Timaios" which were written around 350BC and, according to what Egypt priests had told, he wrote, that "the Atlantes tried to capture Athens itself but they were defeated by the Athenians".
Proklos(410/412AD - 485AD) also wrote that he saw those Egyptian plates when he visited Egypt.
But, all this is very unclear, because it's based on what the Egyptian priests knew(from their written plates) and we don't know how they knew for this at the first place.


Many ancient Greeks from different eras(beginning with Homer, who hadn't visited Egypt, of course) mentioned about a civilization that was destroyed a few thousand years back, but we don't know what to take as myth or truth. It can't be only a myth, because except the first Greeks who mentioned it, the Egyptians(when Solon visited Egypt) also mentioned that mysterious land; maybe indeed there was a land that was destroyed.

I'm not even going to argue where Atlantis was, because many different theories have been told about it and each one has it's own claimings; until we find more specific evidence and agree with a basic idea, I can't take place about it.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

All the info on Atlantis can be traced back to two works of Plato:Timaeus and Critias
In Timeaus, Plato relates to us the philosophical conversation which took place between Socrates, Hermocrates, Critias, and Timeaus on the day of the "festival of the goddess". Critias recalls a story told by his grandfather when he was little, which he thinks is appropriate to be retold during the festivities. Once upon a time, his grandfather was drawn into a conversation about Solon and remembered an account of Solon's travel to Egypt and his experience in the city of Sais. According to Solon's uncompleted poem, an old priest from the temple of Neith (Athena) related to him the history of events, which took place long before the Greek's first historical records were made. It was a tale of the highly developed, very wealthy, and powerful civilization of Atlantis and the subsequent war between Atlantis and Athens from which Athens emerged victorious. Apparently, Atlantis was a continent located in the Atlantic Ocean before the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar). In landmass it surpassed the lands of Libya and Asia combined. It was the center of extreme economic wealth and military power that sought to enslave all of Europe. The Atlanteans were quite successful in defeating many European countries; however, the great civilization of Athens repelled their attacks and eventually succeeded in driving them back out of Europe. Unfortunately, almost all records of this great achievement were lost due to a very powerful flood that wiped out most of Athens and the whole continent of Atlantis in one day and one night. As it stood, the temples of Egypt remained the only place where the records of ancient times were to be found, since unlike Greece, Egypt's geographical features preserved it from the destruction that descended upon many other nations. Thus ends the Timeaus .

The next important passage in Plato's works regarding Atlantis is Critias. In this text Critias describes in detail the creation of Atlantis--its rules, its life, and its culture. He mentions the island's natural properties (abundance of various minerals, rich flora and fauna) as well. Furthermore, he details the development of the Atlantean civilization under the guidance of their wise king Atlas.

-There are no archeological ruins of cities anywhere on earth from the time that Plato claims Atlantis existed. Even if Plato was off by a zero, say 900 years rather than 9,000, there still are no corresponding ruins anywhere, especially in Greece and particularly in the Athens area itself. The earliest sophisticated civilizations were established 5000 to 6000 years ago.

• Egypt was supposedly conquered by Atlantis, but the Egyptians never wrote anything about it. The historian Herodotus actually met the same priests that Solon supposedly spoke with, and he never mentioned hearing about Atlantis.

• Plato says the Atlanteans built a ditch that was 100 feet deep, 600 feet wide and an unbelievable 11,000 miles long. Nothing even a fraction as large has been found.

• There are no known forces of nature that could destroy so large a land mass. True, parts of continents rise and fall, but the process takes millions of years. A comet or asteroid could destroy a large area, but no evidence has ever been found of all the other civilizations that Plato said traded with Atlantis .

Plato often used myths and legends to illustrate a point. He expected his audience to recognize a parable (a story made up as a moral or religious lesson) when they heard it. Almost every parable he told starts with a statement that it is true. He himself explained that “We may liken the false to the true for the purpose of moral instruction.”

In Plato’s most famous dialogue “The Republic,” he suggested that on rare occasions it might be OK to tell what he called a “noble lie” to the lower classes for the purpose of creating a stable social order. Lower classes would be told that the gods created the present social order, making the rulers of gold, the military classes of silver, and the common working class from bronze. Plato was not a man who believed in total democracy for everyone. He himself was upper class and he also might have been suspicious of democracy because his dear friend and teacher Socrates was condemned to death by a democratically elected committee of citizens.
• Ignatius Donnelly wrote a popular book in 1882 that inspired an entire movement: the search for a mystical Atlantis. He was a dreamer and an idealist. In 1857 he tried to found a utopian society in Minnesota, but it failed. He was elected to Congress and spent much of his time in Washington D.C. at the Library of Congress researching his theory that Atlantis was the original Garden of Eden. He thought the gods of the Greeks and many other peoples were confused memories of the real kings and queens of Atlantis. He said those who escaped the Atlantis disaster preserved memories of it which later became the story of Noah’s flood.

So, between the original Plato's text and 1882 nobody refered to Atlantis.Nothing nil zilch.
If it was a known story in Plato's time there should br at least one piece of corroborating evidence dating, before or shortly after him. But the case was that no one believed at the time that the story was more than a Philosophical allusion.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

because except the first Greeks who mentioned it, the Egyptians(when Solon visited Egypt) also mentioned that mysterious land; maybe indeed there was a land that was destroyed.

No, No,No.
The historian Herodotus actually met the same priests that Solon supposedly spoke with, and he never mentioned hearing about Atlantis.

 

[NateDawgNY]

Off topic for a minute here:
There are two ways to explain the presence of fossils in such weird places as mountain tops deserts, etc....
You can either believe that over a period of millions or billions of years (scientists aren't quite sure what to go by), the Earth evolved and the fossils just somehow ended up there. Or you can believe that there was a world-wide flood that covered the mountains and caused a drastic change in climate. Either theory takes a lot of faith to believe in. Personally, I just think the latter theory makes more sense.

Back on topic:
I really don't think that the three stories are tied together. The ziggurat of Babel was built after the flood, not beforehand. People are still trying to figure out if Atlantis did ever exist. Maybe it did, but it's probably not tied in to the other two stories.

 

[Plotinus]

"a greek philosopher(homer or plato I believe) around 44b.c."? Not much one can say to that, is there?

It all sounds a reasonable theory to me really, although completely speculative. I'm really not sure about the Tower of Babel part, which is surely pure myth. Also, whilst there may be some historical basis for the flood narrative, I don't think there's any reason to suppose that the Noah part has any basis in fact. That said, don't forget the flood story in Gilgamesh, which you can see at http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm

 

[MSTK]

Oh, yeah. They mentioned Gilgamesh in the story.

And, as for fossils, most of them might have been wiped into the Mediterrainian, and the buildings weren't too many. They probably would have slept in the open air and only used buildings to store grain.

But Pastwatch is a good book and I will continue to post crackpot theories from it

 

[Cashie]

Any discourse on Atlantis generally falls into speculation, since there is no evidence that it existed. A few twisted 8th-hand stories don't really count for that much. I've never heard as much crackpot-ery as what I've come accross with Atlantis.

Most cultures in and around Mesopotamia have a version of the Flood story, so it is likely that some sort flooding occured in that region of the world. In the Greek version, Deucalion escapes the waters by escaping to the mountains, rather than by building a boat/Ark.

I don't think I've said anything useful! Oh, well...

 

[ainwood]

Poll Added at users' request.

 

[Shadylookin]

@Shadylookin: Plato, took the notes of Critias(who in his turn, based his notes Solon's notes, when the later had visit Egypt and had spoken with Egyptian priests). Plato reffered to Atlantis to his books "Critias" and "Timaios" which were written around 350BC and, according to what Egypt priests had told, he wrote, that "the Atlantes tried to capture Athens itself but they were defeated by the Athenians".
Proklos(410/412AD - 485AD) also wrote that he saw those Egyptian plates when he visited Egypt.
But, all this is very unclear, because it's based on what the Egyptian priests knew(from their written plates) and we don't know how they knew for this at the first place.


Many ancient Greeks from different eras(beginning with Homer, who hadn't visited Egypt, of course) mentioned about a civilization that was destroyed a few thousand years back, but we don't know what to take as myth or truth. It can't be only a myth, because except the first Greeks who mentioned it, the Egyptians(when Solon visited Egypt) also mentioned that mysterious land; maybe indeed there was a land that was destroyed.

I'm not even going to argue where Atlantis was, because many different theories have been told about it and each one has it's own claimings; until we find more specific evidence and agree with a basic idea, I can't take place about it.

I stand corrected, but to believe something that was passed down for generations and has no scientific evidence is usually not a good thing.

Off topic for a minute here:
There are two ways to explain the presence of fossils in such weird places as mountain tops deserts, etc....
You can either believe that over a period of millions or billions of years (scientists aren't quite sure what to go by), the Earth evolved and the fossils just somehow ended up there. Or you can believe that there was a world-wide flood that covered the mountains and caused a drastic change in climate. Either theory takes a lot of faith to believe in. Personally, I just think the latter theory makes more sense.

Back on topic:
I really don't think that the three stories are tied together. The ziggurat of Babel was built after the flood, not beforehand. People are still trying to figure out if Atlantis did ever exist. Maybe it did, but it's probably not tied in to the other two stories.

well they didn't die in strange places. After millions of years landmasses seperated and colided(which would account for them being on mountains) Then as for deserts and other strage places is due to climate change, I mean come on did you really expect the climate to stay the same for millions of years? Then there was that supposed meteor which probably had a large effect on climate change. As for your bible beating theory that doesn't explain how they got up on the mountains(once they drowned they should have sank) or the deserts. It also doesn't explain why humans aren't buried in the same level of dirt as dinos, I mean if we all died together don't you think we should be in the same general area?