I was reading through "The Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English
Bible." This book is from a moderately liberal position and represents
standard critical thought, although slightly dated. It discusses the
results of various archaeologists, most notably C.L. Woolley, who discovered
clean water-laid clay at various levels in Mesopotamia. At first, this
data suggested evidence for Noah's flood until it was later discovered
that other finds of clay at other ancient cities provided discordant dates
of flooding. Archaeologists later concluded that these deposits represented
records of various local floods in this area. I am NOT attempting to
resurrect this data as evidence for the Noahaic flood, however, there are
peculiarities about this data that I find hard to explain from a local
flood theory. A careful examination of the data show that the dates
based on relative stratigraphic position show that the times of the
deposits cluster into two groups, one at about 2800 BC, the other at
about 3300 BC. The five sites are Erech, Ur, Kish, Nineveh, and Shuruppak.
The dates are tabulated as follows:
DATE Erech Ur Kish Nineveh Shuruppak
------------------------------------------------------------
2000 BC
2800 BC ***** ***** ******
3000 BC
3300 BC ***** *****
4000 BC
Locating these five sites on a map creates puzzling results. Kish,
Shuruppak and Erech are between the Tigris and the Euphrates, all
closer to the east bank of the Euphrates with Kish right on the bank.
Ur is on the West bank of the Euphrates and Nineveh is on the East bank
of the Tigris. How could a local flood create the deposit at Ur [West bank
of the Euphrates], which in places measured up to 3.7 meters and leave
no evidence of flooding at any of the sites on the east bank of Euphrates?
And why did it coincide with the flooding at Nineveh which is on the east
bank of the Tigris? And why do we see flooding occurring at the same time
for three cities east of the Euphrates with no evidence of flooding on the
west bank? Even the theory that the rivers shifted is implausible because
Ur and Nineveh are coincidental even though they are on separate rivers.
Has anyone else ever examined this data?
-jpt
--John P. Turnbull (jpt@ccfadm.eeg.ccf.org)Cleveland Clinic FoundationDept. of Neurology, Section of Neurological ComputingM52-119500 Euclid Ave.Cleveland Ohio 44195Telephone (216) 444-8041; FAX (216) 444-9401