So far, we have seen in the article “A Geological Study of Lake Van, Eastern Turkey” by Degens, et. al., the period at or near 2807 BC is conspicuous for the sunspot activity plunging to zero at what appears just before the flood, then going right back up to its typical level, but sustained much more steadily than usual. We also saw that during this same period, the earth’s global temperature plummeted at around that same time, to a much lower temperature than usual, and then went steeply trended to a near max. These are conditions that would be consistent with severe cloud cover over Lake Van, a condition which I hypothesized to be the case in my post
Genesis 7:18-20 - Where was the ark? (Part 5) - The mountains were covered, but not submerged!. Now, at the time, I hypothesized that the mounts were submerged enough for the hollows of the mountains (or at least the mounts Noah saw) to be submerged to the biblical record of 20 feet. Let us challenge that, by looking further at Degens et. al…
Though I cannot show the pictures here (but you can purchase the paper at the website
http://springerlink.com, the figure on p. 23 shows “volcanic lulls” just around 2955 BC, followed by volcanic ash for the next 500 years or so. Also, the figure on p. 26 shows a “zone of special tectonic activity” starting around 2900 BC, and continuing until 2600 BC. Now, I honestly don’t know what the range of error is for readings like this, so I cannot speak of the potential error in the dates. But, I can say this. The volcanic lulls and beginning of the special tectonic activity would have happened when the sun spot lulls happened, which is when the extreme temperature drop happened. The tectonic activity appears to have preceded then 500 years of volcanic activity, which matches the 500 years or so of increased temperatures and increased sunspot activity we discussed in Parts 1 and 2. This would also suggest the likelihood of tectonic and volcanic activity ramping up just around when the flood began. As it says in Genesis 7…
 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Why would the springs of the great deep burst forth? Well, we have already seen in Dating the Flood… May 10, 2807 B.C.? that this was the year that a meteor appears to have struck the Indian ocean. Apparently, it might also have been accompanied by an earth quake and volcanic blast.
One other observation… did you ever notice that verse 11 gives a date? If this date is meant to be interpreted against the Jewish Calendar, and we assume the New Year starts properly in the month of Nissan, and that the civil date of the flood was 2807, as we have previously confirmed, then the 17th day of the second month (Iyar) would fall on May 1 of that year, 9 days before the total solar eclipse that history records for that year (it was the eclips that we used to guess at May 10 in the post above).
Interestingly, the Sumerian version has the rain going for only 7 days and 7 nights. I wonder if it’s because they knew from Noah’s experience when the flood began, and assume from the eclipse when rain ended? Perhaps the rain only went for 7 days outside the Mountains of Urartu. I’m not sure of course, but the co-incidence of these dates is pretty interesting!
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November 7th, 2010 at 8:48 am
I found this cool online Hebrew date converter here: http://www.kaluach.org/
November 7th, 2010 at 8:57 am
Actually, if you think of the day as starting at nightfall, and realize this continues to the following nightfall, perhaps the flood started on May 2. This would work out, as the 7 days of the Sumerian account could then continue until May 9, with the eclipse then occurring (as recorded by secular science) on May 10, and the rains. I’ll have to post about the entire account, however to explain the 40 days/nights. Clue: it happened in the Mountains of Urartu, from Noah’s perspective.
January 3rd, 2012 at 11:51 am
Please see http://www.geocreationism.com/blog/2012/01/03/update-noahs-flood-started-on-april-20-2807-bc/ for a correction my flood date above.
Note that the tool at http://www.kaluach.org is off by a year for BC dates. I have notified them of the bug. Hopefully they will fix it.