The following is taken from the article Noah’s Ark found at the following link:
http://www.badarchaeology.com/?page_id=697
One of the Biblical stories that forms a central part of creationist beliefs is the supposed universal flood of Genesis. According to the account, the flood took place when Noah was 600 years old; the data provided by the genealogies in Genesis allow us to calculate that this would have been about 1,600 years after creation. If we assume the earth to have been created in 4004 BCE, the flood would have happened about 2348 BCE, around the time the pyramids were being built at Giza
The problem with this point is that Bishop Ussher’s work is not supported by the Bible nor is it set in stone. Any believer should not use his date for the creation of the world for God does not say to use the genealogies to discover when he created and the genealogies not be an exhaustive list. We cannot be sure. God does not lie but he also does not present us with all the information that took place in the ancient world.
If God was exhaustive in recording everything that took place in the ancient world and who had who as a child, the Bible would be so thick and boring, no one would pick it up and read it.
Unsurprisingly, the Egyptian historical records of the period, which are reasonably full and complex, do not document a flood or the complete annihilation of population from the Nile valley. Nor is there any indication that in the years following the otherwise undocumented flood, the region was recolonised by a new population,
The problem with this point is that it is untrue. RK Harrison (OT Times) and others have documented that the ancient Egyptians continually rewrote their history in order to preserve patriotism in subsequent generations. They would not record the flood because first, the Egyptians did not exist at that time and second, if they had, it was not an event that would promote or support their desired goal for their descendents thus they would most likely omit it from their records.
This is why we have no record of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt and their subsequent Exodus. Egypt suffered a devastating loss and that defeat would not look good nor allow future Egyptians to look with pride upon their own ancestors. To assume that unbelieving nations will tell the gospel truth about their own history is naive at best. Yet secular archaeologist seem to apply God’s rules to the most sinful nations while attributing God’s people with the most sinful actions possible. They have it backwards.
In Britain, the third millennium saw the development of Stonehenge from a simple banked enclosure to a complex arrangement of stones with no evidence that it languished for the best part of a year, half finished, under thousands of metres of floodwater. Nowhere in the world do we find archaeological evidence for any form of disruption to populations, cultures or settlement patterns at the required date.
Yes and no. For yes- there is no uninterrupted history for most of the ancient civilizations of the world because they all came into existence AFTER the flood, and not before. Their records begin after they became independent nations. For no- the Sumerians record the flood in their king’s list so those authors are very wrong when they say that ‘nowhere in the world do we find archaeological evidence for any form of disruption’ and we have all the ancient flood tales which do provide archaeological evidence for a societal interruption.
Then we have all the flooded cities we find throughout the world to further prove these supposed archaeologists wrong (among other pieces of evidence- see www.dakotascba.com for more evidence).
The sole piece of evidence used by creationists is the so-called ‘flood deposit’ found by Sir Leonard Woolley (1880-1960) at Ur in 1929. This is more probably explained as a result of silting in marshes towards the mouths of the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris at a time of a marine transgression, when the Persian Gulf extended further north than it now does than evidence for even a regional flood
This is not true as we creationists have far more evidence than Sir Woolley’s discovery. We cannot use the Tigris or the Euphrates as the source for that silt layer because we have no archaeological evidence that those rivers were responsible for that deposit. Then I am inclined to accept his identification as Noah’s flood layer because there is nothing in history, in the Bible, anywhere where the evidence for Noah’s flood has to be uniform.
That was a demand made by Sir Woolley’s contemporaries not by anything legitimate source.
There is simply no evidence from any part of the world to support the Biblical account of a worldwide flood in the third millennium BCE (or at any other time, for that matter!) that wiped out all humanity, land animals and birds, with the exception of eight people from Mesopotamia and the animals that accompanied them on the Ark and the recolonisation of the earth by their descendants.
The date ‘3rd millennium’ is misleading and a distraction. We do not know for sure when the flood took place because God does not give us an exact time frame. To say that Bishop Ussher was right and use his dating is misleading as he never verified his work nor has anyone else. Even though some creationist’s have used Ussher’s research to support their YEC arguments, they need to stop doing so. We can present a YEC position without undermining it by using such non-credible work.
One response to the problem has been to re-date ancient sites, especially those of Egypt. Pointing out that pioneer Egyptologists in the early nineteenth century developed chronologies pushing back the start of pharaonic civilisation to before 5000 BCE and that the tendency since has been to reduce these chronologies to start around 3000 BCE, some suggest that it should be downdated still further.
I have no problem with re-dating certain ancient sites because certain structures like Stonehenge, the Sphinx, Gobekli Tepe, and other mysterious remains are probably left over from the pre-flood world and not built by the civilizations secularists claim constructed them. I would almost go as far to say that the pyramids at Giza were the result of pre-flood construction but am not totally there yet. One piece of graffiti does not make a concrete case for post-flood construction.
The problem with using the pharaonic record is that the majority of our knowledge of those kings comes from Manetho and his work remains only as quoted by other ancient writers. We do not have his original work extant thus we cannot even be sure if he was quoted correctly. We have other sources with partial lists but again there is a problem with those records–no verification for their validity and we do not know their source material.
Here is what Egyptian site says:
According to Egyptian legend, the first kings of Egypt were later some of Egypt’s most famous gods. We really do not know whether some of these individuals actually existed in human form or what regions of Egypt they may have ruled over. Only at the end of the Predynastic period, prior to the unification of Egypt, can we recognize specific kings who most likely ruled over either northern or southern Egypt. According to many sources, the first real king of Egypt, therefore ruling over the unified land, was Menes, who would have ruled Egypt around 3100 BC, but we have little if any archaeological basis for this name. Most scholars today believe that he may have been a king named Narmer, or more likely still, Aha, two figures that are better attested in the archaeological record.
However, Menes might have also been a legendary composition of several rulers. After these first rulers of a unified Egypt,: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pharaohs.htm#ixzz3NA8IVtMk
(Further reading– http://www.atlantisquest.com/Manetho.html & http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/manetho.html)
It is interesting that the authors of Bad Archaeology would appeal to legends when they hate legends. I am leaning to the argument that the Pharaohs reigns need to be reconstructed to a more honest look on Egyptian history given what we know about Egyptian recording of history. it is interesting to see how secularists accept Egyptian history as accurate when it suits their argument the Pharaoh’s list and Egyptian timeline- yet reject it when the history goes against their point of view.
We know so little about the structures we examine that to say the flood has no evidence is speaking out far too soon and based more on arguing from silence than actual fact. The opposing arguments to the biblical flood are also based upon misleading dating of ancient civilizations, artifacts, records, and structures. Most scholars disagreeing with the biblical flood do not have any extant ancient manuscript they can appeal to. Their opposition simply comes from their unbelief and rejection of God’s truth not from any real evidence. Any evidence appealed to is usually manipulated in their favor and not honestly examined or presented.
It should come as no surprise that other past societies have flood myths. Leaving aside obvious allegorical connotations to purifying rebirth, they are a key element in the mythologies of civilisations who owe their existence to flood-prone river systems such as the Nile, Tigris or Euphrates.
I am going to skip to their conclusion as the next two sections have been dealt with in other works and not important for the purpose here. There are no rational or logical explanations for all ancient societies having a flood myth if the Bible is wrong. None whatsoever. I know of no ancient or modern civilization who would preserve in their history any local flood and do so by writing them in stone or passing their devastating work on to subsequent generations. Sure we have local floods written in newspaper reports etc. but nothing that would memorialize those events for all time.
Even the devastating Indian Tsunami is not preserved like the flood myths are preserved nor are any other modern society constructing similar stories. It just doesn’t happen for local flood events. Why would anyone take the time to record for posterity one local flood when local floods happen in the same region all the time?
It wouldn’t make sense to do so. The quoted argument above just doesn’t make sense nor is it logical or rational to even present such a theory. Their effort to do so is just an attempt to avoid the biblical truth. The only answer to the existence of ancient non-biblical flood stories is that Noah’s flood is true and that the story of Babel is also true. The latter event explains how the flood story made it around the world and was memorialized by so many different ancient people.
Without Babel, we would not have a worldwide record or extra-biblical written evidence for Noah’s flood. We would just have the usual silent artifacts we find throughout the world today.The problem does not lie with the bible believer (for the most part) nor with the physical evidence we do have today but with the unbeliever who refuses to be open-minded about that evidence.
Bad Archaeology is when secularists close their minds to the truth and try to force all believers into doing archaeology their way. It ensures that the truth is hidden and kept from the public who needs it most. No we do not follow the unbeliever when we do any type of research nor do we allow their rules to guide us.
The believer does good archaeology which searches through the evidence to find those nuggets of truth which helps them avoid the lies of secularists.
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