The Flood legend is present in almost all religions of the world.
According to the Bible, God at some point repented that he created man on Earth. And then the Lord said: “I will destroy all the people I created on Earth; I will destroy all animals and everything that crawls on the Earth; and all the birds in the sky, for I am sorry that I created all this. But he decided to spare a righteous man named Noah …
The Flood is the most famous catastrophe left in the traditions of the peoples of the whole world. Since ancient times, the inhabitants of Europe, Asia, America and Australia have more than two hundred flood legends, the plots of which are strikingly similar in detail and differ little from the biblical version.
Amazing similarities
For example, in ancient Greek mythology, there is a legend that Zeus decided to destroy people and flooded the earth with rain. Almost all of humanity died, but the son of the god Prometheus - Deucalion - and his wife Pyrrha were saved by climbing into a wooden box and swimming in it on the waves for 9 days, until they landed on Mount Parnassus, towering above the water surface.
Of course, on the part of the Lord God somehow it was not at all merciful to root out not only the entire human race, but also the dumb creatures that had nothing to do with the "corruption of men". But that doesn't mean the Christian God is the only one so wicked. In ancient India, 3 thousand years ago, there was a legend about how the god Vishnu warned a sage named Manu about an impending flood and sent him a large ship, on which he ordered to load a couple of all living beings and the seeds of all plants.
In the biblical legend, the Lord warned about the flood of a righteous man named Noah and taught him how to build an ark:
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“Take a gopher tree and build a boat.
Divide the boat into separate rooms and pitch it inside and out. The boat must be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, 30 cubits high. Make an elbow window in the boat under the roof, and make a door on the side. Build three decks in the boat: upper, middle and lower."
And then he gave instructions about passengers and cargo: “You yourself, your sons, your wife and the wives of your sons, all will enter the boat. You have to take with you in the boat a pair of all male and female living on Earth, so that they stay alive and continue their race after the flood."
The similarity of the legends about the Flood among peoples on various continents gives reason to believe that it really took place. Maybe not as grandiose as described in the Bible, but it was. Skeptics do not argue about this, but they diligently find fault with trifles.
The Bible tells us that rain poured down on the earth, and the flood lasted forty days and forty nights, "and the water on the earth increased enormously, so that all the high mountains that are under the whole sky were covered." Skeptics argue: the Earth could not be completely covered with water during forty days of rains. In some parts of the world, the rainy season lasts longer, but this does not cause disasters. But opponents do not argue, but explain: that's right, it rained for 40 days. But they were only a prelude to the flood, it is not for nothing that the Bible says that water arrived on Earth for 150 days. This means that the flood was caused by a powerful volcanic eruption, as a result of which underground waters rushed through the faults in the earth's crust to the surface of the Earth.
Science can explain everything
In addition, skeptics find fault with Noah's longevity. According to the Bible, God warned Noah about the flood when it was already 500 years old. And Noah devoted another hundred years of his life to creating the ark. Pessimists argue that people don't live that long. But optimists have put forward the theory that previously the average life expectancy was generally 900 years. And they even brought a scientific basis for it, in which they referred to the Bible, which says: "The Lord God did not send rain to the Earth … but steam rose from the ground and irrigated the entire face of the Earth." It turns out that a layer of water vapor surrounded the earth on top of the air layer, which created an environment with a greenhouse effect and blocked the ultraviolet radiation of the Sun, which significantly lengthened the lifespan of people and animals.
But if the scale of the flood and the longevity of Noah is almost impossible to verify today, then something can.
Skeptics say that representatives of the entire animal world could not fit in the ark. But optimists object. And they give the calculations. With the dimensions of the ark: length - 150 meters, width - 25 and height - 15, it was a very impressive three-deck ship, similar in capacity to 569 railway cattle cars, in which it is customary to transport 240 animals. Thus, the ark accommodated about 35,000-50,000 animals - practically the entire fauna of the Earth - "each creature has a pair". Skeptics do not give up and ask how Noah with his three sons Shem, Ham, Japheth and their wives managed for almost a year not only to manage the ship, but also with this entire huge zoo. Optimists find an explanation here too. In their opinion,A sharp decrease in the value of atmospheric pressure as a result of the destruction of the water-vapor protective layer should have led to a sharp decrease in the metabolic processes of living organisms, it is quite possible that the animals stayed all the time of swimming in a state close to suspended animation, and care for them was minimal.
The Bible tells us that the water covered the earth fifty cubits high. Every living breathing creature on land perished. Only Noah and those who were with him in the boat survived.
Only on the seventh day of the seventh month after the flood did the water begin to sell little by little. After some time, the ark nestled at the top of one of the mountains in Armenia. Noah released the raven, wanting to find out if there was somewhere else free of water and already available for landing. However, he returned to Noah, finding that everything was still covered with water. Seven days later, Noah released a dove for the same purpose. When the latter returned to him, stained with earth and carrying an apricot leaf, Noah saw that the Earth was freed from water, and after waiting another seven days, he released the animals from the ark and went out with his household. After offering a sacrifice to the Lord God, he, together with his relatives, made a sacrificial feast.
The ship was dismantled into amulets
It is believed that Noah landed on Mount Ararat. And they say that for a long time his ark could be seen on the slope of this mountain. Back in 275 BC. the Babylonian historian Berossus mentioned the ship on Ararat. And the famous traveler Marco Polo at the end of the XIII century even stated that "the wreckage of the ark is still visible on the top of Ararat." They say that Armenian caravans made amulets from the wreckage of the ark to protect them from illnesses, misfortunes, poisons and unrequited love.
Skeptics argue that if the remains of Noah's ark were on Ararat, then they inevitably had to burn during the eruption of the 1840 volcano. However, optimists are not giving up. They not only put forward a well-founded theory that the wooden skeleton of the ship did not burn, but turned to stone during the eruption, but also systematically claim that they found it. For example, in 1887, John Joseph, who called himself Prince of Nuri and Archbishop of Babylon, reported that he had found the remains of the ark on Ararat.
In 1955, the French explorer Fernand Navarre from an expedition to Ararat brought a board that had been broken off from the skeleton of the ark. Experts have estimated the age of this board at 5 thousand years. And in 2010, researchers from China also brought boards from Ararat, supposedly from the ark, whose age was estimated at 4.8 thousand years.
In the middle of the twentieth century, American pilots at various times photographed unusual objects on the slope of Mount Ararat, very similar in shape and size to the ark. But skeptics did not consider all these boards and photographs sufficient evidence of the existence of Noah's ark.
So the controversy on this matter has not ceased to this day, which does not prevent the legend of Noah's ark to amaze and delight both believers and unbelievers.