"Don't Rock The Boat"
"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip."
The Ballard of Gillagan's Island-George Wyle & Sherwood Schwartz
Before starting with page four we must peel back the page a little to take a look at the end of page three. We learn some additional, very interesting information about Lamech, the warrior pimp. In Genesis 5:28-29 we are told that when Lamech was still in his prime, (182 years old.) he sired a son "And he called his name Noah, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed." This verse is generally thought to imply that Noah, aside from becoming the first and most famous skipper ever, had invented plowing equipment. In these, the times before Home Depot, It is unclear if men had any spade or rake-like utensils with which to farm, or whether they simply dug with their hands.
Lamech ran through a little dry spell with his ladies and after a mere "five hundred ninety and five years, he begat sons and daughters." But alas, life in the biblical fast lane has it's price. It seems that his two wives, Adah and Zillah wore poor Lamech out. His life was cut short after a measly "...seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died." It's a shame, I was really starting to like Lamech. His brief life is out shined by his more famous son Noah and his adventures on the high seas. Noah, after soldiering through that initially awkward "getting to know you" period with his wife, starts his own family at "...five hundred years old" when he "begat Shem, Ham, and Japeth." From all accounts Noah was a good family man and unlike his great, great, great, great grandfather Cain, he knew how to please the Lord with proper offerings. This was very fortunate for Noah because God was doing the slow burn with the rest of humanity, and we all know by now, when the good Lord gets pissed, there is usually hell to pay.
Genesis :6:1-10 depicts the reasons for God's growing displeasure for mankind. He is particularly annoyed with the "fair daughters of men" co-mingling with the "sons of God." It seems that these vixens of antiquity whom the S.O.G. chose to be trove were from the wrong side of the genealogical tracks and therefore not worthy of the descendants of Seth. These Godless tramps were presumably of the bloodline of Cain. The actual verses from Genesis 6 are as follows: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them. That the sons of God saw the daughters that they were fair; and they took them wives of all they saw."
The first four sentences of the last paragraph are my facetious appraisal of the literal translation of these verses. The Old Testament was written mostly in ancient Hebrew. Some parts of Ezra, Daniel, and Jeremiah were written in Aramaic, which if he actually ever lived, would have been the language that Jesus spoke. The New Testament was written in Greek, and has a smattering of Aramaic words sprinkled throughout it's gospels. The point of all of this being that translating these ancient cannons was not easy. And by that I don't mean for a wise ass like me, but for the actual scholars who devoted their lives to the endeavor. And as I realize that my King James version of the bible is at best- a translation of a translation of a translation- I have made it a point to visit several Christian and Biblical websites for a interpretation of each and every verse I review, lest the casual Bible reader wonder where my additional musings come from. I have said all of this I suppose to convey to you that I am really trying to grasp what is commonly held to be the actual meanings behind these words. So far, in deference to the esteemed ladies and gentlemen scholars, I find it to be ludicrous drivel at best.
In Genesis 6:3 God says to himself, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." So God, with his tolerance for the ungodly shenanigans of man waning, makes up his mind and sets a doomsday clock in motion. He gives mankind 120 years to get their collective shit together. This period starts about twenty years before the birth of Noah's sons and ends with what is, in a very strong field, one of the most ridiculous tales in the Bible. The myth of "The Great Flood."
Much has been made of the first part of the next verse of Genesis 6:4, "There were giants in the earth in those days; " which titillatingly continues, "and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renow" Many take the first part of this verse to mean that there were literally giants roaming about during this time. As a result, hoaxes of giant human bones being unearthed, citing Genesis 6:4 as validation, have gone on since at least the 1800's and continue to this day. (In more recent times, many have found Photoshop to be a useful tool for perpetuating this nonsense.) People have claimed to have found bones so large as to have come from beings that are 16 feet tall or better. Humans, over twice the size of Shaquille O'Neil cannot exist because of the "square-cube law" ( Square Cube Law explained here )
Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in recorded history thus far was 8 feet 11 inches tall. His extreme height was due to hypertrophy of his pituitary gland. As he grew and grew, this condition became a physical burden for him. He eventually needed braces on his legs to support him as he walked. An infection from a blister he received as a result of the braces rubbing against his skin would end his life at the age 22. He was still growing at the time of his death.
Since there are references further along in Job that pertain to the sons of God as being angles, some believe that this reference in Genesis means that Angels were screwing earth girls. They explain that this is why God becomes irritated and inflicts his watery wrath upon the world. Yet, in much the same way that garlic wards off vampires and feeding gremlins after midnight is prohibited, it has been "reasoned" that since Angels are spirits, they could not mate with humans. (As if you would bat an eyelash in response to this revelation should it occur otherwise given all of the fantastical nonsense rendered thus far.)
Before we learn about the ark, let's consider the fate another incredible sailing vessel. She was the largest ship of her day, her creator called her one of "the greatest of the works of men." She was declared " unsinkable." Despite these boasts she sank in the frigid waters of the north Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. Most of her passengers would die in the icy water, because tragically, despite her grand size, there were not enough lifeboats on board. You think you you know this story right? You probably think I am talking about the ill-fated RMS Titanic, but you are wrong. The ship I am referring to is the Titan. It is a fictional ship in a book called "Futility, or the wreck of the Titan" written by Morgan Robertson. It was not written after the Titanic sank, but 12 years before in 1898. Before the Titanic was even designed actually. The similarities between the fictional Titan and the real Titanic which sank in 1912 are uncanny. The Titan was 800 feet long displacing 75,000 tons and the Titanic was 882 feet long and displaced 63,000 tons. Both were triple screw (propeller). Each had a crew and passenger capacity of 3,000 and both had fewer than half the needed life boats to facilitate the number of souls on board. Finally, cruising at a brisk 22.5 knots, the Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic sea in April, four hundred miles from Newfoundland on her starboard side. Ditto for the Titan, except in Robertson's book she was doing 25 knots.
What are we to make of this? Was Robertson a psychic? Was he a prophet? As you might imagine many people certainly thought so after the Titanic sunk. He probably could have made a fortune had he been unscrupulous, but he freely admitted to anyone that would listen that it was just a huge coincidence. That it was mainly the direct result of his vast knowledge of ships and seamanship and not testimony of his supernatural prowess that spawned these parallel details. The story of Noah can be said to share this type of coincidence. One of the oldest works of literature known to man is "The Epic Gilgamesh." It comes down to us from the Mesopotamian area courtesy of the Babylonians. Gilgamesh, who in real life was the fifth king of Uruk, (modern day Iraq.) became something of a mythological figure in Mesopotamian lure. His adventures chronicled in "The Epic of Gilgamesh" where he meets Utnapishtim, who was chosen by the gods for his goodness to weather a storm they employ to flood the world and destroy mankind. He is given specific instructions on how to build a boat large enough to his family and all the animals of earth. The storm lasts for six days and nights and his boat lands on top of a mountain. After seven days on the mountain he sends out birds, first a dove, then a swallow then a raven to find land. He then leaves the boat and immediately offers sacrifice to the gods. Sound familiar? Just in case you have any chicken or egg type questions, the story of Gilgamesh predates the Bible date of creation by at least 1,000 years and perhaps as many as 3,000.
However, the Babylonians weren't beyond plagiarism themselves. Utnapishtim, who is obviously Noah, was at first Zisudra. Zisudra hails from Sumeria, which used to lie nestled between the the Tigress and Euphrates rivers to the north and west of the current Persian Gulf coast. It was first settled around 4,500-4000 BC. (This might be a good time to point out that according to Arch Bishop James Usher, and an army of Christian zombies, the earth was created on October 23, 4004 BC.) It was in this region, in what was the ancient city of Nippur that a clay tablet was found. It is commonly acknowledged to be the inspiration for the later Babylonian tales of Gilgamesh. The first 37 lines are missing from this tablet, which is itself only the lower third of a six column set. It picks up with the creation of man and animals and plants. (we've heard this story before as well.) Another 37 lines of text are missing and then the writing makes reference to five cities that existed before the flood and presumably some ways after the creation. Then it takes another 37 line break and picks up after these cities have been around for a long time. We are told that the behaviour of the inhabitants of these cities find them at odds with the gods. The god's growing displeasure with the miscreant humans prompts them to bring about their destruction. Excluded from these reprisals is Zisudra, who is described as "a pious and god-fearing king." One of the gods advises Zisudra to, "Take my word, give ear to my instructions: A flood will sweep over the cult centers. To destroy the seed of mankind, is the decision , the word of the assembly of gods."
There is another break of 40 lines on the tablet where scholars presume it was described to Zisudra how to build a giant boat since every subsequent version of this same tale contains this plot point. The text then goes on to describe the the storm and the flood raging for seven days and seven nights and how the boat was tossed about. Yada, yada, yada. Then on the eighth day the sun comes out and Zisudra makes a sacrifice of an ox and a sheep to the sun god. After another text break which by now we can fill in the blanks about making landfall on a mountain, we find Zisudra standing before the Sumerian assembly of gods. The gods apologize for their decision to wipe out humanity and are so happy that Zisudra had built an ark and survived that they make him immortal. This is where the story ends, because inexorably, the last 39 lines of the tablet are missing. As we shall see, this "feel good" ending is somewhat repeated in the Bible's version of this very fishy tale.
In the instance of the Titan vs Titanic stories, one is obviously fiction and the other a real ship that met with a tragic end. The two of them tied together by extreme coincidence. With regard to the tales of Zisudra, Utnapishtim, and Noah I think we can safely assert that they are all fairy tale nonsense. The three of them tied together by plagiarism and extreme bullshit. Having said that, I believe that these stories, and the nearly 500 other flood myths that exist in almost every culture on earth do in fact spawn from a real event, or series of events. Geologists have determined that about 10,000 years ago at the end of the last glacial period of our current ice age, we have lost about 5% of the earth's surface as a result of rising sea waters fed by glacial melting. That is an area of land of about 10 million square miles, or roughly a land mass that would be three times the size of Canada. This didn't happen overnight however, but over a period of about 10,000 years between 7,000-17,000 years ago. This inundation occurred primarily along all the shorelines of all oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, etc. In other words, where just about everybody who lived during that period would have resided.While this accounts for the slow but steady loss of prime real estate, it would not account for a sudden flood event large enough to inspire these myths.
We have to consider how very unstable the world's environment was at this time. There were many other factors effecting our planet in and about the period of the last glacial melt. Volcanic activity was booming and occurring on a global scale. Savage earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis were raging. Huge climatic shifts were also taking place that created massive thaws and equally massive freezes. These rapid temperature fluxes caused the extinctions of entire species of animals. Throw in the asteroid and meteor strikes that we know also occurred during this period and you can start to get a picture of how miserable the quality of life must have been.
Locally, in the region of our bronze aged yarn spinners of the deluge, Some geologists have speculated that at about 5600 BC, run off from the melted glaciers began to overwhelm the Mediterranean sea. Eventually all of this extra water caused the sea to burst forth through the Bosporus straight. This in turn flooded the Black sea which spread out to envelope about 60,000 square miles of dry land. This is actually called the "Noah's Flood Hypothesis." Others are skeptical and believe that this event was not an outburst flood, but an inundation that took place slowly but surely over a period of time. But more importantly, in the exact area of the Sumerians, the original authors of the flood myth, we know that the Tigress and Euphrates rivers were prone to seasonal flooding. The rivers would overflow their banks every summer, which had to present major logistical problems for the Sumerians who used these waterways as their main source of commerce and trade. It is believed that the flood myth was born during an event of greater than usual flooding. (Think of some type of weather event occurring in the magnitude of Hurricane Irene.) Archaeologists have indeed found evidence of a great flood that occurred around 2900 BC in Mesopotamia that was in fact responsible for the quick destruction of several Sumerian cities.
Back to the sea story at hand. In Genesis 6:5 God seems to be seething with disgust as he "...saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." So, after condemning these primitive people that he had created of thought crime, he laments having ever made them to begin with. He then very rationally decides to "...destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth," Additionally, in further display of his fair and loving judgement, God decides not only to destroy every last living soul on the earth, but "both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." Whoa! Talk about taking your bat and ball and going home! So to sum up this condemnation, every last man, woman, child, and baby- both born and unborn, every puppy, kitten, salamander, and every damned living thing, all the way down to microbes (Of course the people who wrote the Bible and a hole slew of subsequent "holy" men did not know about microbes and attributed plague and disease to punishment from God. In fact, no one would know about them until the late 1800's.) was destroyed because of the thoughts and actions of a few bad apples mucking about in the desert. Fair enough.
Except of course for the good skipper, Noah. Because out of every single living entity on earth, only he "...found grace in the eyes of the Lord." For whatever reason at this point in Genesis 6:9-10, just nine verses after the first time, the birth of Noah's three sons is mentioned again. And then "...God looked down upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." After this grim assessment, God gets a hold of Noah and tells him that "...the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth." I have to admit, that is a bad ass verse. It is easily one of my favorites. But not because I relish the idea of the wanton destruction of all life, but because it sounds like something Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger might say in a movie.
Now I would imagine at this point that Noah must have felt a little apprehensive. The creator of all things just told him he was going to wipe out his home planet and everybody on it. I picture him casting a wary glance up at the moon to ponder how hard it's soil might be to till, and how the hell he could get his ox up there. But God had some rather specific plans for Noah. In Genesis 6:14 God tells Noah to "Make thee an ark of gopher wood.; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch." Bill Cosby used to do a hilarious routine about Noah in his stand up act. I am fairly certain that Cosby's interpretation of what this simple, peasant farmer's reply would be probably hits the mark, "Right, what's an ark?"
Pitch is the ooey-gooey stage of bitumen which is more commonly known as asphalt. It was and still is a resource found in abundance in the middle east. It was used to waterproof ships and other wooden containers. It was more than likely used in Noah's time for these purposes as well as a fuel source for torches and as we shall see in a couple pages, for mortar in a very ambitious skyscraper project. In Noah's neck of the woods, (probably modern day Iraq.) pitch was just laying around in pits. Wood on the other hand wouldn't had been quite as available, at least not to the extent that you would be able to build the largest wooden ship ever in a timely fashion. Unless gopher wood came from a very special tree before the flood. One that perhaps could be cut down with your bare hands and fabricated into planks almost instantly. Planking that would then be super lightweight as to allow for quick construction and tough enough to bear the weight of bulky cargo, such as elephants and dinosaurs. The word gopher only appears just this once in the bible and does not pertain to the fuzzy little rodent that terrorized Bill Murray in Caddy Shack. It's actual meaning is unknown and it remains, like quite a few other ancient Hebrew words, untranslated.
One might wonder how this illiterate desert dweller would have been up to snuff for such a large construction project. But alas, he was given specific instructions from the Lord in Genesis 6:15-16, where God explains "And this is the fashion that thou shalt make it of: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits." And in my head I hear Cosby's Noah say, "Right, what's a cubit?" Well, no Home Depots also meant no tape measures in ancient times. The had to use what was on hand, or in this case- their forearms. One cubit was the length of a man's forearm. Therefore a cubit was typically 18 inches long, ( 45.72 centimeters for my European friends.) This would make Noah's ark 450 feet long by 75 feet wide by 45 feet high. Right. Well, this is where most would do a comparison between the ark and the world's largest wooden ship ever actually built, the six masted New England gaff schooner Wyoming. I shall do so myself, but only briefly.
Measured from end to end, or from the tip of her jib boom to the tip of her spanker boom, the Wyoming was 449 feet long. There were other ships built a little bigger, but these incorporated a good deal of iron in their design to stave off the leaks that would occur due to the wood flexing. Despite this countermeasure, some of these ships sank immediately after launch. The Wyoming herself was fitted with ninety iron diagonal cross bracing across both sides of her hull to combat flexing. She would often take on copious amounts of water in rough seas and required sea pumps to keep her hold dry at all times. Fourteen years after her maiden voyage, she foundered in high seas in 1924. Foundered is sea-speak for sinking to the bottom of the ocean. All souls on board perished.
Consider what must have been involved in the Wyoming's construction. How many people would it take to build it? How long would it take? What would be the logistics and effort required to gather enough wood in one place to build it? If you have ever built an average sized wood deck in your backyard, you know that you need a good set of plans to do so. What type of detailed plans might you need to build a giant wooden ship? Well God didn't leave Noah hanging, his precise instructions continue in Genesis 6:16, "A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side of the thereof; with lower, second and third stories shalt thou make it." So basically, God gives Noah the outside dimensions, tells him to make the ark three stories and wisely suggests that he install a window and a door. Simple right? It's easy when you know how, and now you do!
Alright, so there are probably some details missing from God's plan. And maybe if you wanted to contract someone to build a giant ship you probably wouldn't choose a guy pushing 600 years old to get it done. Nor should you expect the project to be completed any time soon. But if you do the biblical math, Noah's age at the time of the birth of his sons, the time it would take for them to be old enough to find wives and Noah's age when God contracted his building services, and when he actually brought the flood on and you come up with around 75 years. Would this be enough time? Probably. I mean if you believe a guy over five centuries old would still be spry enough to do carpentry on this scale, then why not?
As we reach Genesis 6:17, we are winding down towards the end of the first half of page four where we find God proclaiming, "And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." This verse smacks a bit of megalomaniacal overkill, I mean, we get it God, you're ALL POWERFUL and going to destroy EVERYONE. But not quite everyone. In Genesis 6:18 God makes a special pact with Moses and his immediate family, "But with thee I establish my covenant; and thou shall come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee." Talk about lucky lottery. Out of every person begat since the creation, about 1,600 years according to the Biblical timeline, these lucky eight are chosen to be spared God's wrath. Many think that this whole conversation takes place at the outset of the 120 year doomsday warning. This is interesting when you consider that it would be 20 years before Shem, Ham, and Japeth were born, let alone found wives. I would assume that we are to believe that God, all powerful and knowing would simply be aware of their coming births as he is of all things. Two things come to mind though, first, HUGE spoiler alert for Noah and his wife. Two, if God can already see the outcome of everything, like say, Eve eating forbidden fruit, and man's overall douchebaggery, then why go ahead with this twisted sea monkey experiment in the first place?
I will leave you for now to ponder that and perhaps a few other things mentioned here. Some very extrodinary events have transpired on the first half of page four. I assure you, they pale in comparrison to the second half. If our ability to suspend disbelief has been tested here, it will be pushed past breaking point as our fish tale continues. Until the, May Zeus preserve you!
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