Life began with man. Man became corrupted, and cost his entire species the chance to be sinless. Sin began, first with murder, then with pestilence, then heresy and blasphemy. Civilization was established, and to a degree, we are cleansed, we level out (perhaps the allegory behind Deluge). Then, comes Abraham, or Abram as he is called at this time. Abraham emigrates from Chaldea to the Mediterranean plain, establishes a monotheistic worship, dies and is survived by his descendants, who in turn are forced to leave Palestine and are subsequently enslaved by the Egyptian regime. Centuries later they are lead out of Egypt by the prophetic lawgiver Moses and finally resettle in Israel.

Now, as we can tell there is plenty of counter-evidence for these events. There is no evidence that a flood covered the world or that more that six-hundred thousand slaves just up and left Egypt (what would have certainly been a cataclysmic and detrimental event to the Egyptian lifestyle, economy, census, what have you). However, let’s take a look at some counter-evidence for these claims.

In order to open our minds to additional possibilities, let us rationalize the concept of a Great Flood. Surely, indeed, flood waters did not cover the entire Earth, we must set aside that argument immediately. However imagine this: A man builds an ‘ark’ or boat, whatever you please. Given this is far before traditional biblical times, this ark is surely not the humongous, sailboat-esque ship me see portrayed in modern times, more-likely it would’ve been more analogous to a large plank of sorts. After all, not everything that floats is a boat. For example, boats are guided by their occupants, the Ark was allegedly “guided by God”, given Genesis 8:1 - “And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged.” To make a long story short, a boat with no method of guidance in certainly not a boat we could possibly conceive as...well a boat!

Furthermore, even at the height of wooden ship construction, using tools and techniques as far removed from Noah’s bronze-age, even possibly neolithic, knowledge as steam locomotives to Roman chariots, they couldn’t build a wooden sea-going ship as large as the Ark. To build a ship of that size, Noah would have had to have possessed a knowledge of woodworking and shipbuilding in advance of anything known to this day. To back this further, let’s take a look at a famous Ark replica in Kentucky. The Ark was built using cranes retrofitted with titanium, consists of 3,300,000 board feet of wood coming from as far away as Oregon and British Columbia, over 1,000 craftsmen were used in its construction, and is currently claimed to be the largest timber frame-structure in the world. Guess what? It can’t float. A timber raft, on the other hand, requires no special skills or tools. There is also historical proof of timber rafts being used as far back as the 3rd century BC. Not only is this much more plausible, but requires far fewer assumption.

Now that we’ve moved past the Ark, let’s move to the concept of a global flood. As with any narrative, you must view it from the perspective of the author, or in this case, Noah, who passed down the verbal history or the priests that transcribed it some twelve centuries later. Operating under the assumption that Noah’s Ark was infact a raft of some sorts, let’s assume we’re all on that raft. Your livestock surrounds you, and you’re in the midst of a flood. Given this is probably the 3rd millennium BCE, would you not assume these great flood waters covered the whole Earth? It would sure seem like it! To further this, let’s assume Noah started his journey where he ended it: Anatolia, Ararat, modern Turkey. Now the record for rainfall in a 24-hour period is 71.9” during Tropical Cyclone Denise in Cialos in the Indian Ocean. If the entire region filled up like a bowl, that comes to 2,876” of rainfall or 239,’ which is more than deep enough to kill everything. For perspective, the deepest part of Lake Washington is only 219.’ And as windy as it sometimes gets around here, you don’t need to be in an aircraft carrier to be safe. So, arid Mesopotamia + humidity = a disastrous storm. Now we must accept Noah was a profoundly ignorant man. This is not an insult, but a simple fact. He didn’t know of the existence of other continents or climates, hadn’t even conceived of anything as tall Everest, anything as wide or deep as the Grand Canyon, and people wouldn’t know the Earth was a sphere until the 6th century BC. The rain starts coming down, you panic, you get all your animals onto a raft and ride it out. When it all calms, you see nothing but the water. Seems reasonable to assume it’s covered the whole world.

It is natural to equate flooding with calamity. But, it doesn’t have to been a hundred foot wall of water. Merely 6 inches of flowing water can throw you off your feet. Water moving at 6mph has the force of a tornado, and at a measly 25mph, the force of a 790mph wind. The Ark could simply have been buoyed by the waters–which is exactly what the text says–while everyone and everything else was swept to destruction. The text only says that the Ark was ‘moved about’ on the surface of the water, and the only time winds are mentioned is when the winds came to cause the water to subside, all of which sounds peaceful, does it not? Add an additional proponent, world-renown oceanographer Robert Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic among other monumental underwater finds, has apparently found evidence for a massive flood in the correct region (though there has been little recent progress and no other proponents of the theory), so you’d potentially have a real expert in your corner to boot.