Genesis, the Flood and Noah
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2. THE ERA OF THE PATRIARCHS2.1. THE ACCOUNT OF THE FLOODThe crude account of the FloodThe first humans inaugurated a new period, that of humanity. We have seen that the live cycle of the angels and man comprises four typical phases (see The live cycle of Adam and Eve). We are going to see that the entire time of humanity is composed of the same typical phases incorporated in several cycles and eras (see Summary of Salvation History). On this page, we essentially want to restrict ourselves to the era concerning the ancestor of humanity, that is to the era of the patriarchs: a single man is always in the center of the revival phases of the four cycles this era comprises. The family of this man survives the preceding punishment phase and then becomes the ancestor of a new people. The first cycle of this era is described in Genesis 4-11, which still obeys the multireference and therefore also refers to other cycles that happened at other epochs. Before dissecting them, we need to analyze the structure of the account, that is to say to localize the multisignificant passages referring to the four phases: the Flood as punishment phase of course attracts most our attention. The two phases that precede this judgment are, however, clearly distinguishable as well. The peace of the first phase is relative, for it is expressed by a at first weak social violence as compared to its ulterior increase, which culminated the day when God "saw that the wickedness of man was great on earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually". So God decided: "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them" (Gen 6:5-7). This increase of violence is perceptible through numbers: after Cain had killed his brother Abel, God cursed him to "a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth" (Gen 4:9-12). Cain however complained of this destiny. This is why God granted him a particular protection: any possible aggressors should be revenged sevenfold (Gen 4:13-15). Some generations later a man named Lamech emerges, who no longer wanted to revenge himself only sevenfold but seventy-sevenfold (Gen 4:24). Then it is certainly not fortuitous that to another Lamech, who died just before the Flood, is attributed the age of seven-hundred-seventy-seven years (Gen 5:28-31). This is a hidden allusion to show that the culmination of the violence concerned all the society of Lamech's time and not only him personally Mankind therefore behaved contrary to the teaching Jesus gave to St. Peter some centuries later: "I do not say to you (to forgive) seven times, but seventy-seven times" (Mt 18:22). Although it is impossible to compare the social life of Cain’s time with these Christian values, we can nevertheless conclude that it was still more or less tolerable for God, since he granted to Cain, not the revenge, but only the dissuasion through the threat of a relatively weak revenge, because it is only multiplied by seven and not by seven-hundred-seventy-seven at the time shortly before the Flood. This is why Cain's time can be considered as the relatively peaceful first phase. The increase of violence therefore corresponds to the phase of sin and the Flood to the consecutive punishment. The survival of Noah, his family, and the animal species he took on board in his arch is the corresponding revival, which initiated a second creation. Thus Noah became a new ancestor for a renascent humanity. This is why he and his son received from God a benediction of fertility (Gen 9:1) similar to that already given to Adam and Eve (Gen 1:28). The revival at the same time comprised a lightening from work, which equally issued from Noah (Gen 5:29) and may have been the establishment of governmental structures, the distribution of different labors and therefore their rationalization. In any case, the following text is relating the birth of a civilization, namely the account about the construction of the tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-9), for this tour is an image of an organization in the service of everyone’s welfare, although it also expresses the tendency of the superpowers to megalomania. This period brings us to the first phase of another cycle.
The glacial eraLet’s now apply the multireference of these four phases, otherwise the account presented above would conceal profound mysteries: the account of the Flood first refers to an entire era that does not only concern the history of man, but also that of his last two predecessors: Homo neanderthalensis (or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis if considered as a subspecies of modern man) and Homo erectus. The Neanderthal man populated Africa and Eurasia during the later Pleistocene, which knew several glacial periods. These were epochs during which a climatic change enlarged the icecap of the two poles of the globe. In more southern regions of Eurasia, the very thriving tundra, which grew instead of forests, attracted a rich fauna and consequently hunting hominids migrating from Africa towards the North. Homo erectus appeared 2-1.8 million years ago. He was the first hominid to leave Africa to go live in Eurasia approximately one million years ago. This was during the glacial period called Donau for the region of the Alps. The tundra fed a mega-fauna similar to that of the African continent and consequently also made live the big mammal hunting Homo erectus. When the climate again became hotter during the interglacial Donau-Günz, the situation inverted and disfavored our ancestors, for the tundra retreated and the forests again spread out. As a consequence, the big mammals considerably decreased because they no longer found the same quantity of food as before. Therefore, the food basis equally disappeared for Homo erectus. Afterwards, he ceased to exist in Eurasia. He also disappeared in Africa making room for Homo neanderthalensis some 500’000 years ago, who in turn tempted his fate and set out for Eurasia 300’000 years later, when another glacial period called Riss caused forests to withdraw again and give space to the tundra, ideal biotope for big mammals as the mammoth. Yet the Neanderthal man suffered, like formerly Homo erectus, from the interglacial, which always inverted the situation and made forests grow and decrease the mega-fauna they hunted. They must nevertheless have been craftier and more robust than Homo erectus, for they did not die out as soon as the first climatic change arrived, but survived the first two of them. However, when the Würm glaciation, the last one, drew to an end 10’000 years ago, the climatic changes were probably more intense, with the result that the Neanderthals abruptly disappeared together with the extinction of the major part of the mega-fauna accustomed to the tundra. Each time when the mega-fauna risked dying out during an interglacial, the rain played a key role in their diminution or their extinction: researchers often wondered why mammoths have entirely disappeared, the sole explanation of the extension of forests not being sufficient. One hypothesis is the return of the rain because the pelage of mammoths adapted to the very dry weather of the glaciations did not grease itself like those of most mammals and was therefore very sensitive to humidity. The climatic change 10’000 years ago, which, with its abundant rains, was more intense than the preceding interglacials, consequently played a key role in their decimation and therefore also in that of the Neanderthals, which gives us a first approach to the Flood. A so called archaic form of Homo sapiens appeared in Africa approximately 200’000 years ago and began not only to spread over Eurasia 70’000 years ago, but also over Australia 40’000 years ago and over America 11’000 years ago. Yet, contrary to his predecessors, he did not leave Africa during a glacial period but during the interglacial Riss-Würm that the Neanderthals survived. More details about this point will allow us to establish a parallel between this exodus and the biblical account of the expulsion from paradise: according to J. REICHHOLF in L’émergence de l’homme, the cradle of humanity of South-Eastern-Africa was first a sort of terrestrial paradise. Humans were in peace with nature, needed practically not to work and were naked. But when an interglacial brought more rain than usual, their life conditions abruptly changed, for the humidity caused the tsetse fly, which transmits the sleeping sickness by its bite, to rapidly multiply and to become a real plague. And its preferred prey were the naked bodies of humans, who were finally obliged to leave Africa through the North. Similarly to cherubs described in Genesis 3:24, the tsetse flies therefore hunted humans out of their native country, where they were naked (Gen 2:25). It was colder in the North, so they had to wear clothes according to Genesis 3:21. Moreover, for the first time they tried out agriculture in the plain of the Euphrates and the Tigris (Gen 3:17-19). This made them less depend on hunting, but it was also necessary that the ground was worked "in the sweat of the face" (Gen 3:19). However, through their work, they transformed this plain little by little into a new garden of Eden, which will bring us to another cycle. The rain, which made the tsetse fly profilerate thus decimating man and hunting him out of his original country, therefore again played a key role in this context, so that we have another approach to the account of the Flood, although the references are also contained in Genesis 2-3 and not only in Genesis 4-11. This however again emphasizes the multireference of these two accounts. If we leave the history of the Neanderthals when modern man appears, there are four cycles during the glacial era with four interglacials as phases of judgment that touched the genus Homo: one concerning Homo erectus, two Homo neanderthaliensis and another one Homo sapiens, who was obliged to leave Africa at the conquest of Eurasia during the second interglacial his predecessor survived. This is why we can consider this period as a pre-era with four cycles like the eras that follow.
Two Adam and two NoahWhat does the multireference of the account of the Flood still have in store for us? Let’s first examine another apparent paradox: on the one hand Adam is explicitly described as the first man on earth, on the other hand some passages implicitly indicate that he and Eve were surrounded by other people1. For instance the dissuasive protection of Cain (Gen 4:15) was certainly only effective towards his equals. He assuredly did not find either his woman (Gen 4:17) among unnamed sisters2 but among neighbor tribes or peoples. The same passage equally indicates that he became the constructor of a town, which would obviously have been too large for the sole members of his family. In addition, towns were only constructed in a very belated period of humanity, that is to say with the first civilizations. The conclusion of this is that the figure of Adam at the same time refers to two persons in the context of the Flood3, that is to say to the true first man and to someone else, who lived later when the Sumerian civilization rose. Yet, if there are two Adam there must also be two Noah. In fact, these personages, aside from the first Adam, indicate a survival from the phase of judgment. By neglecting the detailed events Genesis 4-11 reports, we can therefore establish a crude diagram of three cycles (see figure 9). We will successively add the history that accompanied these three cycles.
Figure 9 The first Adam is the real first man, who lived about 200'000 years ago in Africa and opens the fourth cycle of the glacial era. This cycle ends with the first Noah. It is however unverifiable if this figure applies to a precise person. He could as well designate a population or an entire genealogy. With a bit of imagination we therefore distinguish in the first Noah the people who escaped to the plague of the sleeping sickness 70’000 years ago, originally provoked by abundant rains, a prefigurative flood, by leaving northwards at the conquest of Eurasia. These conquerors also settled down in the plain of the Euphrates and the Tigris and transformed it into a new paradise. The history of salvation is now restricted to them. This is why we can consider this new paradise the phase of revival, independently of the history lived by the other migrants that dispersed little by little over the planet. At this moment, we leave the pre-era to pass to the first cycle of the patriarch’s era, in other words to the phase of beginning, which constitutes a time of transition. The millenaries pass in the plain of the two rivers. In the beginning, a relative peace reigns, but the more time passes by, the more social degeneration becomes visible. In the days of the second Adam, who lived in the year 3970 BC according to Genesis4, a flood, that is an inundation dating from shortly after 4000 devastated the plain of the Euphrates and the Tigris: archaeologists made excavations all over the plain and exhumed a three meters thick clay layer, from which one can conclude that an immense inundation either provoked by tidal waves during a hurricane of unimaginable force or, more probably, by tsunamis launched by a submarine earthquake, which can reach a high of several hundred meters shortly before arriving on shore. This flood invaded a region of 630 km in length and 160 km in width (this is more than twice the surface of Switzerland). According to Werner KELLER in The Bible as History, the objects found under this layer date from 4000 BC. The flood therefore took place shortly after and consequently perfectly coincides with the year 3970 BC. We also could recognize the Flood in the rise of the ocean levels at the end of the last glaciation, for the immense icecap at the North and South Pole retained the water and made the level of the oceans go down by more than 100 meters as compared to the level of today. The more the climate became hot at the beginning of the last interglacial, the more the level therefore rose, which still swallowed up incomparably more continental surfaces than the deluge of 4000, for this rise took place on a planetary scale. The plain of the two rivers, which then occupied a large part of the surface where today the marine bottom of the Persian Gulf is found, was precisely affected by it. However, this flood did not occur abruptly and did not retire after, contrary to the flood of 4000. Furthermore, it took place 10’000 years ago and therefore rather badly coincides with the life of the second Adam. On the other hand, the year 3970 also concords with the beginning of the development of the Sumerian civilization. So the second Adam may truly be an important ancestor of this people. This period of the Sumerian development falls into the beginning phase of the next and second cycle of the patriarch’s era. Towards 2340, like a precursory sign of its final fall, the Sumerian Empire temporarily disappeared succumbing to the Akkadians, Semitic tribes, who however assimilated the way of life of the Sumerians thereafter. But this did not last long, for the Akkadian Empire in turn collapsed towards 2230 under the invasion of the Gutis, highlanders of present-day Kurdistan, who committed massive destruction and only superficially adopted the Sumerian civilization. This last, from 2150 under the reign of Goudea, knew a last and short rebirth, which invaded all Mesopotamia. The Sumerian Empire everywhere recovered the hegemony during the third dynasty of Ur and reached its zenith. In 2006 yet, under unceasing invasions of Elamites and especially of Semites, the Sumerian Empire definitively crumbled and the first Babylonian Empire, constituted of Semitic peoples, began to take shape. These different waves of Semitic peoples breaking on the plain of the two rivers, like the tidal waves during the flood of 4000, constitute the punishment of the Sumerians. It must have been survived by the second Noah, since according to the account it took place in 23005, a date that corresponds well to the first submission of Sumer by the Akkadian Empire in 2340. It is however difficult to find out, if not impossible, whose historic person the second Noah applies to and in what manner he survived. Was he a Sumerian chief who could escape or who was pardoned, even perhaps again instituted as chief in the nascent Babylonian Empire? This is a task for a historian. But in any case, we have, according to the theory, to bring in relation the survival of the second Noah with the ascension of the Babylonian Empire symbolized by the tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-9). His survival constitutes the revival and the Babylonian ascension the prolongation of this revival, that is to say the beginning phase of the next cycle.
The Flood of fire of the end timesThe account of the Flood also refers to a period that the world has not lived yet. It is Jesus himself who suggests this: "As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they drank, they were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. [...] So will it be on the day when the Son of man is revealed" (Lk 17:26-30). The Day of the Son of man means the glorious return of Christ at the end of our epoch. As we are going to see, this will be a time of war, during which one will most likely use nuclear arms. It will therefore not only cause a flood of fire but also a deluge of radioactive rain. This deluge is predicted with regard to Babylon, which is a timeless synonym but especially applied to the end of the world, for any society at the height of its decadence. It is used by many prophets and by the book of Revelation as well. Isaiah for example writes concerning this Babylon: "Wail, for the day of the Lord is near, as destruction from the Almighty it will come. Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every man’s heart will melt, and they will be dismayed. Pangs and agony will seize them, they will be in anguish like a woman in travail. They will look aghast at one another, their faces will be aflame" (Is 13:8). And elsewhere: "For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the stormwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire" (Is 66:15). And St. John writes that the ten apocalyptic kings will "devour the flesh" of Babylon, the prostitute, "and burn her up with fire, for God has put into their hearts to carry out his purpose" (Rev 17:12-18). This prophecy particularly makes one think of nuclear war because it implicitly states that the ten kings will receive the power to manage the fire of God, which we can thereby only hardly attribute to something else than to nuclear arms. This flood will therefore not only touch a small region of the earth as in the time of Noah, but will evidently extend to a large part of the planet, so that a large part of humanity will be affected according to Genesis 6:7. Mankind will become "rarer than fine gold" (Is 13:12). The fine gold relates to those who will survive thanks to their faith that resists fire like gold (1 Cor 3:12-15). They will seek refuge in the saving Church, which will spiritually shelter people of all colors and all regions from around the world. This is predicted by the ark of Noah, which accommodates a male and a female "of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind" (Gen 6:20). Such a global deluge did never happen during the lifetimes of the two Adam and the two Noah. Apart from the members of his family, at the most just some domestic animals found refuge in the boat of the second Adam during the flood of 4000 BC. This "mini-judgment" also explains the will of God to never again exterminate the habitants of the earth (Gen 8:21), for if this had been valid for the time of the second Adam, his flood should effectively have had a worldwide extent, which does not correspond to the reality. This is why this passage doubtless refers to the judgment of a future time. The revival following on this war opens on the millennial reign. Also the new world order described by Genesis 9 consequently essentially applies to the future, that is to say to the time of peace during one-thousand years, which already somewhat reflects eternity setting up after the Last Judgment (see Summary of Salvation History). |
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NOTES
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