Before the flood

Wilson, Ian

"The great biblical flood described in Genesis has long been a subject of fascination and speculation. In the nineteenth century the English archbishop James Usher established it as having happened in the year 2348 B.C., calculating what was then taken as the age of the earth and working backward through the entire series of biblical "begats." Proof of the flood, which is an element of so many creation myths, began in earnest when archeology started connecting physical evidence with biblical story. The dream of proving the Bible to be literal truth has proven irresistible, producing both spurious claims and serious scholarship." Exploring all the archeological evidence, Wilson explains how the Black Sea flood and the biblical flood have to be connected. In particular, Wilson argues that the center of the civilized world was farther to the west than previously thought - not in Egypt or Mesopotamia but in what is today northern Turkey. The earliest, antediluvian civilizations may have migrated east into those places we have come to call the cradles of civilization, forced by the Black Sea flood to create new settlements.