 Word On Books
with Jeremy Fenton
Before the Flood
By Ian Wilson
Published by Orion
 What did the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Zoroastrians, Hebrews, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Hindus, Maya, Toltecs, Cherokee, Mandingo, Welsh, and Dyaks have in common with the New Guinean Kabadi, the Australian Gumaidj and Gunwinggu peoples, and the Maori of New Zealand?
All of these cultures and peoples, spread across thousands of years and even more distance, had (or have) a myth of a flood that washed over the world. Arguably the same myth that in the West is best known from the allegorical biblical tale of Noah saving the animals two-by-two aboard his prodigious ark.
Why has such a story, in remarkably similar form it must be said, found itself spread across virtually the whole of Earth. In less knowledgeable days it was understandable that far-flung peoples sharing similar 'histories' of inundation was taken as proof of the Judeo-Christian Bible's veracity (at least from the West's point of view).
When the Earth sciences began seriously "slashing the pearly gates" last century, one of the obvious targets was this idea of a world flood. Could geology and archaeology prove that there really was a flood of massive proportions not so much as to literally drown the whole world, but enough to cause severe flooding of coastal areas and give rise to such a predominant legend?
Was such a flood even physically possible?
With the jury now well and truly in, it is possible to state fairly accurately that yes, there was a global rising of sea levels caused by the melting of the polar ice caps that began around 14,000 years ago (that noticeably slowed around 6,000 to 5,000 years ago) and yes, it is conceivable that this 'memory' could have been passed down to us today in its many forms.
In fact new evidence is constantly emerging to support this view, with some of the latest being the discovery of significant human ruins under what is today 70-odd metres below the Black Sea.
It's this discovery and an abiding interest in all things Biblical that led author Ian Wilson to research and write his latest book, Before the Flood.
The theory he puts forward is that these ruins were the result of an unexpected deluge caused when the Mediterranean Sea broke through a land barrier into the Black Sea around 7,600 - giving rise (sorry!) to the Biblical story of the flood.
Like his previous books (Jesus: The Evidence and The Bible is History to name two), Before the Flood is an exhaustively researched (with full bibliography) and meticulously argued work that never tips too far into the author's personal beliefs.
For this reader what is of more interest than whether or not the Bible is a literal document (and for the record, I doubt it!), especially about stories of a massive flood and land inundation, is that we are currently still in a technical ice-age in what is known as an interglacial period.
For the last 10-15,000 years the planet's ice caps have gradually been melting, the North American continent is still slowly rising as a result of having been under a huge magnitude of ice and the pace is only picking up (seemingly through our species' actions).
Although probably the concern of our distant (but conceivable none-the-less) descendents, the human race will undoubtedly have to adapt to a planet that is either markedly hotter with a sea level a good 65 metres higher, or one that is colder with a sea level anything up to around 200 metres lower.
Either way, living on the current coasts will be a very different affair.
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