Uncover the Puzzle of Bible Stories from Real World, 1/21/2022
Since my first blog "Where is the Garden of Eden?", it took me about two months reading and research my 2nd curiosity as many people did on "where is the Noah’s Ark?".
Different from others who try to find the Ark's remain on earth, I don't think it is realistic to believe the Ark is a real boat because how can a boat floating in the water sustain life from a global flood that destroyed whole nature on earth. In my view, Noah's Ark should be a metaphor, just like many other stories in Bible, which could mean to be a locked land or island isolated in the water that carried out the mission of life survival from the flood. Same for the "flood", it could also a metaphor meaning sometime when the ocean or sea level arose significantly on Earth like what happened during the glacier ages.
Like other mythologies, Bible is a collective historical literature which recorded the major events happened on Earth through story narration. I am not surprised to find how accurate some of the Bible stories related to reality, as it is how collective unconscious works. Like Chinese Yi Jing, They are more accurate with larger picture and more significant event or people, but not for every individual details.
With this in mind, I found an interesting focal point on google earth: the Mediterranean Sea, the largest intercontinental sea on earth. It is surrounded by West Asia, Africa, and Europe, three groups of descendants from the three sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Most of biblical nations and key regions after Noah can be found in Mediterranean basin, such as Levant, Anatolia and Canaan.
In my book "Dog and God", I presented the above image of Mediterranean Sea from Google earth which I saw a fetus of a giant "ape" connected with the Nile River like the umbilical cord. At the position of his eye, I circled the Island of Sardinia and Corsica, which looks like a perfect Skelton of another ape. This presents a vivid picture of continuous life cycles from ocean to land.
From here, I came an idea that the Island of Sardinia could the the Noah's Ark! Not only because of its long-square shape similar to the base of an Ark, but many historical facts echo to Bible story so well.
The process of uncovering the prehistory facts related to Bible is like playing the game of puzzle with thousands of puzzle pieces. Once you found a few connected pieces, the rest will come to fit and bring out a clearer picture day after day. Here, I present the first 10 connected pieces I found through my two months' research and hopefully they can inspire others to continue the game collectively toward a whole picture of Noah's Ark.
1. The Facts of Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is the largest intercontinental sea on earth. It is surrounded by Africa, Europe and Asia and connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the narrow strait of Gibraltar between Western Europe and Africa. The Sea has played a central role in the history of western civilization and many important places in Bible such as Levant and Anatolia locates around it. Most of the nations along the coast are the nations of Noah’s mentioned directly in the Bible. For example: Egypt, Greece, Israel, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Turkey, etc. I will present more in detail later how the coast line nations related to the Noah’s descendants named in Bible.
2. The MSC Crisis and Zanclean flood
The Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) was a geological event during which the Mediterranean Sea was partial or nearly complete drying-up around 6 million years ago.
It is caused by the shifting of earth crusts as well as regional climate changes that caused the fresh water evaporating and left a thick salt bed at the Sea. The MSC lasted about 600,000 years and ended with the Zanclean flood when the ocean level arose and the Atlantic refill the basin.
The rapid flooding took from several months to 2 years to end the MSC. and the Island of Sardinia and Corsica remained above the water. This, in my view, should be the flood mentioned in Bible through which Noah’s ark survived and restarted a new cycle of life. And the Sardinia Island was the archetype of the Bible's Ark. (the above two images are from Wikipedia).
3. Animals Migrated and Survived on Island -the “Ark”
The following quote from Wikipedia shows how life migrated from the MSC, which echos very well to the story Life saved by Noah’s Ark through the flood:
“The Messinian event also provided an opportunity for many African species, including antelopes, elephants and hippopotamuses, to migrate into the empty basin, close to the descending great rivers, to reach interior wetter cooler highlands such as Malta as the sea level was dropping. After the return of the sea water, they remained on the islands, giving rise to species known from Crete, Cyprus, Malta and Sicily. Some of these species may have crossed the sea when it was flooded, washed out to sea on rafts of floating vegetation, or with some species (e.g. elephants) by swimming”.
Unlike Sicily and mainland Italy, Sardinia Island is not earthquake-prone. Its rocks dates back to 500 Million years old. Due to the variety of Sardinia’s ecosystems, which include mountains, woods, plains, stretches of largely uninhabited territory, streams, rocky coasts, and long sandy beaches, Sardinia has been metaphorically described as a micro-continent.
4. The Sacred Sardinia Island
Sardinia Island is the 2nd largest island in Mediterranean Sea after Sicily. It is one of the most geologically ancient land in Europe. The flag of Sardinia and the coat of arm contains a red cross in the center with four black human heads on each corner. This indicates that the island is a sacred milestone of people migrating from all over -Africa, Asia and Europe who are selected by nature or blessed by God.
5. The Nora, Norax and Noah:
The name Sardinia first appeared on the Nora Stone inscription. Nora is an ancient pre-roman town near the capital city of Sardinia, the first city in the island. The Sardinia mythology says: “ the Iberians crossed to Sardinia, under Norax as lead of the Expedition, and they founded the city of Nora.” Norax was a son of Hermes, a son of Zeus, protector of human travelers. Isn't this mythology so similar to the Bible story of Noah? Especially the name Nora and Norax sounds almost same as Noah.
6. Genova and Noah:
Another historical fact about Sardinia island is that it was populated in various waves of immigration from prehistory until recent times. The first people settled in Sardinia around 8000 to 12000 years ago. In the Paleolithic time, Sardinia, Corsica and all the islands between them were physically connected with the Italian peninsula, e.g. the Liguria region of Italy on the coast of Mediterranean Sea. Liguria’s capital is Genoa. Sardinia and Corsica island was under the Republic of Genoa governing in the past. Again, the name “Genoa” and “Noah” also has common roots of sound “Noa”.
The flag of Genoa contains the earliest "red cross" that other modern European flags carried, such as Swiss and Britain. Relating to the cross of Bible, this is the icon of God's the lands.
7. The Kingdom of Sardinia
Sardinia and Corsica was a province of Rome Empire from 238BC to 500AD. During 1816-1861, the island has a self governing period, known as the Kingdom of Sardinia. It’s very interesting to find the flag of Kingdom of Sardinia:
It presents a vivid picture of how Sardinia carried the mission from God to continue the lives from the lions of Africa, the people from all the continents, till the black eagle of Rome Empire. Again, it reveals the similar messages as the Bible story of Noah’s Ark.
8. Mapping the Names of Mediterranean with Noah’s sons
One of an important clue to trace the Bible story in real life history is to follow common roots of the names, because it carries the deep common roots of the family tree. Like mentioned above, the common roots of sounds of Nora, Norax, Genova, and Noah, almost all the nations of Mediterranean coast can be traced back to the deep roots of Noah’s three sons.
Shem, Ham, and Japheth are the three sons of Noah, they are the ancestors of the three continents around the Mediterranean Sea: Shem for Semitic from Asia, Ham for Hamites from Africa, and Japheth the common ancestor of Europe. Following is the mapping of names of Noah's grandsons with Mediterranean nations.
The five sons of Shem: 1) Elam =Iran, 2) Asshur =Assyria (north of Syria +Part of Turkey), 3) Arpachshad who was born in Ur, Iraq; 4) Lud = Lydus =Lydia, ancient region of Anatolia, 5) Aram =Ararat of Turkey all these regions are around or close to Mediterranean Sea.
The four sons of Ham: 1) Cush =Kush in Ethiopia, East horn of Africa, 2) Mizraim, the land of Egypt, 3) Phut =Libya, 4) Canaan = Levant & Anatolia region region includes Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Jerusalem, etc. These are all Mediterranean Sea coastline nations.
The seven sons of Japheth: 1) Gomer = Gomerites, the Ancient Gauls or Celts people in Greece, 2) Magog =Gog, People of the Black Sea, Western Turkey, 3) Madai =Iran, 4) Javan =Ionians, the Ionian Sea of Mediterranean, 5) Tuval =Tirval of Spain, and also a village in Israel, 6) Macedonia =North Macedonia and North Greece next to Albania, 7) Tiras =Tyrrhenian, the Tyrrhenian Sea
9. The Notable Mediterranean Territories and Noah’s Descendants
Tyrrhenian Sea is the major Sea in the center of Mediterranean Sea, east of Sardinia Island. Tyrrhenian is the greek name for Etruscans and Tyrrhenus is one of the founder of Etruscan.
Tyre or Tyros in Greek name, was one the the earliest Phoenician city near Mediterranean coast. It is the legendary birthplace of Europa which the name Europe came from. Tyrian is the ancient people living in Tyre. There is a historical note about Tyrian: “One can call Tyre a city of ruins, but out of ruins”.
Tiras, is the last grandson of Noah, the last son of Japheth who is the common ancestor of Europeans.
Terah, the descendant of Shem, the common ancestor of West Asia, is the father of Abraham.
Cinque Terre, the famous historical heritage “five villages” in Liguria on the coast which was connected to Sardinia in the past.
The names Tyrrhenian, Tyre, Tyros ,Terre all carry the common roots as Tiras and Terah, as the genes of life, with some modifications but the deep roots are never been broken.
Another example of linage of notable biblical names with Mediterranean territory is Abraham and his wife Sarah. The land Negev where Abraham settled locates in Mediterranean basin. Sarah carried the same root of Sahara in her name, as the story about her, indicates the desert in Mediterranean basin.
10. Worship of Sardus
Sardus was the Sardinian mythological divine hero, son of Hercules who was known for his many adventures that took hm to the far reaches of the world. According to the mythology, Sardus left Libya along with a great multitude of men and occupied the island of Sardinia. Again, like the mythology of Norax of Nora, the story of Sardus sounds very similar to the Bible story of Noah. The Roman’s worship of Sardus was shown on a Roman coin as below image from wikipedia.
The last point I like to add to this last piece of puzzle is the coincidence of the Chinese name for Sardinia: 撒丁。“丁” means the last offspring from the family tree, and “撒” means Buddha or God. This again, echos to the Noah being the last son, or the last seed from Adam’s family tree created and blessed by God.
There is no coincidence in collective unconscious world, because this is how the Bible and all Mythology stories came and carried through human history. It is far beyond our individual conscious mind. Same as the islands are connected deep at the sea bed, we are connected through the deep collective unconscious souls which is continuous and never broken.