Noah’s Ark and the Black Sea

As most of us did, I grew up with the story of Noah’s Ark. I’ve read it many times, for enjoyment and for research. One thing began to gnaw at me, though: a particular part of the story that everyone except scholars, it seems, overlooks.

There seems to be a contradiction concerning the animals that Noah took aboard the Ark.

“And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.”

- Genesis 6:19-20

“Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.”

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- Genesis 7:2-3

So, is it two of every animal and bird? Or is seven of every clean beast and two of every unclean beast?

The reason behind this discrepancy is ultimately a simple thing. For generations, the story was passed down verbally before being written. Biblical archaeology has proven that there were different versions of Genesis, and other books, in circulation a thousand years earlier than we’d previously thought. Two separate details of two versions became juxtaposed into the final version; this happens often in such cases.

As I went on to study other aspects of ancient history – Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid, Native America, and much more – the Noah story kept coming back to me, until I decided that I had to look into it.

In a nutshell, here’s what I’ve found:

The Black Sea once was a fresh-water lake. It was two-thirds its current size. And some believe that there were Neolithic people living along its shores, which evidence does suggest.

There was only a tiny valley separating the lake from the Mediterranean Sea. Toward the end of the last Ice Age, about twelve thousand years ago, much of the fresh water evaporated; thus, the lake began to shrink.

But the Mediterranean was swollen with glacial melt-water. It flooded, submerging the little valley and pouring into the lake. Fresh water conquered by salt water, in essence. This transformed the small lake into what we know today as the Black Sea.