Local Mesopotamian flood

George has advanced strong arguments against explanations of Noah’s Flood and Moses’ Crossing of the Red Sea in terms of ordinary natural phenomena.

On the other hand the teaching of Jesus Christ leads us to accept the Biblical narratives about Noah and Moses as referring to events which were really witnessed by the people living around these prophets. Additionally, in case of Exodus the very existence of the Jewish people along millennia strongly speaks in favor of historicity.

This seem to speak in favor of the option that both, Noah’s Flood and the Israelites’ Crossing of the Red Sea were miracles, which may have happened without letting behind archaeological evidence.
In this respect it may be helpful to consider the so called “Miracle of the Sun” or “Miracle of Fatima”, which happened hundred years ago, on October 13, 1917 (see for instance this article in the The Washington Post). Since May 13, 1917 the Virgin Mary was appearing to three children on the 13th of each month at Cova da Iria. On September 13 one of the three, Lucia Dos Santos, said the Virgin Mary told her, “In October I will perform a miracle so that all may believe.” On October 13, at about 2 pm the sun ‘danced’ before the astonished eyes of a crowd of 70’000 who had gathered at Cova da Iria to see the predicted miracle. The whirling sun was also seen by people who were not at Cova da Iria but in villages nearby. In the rest of the world nothing extraordinary was recorded.

Independently of whether one believes or not what many of those who were present witnessed thereafter, one can say that from a scientific point of view such a “dancing of the sun” (like “bilocation”) can be considered a quantum superposition of a macroscopic object, as illustrated by the well-known paradox of the “Schrödinger cat”. Additionally, the fact that 70’000 people perceived the phenomenon whereas billions around the earth didn’t, can be considered a demonstration of the possibility of “parallel worlds” very much in the spirit of the “Many-Worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics. In summary, from a strict scientific point of view what happened in Cova da Iria on October 13, 2017 is a highly improbable natural phenomenon but not an impossible one. And the “miracle” consists precisely in that it was predicted by children above any suspicion. As far as I know, the only pieces documenting the miracle are the testimonies of eyewitnesses; there are no movies or pictures like the Turin Shroud or Guadalupe Tilma.

I think this miracle may provide a suitable explanation for events like Noah’s Flood and the Red Sea Crossing. These events were perceived by a number of people according to the Biblical narratives: In case of the Flood, Noah, his family and the sinners who perished in the catastrophe; in case of the Crossing of the Red Sea, Moses and the Israelites. In both cases archaeological vestiges are unknown for the time being and seem rather highly improbable, although cannot be excluded.

In conclusion: As argued in the thread “My Theory about the Flood” all humans endowed with free will and capable of sin at the moment of the catastrophe were affected by it. These may have been some hundreds of thousands living likely in the region of the first Sumerian cities said to have exercised “pre-dynastic kingship before the flood". Nothing speaks against assuming that all these people perceived things according to the Genesis narrative, in a similar way as the 70’000 gathered in Cova da Iria on October 13, 2017 perceived the Sun whirling in the sky.