This meteor impact possibly dates to around 12000 years ago and with all the other research supports that there was a significant environmental cataclysm at this time
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Are you implying a belief in a Graham Hancock-esque lost civilisation?
I used to (in fact I still do) find his ideas interesting, even if I took them with a grain of salt.
First I think credit must go to Rick Firestone and his group that did so much work to support this theory. It is likely an Alvarez moment discovering the K-T boundary impact. Both Firestone and Alvarez took so much criticism and ridicule for advancing these theories.
Well I think that consequences of this Greenland impact need to be investigated. It must have been a transformative event generating significant seismic activity, tsunami, North Atlantic Ocean current effects thought to cause or enhance the Younger Dryas ice age, huge amounts of ice and vaporized water ejected into the atmosphere. In addition there may have been another impact in North America that is supported by the existence Carolina Bays.
All of this sounds like the Biblical Flood.
How is it like the Biblical Flood?
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I am much more convinced by claims of a local mesopotamian flood, which happened exactly where and when the mesopotamins said it happened.
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I recommend that you read Rick Firestone and Allan West’s book the Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes about these impact and related events. It offers a good overview of the evidence for the impact event ( and other evidence of some sort of cosmic events ) that occurred around 12k years ago and incorporating mythology from all over the world describing these events. The Bible (really based from the book of Enoch )and the Sumerian epic of Atrahasis are just two descriptions from many myths from all over the world. The evidence for an impact at this time is found in a wide range of sites all over the world and now there is a large impact crater likely dating to this time.
I know this will rile people on both sides of the aisle but this was a global near extinction level event particularly for North America that would have been remembered by the survivors all around the globe. I think that we must consider that the Bible Genesis 7 draws from the Book of Enoch for its description more than the Atrahasis. The book of Enoch (which was found at the Essene Qumran caves ) chapter 64 describes more than a flood but other seismic related events seeing the earth had sunk down (others versions say tilted). Then Noah says “tell me what is falling out of on the earth is in such evil plight and shaken, lest I shall perish with it. And thereupon there was a great commotion on the earth and a voice was heard from heaven.” The Bible description of “great deep burst forth” and flood waters rising above mountains is very suggestive of a tsunami which would have been generated by this impact.
The consequences of this impact need to be researched and understood in detail. They will need to consider the map of the world back 12000 years ago with parts of north America kilometer thick ice caps and sea levels 300 feet lower. This impact would have generated a huge seismic event, tsunami, fireball, concussive airburst winds, water vapor cloud and sunblocking debris cloud and some scientist have speculated a resulting earth wobble or shudder.
It was a global event not just a local flood that the world has rarely seen that significantly affected human civilization remembered not just in the Bible but early cultures around the world.
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I looked up your book on Amazon. Thanks for the recommendation, but I think efforts like this are misguided. Trying to find concordance between history and the early chapters of Genesis tend to go nowhere, and they up going way beyond what the Bible actually says. Another problem is that one can miss the point of the Genesis stories!
I recently went to a SciCafe presented by Ross MacPhee, a paleomammalogist at the American Museum of Natural History. (It was awesome!) He was talking about his book, “The End of the Megafauna.” He pointed out that there is no satisfactory theory as to why most of the megafauna died out. I’m reading his book now.
Here’s a picture I got of him before it started.
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I think that the interpretation of a particular event is based on the paradigm that the viewer operates within. That requires that we try to understand the perspective of the Genesis authors of events as they understood them. A clearer picture is being drawn from archeology, geology paleoclimatology, genetics and yes even mythology To the secular academia it is almost heresy to even discuss a recent global flood that may support the Bibles view. It takes courage for these researchers to step out of that box and challenge the orthodoxy. But it is what it is. This is a global cataclysm 12000 years ago. The Noah story and Book of Enoch floods are in the context of the mixing of the the Sons of God with the daughters of man. This points to a mixing of a prediluvian people or cultures that was considered with contempt and disaster by the authors of the Book of Enoch and Genesis.
Thanks for reference to Ross MacPhee. He gives a good general overview. The actual details are very complicated as you can imagine most things are. Unfortunately he doesn’t mention the recent discovery of the Greenland impact site which points the arrow now to the over-grill theory. That said I agree with no clear definitive single North American event for all the megafauna loss because there are indications that some were already extinct or in decline before the impact. It was likely the final blow. It seems a very complicated story sort of like an Agatha Christie mystery where just about everyone in the room did the victim in.
I think the actual data are most important.
I doubt the authors had all the stuff you mention in mind. You are going beyond what the Bible says.
What takes courage is to do quality research that can be published in peer-reviewed journals. Anybody can write a trade book. As I recall, “Chariots of the gods” did quite well and had a following.
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I would agree it would result in a global cataclysm, but this would be mainly in potential climate changes. And I think the archeology supports this. In terms of a truly global flood I don’t think the resulting tsunami would fill the bill but it will be interesting to see what further research shows. Since it was just 12,000 years ago, a blink of the eye in geological terms, there should be evidence remaining for a global flood. There already exists records that go back further than 12,000 years and with no indication of a global flood.
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Yes, our poor old planet has been hit with one disaster after another over its billions of years of existence. Some of the disasters have truly been globally devastating, such as the Permian extinction event. But there is zero evidence for a global flood that hosed everything.
At the end of the day, we should care more about what we are doing to the climate in our own day and age.
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Yes this cataclysmic event needs more investigation. I know that some researchers are looking into this. There are short term and long term consequences of the impact event. Some scientist estimated that it released the equivalent energy of all the nuclear weapons of the world. I don’t think this was a global flood and note that even the book Enoch describes this as much in seismic terms as water. Even many of the myths from other cultures descriptions seem to vary in terms of their position relative to the impact. From the Firestone theory There must have been a very large tsunami, In part from the impact but also from the airburst and even resulting seismic related landslides. It’s hard to say where these tsunami would hit and how far they would travel but this should be calculable. We must remember the earths land masses looked very different 13000 years ago with sea levels nearly 400 feet lower. Much of these tsnumani would likely have hit coastal land that is now submerged under the 400 feet of water.
This would have been a nuclear winter event particularly for the northern hemisphere. The fireball would have vaporized enormous amounts of water and release huge amounts of ice into the atmosphere. It’s hard to know the impact of that amount of water into the atmosphere but simply said it would come down. Millions of Tons of sun blocking dust would have been released into the atmosphere and result in substantial rapid cooling as evidenced in the ydb layers found by Firestone’s group in published peer review papers. In addition the meteorite fireball and resulting tektites would have ignited huge fires in susceptible zones generating enormous amounts of carbon laden smoke. The Younger Dryas period is often characterized by an organic carbon rich layer known as the black mat that is found particularly around north america. It seems to represent a cold moist period with lots of algae like growth.
The impact would have also released millions of cubic feet of water and ice into the Atlantic Ocean which is thought to be one of the main causes of the Younger Dryas cooling ice age due to a disruption of the thermohaline circulation resulting in a dramatic cooling particularly of the European continent.
This was probably a once in 10 million year event.
I am sure that there are more consequences of this impact but the bottom line it was a significant cataclysm that surely effected human culture and was remembered by people all over the world including the authors of the Bible’s Genesis.
And yet you said this originally.
So which is it?
Or maybe they are describing different events and you are just trying to force fit them together.
Not really. Even 6 million years ago the continents looked pretty much the same as today. Coast lines of course would change with sea level changes but from 20,000 ft up you wouldn’t be able to see the difference.
The events would have to be passed down by word of mouth for what, 7,000 years?, until the invention of writing. How accurate do you think the information would be after that game of telegraph?
The impact is still important for what it may have caused in the development of human culture but I don’t think the details made it into Genesis.
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It is what it is. Its was a cataclysm that humanity hasnt seen before and since and has been remembered through time. I think now that the burden of proof that this was not the biblical event now lay with those that so long have argued that there was no global cataclysm. Well here it is. This is just as a recent post has shown a possible impact event over Tall el-Hammam may have formed the basis and been recorded for the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah story.
Are you suggesting this event would not cause a tsunami??? I am referring to the resulting significant lower sea level coastlines 12000 years ago. Britain was connected to the European continent, North American shorelines extend 10s of miles or more out compared to the current. The impact tsunami would have hit areas now 400 feet under ocean water.
There is a growing body of evidence that there was an advanced pre-cataclysm culture or civilization that was able to record these events and pass this knowledge of the cataclysm along with other technological knowledge.
There is zero evidence for a global flood (covers the highest mountains, lasted for a year, etc. etc.) as described in Genesis. I don’t know anyone who has ever claimed that there have been no cataclysms in the past. It is a standard part of the geologic record.
And this impact was seen by Abraham who recorded the event (writing had been invented by then). Not the same as the meteor impact.
No. Are you suggesting a tsunami that covered the entire globe? Or just a tsunami that reached from North America to the ANE?
Given the oldest known writing dates to 5,000 years ago how exactly was this technological knowledge passed on for 10,000 years?
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Ok Bill I am not a YEC. The consequences of this impact generated Tsunamis are calculable and Firestone and West detail this in their book but they didn’t know the location of this Greenland impact. (Evidence also points to another impact somewhere in North America.) The question is what mountains are being referred to? It really depends on the perspective of where was the viewer at the time of the cataclysm.
Once again, the burden of proof is on those that said there was not a global cataclysm. This was. Paradigms die hard. Are you familiar with Symbolic Convergence Theory? There has been no global cataclysms to match this one in the last 10,000 years? What global cataclysm are you talking about that happen standardly?? The world would all remember this event. Do you think that people around this time were just a bunch of primitive hunter gathers? Evidence such as Gobekli Tepe proves that a much more complex culture existed at this time. Clearly the builders of Gobekli Tepe that was built nearly 7,000 years before Stonehenge were celestially sophisticated and filled their megalithic structures with stone carvings some remarkably similar to the later astrological constellations symbols. This culture didn’t just magically appear from no where. This culture was somehow watching and recording the movement of the heavens probably over thousands of years. They must have been aware of this cataclysm and had knowledge of celestial movement that could have been transferred down over time. Who do you think built Gobekli Tepe?
As I am sure that you know the narrative from The Book of Enoch which is the basis for the Noah Genesis event is that the Sons of God had rebelled and taken wives from the daughters of man and had taught man the arts of war, celestial knowledge, metallurgy, and other technologies that the Hebrew authors of the book of Enoch considered disastrous and a corruption of humankind. So the question remains is who were the Sons of God?
I’m not clear on this at all. I don’t think Enoch is written before the Noah Genesis account, from what I recall of Enns. I thought it was a midrash or something similar?
Jude references Enoch, I know, but Enoch has definitely not been in the canon; Jude was also considered iffy because of its references to Enoch. Wikipedia says it was written in stages, from 300-100 BCE. Book of Enoch - Wikipedia
Can you please clarify your date and source estimates? I am no expert here either. Thanks.
Thanks.
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Sounds like a good book, did he discuss the possibility of major catastrophes such as this one?
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Yes he does. But no global flood.
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