The Thoughts of Wesley son of Cornelius

“… and on the seventh day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. … So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives.” (Genesis 8:4, 18 NIV)

Based on the Biblical record, mankind starts anew with Noah, a man of the soil (Gen. 9:20) and his family. But does the Biblical account have secular historical support? I believe it does. In the several posts to follow, I hope to touch on several aspects that I have discovered. My hope is to change our current perspective of early man and the nations he started to one that is more Biblical. As a good historian, I hope to pull evidence from external Biblical sources and see if they coincide with the Biblical theory.

As seen in the map, Mt. Ararat is believed to be in the northern Zagros Mountains. While the waters receded, man would slowly migrate out of the mountains. Interestingly, the mountain ranges lead east into modern day Pakistan and India, north into Russia, west into Turkey, southwest into Palestine, and south into the “Land Between the Rivers” (Mesopotamia).

The Time Life book on the Cradle of Civilization states an interesting theory of the early cities in this area. Robert J. Braidwood of the University of Chicago believed “the first agricultural hamlets and villages must have arisen in the north, on the hilly flanks of the Zagros ranges, in the region now commonly known as Kurdistan.” (ref.) However, every village Braidwood excavated showed signs of a relatively advanced stage of agriculture. These old communities showed no signs of a transition from food-collecting to food-producing.

“Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.” (Genesis 9:20-21)

REF: Kramer, Samuel Noah. Great Ages of Man: Cradle of Civilization. New York: Time, 1967.