>An article published by Insciences Organization says that there is no evidence for a catastrophic flood that wiped out Neolithic settlements near the Black Sea and inspired the story of Noah’s Ark. According to a geologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, if the flood occurred at all, it was much smaller than previously proposed by other researchers.
The article says:
In the late 1990s, Columbia University researchers Bill Ryan and Walter Pitman examined the geological evidence and estimated the Black Sea level at the time of the flood was approximately 80 meters lower than present day levels. They suggested that the impact of a Black Sea flood could have forced the movement of early agriculturist groups to central Europe and established the story of Noah and his ark.
However, Liviu Giosan, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, investigated core samples taken from the delta of the Danube River, which empties into the Black Sea, and concluded that the core samples do not provide evidence for a catastrophic flood like the one described in the book of Genesis.
Read the article here.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Flood, Noah’s Ark,
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Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 
>The exact destruction pattern resulting from the Black Sea flooding is not only dependent on the amount of water released, but the shape of the basin, and whether it was gradual or a sudden break. All of these things would have contributed to the experience of those in the area, and the subsequent telling of flood stories in the region. And as some of the Anatolian refugees settled in the Negev at least 6000 years ago, the stories would have been passed on to the ancestors of the Judeans. Furthermore, the Black Sea flood coincides with other worldwide floods, such as the flooding of the Papua New Guinea-Australia land passage which also dates to the same 10,000-6,500 years ago pluvial period (in which priod the ice-caps were melting).So, there’s still a great deal of cohesion in explaining the origin of the aNE flood stories in relation to this catalyst.I would also refer you and readers to the recent work of Dr Rochelle Altman on the contemporary floods in the Dead Sea region: http://ntwrong.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/evidence-of-the-flood-the-land-of-israel-bears-witness-to-a-great-flood/
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