This question came in from a friend about Noah’s Flood and whether the ancients could have navigated the oceans. I had given a talk a couple days earlier about the location of the Tower of Babel. I had speculated that it might exist in the Americas, specifically the unfinished pyramid of Cholula based on its construction, bulk, and the legends associated with it. I have permission from the writer to post the question. All readers who post I keep anonymous. Feel free to comment either here on my website or find me on Facebook under the name Jack Althouse. Thanks!
My friend’s question was this:
“Tonight at dinner my dad and I were explaining your theory of the Tower of Babel. Then I thought of Noah’s ark and how it landed on Mt. Ararat in the Middle East before the Tower of Babel was created. Now you also said that we could have originated from the Americas but the Bible says after the flood we descended from Noah. I just wanted to know what you think of this if Noah came before the tower.”
My reply back:
Thanks (name of sender)
First of all, everything I write here is unproven theory and speculation.
One assumption made by many modern historians is that ancient peoples were primitive and unable to travel over oceans. The architectural evidence at ancient sites in my opinion strongly contradicts this assumption. The precision and bulk of the materials handled to construct ancient cities that I have examined in the Americas, Europe, and Africa exceed our present abilities. That may be evidence that ancient peoples were as advanced as us or at least advanced enough to travel across oceans. Ancient hieroglyphics indicate ocean sea voyages were attempted by various cultures including the Maya, Egyptian, Viking, Phoenician, and the precursors to the Chinese. I can provide specific evidence if you are interested. Over 400 documented sites exist in New England of Viking, Celtic, and some Middle Eastern Cultures having visited, traded, or even inhabited the region prior to Columbus.
All this evidence seems to indicate that ancient cultures were criss-crossing the oceans frequently.
Gradualism Theory posits that humankind started primitive and moved in a straight ascending line to the present day cultural and technological pinnacle. Catastrophic Theory which was the norm for centuries prior to Gradualism’s birth around 1820 begs to differ. Catastrophic Theory posits that humankind has ascended and descended culturally and technologically several times over the millennium. The Dark Ages is a mini example of this possible cycle of advance and decline. All ancient historical accounts including of course Plato’s brief foray into the subject affirm this belief. I find it exasperating that scientists claim humankind had the same brain size for 150000 years and yet refuse to allow our ancestors the possibility that they could have advanced significantly during some segment of that vast time period when we went from King Arthur to the Space Shuttle in twelve hundred years.
There have been a handful of sites on and around Ararat that contain ship remains embedded in ice, soil, or solid rock. The Bible says the Ark landed on the “mountains of Ararat” indicating the ship rests on or near Ararat. I don’t believe any of the ship remains are the ark due to their dimensions and internal layout not matching the Biblical description. What is interesting however is what was discovered about the technology used in some of these ancient wrecks.
(I include some of this in my book Second Sight by the way. You’ll see it when Jordan, Suri and a character named Aizah visit a place I called the “Wall”.)
These ancient ships used a three-wood laminated hull design that mirrors modern day plywood except that it is denser and tougher. The Bible says Gopher wood was used in the ark construction and no one knows what Gopher wood is. The translation into Greek and later English may have been a straight phonetic translation of an unknown term. It may mean “tar over wood”. Even more interesting is the metallic remains of some of the bolts used to hold this “gopher” wood hull planking together. In some cases the bolts were made of titanium, iron, and aluminum alloy. If true, that indicates extremely high technology. Aluminum used to be a precious metal after it was discovered in 1825 and could not be extracted in pure form until 1886. And yet here we have ancient ships bolted together using aluminum alloy! Primitive?
Here is a good website that appears to match prior research I did on the subject of the Ark for my earlier book First Earth:
http://www.viewzone.com/noah.html
Again, I am not convinced it is Noah’s Ark but this is at least a good example of ancient people possessing higher technical knowledge than our Gradualist critics are willing to allow.
Based on all of the above, if Noah landed on Ararat, do I think people could have built the Tower of Babel in Central America?
Yes. I think they could have. It makes sense that it was built out of a post apocalyptic need and it makes sense that it would be built in an area such as Mexico given the terrain and distance from tidal waves, which according to the ancient historian Josephus, were frequent following the Flood to the point that people were afraid to dwell on the coastlines.
It makes sense because the structure was designed to protect the elite from a future flood. It makes sense that it could be built at Cholula, Mexico because it appears the ancients knew how to navigate oceans.
Finally if the Flood story is true, then Noah by definition possessed the ability to navigate the roughest ocean ever experienced. Traveling across the Atlantic would have been child’s play.
Thank you so much for your question (name of sender). You are the reason I felt led to write. My books will be controversial and I appreciate your thoughts that I never claim any of this to be fact, unlike some of our modern day thinkers who seem to need their egos stoked.
Keep digging.
Sincerely,
JF Althouse AIA NCARB
According to a book I have read, the Tower of Babel could have been located in Mexico at the site of the Cholula Pyramid. To properly understand the theory, one was to dispel the theory of uniformitarianism. There have been cataclysmic changes in the world that could account for the various identification sites for the Tower. Thus, if this book is to be believed, civilization as we know it began in the Western Hemisphere. the Eastern and Western Hemispheres were much closer to each other at one time as the book states.
When I explored the site it was clear that it had been expanded and improved many times. The only thing that never changed was the height of the original conical tower buried in the center of the mound. The mound was never extended higher than the tower…until the conquistadors built a church on the summit. Many of the folks I collaborated with in Central America believe the West is the Old World and the East is the New World.
Here’s some further information from the book I read:
1. Noah’s ark landed in the land of Ararat (in Mexico). The range of mountains where it landed are the Gordyaeans, now called the Cordilleras, south of Mexico City. The specific mountain where the ark landed is Mt. Adjusco.
2. The author uses a literal interpretation of Isaiah 24:1, where he says that the world was “literally” turned upside down, as a result of the flood, and the people were then scattered after trying to build a tower to reach the heavens.
3. The author also says: a) Because of the catastrophic changes rendered by the flood, magnetic particles now point in many different directions, not to the north as you would expect, and b) You find the remains of tropical animals in the Arctic regions. (Continental drift occurred at this time.)