Chapter 8  ·  The Recovery




    Ark Settles

At the end of 150 days the waters had gone down far enough so that on the 17th day of the 7th month the Ark came to rest on the tops of the mountains of Ararat in Armenia. According to history the waters drained into the depths of the earth and no doubt much of it ended up in the polar ice caps. The water formed into large ice sheets and lakes that are still receding, particularly from the Northern Hemisphere. On the 1st of the 10th month the mountain peaks appeared. 40 days after this Noah opened a window he had made and sent out a raven, but it kept flying around because it couldn’t land. Everything was still too wet. A dove was then released and it came back. 7 days after this he sent the dove out again and it returned covered in mud carrying a freshly plucked olive leaf. This shows that not everything was eliminated by the devastating floodwaters. After another 7 days he sent the dove out again and it did not return. In Noah’s 601st year or about 1308AC or about 2634BC, on the 1st day of the 1st month he removed the Arks covering and found the earth dry in the vicinity. On the 27th of the 2nd month it was dry enough to release the animals and God ordered Noah out of the Ark. The animals were then released and moved away as they wished. On the 1st of the 3rd month Noah and his family then came out of the Ark.
 

    Feast of Weeks

On embarking from the Ark Noah made a sacrifice called the feast of Shebout. This is called the feast of weeks and oaths. God made a covenant with Noah in which he promised not to destroy the world again in the way he had. He formed a rainbow in the sky as a sign of a covenant with Noah. It wasn’t necessarily the first rainbow seen. This feast was kept by Noah’s family until the days of Abraham and was then later revived with Moses.

The Jews called this feast the festival of Atzeret meaning “conclusion”, and to the Greeks it was known as Pentecost. Pentecost was to be kept as a time of rejoicing to remember Gods deliverance. It was a time of rejoicing, to celebrate deliverance and new beginnings with God. It represented not only the events of the flood but also the deliverance of the Israelites from Pharaoh. Both of these events had prophetic implications for the future and have many similarities. Pentecost spoke of deliverance and a new start with rejoicing. The blood sacrifices associated with this feast speak of Jesus. The feast was prophetically fulfilled in the New Testament in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit filled the disciples. Pentecost took place 50 days after the feast of first fruits and marked the beginning of the spring barley harvest. The spring barley harvest represented the beginning of the spreading of the gospel with the power of the Holy Spirit: this taking place straight after the infilling of the disciples. Noah, his family and the surviving animals were also types of the early church moving away from the site of sacrifice to spread life to the world.
 

    Spread of Man

The family of Noah settled in the region of Armenia. They built cities that were named after Noah’s daughter in laws. Noah’s family were the Ubaidians who later became the Sumerians. The family eventually moved down to the area of present day Iraq, known to us as Sumer where they built cities and got involved with the infamous tower of Babel. The Sumerian people are regarded as having formed the first known human civilisation. From History and archaeology we know that these people spread from here to eventually migrate to all parts of the planet. The pyramid type buildings built in Sumer were to be built by these people as they migrated to Central America, Egypt, China and Indonesia. The story of human culture can only be reliably traced back about 5000 years. This and the world population statistics show that humans have recent origins. If we had been around for millions of years, there would be evidence in the rocks and on the ground to show it. The world’s population would be much larger than it has been if evolution was correct.
 

    Spread of Animals

The animals, birds and other creatures that disembarked from the Ark spread to various parts of the globe. Man has transported some creatures over the centuries to new lands, but most would have spread naturally. Due to the Caucasus and Himalayan Mountains the best migration routes were to Africa and South East Asia. As a result most animals ended up in these areas. Very few mammals reached across the land bridge to the Americas. Australia either had animals brought there by man or there was a land bridge linking Australia to Asia. There is a possibility that animals were supernaturally moved to certain areas or they returned by instinct to areas where they had lived before the flood.
 

    Dinosaur Dilemma

Changed climatic conditions and water bodies left over from the flood caused an ice age directly after the flood. This would have made life extremely difficult for dinosaurs and possibly other species that had survived in the Ark. The incubation of eggs in cold temperatures would not have been easy. This may have prevented egg-laying dinosaurs from increasing to large numbers after the flood.

Many of the dinosaurs were herbivores and the post flood environment did not have the same quantity of vegetation available to them - a further cause of their demise. Dinosaurs were recorded after the flood. They are mentioned in the literature of the Babylonians, Chinese and Europeans. The book of Job in the bible describes dinosaurs living after the flood. The firebreathing dragon mentioned in Job was probably the Hadrosaur that had a possible fire-producing crest on its head. This could have worked in a similar fashion to the chemical like reaction used by the bombardier beetles to chase away their enemies.

The Ishtar gate at Babylon has pictures of various animals including what looks like a Hadrosaur. Dragons are featured in the ancient Gilgamesh Epic, a Sumerian story from about 2300 BC. Daniel was said to have killed a dragon in the apocryphal chapters of the Bible. After Alexander the Great invaded India he brought back reports of great hissing monsters in caves.
 

    Dinosaurs Were After Flood

Below is a Mesopotamian cylinder seal dated at about 2300 BC. The animal on the far right is an artist’s conception from a skeleton of an Apatasaurus. There are many striking similarities between these two depictions. The legs and feet on the Egyptian art clearly fit the saurapods better than any other type of animal. The biggest difference is at the head. Cartilage forming the shape of a frill or ears may be stylized or accurate (since there is no way to know from the skeletons we have today). As for the musculature, the Egyptian artist draws with stunning realism.


Ancient artwork - showing dinosaur images


    Migration - Mammals and Others

Animals mentioned in the Bible and found in the Middle East in Old Testament times include; the bear, wild boars, hyrax, deer, dogs, jackals, foxes, lions, leopards, gazelle, ostrich and wolves. David had to fend off lions and bears while he was tending sheep. There were a variety of animals in the Holy Land, with many of these species now no longer present.

Many of these animals migrated westwards into the Nile valley. From the pre dynastic period of Egypt ca 2300BC, pictures and carvings have been obtained showing the various animals living in the vicinity of the Nile. The Narmer palette that records the joining of upper and Lower Egypt has two possible dinosaurs shown in captivity. The Okapi became the Egyptian god Set and this animal is now only found in the forests of central Africa. It was not that many years ago that this elusive creature we now call the Okapi was only known to science through the stories of tribal peoples.

The two-dog palette from Hierakonpolis along the Nile is an exceptional piece of art showing some of the creatures present (shown below). One of the dinosaurs mentioned in the book of Job seems to be a large Sauropod and a picture of this same dinosaur is shown on the palette. The palette has impala, gazelle, hartebeest, wildebeest, lions, dogs, giraffe, leopard and ibex.

There is also a picture of what looks like a kangaroo and these may have migrated unsuccessfully in this direction from the Ark. In the book of Isaiah it twice mentions the "fiery flying serpent." Egypt is called the place of the "lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent," (Isaiah 30:6). This may be the flying creature shown on the palette. This fits with classical authors describing pterosaur populations in Egypt and Arabia. It was possible that nimble flying snakes (pterosaurs) killed many of the children of Israel rather than them being surprised and killed by snakes on the ground. The pterosaur becoming a type of Christ (John 3:14) seems more appropriate than the snake, which from Genesis to Revelation is a symbol of Satan. In addition, the spread wings on the top of the pole would form a cross. In fact, a plate found with Sennacherib's booty at Calah (from the conquest of Palestine) depicts such a winged serpent on a pole that would seems to match the Nehushtan or brazen saraph of Moses that had become a symbol of worship by Hezekiah's reign (II Kings 18:4). Egyptian seals continued to show now extinct animals and this continued to the Roman period.

Ancient explorers and historians told of small flying reptiles in ancient Egypt and Arabia and described their predators, the ibis, stopping their invasion into Egypt. The wellrespected Greek researcher Herodotus wrote, “There is a place in Arabia, situated very near the city of Buto, to which I went, on hearing of some winged serpents; and when I arrived there, I saw bones and spines of serpents, in such quantities as it would be impossible to describe. The form of the serpent is like that of the water snake; but he has wings without feathers, and as like as possible to the wings of a bat.” Reliable witness reports of "flying dragons" (pterosaur-like creatures) in Europe are recorded as recently as 1649.
 

    Coelacanth

Are dinosaurs still alive? The Komodo dragon, Coelacanth and Tuatara are some of the creatures that were meant to have been extinct for millions of years. They caused much surprise when they were found, as the finds did not fit in with evolutionary philosophy. These are just a few of the living organisms discovered in the last few hundred years that were supposed to have been dead for millions of years. The coelacanth was supposed to have been extinct for 70 million years until a fisherman caught one in 1939. In the last decade new species of deer, lemur and marmoset have been found.
 

    Lake Monsters

Recently there have been many reports of Lake Monsters in parts of North America and Europe and unconfirmed dinosaur reports from Central Africa. In April of 1977 a Japanese fishing vessel named the Zuiyo-Maru was traveling off the coast of New Zealand, when a large carcass became snarled in its nets. The rotting remains, weighing about 4,000 pounds, were hoisted up above the deck. Several pictures were taken and a fin was preserved before it was cast back into the sea, so the mackerel catch would not be spoilt. The drawing by an observer depicts a plesiosaur, as does a commemorative Japanese stamp that was issued in 1977. A 1978 study led many scientists to conclude that it was merely a decayed basking shark. But questions remain, including the observed large hind fins, the small, hard head with the nares (nostrils) at the front of the head, the existence of the decaying fat, and the presence of red flesh so that many still believe it was a plesiosaur. The Western Scientists don’t believe their Japanese counterparts made this discovery, as they believe there is no way an animal like that can still be alive.
 

Central Africa

In Cameroon the Baka pygmies identify pictures of a Triceratops with an animal they call the Ngoubu. They report it being big as an ox, possessing a neck frill, and sporting from one to four horns. Apparently the mature male has the largest frill. Perhaps this is the same species as the Emela-ntouka in the Congo and the observers there merely saw the single-horned variety or younger creatures. The Ngoubu is said to inhabit the savannas along the Boumba and Sanga River where it is known to fight with elephants.

In December 1919, the London Daily Mail published a letter from C.G. James, who had lived in what is now Zambia. He reported on an enormous beast with a single ivory horn living in the waters of Lakes Bangweulu and the surrounding lakes and swamps. James said the natives called this animal “Chipekwe”. The same creature is also mentioned in both Millais’ 1924 book Far Away up the Nile, and Hughes’ 1933 volume Eighteen Years on Lake Bangweulu. The latter describes Wa-Ushi tribesmen actually killing such a creature along the Luapula River that leads to Lake Bangweulu. They detailed how its smooth body was armed with a single horn fixed like that of a rhinoceros, but composed of smooth white, highly-polished ivory. Indigenous peoples near Lake Edward in Zaire call this same creature "Irizima" and refer to it as a "gigantic hippopotamus with the horns of a rhinoceros on its head."

In 1981 Dr. Roy Mackal traveled to the Congo searching for the rumored sauropod dinosaur Mokelembembe. But he was surprised to hear reports of another mysterious animal called the Emela-ntouka or "killer of elephants". The natives in the northwest region of the Likoula swamp told how it would gore elephants with its single horn. Mackals theory that it was a ceratopsian was cast in doubt by the pygmies, who did not recollect seeing a neck frill. The description, however, does not fit a rhinoceros, which has a short tail, does not have a true horn composed of bone or ivory. It is fused keratin (hair) and it seldom comes out a winner in a confrontation with elephants. Mackal left open the possibility that the Emela-ntouka was a Centrosaurus (“pointed lizard”).
 

    Mokele-Mbembe

In the swampy jungles of western Africa, reports persist of an elephantsized creature with smooth, brownish-gray skin, a long, flexible neck, a very long tail as powerful as a crocodile’s, and three-clawed feet the size of frying pans. Over the past three centuries, native Pygmies and Western explorers have told how the animals feed on the nutlike fruit of a riverbank plant and keep to the deep pools and subsurface caves of waters in this largely unexplored region. After a recent expedition there, two American researchers conclude that these stories refer to a real animal, not a myth.

Fantastic as it seems, Roy Mackal [University of Chicago] and James Powell believe that this creature, called ‘Mokele-Mbembe’ by the natives, may actually be a dinosaur, perhaps one resembling brontosaurus, which is thought to have died out 70 million years ago (Anonymous, "Living Dinosaurs," Science-80, vol. 1, November 1980, pp. 6-7).

The forbidding Likouala swamp region, located in the northern part of the Congo, is about the size of the state of Arkansas. It was not until missionaries showed natives a sauropod dinosaur that they identified this mysterious animal living along the rivers and deep swamp pools. A vegetarian, the creature will fight with hippos over a territory rich in molombo plants. The Sunday Times of London reported in May of 1999 that members of the Kabonga tribe actually killed a mokele-mbembe! In the fall of 1981 Herman Regusters led a team into Lake Tele and returned with droppings, footprint casts and a sound recording unlike any animal known in the Congo Basin area. Reports of Mokele Mbembe go back to the eighteenth century and in 1919, the Smithsonian sent a team to investigate. Since 1980, over 20 such expeditions have searched the region of the Likouala swamp.
 

    N’yamala

In Gabon, a group of African natives known as the Fang people tell of an animal called N’yamala, identifying it with a picture of Diploducus. In 1913, Capt. Von Stein was sent by the German government to explore the Cameroon. Von Stein wrote of an animal sized between a hippopotamus and an elephant with a long and very flexible neck and a long muscular tail like that of an alligator. Von Stein was even shown a path said to have been made by this animal in order to get at its food.

On p. 257 of his 1927 book Trader Horn, Horn writes, "Aye, and behind the Cameroons there's things living we know nothing about. I could 'a' made books about many things. The Jago- Nini they say is still in the swamps and rivers. Giant diver it means. Comes out of the water and devours people. Old men'll tell you what their grandfather’s saw, but they still believe it's there. Same as the Amali I've always taken it to be. I've seen the Amali's footprint. About the size of a good frying pan in circumference and three claws instead o' five."

The drawing, shown in Claws, Jaws, and Dinosaurs, illustrates the monstrous creature as a Scottish explorer reported seeing it in 1932, while canoeing on the Cross River in the Cameroons. In the fall of 2000 an expedition led by Genesis Park staff pioneered research in southeastern Cameroon by slogging through nasty swamps, floating jungle rivers, trekking virgin rain forests and interviewing pygmy forest peoples who had never before talked to an outside explorer. From village to village informants recognized this creature from a lineup of various animals. The name was always the same, "Li’kela-bembe." Eyewitnesses led them to places where it had been seen, in some cases quite recently.


    Mammals Move Down to South Africa

Many of the animals living along the Nile moved south and west or became extinct and are now no longer found in Egypt. People in North Africa and the Middle East hunted lions and the wild ox with their bows and arrows, while on the Nile the crocodile and hippos were hunted with harpoons and lances from boats. In early Egyptian days there was an abundance of elephant ivory. The Sahara had hippo, giraffe, elephants, zebra and antelopes after the flood. The people who had left the Middle East and moved into North Africa left paintings in the Sahara showing how they lived in these more fertile times and which animals lived with them. Some of these people may have been the ancestors of the Khoisans that later lived in Southern Africa. Animals painted included long tailed monkeys, rhino, buffalo/cattle with large horns, sable, wild ass, warthog, and leopard. The Atlas Mountains have paintings of leopard and elephant.

Large bodies of water such as that of Lake Chad and the Caspian Sea are like large puddles left over from the flood. These have been drying out over time, as would a puddle left in the sun. The catchment areas are too small to replenish these water-bodies and others left over from the flood. Lake Chad continues to dry up to this day. There was a great 750-mile long waterway emptying into Lake Chad called the Tafeeasset - one of many now dry watercourses. The Tassili highlands of the Sahara have had isolated water bodies left containing fish, crocodiles and batrachians. Stunted crocodiles left behind in the desert in remote areas are the descendants of larger populations in the distant past. The Tassili after the flood had conifers (such as the Aleppo pines and cypress), vines, nettle trees, holm oaks, lentiscus, maple alders, limes and olives. The flora was similar to that now found around the Mediterranean. It later dried out to a savannah type of vegetation.

The animals living in these once fertile North African regions moved down into East Africa and finally some reached the Southern part of the continent. Zambia was probably the main corridor for many animals on their migration to Southern Africa. The growth of thicker vegetation may have become a hindrance in Zambia to further migrations between East and Southern Africa later on. Animals such as the Dikdik, Oryx etc. in Southern Africa were isolated from their East African counterparts.

An interesting find in the Wonderwerk cave in the Northern Cape was a possible ibex. There is no explanation for this. There is a possibility that this is a pre-flood fossil site or that a small population of these animals found their way down into Southern Africa after the flood. How did animals such as the klipspringer and hyrax, found on isolated rocky areas, migrate to South Africa without being eaten? The best explanation for this is that predators need a certain amount of prey to survive on. As the populations of game were still increasing the predators would have been restricted to the more populated game areas. Herbivores could migrate into flooddepopulated areas without much chance of being eaten. This would give them time to reach their new homes.


 

(Reverse Side)  "My, what long necks they have!"

    Vegetation Change

Rose Cottage archaeological site in the Eastern Free State shows how the vegetation varied in this area after the flood. Charcoal analysis shows the presence of alpine maccia elements, with species such as the protea surviving for a while in this area. Large zebra, warthog, wildebeest, giant hartebeest, blesbok, springbok, blue buck and reedbuck lived in the vicinity. Like the Sahara this area appears to have had more vegetation soon after the flood before it dried out. Elands Bay cave site found in the Western Cape had fossils telling us something of the history of this area. The humans living in the cave left marine and terrestrial deposits behind. Remains from the cave show this region was less vegetated, having lots of grass and how it had been badly damaged by the worldwide flood. Trees and many other plants would have taken a while to recover and establish them selves. This allowed grass to thrive for a period. Grazers migrated down through east and central Africa and as there was little forest they did really well in Southern Africa.

As the grazing was good after the flood in Southern Africa, so a lot of the grazers such as wildebeest, zebra and hartebeest were generally bigger than those found today. Some of the Southern African caves have evidence that some animals were later arrivals to the region as they are only found in more recent deposits. The Klasies River in the Cape Province had the remains of some modern and ‘archaic’ human remains. This showed that humans arrived on the South African coast probably before or about the time of Abraham. The archaic skull indicates that some of them reached a very great age. The flood deposit is recorded on bedrock at Klasies Cave.

By analysing the overlying sediments it was found that the grazers, wildebeest, bontebok and zebra were proportionally more abundant after the flood. Grazers dominated due to the environment being rich in grass. Another interesting site in the Cape is the Nelson Bay cave that showed the presence of Grysbok, bushbuck, Cape buffalo, bushpig, reedbuck, roan and Vaal Reebok. The last three became increasingly rare as time progressed and then eventually the blue duiker made its appearance. This shows that as time progressed the area became more forested. Spring deposits in the Transvaal show that the vegetation suffered badly after the flood and many areas were very grassy, trees taking a bit of time to re-establish themselves. In some areas of Southern Africa flood laid down sands would have been almost devoid of vegetation for a period before the vegetation re-established itself. Some dunes in Namibia and Botswana may never have had vegetation growing on them after the flood due to the changed climatic conditions.

    People Begin to Arrive in the South

People still lived to fairly great ages right up to the time of the Israelite departure from Egypt. The approximate date of the main dispersal of people from the Middle East is about 2300BC.

This means the first people to colonise this area may have arrived here as far back as about 2300BC. The Bushmen/San are considered to be the first arrivals in Southern Africa after the flood. I believe though that they are more recent than we realize. There were though Egyptian, Phoenicians and others in the distant past who may have reached here before the Khoisans, by sailing down the East coast. Recently we have evidence that this may have been the case. The Hottentots and others are thought to have arrived later. This does not mean we haven't had other different peoples living here in the sub region - that may have died out. Some of the earlier post flood inhabitants in Southern Africa buried their dead with ochre. Burials with ochre were common in pre-dynastic Egypt; post flood Europe and the Middle East.

    Khoisan

The origin of the Bushman/San has been a controversial one. The recent arrival of the Bantu in the last 1000 years or so and then of the Europeans, displaced them in many areas. It is likely they migrated down through Africa and then mixed with many eastern migrants who landed on the east coast. There are people in Tanzania just to the south of Ngorongoro crater with a language similar to the Bushman, suggesting they more likely moved down through Africa. The Bushman painted many of our paintings in Southern Africa. The age given to these painting sites is laughable. First of all, most sites have never been dated and tour guides give unjustifiably old dates for them. Secondly some sites are dated using faulty radiometric dating techniques, which often give old dates.

It sounds good to tell a tourist a site is 40,000 years old rather than an unromantic 1000 years old. The Bushman never used paints that lasted tens of thousands of years – if they did I’m sure all the paint companies would be interested. If you visit painting sites on a regular basis you will find after a few years the paintings have visibly deteriorated. This is normally caused by the natural exfoliation of the rock. This shows that they have not been around for as long as some people have expressed. Those who came before the Europeans brought domestic animals into Southern Africa. These animals include creatures such as dogs, cattle and sheep. Europeans brought other creatures that include the now wild populations of fallow deer and Himalayan Tahr. Civilisation has brought great changes to Southern Africa leading to the extinction of the Blue buck and Quagga, which are probably subspecies of animals still living today. Some animals such as the White Rhino have recovered from the brink of extinction. We can congratulate Southern African conservationists for the tremendous job done over the years in protecting wildlife. Bird species are still increasing in numbers in this region as they gradually infiltrate the area. This means that animals are still migrating from the Ark to new areas of the planet including Southern Africa.
 

    Flood a Historical Fact

The flood was an accepted historical event, until the last few hundred years. Suddenly a new religion called evolution, with a belief and masquerading as science jumped in. They hijacked science and made the new theories look so good, that you are now regarded as a fool if you don’t believe in evolution. The Bible says that the man who doesn’t believe in God is a fool. Who’s right? The flood was no regional event, but a worldwide disaster. Archaeology, taxonomy, palaeontology and all the sciences prove there is a God and that there was a catastrophic worldwide flood.

Many world-renowned scientists past and present don’t believe in evolution and as more knowledge reveals the past to us, so these numbers will increase. All over the Middle East the ancients left clay tablets, which were used much as we use paper today. These archives record politics, everyday life and history. Many of these confirm the Genesis account even though some stories have myth mixed in. The flood is an historical event with names; dates and places all faithfully recorded for us.

There are at least 100 different flood traditions around the world, showing all peoples originated in the last 5000 years from the Middle East.  

    A Warning

Will there be flooding again? Well God promised there would never be a worldwide flood again. We have had flooding throughout history but only one worldwide flood. With global warming and various prophecies we can expect flooding on a large scale around the world, but nothing as large as Noah’s flood. The next time God destroys the world He will probably use fire rather than water. We should respond to the Bible message by repenting and serving Jesus Christ.

God is a God of Justice as well as Mercy, and the rock formations we see every day remind us of this. Noah is a type of Christ. Those who rejected Noah's message laughed at his words of mercy and judgement and thought the building of the Ark was a waste of time. Only later did they realise their mistake, when it was too late. They had been living lives of sin and going about their everyday lives in ignorance, not knowing that in a few days they would be wiped off the face of the earth. Today people still live and think like this. We need to join Jesus on the Ark of salvation, go through the floodwaters with him, not seeing clearly, but walking in faith and finally joining him on the other side with a new beginning, like Noah’s family did.
 

    Offer for Salvation

Do you know Jesus? If you don’t, would you like to meet him? Turn your face to heaven right now and repeat this simple prayer to the King of Kings. ‘Lord Jesus Christ I ask that you come into my life. I repent of my sins and ask that you can take over my life and change me. I put all my affairs in your hands.’ With this simple prayer you have started a new life with the Saviour of mankind. You now need to find a bible believing church, with the power of God present and keep on praying!


 


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