In the spring of 1995, I was reading flood legends of many ancient cultures when I noticed that many flood legends describe an event different from the flood of Noah's day. In that different event, sea level rose, submerging islands and coast lands, and forcing people to climb mountains to escape the rising water. This event was probably the Biblical event that happened in the time of a man named Peleg, who probably lived less than 5000 years ago.
This article presents Biblical information concerning the event that happened in the days of Peleg, and ancient legends from around the world that appear to describe this event.
Peleg
After the time of the tower of Babel, when God confused men's languages,
mankind dispersed across the earth. Men probably migrated across
land bridges to all continents except Antarctica. Land bridges between
continents were probably exposed because ocean levels were probably thousands
of feet lower than they are today. The legends mentioned later in
this article support this idea.
The Bible says that in the days of Peleg, the earth was divided.
And two sons were born to Eber; the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided... (Genesis 10:25)The word "peleg" means "division by water," or "water channel." What probably happened in Peleg's day was that water flowed between the continents, submerging land bridges and preventing people from being able to travel overland between continents. The name, "peleg," in Hebrew, is spelled with the consonants "pe", "lamed", and "gimel". In Hebrew, vowels are not written. Biblical vowels were carried via oral tradition and were not written until around a thousand years ago, when the Hebrew Masoretic text was penned. The word "peleg" appears six times in the Bible as a name. It appears once in the Bible as a word; its translation is in bold print below:
Psalm 65:9--peleg (a noun meaning "stream")Other words from the same root, also spelled "pe, lamed, gimel" but pronounced differently, are (translations are in bold print):
Thou dost visit the earth, and cause it to overflow;
Thou dost greatly enrich it;
The stream of God is full of water;
Thou dost prepare their grain, for thus Thou dost prepare the earth.
Job 38:25--pilag (a noun meaning "water channel")Hopi Legend
Who has cleft a channel for the flood...?Psalm 55:9--palag (a verb meaning "divide")
Confuse, O Lord, divide their tongues...
Destruction of the Third WorldThe Hopi legend continues, describing the Hopi migration in rafts in a northeasterly direction across the Pacific ocean. Apparently, this migration happened at a time when sea level was much lower, and a chain of islands stretched between southeast Asia and the Americas. Perhaps that chain of islands stretched from New Guinea to Polynesia, and then intersected the East Pacific Rise, a section of the Albatross Cordillera, an underwater mountain range that may have been exposed at a time when sea level was much lower.
...Sotuknang came to Spider Woman and said, "...Something has to be done lest the people with the song in their hearts are corrupted and killed off... you will save them when I destroy this world with water."
"How shall I save them?" asked Spider Woman.
..."You will see these tall plants with hollow stems. Cut them down and put the people inside..."
Spider Woman did as he instructed her...
"Now you get in to take care of them, and I will seal you up," he said. "Then I will destroy the world."
So he loosed the waters upon the earth. Waves higher than mountains rolled in upon the land. Continents broke asunder and sank beneath the seas. And still the rains fell, the waves rolled in.
The people sealed up in their hollow reeds heard the mighty rushing of the waters... For a long, long time....they kept floating.
Finally their movement ceased. The Spider Woman unsealed their hollow reeds... and pulled them out...
Looking about them, they saw they were on a little piece of land that had been the top of one of their highest mountains. All else, as far as they could see, was water...
"There must be some dry land somewhere we can go to," they said... They sent many kinds of birds, one after another, to fly over the waters and find it. But they all came back tired out without having seen any sign of land... (Waters, 17-20)
...Spider Woman directed the people to make round, flat boats... and to crawl inside... For a long time they drifted with the wind... and came to another rocky island.As the legend continues, it appears that the Hopi people saw the continental slope and continental shelf of the Americas, rising out of the Pacific ocean. These two continental features were not known to exist until recent technology gave mankind the ability to measure ocean depths. The Continental Slope is a steep slope surrounding each continent. The slope averages about 4 degrees although it can approach vertical (Encyclopedia Britannica, 25:183:2b). The continental slope drops from the edge of the continental shelf (the submerged shelf of land surrounding each continent) to the ocean floor.
"It is bigger than the other one, but it is not big enough," they said...
So the people kept traveling toward the rising sun in their reed boats. After awhile they said, "...We must be coming to land again."
So it was. A big land, it seemed... On it they rested a long time... but Spider Woman said, "No. It is not the place. You must continue on."
After long and weary traveling, still east and a little north, the people... saw land. One family and clan after another landed with joy...
"No. This is not the Fourth World," Spider Woman kept telling them...
Reluctantly, the people traveled eastward by foot across the island to the far shore. Again they made rafts and paddles...
...they set out, traveling east and a little north, paddling hard day and night for many days... (Waters, 17-20)
At last they saw land. It rose high above the waters, stretching from north to south as far as they could see. A great land, a mighty land... "The Fourth World!" they cried to each other.The ancient Hopi legend then describes an event in which sea level rapidly rose, submerging Pacific islands.
As they got closer, its shores rose higher and higher into a steep wall of mountains. There seemed no place to land. "Let us go north. There we will find our Place of Emergence, said some. So they went north, but the mountains rose higher and steeper.
"No! Let us go south!..." cried others. So they turned south and traveled many days more. But here too the mountain wall reared higher.
Not knowing what to do, the people stopped paddling... and let themselves be guided. Before long they landed and joyfully jumped out upon a sandy shore. "The Fourth World!" they cried. "We have reached our Place of Emergence at last!" (Waters, 17-20)
Soon all the others arrived and when they were gathered together Sotuknang appeared before them. "Well, I see you are all here. That is good. This is the place I have prepared for you. Look now at the way you have come."Plato
Looking to the west and the south, the people could see sticking out of the water the islands upon which they had rested.
"They are the footprints of your journey," continued Sotuknang, "the tops of the high mountains of the Third World, which I destroyed. Now watch."
As the people watched them, the closest one sank under the water, then the next, until all were gone, and they could see only water.
"See," said Sotuknang, "I have washed away event the footprints of your Emergence; the stepping-stones which I left for you..." (Waters, 17-20)
CritiasPlato also wrote about the legend of Atlantis, an ancient island that supposedly once existed in the Atlantic ocean. The island was larger than Libya and Asia minor combined. According to legend, Atlantis sunk into the ocean. Plato was the only ancient historian who wrote about Atlantis.
How shall I establish my words? And what part of it can be truly called a remnant of the land that then was? The whole country is only a long promontory extending far into the sea away from the rest of the continent, while the surrounding basin of the sea is everywhere deep in the neighborhood of the shore. (http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/Atlantis/critias_page3.html)
Timaeus, 24E-25APerhaps the Mid Atlantic Ridge was Atlantis. Between 1872-1876, scientists aboard the HMS Challenger discovered the Mid Atlantic Ridge (Encyclopedia Britannica, 25:168:1a). The Mid Atlantic Ridge is a submerged mountain range on the Atlantic Ocean's floor. The ridge extends 10,000 miles from north to south, in an S-shaped path. The ridge reaches a width of 1,000 miles. Some of the mountains of the ridge are above sea level, and are islands. Some of those islands are the Azores, Ascension, and St. Helena (Encyclopedia Britannica, 8:106:2b). Most of the Mid Atlantic Ridge is covered to a depth of 3,000 meters (Galanopoulos, p. 53).
...in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles [the Strait of Gibraltar] the island [Atlantis] was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent [the Americas] which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea [the Mediterranean] which is within the Straits of Heracles [the Strait of Gibraltar] is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other [the Atlantic] is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent... there occurred violent earthquakes and floods... the island of Atlantis... disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island. (http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/Atlantis/timaeus_page2.html; bracketed "[]" information is mine).
Plato's writings also indicate that numerous artesian wells (natural fountains) were on the earth in ancient times. Perhaps this was the result of the Great Flood, after which the continents were saturated with water that took centuries to drain into the oceans.
From CritiasGuanche Legend
...[The land] let off into the hollows the streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials in places where fountains once existed; and this proves the truth of what I am saying. (http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/Atlantis/critias_page3.html)
[The Guanches] ...had a brown complexion, blue or gray eyes, and blondish hair... Their food staples consisted mainly of milk, butter, goat flesh, pork, and some fruits; and their clothing comprised leather tunics or vests made of plaited rushes... they were known to have been monotheists (Encyclopedia Britannica, 5:532:1a).From Charles Berlitz's book, The Lost Ship of Noah:
The inhabitants of the Canary Islands were white-skinned, of tall and muscular stature, and many were blond-haired and blue-eyed. They were officially discovered in 1395 by Jean de Bethencourt, a French nobleman in the service of Spain. When the Spanish landed they could not communicate with the natives, who spoke no language known to the Spaniards. When the islanders had learned enough Spanish to communicate they told the surprised Spanish visitors that they could not understand where the men and ships had come from as they believed that the Great Flood had drowned everyone in the world except themselves. Once, they said, their ancestors had lived in a large land with great cities, fertile plains, and rivers, but a flood had covered it, and only a few people who had been able to flee to the high mountains had survived. The islands where they now were living once were the mountaintops of their vanished homeland. The waters receded but (and they pointed to the surrounding Atlantic Ocean) were still there. This curious tradition with its suggestion of Atlantis, the Flood, a civilization destroyed by the waters, and survivors who fled to the mountains, was never sufficiently researched by the Spanish conquerors who, within a short time, annihilated the native population in a series of wars. Their language too was lost..." (Berlitz, pp. 132-3).I pulled the following information off of a Spanish Internet web site in the Summer of 1996. The author is unknown, and I lost the web site URL. I am including this information, however, because it is interesting to note that the Spanish continue to hypothesize as to how the Guanche people originally arrived at the Canary Islands, even though the Guanches themselves told the Spaniards that the Guanches escaped to the mountains from a flood of rising water, and that those mountains became islands when the water remained, stranding the Guanche people. The Spanish, apparently, continue to disbelieve the Guanche legend, which, based on the information presented in this article, may have been the truth. The passage below was originally in Spanish; I translated it into English.
The Europeans 'discovered' the Canary Islands in the first half of the 14th century. They found a people who were later named "Guanches," who today continue to be surrounded with many mysteries. Where did they come from? How did they get to the islands? When did they arrive?It is unreasonable to think that the Guanche people forgot how to use boats, even to travel among the Canary Islands. It seems that if the Guanche people's ancestors had ever used boats, Guanche oral tradition would have said so. It is more reasonable to think that the Guanches never had boating technology. Again, the above passage shows that Spanish hypothesists continue to ignore the Guanche legend that sea level rose, turning mountains into the Canary Islands. Rather, the Spanish hypothesize that the Guanches somehow arrived by sea via boat, and then forgot how to use boats. Based on the information presented in this article, however, the Guanche legend that sea level rose, stranding the Guanche people on mountains that became islands, may have been the truth.
Certainly, they must have arrived via the ocean. They arrived accompanied by their domesticated animals: goats, sheep, pigs, and dogs. They carried wheat and barley with them. They originated from North Africa. They share the same roots as the Berbers of the Atlas region. This simple affirmation has cost rivers of ink and very long discussions, in which archaeology and ethnography mix with politics.
Just as the European conquerors said, the Guanches were "of the white race, tall, muscular, very beautiful, and there were many blondes among them." Their great height, it is understood, was relative to the medium height of the Europeans of that period of time. Regarding the presence of blondes: even today, after many centuries of invasions and mixing of genes, one can find the traits of blonde hair and blue eyes among the Berbers of the African Atlas region...
The ancestors of the Guanches arrived by sea, colonized the islands, and forgot how to use a boat! When the Europeans arrived at the Canaries, they found a people who lived in a neolithic culture, based on sheep herding, fruit harvesting, and very limited farming. This [culture] was common among all of the islands, but on each, [the people] had developed a microcosm to the extent that [the people of each island] had developed their own dialects [of the Guanche language]. The islands disconnected the peoples from each other; the natives did not know how to use boats, and fished only along the coastlines. This is one of the enigmas of the Guanches. How is it possible that a people arrived via the ocean to these small islands, lived surrounded by the ocean, had, on various islands, enormous forests and large trees of premium material for boat building, yet were ignorant of the sea and lived a backward lifestyle? There are a number of hypotheses: perhaps the inhabitants of the Canaries were simply passengers, shepherds transported by mariners, who were later forgotten and lost their luck.
Ancient Irish Legend
In pre Christian Ireland, a sudden oceanic rise caused Queen Ceseair and her court to take ship and sail... Ireland... was so washed by the sea that no one settled there for 200 years after the flood... (Berlitz, p. 120).Norse and German Legend
The Norsemen and Germanic peoples of the north, [remembered] the shakings of the earth... the retreat of the sea and its return in tidal waves... (Berlitz, p. 120-121).Scandinavian Legend
Mountains dash together...Legends from the Western European Coast Lands
And heaven is split in two,
The sun grows dead--
The earth sinks into the sea... (Berlitz, p. 121).
...pre-Christian cultures on the western coasts of Europe still retain the memory of cities suddenly flooded and permanently covered by the sea and Atlantic islands sinking with their entire populations, except for a few survivors, under great tidal waves... Even today... there persists a legend on the north Atlantic coast of France that on certain days the bells of sunken cathedrals can be heard echoing up from the sea bottom where the submerged cities of Lyonesse and Ys still testify to the flooding of the ocean that covered them and never did subside (Berlitz, p. 122).Colombian Legend
According to the Chibcha records of Colombia the hero, Bochica, and his wife escaped [floodwaters] up a high mountain by ascending on camels (once extant in South America...) (Berlitz, p. 124).Sunken Cities
What appear to be stone ruins of sunken cities still lie on the floor of the Mediterranean, off the African coast, near the Azores and Madeira islands, and on the continental shelves near Cuba and the Bahamas. A massive and apparently man-made wall off the coast of Peru has sunk to a depth of a mile and a half into the Nazca Deep (Berlitz, p. 134).Why Would Sea Level Have Risen?
Genesis 7:11According to the Hydroplate Theory, there was only one continent before the Great Flood of Noah's day. That super-continent broke into smaller continents when the earth's subterranean water blasted through cracks in the super-continent's granite, eroding large gaps between the new, smaller continents. Because sudden gaps had been eroded between the new, smaller continents, and because the gaps in the granite replaced a 10-mile thickness of granite, great pressure was relieved from the underlying foundational basalt along the newly eroded gaps. The foundational basalt buckled upward, lifting the edges of the smaller continents. The smaller continents then hydroplaned away from each other on the cushion of lubricating subterranean water. The continents continued to hydroplane until there was no longer sufficient subterranean water to lubricate the space between the moving granite continents and the underlying basalt. For a more detailed explanation of the Hydroplate Theory, click here: Hydroplate.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open...Job 38:8
"Or who enclosed the sea with doors,
When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb... ?"
If the Hydroplate Theory is true, then immediately after the Great Flood, several factors would have caused sea level to be much lower than today, and then to later rise to its current level.
Berlitz, Charles. The Lost Ship of Noah: in Search of the Ark on Ararat. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1987, pp. 132-3.
Brown, Walt, In the Beginning, Phoenix, AZ, USA: Center for Scientific Creation, 1995.
Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 1998.
Galanopoulos, A.G. and Bacon, Edward, Atlantis, New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1969.
Gil, Jose M. Castellano and Martin, Francisco J. Macias. History of the Canary Islands, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain: Litografia A. Romero, S.A., 1993.
Isaak, Mark, Flood Stories From Around the World, http://pibweb.it.nwu.edu/~pib/flood.htm#Roman updated October 13, 1996.
New American Standard Version, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1977.
Waters, Frank. Book of the Hopi, New York: The Viking Press, 1963, part 1, chapter 3, pp. 17-20.