…if you recognize the existence of Tierra del Fuego.
It’s that time of the year where my evil atheistic puppet masters command me to spew hate and misery.
This edition involves Noah’s Ark and the type of flash flooding which almost ruined Evan Almighty’s political career two years ago.
In the beginning
Here is one problem with Biblical literalism, based on our calendar system when exactly was day uno? And how long does it take to walk from Mt. Ararat to Drake’s Passage?
Bishop Ussher’s chronology is traditionally used by many Christian denominations, he says terra firma began in 4004 BC. Other scholars date this particular deistic creation as far back as 5500 BC.
Let’s assume that these guys are correct, there was a day uno created by the Bearded God from The Far Side.
Now if they are correct about this, what about a supposed world-wide flood that wiped out all but 8 people? When did that occur in that timeline?
Like usual, someone put together a handy chart starting with day uno around 3924 BC and the flood subsiding at 2267 BC. So to be fair — and the most liberal — let’s use that 1700 year gap and also apply it to an even earlier start day of 5500 BC. Thus making the flood take place around 3800 BC.
Heck, for the purpose of this post, we’ll flat out assume the flood took place on 5500 BC and see how Biblical literalism is still wrong.
Walking 500 Miles
So as standard Young Earth Creationism suggests, Noah’s family repopulated the planet, giving rise to every civilization in existence — including those horseless guys in the Americas.
Assuming that a flood took place as detailed by YEC advocates like Kent Hovind or AiG, dating this event anytime prior to 10,000 BC means they lose this blog battle.
You see, based on archaeological evidence of the Americas, there were numerous clans, tribes and fully-fledged civilizations at around 3500 BC… near Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America. Sure they didn’t have flushing toilets or high-speed internet access, but they did leave behind stone tools, trash and of course, bones. But let’s ignore that.
So let’s say that Noah’s posse sees the first rainbow at 5500 BC, built some tents and procreated a bunch. After about a couple hundred years of peace and quiet, they’ve put together a motley crew of several hundred, maybe even a few thousand offspring.
A group of them gets bored of playing Scrabble all day (they preferred Go or Mahjong) and decides to head off to become Asians, because they have a thing for fireworks and rice cakes.
Where do they start off from?
Modern-day archaeologists have posited an Out-of-Africa theory based upon all the skeletal remains and tools found throughout East Africa. Let’s ignore that and assume that these new Asians, Nuevo Asians, started out either in Mesopotamia (birth place of the wheel) or Mt. Ararat in Turkey (birthplace of rugs).
How long would it take, say 100 Nuevo Asians to wander aimlessly from Baghdad to Beijing? The distance is 6267 kilometers, but how fast can they go?
The thing is, they can’t just hop into their Honda’s and drive up the local highway. First, they have to live. They have to collect food and carefully wander across the plains of Asia Minor until they bump into the armpit of empires: Afghanistan. Let’s say they manage to cross 30 kilometers a week without rain, snow, monsoons or other inclement weather. We should also take into account party members dying from dysentery, dying while trying to ford the river, and dying from attacks by white, two-dimensional bears (aka the Oregon Trail).
Sleeping without a roof
In real life, the group would inevitably have had to rest on occasion because their Asian parents forced them to bring a piano which is hard to pull up hill.
One such pit stop probably looked like this: while the women folk watch Desperate Cavewives and haul around babies, the men skin small guinea pigs and stitch together new Nike cross-trainers to sell to on the streets of a not-yet-founded Hong Kong. Always be prepared.
Okay, so remember, no one has a GPS and they have no idea that all of the ‘Stans are barren unforgiving steppes in every direction. But they keep a stiff upper lip and trudge away.
And then they have to found India quickly and bury a bunch of civilizations worth of bones and trash for archaeologists to stumble on later. But let’s skip that part. (See history of India).
Instead, these guys are going straight to the Bering Strait and are only stopping to practice their violins and cram for the SAT.
Alright, so if they b-lined it from Baghdad at the start of spring, some 200 days later they could saunter into Tienanmen Square, just missing the Mid-Autumn festival.
Realistically however, assuming that any of them survived, it’s hard to imagine how even a modern-day, seasoned group of Special Forces led by Chuck Norris himself could hike that distance in one season. Remember, no maps, no compasses, no flash lights, no Gortex, no tarps or sleeping bags. Oh and lots of hairy unplucked unibrows. Gross.
So let’s say the Nuevo Asians detour along the Khyber Pass, save some valuable time swimming up the Mekong river and then set up a H&R Block franchise for a few years in Yunnan (whose hand-sculpted terraces and rice paddies have been continually cultivated for some 8000 years). They are thrifty Asians after all, gotta bring in the bling.
Okay, so like Moses, 40 years later they make it to Beijing, just in time to see Wang build the first kite. The promised land, right?
Nope. Now they have to found both Korea and Japan (with cultures dating back thousands of years BC), then saunter up to Cape Dezhnev next to the Bering Strait.
Who never prospers?
But let’s cheat again. None of the party members want to cross the land bridge because there are no extended warranties for the Lexus SUVs they are now driving.
Instead let’s go back to central China, to Kaifeng. A direct flight from there to Santiago Chile apparently is about 19,000 kilometers. In reality, the journey on land would take the form of a big parabola and involve marching across every terrain imaginable. Facing gigantic Kodiak bears, harsh blizzards, General Winter and Canadians. Then they would have to cross the Great Plains without the aid of Doppler radar and frantically sidestep some of those nasty turnadows you see in fancy movies. (See the alley)
Then cross North Texas. Then Central Texas. Then Southwestern Texas. And finally, to Nuevo Laredo where they create the first Taco Bell. The Chihuahua would be added later by Cortez who didn’t like hair on anything.
Making their way south, the Nuevo Asians leave a gooey trail of various other cultures that would later build temples and become the centerpiece of Apocalypto. Then they would use their banana domestication skills (having already done so back in Southeast Asia) and create Del Monte thus laying the seeds to the Banana Wars.
Upon reaching Columbia, they get high on cocaine for a few generations and leave behind the great-grandparents of Juan Valdez.
Then they scale the Andes mountains, blast the stone apart (because Asians invented gunpowder) and build a karaoke bar which is later renovated into Machu Picchu.
Then they split into factions. One group books it over to Buenos Aires and erects a gigantic phallus that is later chiseled into Christ the Redeemer. The other sets sail to Easter Island to carve big headed statues, implying that Asians are super smart.
Finally, a smaller third group of Asians domesticate horses and become the first vaqueros and then head to the tip of America del Sur. These people become known as Yaghan. And just as they are pitching their tents, unitard-wearing Francis Drake comes sailing through what was then called the Asian Passage. He renames it. What an asshole.
Then hands them a bunch of blankets with smallpox and erasing all traces of Nuevo Asians below the Mason-Dixon line.
What really happened
Getting back to the original exercise, the problem with this particular Biblical interpretation is that it wholly ignores the archaeological evidence of Pre-Columbian Americas, of which numerous sites date back thousands of years. It also ignores the time needed to effectively build a population base large enough to fill out South and East Asia before making the fateful trip across Alaska.
Based on current models, it is believed that humans managed to accomplish these feats and reach the tip of South America some 11,000 years ago. Thus, even the most liberal Biblical chronology cannot account for this time span.
In addition, based on DNA evidence from samples taken around the world, we can use haplotypes, mitochondria and Y-chromosomes to give us a pretty good idea of who is related to who and where your ancestors came from. That’s right, by testing indigenous peoples, scientists can actually put together a footprint map that goes in reverse order. Be sure to read the related articles: Y-chromosomal Adam, Mitochondrial Eve, haplogroup
One last point. If you don’t buy the fact that humans settled the Americas before a hypothetical Noah was even born, how is this for mental gymnastics: Army Ants. With or without bazookas, just how the hell would these fragile little insects have made that journey across Asia and down into South America? What about the tens of thousands of plants and animals endemic to the New World that couldn’t survive the transportation through hostile Asian environments and climates.
Plate tectonics anyone? Or does Hovind’s god still work in mysterious ways?
See also: Great Flood mythology
Early human migrations
Population bottleneck
Beringia