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Summary: Reads like the great mystery it is...
Review: This book addresses one of the oldest mysteries in the world, the "flood" story from the Bible. Some people view the Bible quite literally, while others see the writings as metaphore or allegory. As a social scientist and former church school teacher, I have come to believe Bible stories have a mythical quality (in the sociological sense -- designed to instill a code of behavior and promote the cohesion of a people), but also have a basis in fact, however altered by time. Archeologists have discovered evidence that many events depicted in the Bible do indeed have a basis in reality. Historians and linguists have shown written text reflects the writers' beliefs and interpretation of events, as well as the constraints of language. For example, it seems the city walls fell as a result of the 'Battle of Jerico' but they may have been demolished when the city was sacked. Those who told the story (likely scribes and priests, not soldiers) saw the hand of God at work and reflected this in their depiction of the events. Many have searched for the remains of Noah's Ark, but the flood story has always seemed one of the most tenuous and least likely of Bible events to have left a material record. Evidence of past floods and shifting land masses, that might have formed a basis for the Bible story, reflect events that happened before humans were around to act as witnesses. William Ryan and Walter Pitman tell the story of how they inductively arrived at their hypothesis, and then assembled a great deal of evidence to support it -- that a very big flood occurred in the area of the Black Sea about 7,5000 years ago (within the memory of humankind) and this flood may be the basis for the Noah story. This book reads like a mystery novel. The main characters are the scientists themselves, first rate detectives taking note of odd coincidences, and then actively searching for answers. I have stood on the southern coast of Spain near Tarifa and looked across at the mountains of Northern Africa -- so close you feel you could touch them. I can see how the pounding waves of the Atlantic eventually eroded the rock formations, and the cold waters rushed through into the Mediterranean Basin. It doesn't take much imagination to see the same thing could have happened where the Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean -- especially if the ice caps had melted and raised the sea level. A great deal of information not presented in this book supports the theory these scientists put forth. Undoubtedly, they will go on to assemble new material and hopefully write a second book.
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Summary: A very good non-egotisical analysis fo the flood.
Review: This is a very good review of "Noah's Flood" for the non-technical person. By using the third person the authors remove the "I" factor and keep their book interesting. By going into the background of the various sources of the Noah's Flood story, the authors are able to help the reader understand better the various non-scientific sources of the flood story. The geological approach to the sources of the flood story actually support the story. Most archeologists etc.seem to fail to investigate the effects of geology and astronomy in their interpretation of a site. The authors provide a fresh insight to the interpretation and source of "Noah's Flood".
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Summary: Noah's Flood is an exciting ride through archaeology
Review: I am a current student at Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Alaska. I read this book for a research paper in my anthropology class. I would have to say that with all due respect to the other individuals that have listed their reviews on this page, I don't think we all read the same book. I thoroughly enjoyed the in depth stories associated with each step in discovering the secrets of the flood at the Black Sea. Without the individual information, it is hard for one to understand exactly how this discovery came about. I encourage you to read this book at least once. Whether you are a scientist or a scientist at heart, Noah's Flood is a fantastic voyage into the world of archaeology.
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Summary: When It Rains...
Review: __________________ The first half of the book is interesting from an historical perspective, which is ironic because the authors clearly had an interest in ancient history and late prehistory that isn't entirely well served in the second half. The changes to the hole we call the Mediterranean are given in some detail, from the dessication of its floor millions of years ago, to the mighty waterfall millions of years later which dwarfed anything similar that is currently known, to the Soviet study done in order to build the Aswan High Dam, the first half of the book is more interesting than perhaps has been given credit. See my other review (oops!) for my view of the second half. Other books of interest: -:- Voices of the Rocks by Robert Schoch et al -:- Plato Prehistorian by Mary Settegast -:- Ages In Chaos by Immanuel Velikovsky -:- Pharaohs and Kings by David Rohl -:- Centuries of Darkness by Peter James -:- The Secret of Crete by Hans Wunderlich (out of print) -:- Murder of Tutankhamen by Bob Brier -:- Giving Goliath His Due by Neal Bierling (available online; suffers from the author's reliance on the conventional pseudochronology) -:- Serpent in the Sky by John Anthony West -:- The Mysteries of the Sphinx (VHS)
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Summary: To much peripheral, personal material
Review: "Noah's Flood" contains fascinating narratives on several astonishing, geologically confirmed flood events that have actually happened in Earth's history. This is what I found interesting in this book. But the book contains much more material than just that, a lot of it rather tedious, for me at least. It is as if the scientists who actually performed a lot of the basic research took their diaries and rewrote them in book form. After a while, all the personal detail bored me and I found myself skimming for the meat. There is an interesting argument explaining how stories with grains of historical truth in them can be transmitted by pre-literate cultures over periods of thousands of years, remembering highly impressive and disruptive events that happened to their ancestors. This argument is central to the thesis of the book, which is that massive geological floods into the Black Sea basin are the source of all the flood mythologies in the various religions that sprung up around this area, including the Sumerian religion and Judaism. After reading the book, I was left with the impression that this conclusion is plausible, but that the case really wasn't proved. To me, the most interesting parts of the book were the dramatic descriptions of what these massive flood events must have looked like to the terrified observers: waterfalls 200 times the volume of Niagra (I forget the actual number: it was huge).
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Summary: Important information but extremely dull writing
Review: The information presented is quite valuable and is most relevant to a better understanding of the origins of agriculture, indoeuropean languages and ultimately civilization. But to benefit even a bit from it you must first endure lots of painfully dull writing. The authors get lost in completely irrelevant details like the type of car a particular archaeologist drove and even the physical features of the designated driver. It almost seems as if they were aiming for a novel instead of a popular science book.
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Summary: One of the dullest books I've ever read
Review: This could have been a great book. The story of the great Black Sea flood is one filled with history and legend. This book, however, makes for painfuly slow, dull reading. The amount of attention paid to the most tangential of details detracts from the story, making this an unbeleivably difficult book to finish.
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Summary: Convincing evidence for a massive flood that shaped myths
Review: I thought that much of the book was somewhat disjointed, andthat the illustrations really could have been much better. I alsofound (as a matter of personal taste) that Ryan and Pitman writing in "third-person" was somewhat annoying. I would have preferred this to be an odyssey of their discoveries rather than a distant narrative. Nevertheless, I ranked this book as four stars because of the startling discoveries which this book brings to the forefront. They certainly present evidence of a catastrophic flood that would have devastated numerous early civilizations. Their explanations of the numerous myths involving a "Great Flood" certainly is reasonable given the evidence presented. For fundamentalists who will dismiss any non-literal interpretation of biblical events as unacceptable, this book is not for you. For those who are a bit more open-minded, this book certainly tells a fascinating tale...
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Summary: What has happened to editing these days?
Review: As a lover of languages, history, natural science, and arguments for grand cases often held in skepticism, I began this book with eager anticipation. But in the end, I found it choppy and downright dull. Why do we need to know about an episode of decipherment which preceded, but did not directly concern, illuminating the flood story? If we have bought the book to learn about evidence for Noah's Flood, why take up paragraph after paragraph with travelogue descriptions of seamanship and conditions on the research boats, when this sort of thing usually only communicates with people who've been there and done it (whether or not the sea was calm, the stars were visible, etc. means nothing to me reading in my living room and knowing little navigation outside of a car, though maybe that's just me). Why the virtual text-block repetitions here and there throughout the book? Why the sketchy illustrations of events and individuals, rather than photos, as if the book were being written in 1945? The sad thing is that the authors do have a great story to tell. All they needed was a careful editor to shape it for them, bringing out what is of interest to the layman and trimming the academic's natural tendency (which I, as an academic, am hardly immune to) to forget just how abstruse a lot of even the meat-and-potatoes aspects of their work are to the uninitiated. But this wasn't done. I am surprised so many of the other reviewers didn't feel the way I did, but I seriously doubt that my sentiment is unusual -- you buy the book because the title and cover art are enticing and the "industry" reviews were so good, but I can't help wondering how many people have actually made it through it.
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Summary: What a flood..what a book.
Review: This book was good for someone not knowing anything about archeology and the history of flood stories. I liked how the book started with talking about the discovories made in language that lead to them reading about the flood and being able to translate stories that talked about it. I was also fasinated by the vast lengths that the scientists went to prove the validity or non-validity of their claim. There were a few drawbacks...I wish the book would have focused more on the "Noah's Flood" section instead of setting up SO much background to the story. In addition, maps showing the areas they were talking about would have been greatly apprciated because I was so unfamiliar with that region. However, it was interesting how they compared the different flood stories and myths that have been circulated through time. Although I felt they were very wishy-washy in their conclusions, it's a great and facinating read. Mainly easy to read for the non-archeologist.
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