The Sumerian Noah was named Ziusudra and pre-dates the Torah story by nearly 2,500 years. In that first known and documented telling of the event (which did take place in the Younger Dryas period around 14,000 years ago) the ark was a submersible craft. According to Sumerian cuneiform tablets, along with Ziusudra were his wife, family, some friends and neighbors, along with "the essence" of various animal and fowl genome groups. There were no actual animals on board the "submarine" but test tubes with the "essence" - or, what today we call DNA.
I know, right? Submarines, DNA, test tubes. Sounds like something out of science fiction, except that it was written nearly 6,000 years ago by the surviving society and first post-deluge civilization that also gave us the wheel, modern agriculture and animal domestication, astronomy (in which they were aware of all the planets in the solar system - including Pluto (which wasn't discovered by our day until 1930), indoor plumbing and more.
What even lends credibility to the first Flood story is the discovery of the mega complex in Turkey called Gobekli Tepe and other massive structures in the area, that were purposefully buried by people living then around 12,000 to 14,000 years ago-pre-Flood. Doesn't the Torah say Noah landed in Turkey after the waters subsided? This reveals the existence of an advanced human civilization that pre-dates the Flood, which more and more geologists are now admitting took place worldwide.
With the more knowledge we gain of our actual past we become more aware of how advanced our human ancestors of tens of thousands of years ago were. They were not stone-age peoples huddling around bleak fires in cold caves, but were very advanced and capable of building a great civilization and within just a couple of thousand years after the worldwide catastrophe were able to begin anew rebuilding the next great society.
These great tumults seem to occur in 12,000 to 26,000 year cycles. The next one, according to the Jewish prophets, will not be by water as in Noah/Ziusudra's day, but by fire. Comet? Asteroid? or Man's own ability to destroy the world with nuclear weapons?
Parshat Naso is the longest single parsha in the Torah, clocking in at 176 verses. That’s Torah’s way of saying, “Hey, you might want to take a long , serious and contemplative look at what you’re about to learn.”
Also on Substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-165229596?source=queue
After nearly sixty years of teaching Torah, Tanakh, and Talmud, the time has come for me to slow the pace of my video and blog lessons. It has been a profound privilege to share these sacred texts and the wisdom they hold with students and learners across so many years, and that journey has shaped me as much as I hope it has shaped others. While my regular schedule of lessons will be winding down, I have not said my final word — I will continue to appear from time to time, whenever the spirit moves me (so to speak), to share insights, reflections, and teachings as they arise. My love for Torah study remains as alive as ever, and I look forward to those moments when we will still be able to learn together.
