Hey guys, welcome back to the Conspiracy Podcast. My name is Eric. What up guys? This is Jorge and it's Sean. We meet again and hope you love the lovely sound of nature behind us with the cicas and the crickets and the I think I just heard an owl. Creepy.

So, uh, welcome to welcome to Florida summer. Yeah, just set just set the tone with a nice sound. So, it's not it's not feedback from the equipment. That's the actual It's almost uh 90° and it's late. It's very uncomfortable out here. I'm Yeah, I'm hot.

Crispy beer. M just it's not crispy enough. Crispy water. Oh, sure. [laughter] Sodas%. So, as we do a little shout out time.

So, first quick shout out for Mr. Randy S. He's back again. He left and he came back cuz he couldn't be away from sometimes. I wonder if it's like he listened to he's like, "Fuck these guys." Like some episode. Yeah.

And then he's like, "Okay, I'm back. Okay, I'm just kidding." We can agree to disagree. No. When we go over, we've gone over 150 topics, right? Some give or take. Give or take.

You're not going to agree. Oh, with 150 of them. No. Right. And even that, like between the three of us, we don't agree. I agreed with Eric on five episodes.

Eric. I'm out of here. But just imagine if you know we [snorts] totally disagreed and then we're like, "Fuck you. We're done." Yeah. It's over. It's over.

I'm taking the equipment. Yeah. [laughter] I'm ponying. So then we got Wendy. Wendy F. Oh, they said Wy.

No, it's W. I wish it was Wendy. No, it's Wendy F. Uh, as a founding crew membership. Thanks for being here, Wendy. Glad to have you.

We got Christina S with a founding crew yearly. Hello. Welcome to the gang. So happy to have you. We got Cody W with another yearly founding crew. Cody Dub.

Last, but certainly not least, one of Jorge's brethren, Stephen H. I can't say his last name, but it's Spanish. That's why I say that. I was going to say why is it? Yeah. But um but yes, love you guys.

Thank you so much for supporting the show. Uh make sure I know a bunch of you already are in the Discord, but make sure you get in the Discord. Uh join our I think we're 40 days in a row on Wordle. Champions. We are interesting. Uh so if you want to support the show further, you go to patreon.com/theconspiracy podcast.

Okay. So, this next episode, since we're a bit on the Ark theme, yeah, if you didn't listen to the last series we did, it was on the Ark of the Covenant. Uh, I thought it was we kind of on on this on today's back then. Yeah, absolutely. So, now we're going to start a series on Noah's Ark. Yeah, it's cool.

It's pretty cool. I think No, we even talked I think we even talked about doing it on that. Yeah. Um, and a special special shout out. Actually, one of our listeners helped us with the research. Uh, oh yeah, her name is Hannah.

Yes, Hannah actually did a lot of research. And not only that, she provided me with a pronunciation key. Dude, much appreciated. Hannah, you're clearly a listener. Like, if you knew that he needed a pronunciation key. Sometimes I just have to read like a paragraph of the script and I edit it out.

[Laughter] I edit out when Sean goes he reads it for me and then Yeah. And then you redo it. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's really appreciated. Also, uh after going through this episode, this is like the final boss of pronunciation.

This is this is definitely I just like one thing that she included in it's it's huge. So, you guys ready to go? Well, I also want to say thank you to these guys because they gave me a present as soon as I showed up today. Oh, yes. So, Eric went thrift thrifting. I went thrifting last weekend and he found pristine copies of um Lord of the Rings [laughter] Fellowship and and Two Towers.

Look at this This is sealed full screen security set special features in it. I don't know. I mean, even they're so old that ones like you can win a Chrysler Town and Country minivan like sticker on it like so you know it's legit. But if you were worried, don't worry. It's it's 10 hours of content. Okay.

So, you know, wasn't worried. [laughter] Okay. So, I got homework. Thank you. Yeah. And that's that's just the first two.

That's not including I'll try that's not including the Shire like the Hobbit. Like what's crazy is I found it at the thrift store and I was like, "Oh my god, this is perfect." And then I scoured for like over an hour for the third third one and I couldn't find the third [clears throat] one. Yeah. Anyways, it was uh $2 well spent. Uh hope hope you enjoy it. Yeah, he'll never watch it.

I I mean I'm going to need might have to bring back like a a little essay or something. He's going to prove to you Claude me to make me to to prove that I watch [laughter] this movie. Build me a presentation. I know. I'm a detailed PowerPoint immediately. Okay, Noah's Arc.

Let's do this. This story starts with the number 217. That is the number of distinct human cultures on six continents across thousands of years that have a story that's similar to Noah's arc. Oh, but it's not like the same. It's like Yeah. Tertiary.

217 Different renditions of the story of a guy in a great flood [cough] making a boat with animals. I mean, doesn't it can you say like just because of that like without a shadow of a doubt there had to have been a great flood. I mean I mean that's pretty it's that's a lot of evidence, right? Yeah. It's like 200 witnesses or give or take. Well, 200 cultures that are witnesses.

It's not just like people. It's not just like 200 randos. It's like 200 groups or collections of humans. Yeah. These are not variations on a theme. Not neighboring villages that swapped campfire stories.

Not indigenous peoples of North America who never even met the Sumerianss, the ancient Greeks who had this story, the Aztecs, the Incas. It's in Hindu scripture, it's in Norse mythology. It's wild because it's like all it's in like different parts of the world, too. It's not just like in one part. Chinese legends have it. Aboriges in Australia have it.

Every corner of the inhabited world, every civilization that left a record has some version of the same story. The gods or God decided to end the world and they did so by water. One family, one man survived and from that survival, humanity began again. which is also a weird take because I think he didn't he like I think the story was he brought like obviously his family but then there was like but there was like husbands and wives but like I'm just saying from an incest in incestuously like how do you repopulate with like eight people and it's like it's a little rough. I mean you're going to have to do a little Utah thing. I mean, it's it's a I mean, it just it just wouldn't be a good look, [laughter] you know.

Okay. When we when we get like the story and some of the numbers, then we'll determine. Yeah, we'll we'll touch on it. Maybe Maybe God was like, I'm going to let I'm going to let these uh I'll make sure these chromosomes are whole [laughter] for the next hundred years and then shit's going back to normal. Yeah. So, it's not a coincidence.

It's not a meme that spread across ancient internet. It's something that happened or something that was remembered or a little bit of both. The version most of us know is Noah, the man, the boat, the animals two by two and the rainbow at the end. It's so embedded in Western culture that most people learn it as a children's story before they were old enough to ask hard questions. A nice old man with a beard. Happy drafts walking along cute little doves and then a rainbow then the end.

Like even those children books. I know. It's always so like jolly. I'm like you know he had to build this by hand. This dude was I'd be pissed. Yeah.

Like you know how long it would take and it was apparently huge. Yeah. Like massive. And it it is a bit of a sad story because I would assume if it is a true story he had to tell people No. No. But also, no, no, no.

People thought he was crazy. People thought he was he was lost his was off his rocker. Yeah. Like, so he's probably I think he was probably telling people like, "Yo, like you should you should get in on this. Like, you should do the same." And they were like, "You're lost. Build your own little boat." But but you should get in on it.

[Laughter] Yeah. Right. See the writing on the wall. Microsoft is where it's at. [laughter] Just Google. Trust me on this one.

[Gasps] That version doesn't do justice to what this story actually is, though, because the story of Noah's Ark is one of the oldest, most documented, most geographically specific, and most contentious claims in the history of the human race. Ancient writers were located it on a real mountain in a real region 2,300 years ago. Real archaeologists have found real evidence of catastrophic ancient floods in the exact region. Mhm. And right now in 2024, a team of researchers is running soil tests and radar scans on a 500 ft boat shaped. It's a shaped formation.

I've seen I've seen the picture. I've seen I've seen that. It's like on like It's like on top of a mountain. Yeah. It's on the Yeah. It's on the It's on the top side of a mountain and it's like it's like this indent.

Mhm. And it's they're like it's like a interesting indentation here that could be that of an arc. I [clears throat] got to look this up. That might or might not change everything. But this is the story from the very beginning. To understand Noah's arc, you have to go back further than the Bible.

Because the Bible is not where this story starts. The story starts in Mesopotamia, the land between Tigris and Euphrates rivers, modern-day Iraq, somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 years before the common era, before Greece, before Rome, before the Hebrew scriptures existed in written form. This is where human civilization first put itself on paper. That's another interesting thing is like if you look at all these like ancient like Iraq and Iran and like all like the what we see as like the Middle East which we like think of as deserts. It it used to not I know it used to be like this lush landscape and like what the happened? Maybe it was a flood.

And also what's strange is it's where most of the conflict is. True. Right. That's I mean I mean strangely I don't know if it's right now. Yeah. [laughter] In this time period in the 40s it was not there.

So this is where human civilization first put itself on paper. The first cities the first writings the first laws alleged. Allegedly allegedly [laughter] the first kings the first records of what people believed and what they feared. And what they feared above almost everything else at the time was floods. The Tigris and Euphrates were not gentle rivers. They flooded violently and without warning, swallowing entire cities, erasing crops, killing thousands of people at a time.

Damn, I didn't realize that was such a problem. This wasn't something people in ancient Mesopotamia theorized about. It was something that happened to them over and over and over again, generation after generation, was some sort of river overflood or overflow and then their homes are wiped out. be like, "Hear me out. [laughter] Move. Yeah, I'm out of here." It's like, "Move off the river, dog." You know what?

What's interesting, though, is that we live in Tampa and Tampa just got annihilated. Not just, but a couple years ago, we got annihilated by But the homes that were on the water were the ones that got annihilated. Oh, yeah. And sure enough, first time in rebuilding the same spot, same same places. Yeah, I was gonna say first time in 100 years. So like that's maybe like how it could in [clears throat] generation.

Oh, they're like it's not going to happen again. It's not going to happen again. Catastrophically, it changed and shaped their entire cosmology and it was basically the way they understood the gods, they thought it was the gods doing it to them. Of course. Yeah. I mean that I think back in the day any sort of natural disaster like you had there was no like you know an earthquake an earthquake happens like they're not they don't have like seismographs.

They're like oh they don't understand. But the archaeology backs this up. There's real flood deposits thick layers of water laid sediment separating one cultural layer from another. And it's been found at ancient Mesopotamian cities including Kish and Shurapac physical proof in the ground that catastrophic floods happened in the region. Not just one global event but different floods, different times, different cities, etc. Yeah.

[Clears throat] But each one was large enough to erase a civilization. So, so in similar circumstances, we could say, okay, in Tampa, it happened two years ago. Katrina happened. Oh, dude. Yeah. True.

Right. What was the other one in Texas? Oh my god. Remember Texas, [clears throat] Dude, well, it was a hur It was a hurricane. No, it was it was a flood, dude. Like the Boy Scout Center or some like that, dude.

I saw video like really upsetting videos and it's like from like CCTV in like this town and it just like it's within like 30 seconds. It's just boom. And you see a dude running and he just gets sucked up. The cars are It's like cra. It goes from literally nothing to like six feet of water. Yeah, it was wild.

I was like, "Holy Oh my god." I'm uh gonna do a little vacation in Asheville next month. And they not the same hurricane, but they were flooded with another hurricane that happened. Oh, really? And Asheville was just almost wiped off the map almost. It was because of the flooding and the extra, you know, whatever. Anyways, so you get the idea, right?

Like it happens. It happens. Yeah. Um, Shurupac is worth stopping on because an ancient Mesopotamian tradition, uh, it's a city explicitly assoc associated with the flood hero, which was a man who survived. Oh Archaeologists have excavated Shuripek. The city is real.

It sits along Euphrates. Hold on, I got to get my pronunciation. I'm just making sure. You know what I mean? Yeah. [laughter] What was the one philosopher I just got wrong every single time.

I forget what was the episode was. You couldn't say it. Couldn't say it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You kept saying philopher [laughter] like like a falafel sir. Like a falafeler. Serving falafer. I swear. Yeah. Um so the city is real and it sits along the Euphrates Euphrates.

Um, now you're [laughter] now you're It sits along the Euphrates in what is now southern Iraq. And the flood layer found there dates to roughly 2900 BC. Okay. So, something happened there. Oh, yeah. Something catastrophic enough to end a civilization and become the seed of one of the oldest stories in human history.

Here's the part that should make you stop and sit with it for a moment. The flood story. A god or gods decide to destroy humanity with water. One righteous man is warned. He builds a vessel. He survives.

He sends birds to find land. He makes offerings. The world then begins a new. Mhm. And it's not only in Genesis. It appears in most in almost identical form in three separate Mesopotamian traditions that predates the Hebrew Bible.

I wrote a little song to remind you Well, maybe this is like a a real running trend here. Don't live in Iraq. [laughter] Like this is not not like a not a hot best. [laughter] The Sumerian version gives us Zudra, the oldest version we have, and is preserved in ununiform tablets written in the world's first language. Zudra is a king, a priest, a man of exceptional height. And by the way, um, piety means Yeah.

So, so piety is is a virtue defined as a deep religious devotion or a strong sense of reverence and dutifulness. not only toward God but also toward family, community or fundamental obligations. Nice. So in essence, it's like, you know, a a devout. Yeah. And so he's a king, you know, he's he's like you'd I mean, probably good probably a good person to be pious.

Yeah. He is warned by the god Enki that the other gods have decided to send a great flood. So he builds a vessel. He survives. Afterward, he is granted immortality. Jesus.

The Sumerian King list, an ancient document recording the rulers of Mesopotamia, treats the flood as a real historical boundary event, listing kings who ruled before the flood and kings who ruled after it as if it was like a turning point. It was like the BC the BC AD kind of thing. So instead of the birth of Christ, it was the great flood. Yeah. Before and after the great flood. The Acadian version gives us Atruhasis.

His name means exceedingly wise. Of course, like these guys are always like, "Hype me up." [laughter] He was so strong and strapping was stacked. [laughter] Similar to the definition of Eric, [laughter] the wise one. Uh, in this version, the gods created humanity to do the work the lessered gods were tired of doing. So, servants like robots or AI. Yeah.

Like we were the first we were the first AI assistants that were [laughter] out. So, it was to dig dig canals, farm the land, carry the burdens, etc. But humanity multiplied and became so loud, so noisy, so relentlessly alive that the great god Enlil could not sleep. He tried to thin the population with disease. Shut the up. Simply cuz he couldn't sleep.

He's like, "God damn it." So he tried like 2020 back then. Yeah. It was lit. It's like It's like when you have your first kid and you're like, "Oh, what do I do?" [laughter] like, "What can I do to sleep?" So he tried he tried to thin the population with disease, drought, famine. None of it worked. Like what's next on the what's next on the list?

Humans are kill these cockro [laughter] What's the uh what's the uh matrix monologue. Oh yeah, you're a disease. Somebody's like, you know, [laughter] like it's the smell. He's like, you multiply. [laughter] You multiply. I know.

Then he gets like weirdly like sensual. Then he's like got to put his glasses back on. Oh [laughter] What the happening? Uh, so he decided to end humanity entirely with a flood. At Trees, Atrahasis was warned by the god Aah, and he built a boat, survived, made offerings. The gods famished without humans cuz they need like the Yeah, they need they need that.

Yeah, there's like a sacrifice. No, it's I think it's just like they need the faith. Like they they're fueled by the faith. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But they regretted the decision and they wept over the bodies of the drowned.

And that's that story. No, that's a And now we're here. I'm still weeping. Then there's the epic of Gilgamesh. Oh, yeah. One of the great works of world literature.

Gilgamesh is Gilgamesh is a king of the ancient city of Uric. Twothirds God and one/3 man. Apparently, Gilgamesh was also like they so ties into like other conspiracy theories about like giants and cuz supposedly Gilgamesh was like a giant like 12t tall like name. I know. Gilgamesh. Maybe I'll name my son Gil Gilgamesh.

Mhm. My wife would would probably fight me. [laughter] So, not going to go with that one. Uh, so he is 2/3 god and one-third man. And it's he's considered the greatest hero of his age. But how do you get two/3s?

It's like it's [laughter] like you're the kid. You're the kid between a god and like a demigod. How do you get two3? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.

Right. How do you how does that even like work out? Yeah. I don't know how that would work They didn't know like genetics back then. But he is undone by the death of his friend Enkidu and spends the rest of the story searching desperately for immortality. In his travels, he finds the one human being the gods have granted eternal life.

A man named Utishim Utishtum who lives beyond the waters of death at the edge of the world. And Utnoot Pishtim tells Gil Gilgamesh his story. He was warned by the god of Aah of a coming flood. He was told to build a massive boat. The instructions given to him were exact dimensions, specific materials, multiple decks. He loaded it with his family, with craftsmen, with animals, with gold and silver.

And then the flood came. The flood lasted seven days and seven nights. Remember the last episode? Seven days. It's such before it was 40 too. 40.

It was 40. It's 40. It's 40 years. You thought 40 days. [laughter] Everything is 40. The storm was so violent that even the gods were terrified and fled to the highest heaven, crouching against the walls of the sky like dogs.

When the waters receded, his boat came to rest on a mountain. Oh, there it is. He sent out a dove. It came back. He sent out a swallow. It also came back.

He sent out a raven, but it did not come back. He opened the boat, let everything out, and made offerings on the mountain. The gods smelled the sacrifice and gathered around it like flies around food. And that's the story of Utishtam. Utisham. But it's also the boat lands on the mountain side.

So there's there's a little, you know, a little bit in there. I looked those images up. It just does not look like the the the dent the the crater. But it's a wooden ship that's 4,000 years old. No, I'm saying that that wasn't the boat, but like the crater like a boat could have sat inside of that. Yeah.

Just looks like it's hella old, bro. It's not like fresh. The parallels to Genesis are not subtle. They are not vague structural similarities that scholars might dispute. They are specific, sequential, and direct. There's the warning, the boat animal, like an animal list.

It's almost like, you know, how like a movie has like a the parts where it's like, you know, there's the structure there. There's like the intro and the character development. Then you have the, you know, you got to lead up and you have have the crescendo like the it's all like the pieces. The birds, a dove, a swallow, a raven sent out in order to test for land, the mountain landing, the sacrifice afterward, the divine response to the sacrifice. Beat forbeat, it's the same story. It's almost like, you know, we say like, you know, more than twice is a Oh, yeah.

It's like once is a coincidence. more than twice. It's a sign. That's right. [laughter] Beat for beat, it's the same story. The tablets containing the Giggamesh Gilgamesh.

Giggly Giggly, the Gigabyte mesh. [laughter] The tablets containing the Gilgamesh flood story were first translated in 1872 by a scholar named George Smith working at the British Museum. When he reached the passage describing Utishtim sending out the birds, he was so overwhelmed by what he was reading that he reportedly stood up, started pacing, and began taking off his clothes. Imagine he's like, "This can't be ripped." There's no way. Sir, this is the library. Shut the up.

[Laughter] The story that the Western world has been told was unique to the Bible. the divinely inspired account of a singular historical event. And it was sitting in a Babylonian clay tablet that predated Genesis by centuries. Oh, that see I didn't even I can't believe I didn't even make that correlation of like did the B is the Bible stealing an older story. I didn't even think about that until right now. It kind of seems probable.

Yeah. Well, that's I mean the same stuff. [laughter] Probable is a beat for beat. It's B for B. B for B, [laughter] bro. Uh, the scholars who have been arguing about what that means ever since have not reached a [clears throat] consensus.

Did Genesis borrow from Gilgamesh? Did both draw from a common older source that neither preserved in full or did they independently preserve memory of the same real catastrophe filtered through different theological frameworks? Yeah, exactly. It's like the same story, but they're like Yeah. They just got the timelines jumbled. Maybe they had one witness each.

[Laughter] Oh, no. They mean I was on it. Yeah. Yeah. The Babylonians with their council of panicking gods. The Hebrews with their single god of moral judgment.

All three explanations have serious defenders. None of them obviously have been proven. One cannot be disputed is this. The flood story is not an invention of any one culture. It is something older than any of the texts that contain it. Something that was in fact remembered.

Yeah. So now the version that most of us know, Noah. Noah. By the time the events of Genesis take place, wherever you set that date, humanity has been on Earth long enough to have spread across the land and filled it. And it has gone badly wrong. The Bible's description is stark and specific, and I quote, "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time." End quote.

Not occasionally evil, just all the time. Not mostly evil, 100%. [laughter] Only evil. They're like, "Look, we all the time. We've created monsters. We got to get rid of them." God, the text says, regretted making humans.

See, but the thing is like if that was actually the case, why do a flood? Why don't you just like blow up the planet? Like just like erase like I made you. Same same conclusion. Same same. Yeah.

No, but like why or just like make them cease to exist? Well, he did. [laughter] No, but I'm saying like why like the power wasn't It just seems like if Okay, the power is limited for an all powerful thing. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Like, why would you like do that?

It's like, okay, my wife's like, "Honey, there's a snake in the backyard. You got to kill it." And I'm like, "All right, let me get my tactical shotgun." [laughter] No. No. Or I'm like, "Let me just get a bunch of water and I'll flood that out. Hell yeah." You know, like instead of using the shovel that's right there and like you're dead. Yeah.

So, there was one exception, a man named Noah. Noah was, the Bible says, a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. and he walked faithfully with God. He was 600 years old. Wait, what? At the time?

Or like the ancient Hebrews are given lifespans that seem impossible by modern standards and Noah is among the longest. 600. Wow. Damn. I thought it was because as part of it, he got immortality for for doing his work like partial immortality. 600 is not a immortal.

No, clearly not. [laughter] Tommy is dead. Where is he? He's like the barista. He's like, "Okay." Oh, great movie script idea. [laughter] I'm Noah.

What's up? No. Yeah. What's up? What's up? Just hanging out in the Keys.

[Laughter] I know. At a dive bar. Yeah. And it's called It's literally called Noah's Bar. Oh, it's called the Ark. [laughter] I like that.

So he had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japth. God spoke to Noah directly. He told him what was coming. He told him to build an ark. The Hebrew word is tabbah, which appears only twice in the entire Bible. Here and in the story of the infant Moses.

Oh yeah. Placed in a basket in the Nile. The word does not mean a ship in the conventional sense. It means a chest or a box. Well, it's almost remember like we when we looked up ark like the ark of the covenant, we we like gave the definition. There's a lot of different definitions, right?

Some sort of uh holding. Yeah. It's like receptacle. Yeah. It could also could be a boat. Yeah.

Yeah. A vessel designed not to sail, but just simply to float. Noah, not even to go anywhere, just to sit there. Noah was not being asked to navigate. He was asked to simply survive. The instructions were precise.

The ark was to be made of gopher wood, whatever the that is. A term that appears nowhere else. [laughter] It's [snorts] a term that appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible and whose exact meaning is still debated, though. Cyprus and cedar are common candidates. Okay. It was to be 300 cubits long.

Back to these cubits. I know, these damn cubits. 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. A cubit is the length of the forearm from elbow to fingertip. So it's like a yard. No, it's not a yard.

18 Inches roughly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's roughly 18 inches by uh ancient standards. So it's about it's like let's say let's call it like what like 400 ft. Let's call it Let's call it Let's call it 400.

Yeah. Like 400 ft long. 300 cubits. 450T. Yeah. Okay.

A 450 foot is Have you ever seen a 450 foot yacht? That thing is monstrous. Yeah, I guess it's a one football field. No. A football field. Yeah.

Yeah. Football field. 300 ft. Yeah. Yeah. So, the ark was a football field.

In a football field. Yeah. Yeah, true. Wow, that's big. Yeah, that's a that's a like that whole stadium, right? Like I retract my statement.

No wonder. He's not small. [laughter] Well, no wonder he was 600 years old. It took how long it taken to hand build that Yeah. 40 days. That's it.

[Laughter] 40 days. Like literally overnight. So at 18 in per cubit, that gives you a vessel 450 ft long, 75 ft wide, and 45 feet tall. That sounds like a cruise ship. Yeah. Uh, three decks, a roof with an opening of one cubit around the top for air.

Wow, that's a tiny little I know. Like one little air vessel, one little air, single door on the side. One door. Sick. It doesn't sound very practical. No, [laughter] not at all.

I mean, even the Titanic had better no escape [clears throat] bugs. The entire structure was to be coated inside and out with pitch. And it's the ancient equivalent of waterproofing. Oh, it's like So it's like they're like tar or Yeah. something. I don't know.

It's just like mud. That's really spucking mud. God told Noah he was going to flood the entire earth. Every creature that breathed air would die. But God would establish his covenant with Noah. A specific contractual relationship.

And Noah was to bring into the ark his wife, three sons, and their wives. That's not a lot of dogs. What's What's the math? The math is I feel like this is that that IQ test thing. You got three wives, they got their husbands, you bring it together, wrap it around two dogs. How do you how many people?

Well, how do how do you Okay, so how do you not make So Noah's got to hit the wives and then the then they got to trade husb. So here it is again. Here it is [clears throat] again. One more time. You got the triangle going. So it's more than that.

It's like the Pentagon. So Noah with his wife, y two, his three sons, five, and their wives, eight, and that's it. Repopulate the earth. Didn't we do an episode where we mathematically somebody sent us a thing where it was like this is the minimum amount of people needed to sustain to actually without without having. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it was like 80. It's like a 100. I think it's like 80 or 100. something like that because then because it it allows enough of swapsies and then you can then start swap it then it's I don't know even how you do that math see I don't know how it would work because if I I know this is crude everybody you know like give us a break but if uh three sons and then three wives and they all had kids. Yeah.

But then they had to switch. Have to then you have to switch and then Noah's got to get involved. [laughter] He's got to get his He's not that old. I mean he's 600. 600 still works. Still [laughter] works.

But mathematically meaning you would have to Yeah. Ma mathematically the entire population is descended from from four dudes. Yeah. Like and those dudes share the same See, it doesn't even work cuz those dudes sh They're all They all share the same genes. It doesn't work. No, it doesn't work.

It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Well, it's just a story. It's fine. Yeah, it's a story. Yeah.

And also this is under the assumption that the entire planet is being flooded instead of this particular area. That's right. So this area was flooded. Part of the story could have been skewed because we know that there was a flood. Yeah. Yeah.

We've we've all there was like proof the flood occurred. Yeah. Um, and maybe actually, and we'll get into this in the theories in in the end, but if all of civilization was concentrated in one area at that time, then that's the Earth. Like, in their opinion, it's the Earth. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.

They don't know. [clears throat] They don't know what's on the other. Even if like 70 75% of the population's in one in like one zone. Yeah, that's Earth. Like, in my opinion, that's Earth. Okay.

And so, uh, and then the animals. So every living creature, every species of animal and bird, he was to bring two of each. But that's also like another thing I thought of was like that's only the species that are in that particular area. You know, it's like and this is this is modern day Iraq. Yep. Like what are the what what animals are there?

Yeah. What animals are there? Like, you know, I've you always see the thing like giraffes like I'm pretty sure lions giraffes did not beavers exist in that zone that sphere. I don't think there's a flying squirrel in Iraq. [laughter] I know, right? Or like, you know, gerbles and like where the are they?

No. Um, so he was to bring two of each, a male and a female. He was also to bring enough food for everyone on board. Now, see, that's a struggle. Yeah. Well, for eight people, it doesn't seem like a lot.

Well, no, but the animal food. No, but also I think that he they were only they weren't on like the ship for like ever obviously what seven days or some days. But then it's like the after effect there's no food afterwards. True. And then Okay. So like how much food do you need?

What would you plan for bro? [laughter] I'll be like how much how much ramen can we stuff on this boat? Like [laughter] I go to Walmart like I'm going to need more. One spicy beef and one [laughter] chicken palette. Literally. Get the creamy chicken out of here.

No. Shrimp. off. No. Get Get the I'd rather die. Yeah.

[Laughter] I'm actually I'm not going on the boat. Yeah. Oh, I love it. [clears throat] Um Noah did everything God commanded him exactly as God said. The text emphasizes this twice in almost identical language as if the author wants you to understand that Noah's obedience was total and literal. I mean, it's like it's kind of the point, right?

The point is like that he followed. He didn't like he followed. He didn't like do like he's like, "I can do this better." He's like, "God, what if I put a sail?" I know. He's like, [laughter] "Actually, hit me. What about a rudder?" Yeah. They're like, "Fuck." Noah was 600 years old when the flood came.

Oh, he was he was already sing. Jesus, dude. Dude is like And then he got immortality. Homie is tired. He is tired. [laughter] No wonder they depict him with like this old beard.

I know he's got his like staff and like I cannot do this anymore. What's the one? What's the movie Evan Almighty? Oh yeah, similar kind of beard. Oh, it's Evan Almighty when he's Noah. Not Bruce.

Yeah. The date according to Genesis was the 17th day of the second month. Okay. The fountains of the great deep burst open. Now, I don't know what that means. I don't know.

Fountains of the great deep. It probably just means like water started coming up. Yeah. Like that's what they're saying. It's a hurricane. No.

No. What the great deep is like maybe like underground aquifers like decided to explode. The floodgates of the heavens opened. It rained for 40 days. 40 Nights. Classic.

[Laughter] It's the play It's the playbook, baby. This is the playbook. If you guys didn't listen to the Ark of the Covenant episodes, uh, go back. There's a similar classic in there. Similar time frames. And it's always 40 days.

40 Days. 40 nights. Yeah. We like where, you know, Moses was up on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights with we're like, "How did he like how many beef jerky? How many like slim gyms can you like bring up there to like survive for 40 days?" So, but that wasn't when he was on the water. No, that was the causing the flood.

But then they said the but then why? So, is it double? It's like raining and coming up from beneath cuz they said the fountains of the So going forward the waters rose until they covered the mountains and apparently what that sounds like like a like a some sort of tsunami like some some earthquake. That does sound like a tsunami. You know earthquake and then the water here. Oh, that's the fountains because of the the tectonic plate coming out of the deep.

Oh yeah. Oh, that sound like I like that. Damn. Jorge just cracked the case. [laughter] So the waters rose until they covered the mountains and they literally say they covered them by 20 feet. So the biggest mountains were Wow.

20 Or 20 ft above it water. Yeah. Everything that breathed air on the dry land died. The fish unaffected. This literally killing the game. [laughter] The waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days.

150 Days. That sounds about right. Cuz what's that? Um, so that's how much time you would want to plan for your food. Yeah, exactly. 150.

So he's on the boat. He was on the boat for a buck 50. Bro, there's not enough cubits to to house the [laughter] We need more cubits. Then God remembered Noah. Oh, you forgot it's Oh Noah stole the boat. That phrase, God remembered Noah, is one of the most quietly devastating lines in the entire Bible.

It implies that Noah had been in on the boat on the water surrounded by the floating bodies of everything else on earth for months. It implies waiting. It implies the kind of silence that follows total destruction. And then God sent a wind over the earth and the waters began to recede. On the 17th day of the seventh month, exactly five months after the flood began, the ark came to rest. The text says it rested on the mountains of Ararat.

Not Mount Ararat. The mountains. The mountains of Ararat. Is that the same mountain where they discovered this that we were talking about earlier? This indentation. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Jorge. Yeah. Well, supposedly also also also I don't think everybody agrees on where the mount mountain of Ararat is. After 40 more days, Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven. The one window, the one cubit window.

[Laughter] Also, bro, what are you doing in there for 40 days? You already hit land. Oh my god. Right. He hit land and then he waited 40 days to open the window. Wait for the door.

Yeah. He's like, "We ain't I'm not leaving." Yeah. So, so after, so the waters receded and after 40 days, Noah opened the window that he had made in the ark and sent out a raven. Could you imagine the stench in that place? Oh my god. It's like a prison cell.

Oh, with the with the with the animal God. And the human Oh. So, he sent out the raven and and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up. Then he sent out a dove. The dove found no place to land and returned. He waited seven more days and sent the dove again.

This time it came back with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Oh yeah. It's like the olive branch. Like that's a whole Yeah. The whole thing, right? I'm an extended olive branch.

He waited seven more days and sent it a third time and this time it didn't come back. So Noah was 601. [laughter] And he's like, "Fucking kill me." So now 601, he removed the cover from the ark and looked out and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. God apparently told him to go out. He came out. He built an altar and offered burnt offerings of every clean animal and bird.

The Lord smelled the offering. But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you say bird? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So wait, God was like, bring to bring a male and a female. And then he finally gets like, "Kill one of the men.

[Laughter] Kill one of all of the animals." I would have to look into it further of what it meant by burnt offerings of every clean animal. Meaning it could have been their excrement. Uh, okay. Like, you know what I mean? It doesn't mean like it doesn't mean like Yeah. I'm saying like this is kind of counterintuitive to the whole plan [laughter] here.

Kill one of the animals. Trust me. Okay. So the Lord smelled the offering and the text uses this exact phrase physically without apology and said in his heart that he would never again destroy every living creature. Never again would he curse the ground because of humans even though every inclination of the human heart was evil from childhood. Okay, two things.

Hey, Eric. She should probably redact the part of you saying that it was their excrement because God came down and smelled the smoke. I don't I don't know what it I don't know. Should we look it up? First of all, it's a joke. I know.

No, I know. No, I know. You're right. I don't understand the wording. Secondly, I also just hate that like why I don't subscribe to that you're just born evil. Like I don't subscribe to that.

Yeah. Like it's also it's like it's a shitty thing for God to be like I don't know people that are I'm not saying it's ass possible but not everybody godamn I'm not saying but but it's but but saying like blankly everyone is like a piece of at birth like come on if you've ever had a kid you mean to tell me this little this little baby just wants to like be loved like now God is going going to create everybody not evil. Well, I think blueprint switch samples. I mean, I could be wrong, but it it's almost like God realizes that maybe he shouldn't have wiped out all humans. He's like, "Oh, Maybe some Where does Where does Adam and Eve fit into this also?" Cuz then was then they sinned just to start and then let's let's just call it SP. It was that was the creation of its like I mean Eve [laughter] us like she she she's like I want the Apple and he's like babe we can't he's like well it I need it can't afford that right now I want it a make it happen [laughter] I know like I don't care the credit cards are maxed get me that so then God spoke to Noah and his sons he blessed them and told them to fill the earth he gave them every animal and plant for food with one restrict riction.

Oh, wait, wait, wait. Oh, so he hooked him up. Yeah, he's like, "Oh, psych. Got him." They were not to eat meat with its blood still in it. Okay. Okay.

That was the one restriction. So, you got to cook them. You can't just eat it raw. Yeah. That's great. That's great.

I think that's that's smart. And then came the covenant. God told Noah that he was establishing a covenant with him, with his descendants, and with every living creature on earth. That never again would a flood destroy all of life. And as a sign of this covenant, God set a rainbow in the clouds. And every time he saw it, he would remember.

The rainbow was not for Noah. It was for God as a reminder to himself about what had happened. Okay. There are two things Genesis says that most people don't know, and they matter enormously for everything that comes after and what we're talking about, which is the first is the phrase mountains of Ararat. In the ancient world, Ararat was not the name of a single peak. It was the name of a kingdom.

Oh. Oh. So the mountains around that kingdom. Okay. The kingdom of Uratu, which occupied a broad region covering what is now eastern Turkey, which is where where we saw the thing. I think the image of the fattest mountain.

Yeah. Present time. It was also part of Armenia and parts of northwestern Iran. Okay. When Genesis says the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, it is pointing to a geographic region, not a GPS coordinate of a single mountain peak. Yeah.

And so that's the problem of us like where where is it? Where the is it? Exactly. They've heard of it. That opens the door to multiple candidate locations because like one thing I now I'm thinking like I'm already starting to get into like the end game here even though it's not the end game. It's like what if what if there were multiple I thought about that earlier too.

Yeah. It's like so it's on all these all these cultures at the same thing. Like what if there was Yeah. Yeah. And like what if you know even if let's say that you know it's this the singular god and he's like I'm going to hit up a couple you know couple of the faithful [laughter] and have them do it in separate areas cuz like that would also I'm just thinking also in terms of repopulation. Yeah.

It would make more sense if there was like, you know, interesting arcs. 20. Yeah. You remember the the movie 2012 with uh John? I mean, that was five. But that but wasn't that like the whole the Mayan was the Mayan thing.

But no, they actually built the boats and they called them ark one, arc, ar. Um but to your point, they built more than one. Multiple. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Smart. It's called redundancies. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Uh so that opens the door to multiple candidate locations and makes every argument about which specific mountain the ark landed on a debate.

The text itself never intended to settle. Mhm. The second uh thing in Genesis is the Hebrew word erets translated as earth throughout the flood narrative. ETS is the standard Hebrew word for land, ground, country, or territory. It is used throughout the Bible to mean things as small as a field and as large as the whole world. Oh, cool.

So, narrows it down. Super, right? So, when Genesis says the flood covered all the earth, the ancient reader Oh, it's like it covered the rights. It could have been like a region. It could have been a region. It didn't necessarily mean sometimes, man, the words that then translate and then there's different definitions of those means everything up.

It's like the telephone game up our entire, you know, history. Really, it's true. Uh, a person who had never seen a satellite image and whose known world was a specific region of the ancient near east was not necessarily imagining a planetwide catastrophe that submerged the summit of Mount Everest. They were imagining the destru destruction of everything that they knew, their land, their people, their civilization, which might not have been. Well, it's also like imagine it's like if you're you're growing up in ancient times, you don't know that you all you like you may think that like your village is Earth. Like this is Earth.

Yeah. The distinction has enormous scientific consequences. A global flood covering every mountain on the modern earth by 20 feet would require mathematically roughly three times the volume of water currently present on Earth today. Impossible. Yeah. Um and that's including the ice caps, the oceans, and the atmosphere combined.

Oh, great. Where it came from and where it went are questions geology has not answered because geology does not believe it happened that way. M but a regional flood, a catastrophic civilization ending rise in water level across the ancient near east has actually happened in recorded history. We have the evidence and that's what we're going to get into next. Okay, let's see. I like that.

Before we get to the mountain in Turkey, we need to deal with something that often gets overlooked. The idea that the ark rested on a specific mountain in a specific region and that people know where it is. That is not a modern claim. It is not something that started with satellite imaging or evangelical expedition funding. It is a documented continuous ancient tradition going back at least 2,300 years. So many years.

Uh Busus was a Babylonian priest who lived in the 3rd century BCE around 300 BC. He wrote a history of Babylon in Greek intended for Greek readers who were curious about this ancient civilization they had suddenly inherited after Alexander's conquest. His flood hero is called Zizthros. Ziz Thr, the same figure as Zizu Su rendered for a Greek. I know Jesus. Why name their kids this [laughter] Um it was rendered for a Greekeaking audience.

So, some say that it could be the same person, but it's just an alteration. Yeah, but it's like, you know, it's like a new director. Yeah, [laughter] exactly. Um, so writing in 300 BC specifically records that the flood boat came to rest in the mountains of Armania and that people in his own day were making pilgrimages to the site and breaking off pieces of timber of the ark to keep for themselves. And this little swag and it was to keep as talisman's and talisman's meaning physical wood. Yeah.

So it's like it's like a spiritual Yeah. Like so they go to it the bad crack off a little piece and leave be and so [laughter] so meaning people in 300 BC believed they were touching the actual remains of the ark. Nicholas of Damascus, a Greek historian and court philosopher to King Herod the Great in the 1st century BC, refers to a mountain in Armenia called Baris, where flood survivors landed and where remains of the vessel were preserved for a long time. Josephus, the first century Jewish historian who wrote for a Roman audience, cites multiple earlier sources, uh, including the same guy that we just mentioned when he tells the Noah story in his antiquities of the Jews. He treats the ark's location not as a legend but as an established ancient geographic knowledge. He notes that other writers have also mentioned it.

By his time in the 1st century AD, the tradition was already hundreds of years old. And this matters. It means that whatever you believe about the ark itself, the tradition of its location in this specific mountain region is ancient, documented, and it's documented across multiple languages and cultures and predates any modern search by more than two millennia. Jesus. So you can choose not to believe this story, but some went down [laughter] like But you can't Yes. Exactly.

There's so much cooperating like information. Exactly. Exactly. So Mount Ararat is Turkeykey's highest peak. It rises to 16,854 ft, over 3 miles above sea level. Damn.

And it also has a dormant stratto volcano with a permanent ice cap on top of it sitting in the extreme northeast corner of Turkey and it's a few miles from the borders of Armenia and Iran. Okay, big boy. It is one of the most recognizable mountains in the world and one of the most difficult to climb. glaciated above 14,000 ft. It's riddled with crevicees prone to storms that come without warning. And for significant periods of modern history, it was politically offlimits to outsiders because of its location in a sensitive military zone.

For our play, there you go. It's huge. For Armenians, Arat is a Ararat is a national symbol. It appears on their code of arms, dominates their cultural identity, even though the mountain itself sits inside Turkey. So, it's like not even there. It's not even in their country.

And they're like, "This is ours." Basically, for Christians across centuries, it became the assumed location of the ark's landing. For the Turkish government, it became the backdrop of one of the world's most sustained and strange archaeological obsessions. The sighting tradition at Ararat is long and inconsistent and impossible to dismiss entirely. In the early 20th century, an Armenian American man named George Hagopian claimed that his uncle took him as a young boy around 1908 to visit a large wooden structure embedded in the glacier on Ararat. He described walking on his roof, seeing its shape clearly. when he told this story decades later in 1970, he was put on a polygraph test and the results were inconclusive.

It's also I I hate when I I [laughter] really hate when they do that. They're like, "We'll just take a polygraph." I'm like, "Bro, it's not admissible in court. Why are we doing it?" Like I feel like it's like it's such It's like we should just like get rid of it. Like why why is it used ever? It doesn't just get rid of it. cuz people will do it like oh they take a polygraph and they're like it doesn't actually mean anything.

It literally doesn't mean anything. Yeah. But no one has found what he described. In 1955 a French explorer named Ferdan Navara climbed into a glacial formation on Ararat at around 13,000 ft. Emerged with pieces of handworked wood physical wood from inside a glacier on a mountain in eastern Turkey. He brought it to France.

Early dating suggested extreme age, potentially thousands of years. Later, carbon 14 testing by multiple labs place the wood between the 4th and 8th century AD. Oh, okay. So, a little little not as little not ancient, but not as they anticipated, but some conspiracy theorists claim that we just got it wrong on the on the dating. Oh, the science is wrong. The sciences the sciences are wrong.

So whether Navara found genuine ancient wood, the remnants of a medieval monastery or a shrine or something he brought with him remains disputed. But he brought wood down from inside that glacier. That fact has never been successfully explained. Like what was the wood doing there? Yeah. Where did the wood come from?

Exactly. Then there is James Irwin. James Irwin was an Apollo 15 astronaut. He was the eighth person to walk on the moon supposedly. [laughter] He returned from the lunar surface a changed man. He became a devout Christian and in the 80s made multiple expeditions to Mount Ararat in search of the ark.

This dude was an adventure. I'm ready to go. He's I'm an astronaut. I've been to the moon. What else do I What's the next conquest? He fell on a glacier and injured himself seriously.

He was denied access by Turkish authorities on multiple occasions. He never found anything and he died in 91 and he had hoped he had gone back. But his quote about the search has become something close to legendary. And he said, "It's easier to walk on the moon. I've done all I possibly can, but the ark continues to elude us." Okay. A man who walked on the moon said finding Noah's ark was harder.

Okay. I mean, well, I guess you're finding a technically a fictitious thing, but you can see the moon. Like, you can look at the moon. Like, look up. Yep. Yeah.

It's like trying to find a needle in a hastack. It's like trying to find the holy grail. Yeah. Uh, and at that point, we're going to we're going to kind of wrap on part one. Yep. Yeah.

Uh, so I don't know where you guys at so far. A lot to take in. I [clears throat] mean, we know we know there was a flood. Like something happened. There was some page. Yeah, there was a flood.

I like the idea worldwide. No, no, I'm not about that. I like the idea of of a tsunami. Yeah. Okay. I mean, but even in the idea of a tsunami, like, how did homie know to build a giant boat?

Right. So that's when you're like, "Okay, like how do you explain that?" Yeah. Or mayh, you know, I don't know. Or or like, you know, to play like the Super Devil's advocate. I love the Yeah. Like what if it was just a big boat, like a big boat that was at some port and the tsunami happened and homies just happened to be on the boat and then you know the guy survives and then tells the story and is like, "Oh shit." And they're like, "Oh this is crazy." And then the story was kind of twisted out.

Yeah. Just twisted over time. And he was like maybe he you know maybe at that time he found faith and then you know I can imagine being alone on a thing you know maybe he like had some sort of moment and then he's like oh I got to spread the word and then I mean it is a thing like I mean there's so many different cultures that kind of collaborate cooperate on the same story. So, Mhm. I don't know. You can't like to, you know, to I'm just playing devil's advocate on Sean's theory.

Like, okay, that I like that, but so many different times. Everybody, but also like everyone's trying to take credit. I feel like everyone wants credit for it. Like, everyone wants to be the one who like survived the flood. Oh, yeah. For sure.

Well, in the By the way, I really love the earthquake tsunami. It's a great It's so I didn't think about it. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool. So, in the next episode, we are going to go more uh present day where it's like all of the research being done, the expeditions, the scanning of the rocks, uh you know, what's going on lately cuz they're doing digs nowadays, etc. And then we're going to go into the theories, okay, overall of of theory, Noah's arc, etc. So,