An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 6

Alice C. Linsley

Reed boat construction

Genesis chapter 6 opens with a recognition that humans had multiplied upon the earth and “sons of God” married fair women. The biblical Hebrew would have regarded sexual relations between supernatural beings and humans as a sign of a wicked generation. However, the phrase “sons of God” likely refers to deified rulers. Deification or apotheosis of rulers is first attested in ancient Egypt. Djedi, Mehu, Kagemni, Heqaib, Isi, and Wahka are examples of deified Egyptian rulers. The historical King Osiris took a mythical “god” status during the Middle Kingdom.

These powerful rulers usually had multiple wives. This also would appear decadent to the early Hebrew ruler-priests who had one, or only two wives.
                                                                                                          
In Genesis 6:6-7, the Creator regrets making humans and he decides to blot out mankind from the face of the earth. He explains this to Noah and gives Noah instructions for the construction of a reed ship sealed inside and out with pitch. A reed boat coated with bitumen was found at the site of H3 at As-Sabiyah in Kuwait. The boat dates to c.5000 B.C. 

Neanderthal hafting with tar is evident at Gura Cheii-Râsnov Cave (Romania) and Hummal and Umm el-Tlel in Syria. At these sites archaeologists found tools and weapons with bitumen adhesive to fasten handles to tools and blades to spears. The adhesive helped to strengthen and waterproof bindings made of sinew, hide, or plant fibers used to attach bone or stone tools and weapons to handles.

The Covenant with Noah and his Sons

Noah, a descendant of both Cain and Seth, is described as a righteous man living among people of an unrighteous generation. God establishes a covenant with Noah that extends to his three sons Ham, Shem, and Japheth. The naming of Noah’s three sons is the third suggestion in the Bible of the three-clan confederations of the biblical Hebrew. The first is represented by the three sons of Adam and Eve: Cain, Abel, and Seth. The second with the naming of Jubal, Jabal and Tubal-cain in Genesis 4. Tubal-cain is described as a forger of all instruments of bronze and iron (Gen. 4:22). One of the oldest known iron-smelting sites in the world is in the village of Lejja in southeastern Nigeria. 

The covenant language of Genesis chapter 6 is elaborated in Genesis 9:8-17 where the covenant is extended further to Noah’s descendants and to all living creatures (Gen. 9:9). The rainbow is said to be the sign of the covenant. It is assumed by this source that Noah was not circumcised. However, ritual flint knives found at Nekhen could have been used for circumcision and these date to the time of Noah (C. 4000 BC). The covenant language indicates that this narrative comes from a source that wrote long after the time when Noah lived.

In the Genesis 6 account, Noah is to bring one set of each type of animal onto the ark: a male and a female. Nothing is said about clean and unclean animals, a priestly concern.

The ark which Noah is to build is made of reeds (gopher). The word that appears in Genesis 6:14 is the same word that describes the reed basket in which baby Moses floated (Ex. 2:3). As a ruler in the Lake Chad region, Noah would have had a fleet of reed ships.

The flood of Noah occurred in the region of Lake Chad during the African Aqualithic, a term coined by the British archaeologist John Sutton (“Journal of Africa History”, 1974; “Antiquity”, 1977). The years of wetness were due to monsoonal patterns that brought extended rainy seasons to the Lake Chad Basin. The ancient Basin was ringed by mountains to the northwest (Ahaggar Mountains) and to the north (Tibesti Mountains) from which the water drained into the Basin. The Shebshi Mountains are to the southwest in Adamawa State and the Mandara Mountains extend along the northern part of the Cameroon–Nigeria border. 

Before 4500 years ago the climate was characterized by several wet phases with an optimum in the Sahara region at around 8500-6500 years ago. These were interrupted by short dry periods. Photographs taken from satellites reveal an extensive paleolake bed. At its maximum extent Lake Chad was larger than any lake that exists on earth today. From 7500-6950 B.C. the lake had a depth of 586 feet. Lake Chad has stretched or retreated many times in the past, but from the time of Noah (c.4,200 BC to date), the lake water has continuously diminished. The last great period of inundation appears to have occurred during Noah’s time and from Noah’s perspective all the land (eretz) was covered with water.

The mention of Ararat in the Genesis 8 account leads people to believe that Noah’s ark came to rest in the region of Armenia. That idea is based on the supposition that Ararat corresponds to Urartu, the Assyrian name for a kingdom in the region of Lake Van. However, the biblical account of the flood does not mention Armenia. The section on Genesis chapter 8 looks at the many place names (toponyms) found in Mesopotamia that have equivalent place names in Nigeria. The correspondence between ancient place names in both regions necessitates a closer look at the biblical data surrounding Noah and the flood.

Related reading: An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 1; An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 2; An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 3; An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 4; An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 5; An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 7

"May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.” (Gen. 9:27) as the tents were the possession of the wives, and Jewish ethnicity is traced by the maternal line, the people of Japheth are counted among the Jews' ancestors.

In Hebrew “his tent” is written as אָהֳלוֹ (ahalo), as in Genesis 31:25. As the Hebrew linguist Jeff Benner has noted,

"The tents of the Bedouin were not the property of the men, but instead the wives. In their culture, it is not “his tent,” it is “her tent.” Assuming this is not only true for the modern day nomads, but also the Hebrew nomads of the Bible, it would explain the spelling of אָהֳלֹה (ahaloh). The vowel pointings, which are the dots and dashes above and below the Hebrew letters, were invented only 1,000 years ago. So if we remove these vowel pointings we have the word אהלה (ahalah), which means “her tent.” Noah was not sleeping off his drunken stupor in “his tent,” because he did not own a tent. He was sleeping in “her tent,” the tent owned by his wife. Genesis 24:67 reads, “And Isaac brought her [Rebekah] into his mother Sarah's tent…”

Donald P. Cole observed that the tent was the possession of the wife during the year that he lived with the Bedouin. His research is documented in his book Nomads of the Nomads.

Related reading: A Tent for the Sun; Where Dwelleth Japheth

Was Earth Repopulated After Noah's Flood?

Alice C. Linsley


Noah lived in the region of Lake Chad (Borno/Benue - "Land of Noah") approximately 5500-4500 B.C, when the Sahara experienced a wet period. Humans had already dispersed globally by 12,000 B.C. 

Some of those dispersed populations were from earlier migrations out of Africa. There have been multiple migrations out of Africa, probably as early as 500,000 years ago. 

Abraham was a descendant of the Kushite kingdom builder Nimrod who established his territory in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. This explains why in the Bible we first meet Abraham in Mesopotamia.

8000-year dugout found in the Sahara

About 4000 years before Noah people were using dugouts to navigate the rivers of the Green Sahara. This is attested by the discovery of an 8000-year-old black Mohagany dugout in Dufuna in the Upper Yobe valley along the Komadugu Guna River in Northern Nigeria. This region was much wetter at the time that Noah and his sons ruled there.

The oldest known zoological collection was discovered during excavations at Nekhen on the Nile in 2009. This royal menagerie that dates to 3500 B.C. and included hippos, hartebeest, elephants, baboons and wildcats. The story of the Proto-Saharan ruler Noah preserving a collection of animals is based on historical reality.

Nekhen is the oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship (4200 B.C.). Noah probably knew of this place.

What was happening before Noah?

The evidence of archaic human industry, religion, ritual burial, and domesticity in Africa, Arabia and China creates a more accurate picture of the earlier populations.

On the Arabian Peninsula, the Qafzeh population was using tools 125,000 years ago at Jebel Faya and burying their dead in red ochre.

Humans were making reed mattresses 77,000 years ago in South Africa. That is where the oldest mattress— made from compacted grasses and leafy plants— was found at the Sibudu Cave site in KwaZulu-Natal. In this same region a stone carving of a python has been found that dates to 70,000 years.

There is the evidence of mining 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. These major mining operations in southern Africa included quarries and tunnels. It is estimated that a million kilos of red ocher ore were excavated from several mines. At one mine half a million stone-digging tools were found. The red ocher was ground to power and was used globally to bury rulers. Anthropologists agree that the red ocher symbolized blood. Apparently, it was connected to the people’s hope that the ruler might rise from the dead and lead his faithful people to immortality.

The Pengtoushan culture thrived along the Yangtze River between BC. 7500–6100, and the Yangshao culture flourished along the central Yellow River between BC. 5000 and 3000. Yangshao nobles wore silk garments. 

Cemetaries were established which reveal ritual burial. Paul Sereno unearthed 10,000-year skeletons at Gobero in Niger. These were buried on the edge of a paleolake on the northwestern rim of the Chad Basin. The Gobero site is the earliest known cemetery in the Sahara and the skeletons found there indicated that some were at least 6 feet tall.

Gobero skeleton (G3B8) measures 6 feet 6 inches
Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration

At the time of the Gobero populations (9700-4400 years ago), humans were dispersed globally, and during the time of Noah these populations were not destroyed. 

There is no evidence pf a worldwide flood that led to extinction of humans and animals. Human settlements in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the Near East were along major water systems and prone to flooding. Flood stories often appear in ancient texts. A late source (Deuteronomist Historian) used the Noah story to promote his theology of God's wrath upon sinful humanity. 

Noah's flood was a large regional flood. The term "eretz" which appears in the Genesis flood stories can mean earth, land, or territory. The Lake Chad region was Noah's territory and is the only place on earth claimed to be Noah's homeland by the local populations. The local Kanuri people refer to Lake Chad as "Buhar Nuhu", meaning Sea of Noah.

Noah's three sons were Hebrew clan chiefs whose descendants intermarried (caste endogamy). Those descendants dispersed widely and carried their beliefs wherever they lived. However, they did not repopulate the earth after a catastrophic worldwide flood.

Related reading: The Extent of Noah's Flood; Noah's Descendants; The Animals on Noah's Ark; Abraham's Faith Lives in Christianity; Understanding the Science of Biblical Anthropology; Discovering the Historical Noah