Before the Flood: The Biblical Flood as a Real Event and How It Changed the Course of Civilization

Using the most recent archeological findings and scholarship, bestselling author and historian Ian Wilson makes the case that the Biblical Flood was a real event--a catastrophe whose proportions shaped not only religious belief but human history. Exploring all the evidence, including new underwater discoveries by Robert Ballard (of SS Titanic fame), Wilson explains how a flood that devastated the Black Sea area must be connected to the Biblical flood. Wilson also argues, learnedly and persuasively, that the center of the civilized world was further to the West than previously thought--not in Egypt or Mesopotamia but in what is today Northern Turkey. Scrupulous in its details and compelling in its sweep, Before the Flood is narrative detective history at its most provocative, contributing a vital new chapter to the debate about the Bible and origins of the modern world.