Chazal - Sages on Mabul - MABUL

"At the beginning G-d created Heaven and Earth."

That’s how our history starts. In the narration of the first chapters of the Bible humanity learns about the idea of mankind placed in a physical environment.
Physical environment will be the subject of this and the following essays and particularly the story of The Mabul – the Flood.
At first B-H we will learn some facts about the world that existed before the catastrophe of the Mabul.
There is not much material to work with, but we are not left completely blind about that period of time in the history of the planet Earth.
Most of the time however in this and the following works we will concentrate on the topic of the Mabul itself.
We will start with historiographic material left to us by the great sages of the past and of course, even before that, we will begin from the Biblical description itself.
However, it must be understood by any non-Jewish reader that the post Biblical historic and historiographic material has to a practicing Jew as much value as the Bible itself. We can not spend much time at this moment to explain the interdependence of Torah Shebeksav and Torah Shebealpe – Written and Oral Torah. I will use my favorite example here, of Written Torah being a “Tablet of Content”, to what a Jew understands as the Torah.
We will try explaining the topic in a few more words.
If we would pick up any history book of any nation and claim that only the events described in that particular book really happened and nothing else it would be foolish, to say the least.
The Bible is not a history book but there is history in the Bible. The Jewish national memory is not limited only to that, without doubt, fundamental collection of Scriptures.
For centuries, by design, the rest of the Torah as well as the rest of national memory was transferred in oral form.
It is beyond the scope of this work to explain reasons for this fact in length.
As Exiles and other catastrophes occurred in the history of the Jewish nation, more and more of this material was collected in the written form by Sages and leaders of our people.
Midrash, Talmud, works of Rishonim and Acharonim picked from, dwindling as a result of persecutions, bits of what use to be subject of memorizing, and were preserved for future generations for further study.
Broader Torah is predominantly moral, legal and philosophical material. However moral and legal decisions are made by people living in a historical context. Therefore, we have some of this historical context preserved, not as primary material but still enough to build a framework for different periods of the Jewish and human history.
Another barrier besides not being familiar with Jewish postbiblical literature is the language itself.
It will be evident trough reading the material on this website, that the previous generations of Sages, made an upmost effort to preserve the meaning and grammatical forms of the language of revelation, even for a person studying Torah on a steady basis. Someone not familiar with Biblical Hebrew will have to scale another wall of difficulty.
There is another profound complexity with reading and understanding some of the material quoted here and posted on the ‘Sources’ page – navigating Midrashic material.
One passage of the Midrash may contain homiletic, legal, ethical, philosophical, kabalistic, historic and even humoristic material. That is not uncommon. With utmost care we will try to segregate different aspects of the content of the Midrash and Aggadah.
Using some guidelines from masters like Macharal from Prague, Vilna Gaon and Ramchal who wrote essay on this topic, I ask The Almighty for His providence and guidance in this work hoping that it will be granted.

Beginning.

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
When God began to create heaven and earth.
יֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים יִקָּו֨וּ הַמַּ֜יִם מִתַּ֤חַת הַשָּׁמַ֙יִם֙ אֶל־מָק֣וֹם אֶחָ֔ד וְתֵרָאֶ֖ה הַיַּבָּשָׁ֑ה וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן׃
God said, “Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area, that the dry land may appear.” And it was so.
וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ לַיַּבָּשָׁה֙ אֶ֔רֶץ וּלְמִקְוֵ֥ה הַמַּ֖יִם קָרָ֣א יַמִּ֑ים וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב׃
God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas. And God saw that this was good.
Out of mass of water covering entire planet, one mass of land emerged to be populated by vegetation, animal kingdom and ultimately man.
While the word Eretz - land is written in singular form, the word Maim means waters or seas.
Sages asked this question in Midrash Bereishis Rabba 5:8
וּלְמִקְוֵה הַמַּיִם קָרָא יַמִּים, אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בֶּן רַבִּי חֲלַפְתָּא וַהֲלוֹא יַם אֶחָד הוּא וּמַה תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר יַמִּים, אֶלָא אֵינוֹ דּוֹמֶה טַעַם
דָּג הָעוֹלֶה מֵעַכּוֹ לָעוֹלֶה מִצִּידוֹן וְלָעוֹלֶה מֵאַסְפַּמְיָא
And the reservoir of waters He called - Seas. Rabbi Yose bar Chalafta said: But isn’t here (at the time of creation) only one Ocean? What can we learn from this place calling Sea - Seas?
This is because different taste of the fish - different from Acco, different from Sidon and different from the Spanish Sea.
Obviously, there was no questioning about mass of land even though this conversation is taking place when many lands exist. The Sages are aware about only one land at the time of creation.
Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch On Chumash (Genesis 8:2) states:
“The places where so called antediluvian remains have been found indicated that in earlier times there was a quite a different assignment of seasons and temperatures, and that the splitting asunder and conformations of the earth by the oceans, rivers, mountains, volcanic eruptions, etc., as we know it is at a later period.”
In the short history of our planet, there is no other period where a catastrophic split of this one mass of land could have happened than the time when the Earth was covered with a cushion of liquid.
But before we will come to the topic of the Mabul we will try to picture this antediluvian world with the pieces of information transferred to us from the world before.
It must be understood that between the formation of the Jewish people as a nation and events of the Flood, only a few generations passed. The Torah itself says that between Noach and Abraham there were 10 generations but the longevity of the few first generations after the Mabul made it possible that between Shem who witnessed and survived the Mabul, and Moishe Rabaini – Moses who wrote the story of it in the Torah as a part of revelation, only three generation were necessary to transfer the history of the Mabul and the world before. Some parts of the story though, were not a matter of tradition but of revelation, as it was not possible for people in the Ark to have some observations written by Moishe.
Shem was born several hundred years before the Mabul and was living long enough to see Yaakov-Jacob, the father of the Tribes. Yocheved, mother of Moishe was 17 years old when Yaakov passed away.
Indeed, a very similar calculation may be made about the generations between Creation and Mabul.
At the time of Moses there are several millions of people to remember and transfer those stories.
The World Before as we can see from the quotation of Rav Hirsch, the temperatures and nature in general were different than that after the Mabul.
Rav Avigdor Miller in his commentary on The Torah writes in similar tones:
“At the beginning, all animals equally distributed the earth, for the climate everywhere was mild and uniform” and “It is evident from fossils everywhere that previously there had existed a more even distribution of plants and animals.”
Both of them -Rav Hirsch and Rav Miller, support the received tradition with scientific observation of paleontological findings but others before them were aware about those conditions as well.
Sforno writes:
והנני משחיתם את הארץ, “so that now I will destroy them together with the earth. I will destroy the climate which could support life on earth by interfering with the sun’s orbit and rearranging it from the beginning of the deluge for the entire future.”
Sforno on Genesis 8:22 writes:
“All the time periods mentioned in this verse will somehow be related to the position of the sun at different times during the year. It would be different from before the deluge. Whereas prior to the deluge the sun had remained at a fixed distance relative to the Earth all year round, its orbit being circular, resulting in eternal spring in the populated parts of the Earth, now there would be all these changes, though at predetermined intervals, resulting in alternating seasons of relative warmth and cold due to the elliptical nature of the sun’s orbit.”
Despite the fact that Sforno explains the change of the climate in pre-Copernican terms, he is aware that there was huge difference between antediluvian and postdiluvian climate.
Midrash Beraishis Rabba 34:11 describes antediluvian environment further:
דְּאָמַר רַבִּי יִצְחָק אַחַת לְאַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה הָיוּ זוֹרְעִים וּמְהַלְּכִין מִסּוֹף הָעוֹלָם וְעַד סוֹפוֹ לְשָׁעָה קַלָּה וּמַתְּלִישִׁין אַרְזֵי לְבָנוֹן בַּהֲלִיכָתָן, וְהָיוּ
אֲרָיוֹת וּנְמֵרִים חֲשׁוּבִים בְּעֵינֵיהֶם כְּנִימָה בִּבְשָׂרוֹ, הָא כֵיצַד הָיָה לָהֶם אֲוִיר יָפֶה כְּמִן פֶּסַח וְעַד הָעֲצֶרֶת.
Rabbi Yitschok said - (At the time before the Mabul) “They were sawing once in forty years. They walked from one side of the world to the other in a short time uprooting Cedars of Lebanon and wild animals were no more harmful than pain the of pulling hair from the skin. What was the reason for that? (Their size and strength) They enjoyed beautiful weather like weather between Peisach and Shvios (Spring).”
In Talmud Sanhedrin 108a we read:
“We have rivers and springs from which we take our supply.”
We don’t have to imagine a lot to picture conditions of if not paradise itself, surely paradise-like ecosystem, even compared to the best climate zones and environment in postdiluvian times. Not only the climate and content of air was better, but caused all nature, fauna and flora, to grow bigger and older, including man.
Midrash Tanchuma, Noach 7:4
“R. Berechiah said: The men of the generation of the flood were exceedingly strong and tall, as it is written: These same were the mighty men (Gen. 6:4), and if He had not punished them with fire that descended from above, nothing would have been able to destroy them.”
In our further explanation we will display enormous evidence of what is being described in the words of our sages and what they could not know, only if this information was transferred to them from previous generations starting with people who witnessed those paradise-like conditions.
What about the topography of the antediluvian continent?
This is how Psalmist describes process o elevating mountains and creating valleys and canyons:
תְּ֭הוֹם כַּלְּב֣וּשׁ כִּסִּית֑וֹ עַל־הָ֝רִ֗ים יַֽעַמְדוּ־מָֽיִם׃
You made the deep cover it as a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
מִן־גַּעֲרָ֣תְךָ֣ יְנוּס֑וּן מִן־ק֥וֹל רַֽ֝עַמְךָ֗ יֵחָפֵזֽוּן׃
They fled at Your blast, rushed away at the sound of Your thunder,
יַעֲל֣וּ הָ֭רִים יֵרְד֣וּ בְקָע֑וֹת אֶל־מְ֝ק֗וֹם זֶ֤ה ׀ יָסַ֬דְתָּ לָהֶֽם׃
—mountains rising, valleys sinking— to the place You established for them.
גְּֽבוּל־שַׂ֭מְתָּ בַּל־יַֽעֲבֹר֑וּן בַּל־יְ֝שׁוּב֗וּן לְכַסּ֥וֹת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
You set bounds they must not pass so that they never again cover the earth.
From the statements above we can learn that high mountains did not exist before the Mabul. There were however higher and lower elevations on the supercontinent and perhaps even large areas of the depression. One of those lower areas is described by Rashi:
”מבול A FLOOD — so called because it ruined (בלה) everything; because it cast everything into confusion (בלל), and because it brought (הוביל from root יבל) everything down from the heights to a lower level. And this last explanation underlies the translation of Onkelos who translates it by טופנא (Ar. טוף = Heb. צוף) because the Flood caused everything to float about and brought it (the Ark) to Babel which is a low-lying district. That is the reason why it (Babylon) is also called,  Shinar (שנער): because all those who died through the Flood were shaken out (ננערו) into it.”
We can only suspect that other areas in postdiluvian land configuration which are rich in fossil fuels, were also such lower districts of the antediluvian continent.

First week of destruction

Midrash Bereishis Rabba 31:12, the earliest post biblical text informs us:
בראשית ו, יז: אֶת הַמַּבּוּל מַיִם, מַיִם הָיוּ, וְכֵיוָן שֶׁהָיוּ יוֹרְדִין הָיוּ נַעֲשִׂים מַבּוּל.
“The flood of water; - It was just a rain but once it descended it became a flood.”
Rabeinu Bahya gives a more detailed description of that first stage of the Mabul as it was different than the following 40 (or 33) days of deluge.
“A close look at the structure of the verses detailing the narrative of the deluge makes it plain that G-d found it very difficult to carry out His decision to wipe out mankind. At the beginning (7,12) the Torah wrote ויהי הגשם על הארץ, “the rain remained on earth,” whereas later on in verse
17 the Torah referred to the fact that this was in reality not mere rain but a deluge by describing it as a מבול, “a deluge.” This indicates that originally this rain descended in a regular manner”
The rain itself was not yet that of catastrophic proportions but other catastrophic events began to change the known landscape forever.
Sefer HaYashar (Midrash), Book of Genesis, Noach 4
“And the Lord caused the earth to quake on that day, and the sun was darkened, and the foundations of the world trembled, and all the earth was shaken and the lightnings were ‎flashing and thunders were roaring, and all the fountains of the whole earth were broken up, ‎the like of
which had never been known to its inhabitants before.” (…)” And it was on the seventh day of the six hundredth year of the ‎life of Noah, that the waters of the flood came upon the earth. And all the fountains of the ‎deep were split, and the windows of the heavens were opened, and the
rain was upon the ‎earth forty days and forty nights.”
As land began to split and departure one future continent mass from another, the whole planet bounced in the way that what once was East became West and perhaps even the entire planet flipped in the way that magnetic poles were switched around. Deposits of ferromagnetic metals in sedimentary strata, suggest precisely this replacement.
Rashi on Genesis 8:22:7
ויום ולילה לא ישבתו DAY AND NIGHT SHALL NOT CEASE — From this we may infer that they (day and night) ceased during the period of the Flood, for the planetary system did not function, so that there was no distinction between day and night “(Genesis Rabbah 34:11).
We learn from this Rashi, that during the entire time of the Mabul, the orbit of the Earth was disrupted in some way. But Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), in Sanhedrin 11:116(Gen. 7, 10) tells us that indeed the first period of the Mabul was different that rest of it.
“And it came to pass after the seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. What is the nature of these seven days? Rav said: “The seven days of mourning for Mesushelach. From this you may learn that the lamentation [upon the death] of the righteous delay’s evil
dispensation from coming. “(…)” Another explanation is given: After the Holy One, praised be He! caused the entire order of creation to be changed that the sun [instead of rising in the East and setting in the West], shall rise in the West and set in the East.”
As the continent began to split, the gaps between masses of lands drifting away, were filled with magma.
Smaller gaps resulted in formations of volcanic chains which also formed and later became areas rich with geysers and hot springs. But first fire erupted from beneath the earth as it was predicted by Noach to his generation.
Talmud Sanhedrin 108b
לא נפנה דרך כרמים They said to him: If so we will not clear a path through vineyards, i.e., we will continue to sin.
דרש רבא מאי דכתיב (איוב יב, ה) לפיד בוז לעשתות שאנן נכון למועדי רגל מלמד שהיה נח הצדיק מוכיח אותם ואמר
להם דברים שהם קשים כלפידים והיו (בוזים) [מבזין] אותו אמרו לו זקן תיבה זו למה אמר להם הקבt”;ה מביא עליכם
את המבול אמרו מבול של מה אם מבול של אש יש לנו דבר אחר ועליתה שמה ואם של מים הוא מביא אם מן הארץ
הוא מביא יש לנו עששיות של ברזל שאנו מחפין בהם את הארץ ואם מן השמים הוא מביא יש לנו דבר ועקב שמו
ואמרי לה עקש שמו
Rava taught: What is the meaning of that which is written: “A contemptible torch [lapid] in the thought of him that is at ease, a thing ready for them whose foot slips” (Job 12:5)?
This teaches that Noah the righteous would rebuke the people of his generation, and he said to them statements that are harsh as torches [kelapidim], and they would treat him with contempt. They said to him: Old man, why are you building this ark? Noah said to them: The Holy One, Blessed be He, is bringing a flood upon you. They said to him: A flood of what? If it is a flood of fire, we have another item and it is called alita, and it is fireproof. And if it is a flood of water that He brings, if He brings the water from the earth, we have iron plates with which we can plate the earth to prevent the water from rising. And if He brings the water from the heavens, we have an item and it is called ekev, and some say it is called ikkesh, which will absorb the water.
אמר להם הוא מביא מבין עקבי רגליכם - Noah said to them: If He wishes He will bring It from between your feet.”
At this low stage of clearly arrogant and idolatrous humanity, the possibility of total destruction caused by G-d or so-called natural agents, was beyond their comprehension.
Midrash Bereishis Rabba 28:7 continues to inform us on additional details not only about the arrogant behavior of the generation of Flood but what occurred and was witnessed at very beginning of the Mabul
אָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר (איוב כב, כ): אִם לֹא נִכְחַד קִימָנוּ, בַּתְּחִלָּה אִבֵּד הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת מָמוֹנָן שֶׁלֹא יִהְיוּ אוֹמְרִים לְמָמוֹנֵנוּ הוּא צָרִיךְ,
(איוב כב, כ): וְיִתְרָם אָכְלָה אֵשׁ, שֶׁהָיוּ רוֹאִים בָּלוֹרִיּוֹת שֶׁל זָהָב נִתָּרוֹת בָּאֵשׁ
Said Rabbi Eleazar - If at first Hakudoish Burich He would not destroy their money, they would say that” He is after our money “. Their wealth was consumed by fire, they saw their gold melting in fire.”
Open fiery chasms were filled with water flowing through the original land as well as possible internal seas and lakes. (We hope to present evidence of such internal bodies of water from the antediluvian continent)
Chasms between drifting new continents were filled up with oceanic water. Lower and possible depression areas were filled with the water floating on the surface of the earth.
This is precisely what Midrash Beraishis Rabba 32:7 tells us:
בראשית ז, יא: נִבְקְעוּ כָּל מַעְיְנֹת תְּהוֹם רַבָּה, וְאַחַר כָּךְ וַאֲרֻבֹּת הַשָּׁמַיִם נִפְתָּחוּ.
“First came water from the bottom and only after that the windows of the sky were opened.”
Once surface waters got mixed with exposed magma, tremendous evaporation caused the initial rain to increase and probably after a few days even areas that were not in the reach of waters were flooded by the constantly increasing rain.
This is what we learn from Or HaChaim on Genesis 8:2:
ויסכדו מעינות תהום. “The wells of the deep closed up.”
“The Torah hints here, that the waters beneath the earth had risen in proportion to the rain descending from the heavens. These two phenomena’s go hand in hand. Our verse alludes to this fact by mentioning the withdrawal of the waters beneath the earth as occurring simultaneously with the cessation of the rain from the heavens. We have pointed out previously that these two types of waters complement each other, enabling growth to occur (Taanis 28).”
As rivers caused by precipitation flowed through the fractures in the volcanic land, which remains we can clearly see throughout the planet Earth, even more evaporation and consequent rain followed.
This is how Rav Avigdor Miller describe events of the Mabul in his commentary on Genesis”
7:11. ON THIS DAY WERE SPLIT OPEN ALL THE FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP AND
THE WINDOWS OF THE HEAVENS WERE OPENED. The layers of the sub-soil were thereby agitated and generated great heat by friction, causing eruptions of super-heated steam and earthquakes. Melted materials forced their way with violence to the surface, thus causing innumerable volcanoes to go into action on a scale unknown today, but the burnt-out craters are found all over the surface of the globe in amazing numbers. The movement of the earth's face caused new mountains to arise; old ones were in some instances lowered or leveled. The tremendous force of violently flawing waters carried huge boulders like pebbles and deposited them in new locations. There are no "windows of the heavens." These expressions ("fountains of the great deep and the windows of the heavens") are used Ln order to describe the extraordinary abundance of water and the violence of its impact. Similarly: Rivers (or "floods") will clap their hands; mountains will sing together" (Tehillim 97:8). "Split open', denotes violent explosion of super heated subterranean materials mixed with water. When volcanoes erupt, they release great masses of dust particles and gases which may darken the atmosphere for many weeks. At this time, when a very large number of volcanoes went into action, they prevented the sunlight from reaching the earth over great surfaces for a long time.”
In his description Rav Miller talks not only about the initial seven days of The Mabul but also about what happened after.
We will come back I-H to his description in the next paragraph describing the following 40 days of rain of extraordinary proportions and the 150 days of total destruction and remodeling of planet Earth.

40 days of rain

Although we titled this paragraph “40 days of rain”, but some of the other events of the Mabul initiated at it’s very beginning and continued through the braking moment of the end of the 150 days period.
As continents and smaller masses of land began to drift away, water was filling the gaps only to evaporate in seconds causing precipitation unknown ever before or after those events.
Once the gaps became broad enough to allow oceanic water to cover the exposed magma, evaporation slowed down and ceased after 40 days of intense rainfall.
Nevertheless, as the bottom of the new forming oceanic areas were still opened to the mantle of the Earth, the water was heated in some places almost to a boiling temperature.
The Gemara Zevachim 113a notes that:
“This is in accordance with the statement of Rav Ḥisda, as Rav Ḥisda says: The generation of the flood sinned with boiling heat, i.e., forbidden sexual intercourse, and they were punished with the boiling heat of the flood waters. As it is written here, with regard to the flood: “And God remembered Noah and every living creature and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters calmed [vayashoku hamayim]”
We will not dwell on the homiletic message of this statement but continue with other statements of the Sages who were able to make them only because of the information about the temperature of the water was transferred to them through the time as a part of Jewish national memory.
Rabbeinu Bahya, Bereshit 7:23:1
וימח את כל היקום , “He obliterated all existence.” The Torah here includes all living creatures on earth as having been killed by the boiling waters which covered the earth.”
And Chizkuni on Genesis 8:1:2
וישכו המים, “the waters subsided - the wording proves that the waters were almost boiling hot.”
The Ramban notes that marine creatures survived in the cooler pockets of water only to replenish postdiluvian Oceans once the water cooled sufficiently.
At the same time, as new oceanic floors were forming under the cover of the water, the water or rather, mud, was overflowing drifting mases of lands destroying most forms of land life in the process.
Lands were flooded by the initial flow of water descending toward the lower elevations described by Rashi as well as by the initial oceanic waters ascending in the form of gigantic tsunamis overflowing masses of drifting lands from the direction of their movements. All life was successively destroyed in those areas.
At first on the lower elevations, and then as convulsive movements of the Earth’s crust continued, the higher elevations were also affected in the same way.
Not only the vegetation and most of the fauna was destroyed but the entire surface of the earth was washed away together with all life on it, and was deposited in lower regions.
Midrash Bereishis Rabba 30:8 informs us
איוב יד, יט): אֲבָנִים שָׁחֲקוּ מַיִם, דְּאָמַר רַבִּי לֵוִי בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן אֲפִלּוּ אִצְטְרֻבָּלִין שֶׁל רֵחַיִם נִמְחֶה בַּמַּיִם,
"Stones disintegrated in water" Iyov 14:19 -Rabbi Laivi said in the name of Rabbi Yoychanan - Even bottom milestones melted in the water.”
Bereishit Rabbah 31:7
רַבִּי הוּנָא וְרַבִּי יִרְמְיָה בְּשֵׁם רַב כַּהֲנָא בַּר מַלְכִּיָּה אֲפִלּוּ שְׁלשָׁה טְפָחִים שֶׁהַמַּחֲרֵשָׁה שׁוֹלֶטֶת בָּאָרֶץ נִמּוֹחוּ,
Rabbi Hina and rabbi Yirmiyu in the name of rav Kahana bar Malachiu - Even top three plowed tfuchim of the earth disintegrated. “
Rashi explains:
את הארץ [I WILL DESTROY THEM] WITH THE EARTH — It is similar to מן הארץ "from the earth”; other examples of this use of את are: (Exodus 9:29) בצאתי ‘‘when I go forth” את העיר which means מן העיר “from the city” and (1 Kings 15:23) חלה ‘‘he suffered” את רגליו which means מן רגליו ‘‘from his feet”. Another explanation of את הארץ is: “together with the earth” — for the earth was blotted out and washed away to the depth of a furrow of three handbreadths.”
Sifsey Chachamim:
That also three handbreadths. For up to a depth of three handbreadths it is called ארץ, but further down it is called אדמה. And here it is written את הארץ.”
A muddy mix of vegetation and remains of living creatures including some of the humans were transported and deposited in lower areas of land only to be covered by other flows of mud coming from the shallow parts of oceanic bottom mixed with volcanic ash spouting from the open wounds of the open crust.
These three quotes from Sanhedrin 108b will tell us a lot about the conditions during 40 and even 150 first days of Mabul:
(בראשית ו, ו) וינחם ה' כי עשה את האדם בארץ כי אתא רב דימי אמר אמר הקב"ה יפה עשיתי שתקנתי להם קברות בארץ מאי משמע כתיב הכא וינחם ה' וכתיב התם (בראשית נ, כא) וינחם אותם וידבר על לבם
It is written: “Vayyinaḥem the Lord that He made man on the earth [ba’aretz]” (Genesis 6:6). The meaning of the term “vayyinaḥem” is subject to a dispute. When Rav Dimi came from Eretz Yisrael to Babylonia, he said in explanation: The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: I did well that I prepared graves for people in the earth [ba’aretz].
(בראשית ז, כב) מכל אשר בחרבה מתו ולא דגים שבים
It is written: “Of all that was on dry land died” (Genesis 7:22), from which it is inferred: But not the fish that are in the sea, which are not on dry land.
אמר להם הוא מביא מבין עקבי רגליכם שנאמר (איוב יב, ה) נכון למועדי רגל תניא מימי המבול קשים כשכבת זרע שנאמר נכון למועדי רגל אמר רב חסדא ברותחין קלקלו בעבירה וברותחין נידונו כתיב הכא (בראשית ח, א) וישכו המים וכתיב התם (אסתר ז, י) וחמת המלך שככה
Noah said to them: If He wishes He will bring the water from between your feet and you can do nothing to prevent it, as it is stated: “For them whose foot slips.” It is taught in a baraisa: The waters of the flood were as hard and thick as semen, as it is stated: “For them whose foot slips”; foot is a euphemism. Rav Ḥisda says: With hot semen they sinned, and with hot semen they were punished. As it is written here, at the conclusion of the flood: “And the waters assuaged” (Genesis 8:1), and it is written there: “Then the king’s wrath was assuaged” (Esther 7:10). Just as the term “assuaged” there is referring to the heat of Ahasuerus’s wrath, so too, “assuaged” with regard to the flood is referring to the heat of the water.”
We learn here three major factors about the Mabul.
All of life on the surface of land was destroyed and covered with earth.
The earth deposited to cover the remains of the antediluvian life came in the form of a thick mud, only sometimes intertwined with more clear water. (I-H this will be explained with evidence in further work on this particular topic).
And once more - the waters of Mabul were hot and dissolving.
One of the quotations requires further explanation.
“Of all that was on dry land died” (Genesis 7:22) But not the fish that are in the sea”
All of the land creations but not all of the marine life.
Gigantic tsunamis picked some of the marine life to dump it on the lands now partially stripped from all of the lands surface life forms, as well as on the fresh deposits of terrestrial fauna and flora.
Tsunamis caused by moving land masses continued not only during first 40 days of precipitation but also for the remaining 110 days until the zenith of the Mabul.
Constant waves of mud overflowed the land bringing utter destruction for everything on its way.
Rabbeinu Bahya on Bereshit 8:11:1-4 reports:
והנה עלה זית טרף בפיה, “and here it had torn off an olive leaf with its beak.” Seeing that destruction had been decreed on man and beast there was no need for the Torah to have reported that the trees too had been doomed by the deluge. In fact, the destruction of vegetation on earth had been so thorough that our sages in Bereshit Rabbah 28,3 claim that even the lower millstones had been thoroughly destroyed. This may be based on Job 14,19 אבנים שחקו מים, “the waters wear away even stones.”

The Destruction began with man, but man was also the last to survive.
Brachos 61a:11:
“Rather, this refers to the punishment of the flood, as it is written: “And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, creeping things and fowl of the heaven” (Genesis 7:23); the punishment began with man, then the animals, and ultimately all the other creatures.”
Eyruvin 18a:19:
“Rather, this refers to the punishment of the Flood, as it is written: “And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, creeping things and fowl of the heaven” (Genesis 7:23). This indicates that the punishment began with man.”
Rabeinu Bahya writes however:
“Moreover, G-d first killed the animals before the Torah reports that even man perished too (verse 21). Just as man had been the last of G-d’s creatures during the creative process, he now was the last creature to perish as a result of the deluge.”
Radak on Genesis 7:21 explains the sequence of the events concerning humans:
“ויגוע...וכל האדם, the reason the word האדם is mentioned last, is to tell us that even man, who thanks to his intelligence and foresight could have been expected to find ways of escaping this disaster by taking refuge on top of the mountains, etc., was unable to save himself. The 15 cubits of water that covered even the tallest of the mountains made it impossible for any person to survive. The addition of the word וכל, includes even the giants drowned in these waters. The expression גויעה as a description of dying, refers to prompt death, as opposed to lingering death. People who drown die without prolonged agony.”
Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 6:2
“Similarly, in the verse And he blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle (Gen. 7:3). He mentioned man first, because man was the first to sin, and after that he refers to beasts and creeping things”
And once more Midrash Tanchuma, Noach 7:5 lights additional ray on the way how humans were escaping toward higher elevations only to be instantly killed by newly formed volcanoes:
“After the Holy One, blessed be He, realized that they would not be drowned by the waters that gushed forth from the deep because of their height, He sent the fire upon them from above, as it is said: And their abundance the fire hath consumed.”
There are no human fossils known to me from the time of the Mabul and the very reason for this fact may be the mobility of man who escaped to the higher elevations only to be annihilated there by the heat of the volcanoes or decay on the surface of the water, exposed to the elements as fossilization requires insulation from bacterial life as well as other conditions.
I-H we will discuss some of the evidence of the humans in early stages of the Mabul when we will analyze the evidence in detail.

We will conclude paragraph describing first 40 days of Mabul with another quotation from Rabbi Miller
7:11. ON THIS DAY WERE SPLIT OPEN ALL THE FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP AND THE WINDOWS OF THE HEAVENS WERE OPENED.
Huge beds of lush vegetation were suddenly buried in an avalanche of mineral sediment, creating the coal beds and peat bogs, none of which are found being formed today. Vast schools of millions of fish were suddenly entrapped in thick blankets that rained down and congealed immediately, imprisoning them in perfect condition as we find them today. No such formations have been observed to happen at any other time in history. Great graveyards of dinosaur remains are found, and huge deposits of animals of every description where it is evident that some mighty force hurled the beasts together and tore them apart before burying them suddenly and in great masses. Nothing similar has ever taken place, and it is certain that the upheavals of the Great Flood were the sole opportunities for such enormous phenomena.
7:11. WERE SPLIT OPEN ALL THE FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP. We see that the Flood was the combined action of water that fell from above and water which rose up from the seas. In order for the seas to yield their water, it was necessary for the ocean bottoms to heave up ("split open") by means of violent tectonic movements, which created huge subterranean caverns filled with the super-heated water vapor and gases caused by the heat generated by the convulsions of the strata. Volcanoes erupted all over the globe. At no time in the subsequent history of the earth could such a vast number of volcanoes have been created, and no phenomenon even remotely similar has ever been witnessed. The thousands of burnt-out craters testify to the Great Flood.”

Hundred and ten days of strata formation.

The drifting continents as well as smaller masses of land caused oceanic water to overflow its surfaces, in the process depositing a mixture of destroyed land life forms as well as marine life including some large creatures. As the tsunami waves were coming for hours, days and weeks from different directions during those 150 days of the tectonic drift, mud containing different forms of deceased life was deposited in the form of strata. It is necessary to point out, that all of the sedimentary rocks on planet Earth are deposited in wet conditions. Even if it is claimed by the geologists that some of the deposits like for example Navajo sand stone, was deposited as dry sand, B-H I hope to prove that even this several thousand feet thick formation was deposited in a wet form and contains marine fossils.
But now we will concentrate on the testimony of those who witnessed the Great Destruction to describe it to the following generations and documented in the Talmud and other commentaries on the Bible.
Radak writes:
נבקעו, They began to crack open, and to emerge from below. As a result of tremendous amounts of rain having poured down from the skies, the crust of the earth was weakened, so that the waters underneath found it easy to burst forth in streams all over the place. This process once started continued and accelerated and even when the 40 days of rain had stopped, the waters kept rising for 150 days due to the waters coming out of the bowels of the earth.”
We will not discuss Radak’s thesis that the crust of the entire Earth fragmented as a result of precipitation for almost surely, he describes the weakening of certain areas of Erath where pouring rain filled some basin areas to brake trough and caused the rushing waters of destruction at first stages of the Mabul.
What Radak writes in his commentary is, that even after 40 days the process of inundation not only ceased but accelerated.
We almost entirely avoid the part of the story of the Mabul concerning the Teiva – the Ark of Noach.
Ramban writes that building and the survival of the ark was supernatural and as such cannot be a part of this work describing rather what is considered the operation of the natural phenomenon according to the laws given to the physical world at the time of creation.
One aspect of the Ark however cannot be avoided – its flotation and movement over the surface of the Mabul’s waters.
After 40 days the waters of the Flood continued to overflow the lands. The character and behavior of these currents are known to the sages as well. Here are several quotations:
Rashi writes:
ויגברו [AND THE WATERS] PREVAILED — by themselves (without any external aid).
Radak on Genesis 7:18:1 gives us more details about the waves coming from different directions:
ויגברו המים, “This verse adds a new dimension to what we have been told already, i.e. that the waters became turbulent. This is why the Torah adds the word מאד מאד twice, something most unusual. The repeated statement וירבו, that the waters still kept increasing in volume, is meant to tell us that the waters did not only increase in turbulence but also kept increasing in quantity. Whereas originally, the waters could only raise the ark, now, thanks to the turbulence, the ark was driven in different directions from where it had stood originally.”
Sifsei Chachamim, Genesis 7:18:1 also writes:
By themselves. [Rashi knows this] because if they became powerful from the forty days of [rain of] the Flood, the order should be reversed, and it should have written: “There was a Flood on the earth for forty days. The waters were powerful and increased greatly over the earth and lifted the ark, and it rose [high] above the earth, and the ark moved on the surface of the waters.” Rather, “The waters were powerful” was written at the end to teach that the [waters of the] deep rose “by themselves” and made the waters powerful. The Re”m explained differently: The rain stopped after forty days. And the water’s power could not have been during these forty days, for it is written (v. 24), “The waters were powerful over the earth for 150 days.” And it is not logical to say that the first “powerful” [mentioned in our verse] was from the rain, and the second “powerful prevailed” [of v. 24] was from the deep; [rather, the waters became powerful by themselves].
And Radak on Genesis 7:19:1:
והמים גברו, This too is meant to give us additional information. This is why the words מאד מאד have been added, each of these words alerting us to an increasing power of the waters driving the ark. Now the waters were so powerful that they drove the ark far away from where it had stood originally. The second word מאד hints at the ark rising higher than any of the surrounding mountains.”
And finally, Tur HaAroch, on Genesis 7:19:1
והמים גברו,“And the waters had kept rising and becoming more turbulent;” Verse 18, writing וירבו ויגברו המים, had taught us that when waters increase in volume the Torah describes this in terms of גברו, becoming strong, powerful, turbulent. It is possible, however, to understand the word ויגברו in verse 18 for the word כח also is often referred to as גבורה. In this case the turbulence of the waters uprooted trees, etc.”
Ultimately at the end of the 150 days, from the beginning of the Flood, most if not all of the surface of the now divided lands were covered by, in some cases, miles of sediment brought there by the initial deposition of the antediluvian mix of vegetation and deceased animals. Those deposits were covered by the flow of rainwater from the first 40 days of the Mabul mixed with oceanic tsunamis which also may contain some of the remains of the antediluvian world floating on the surface of the first deposits.
We read a testimony about people trying to escape to higher elevations, but it can also be said about some other animals like mammals and birds including nonflying large birds, were able to survive the first stages of the Mabul along with some other large animals. There are multiple dinosaur tracks all over the planet in the strata that was formed in later stages of the Mabul, but again, this is not our subject in this part of the work on the Mabul.
150 days to the Mabul all land was covered with at least 15 cubits of water and mud.
Rashi on Genesis 7:20:1
חמש עשרה אמה מלמעלה FIFTEEN CUBITS ABOVE —above the summits of all the mountains when once the waters reached the level of the mountains (Yoma 76a).
In the layers of those miles of deposits, the old life was under the chemical and physical process unknown ever before or after.
The heat, the pressure, the chemical components dissolved all antediluvian organisms within the strata and changed them chemically into gases, liquids and other forms of fossils. This process didn’t actually take place till the very end of the Mabul when the freshly deposited strata began to fold in certain areas to form new chains of mountains.
It was already explained before that the mountains as we know it, did not exist in the old world. There were different elevations but only now, under the pressure of the slowing down masses of land moving over the softened layer under the Earth’s crust, that mountains began to rise. Before we will come to this topic however, let’s see what our sages tell us about the processes ongoing in the strata.
Or HaChaim on Genesis 7:23:
1וימח את כל היקום. He dissolved all life. Not only did all living creatures of the earth (dry land) die, as pointed out in verse 21, but their remains dissolved completely due to the heat of the waters. No trace of them was left. (…)Rabbi Ami meant that man disintegrated before the curse, i.e. before all the animals' bodies dissolved. He referred to man dying ahead of the animals during the deluge. Who needed Rabbi Ami to tell us something that the Torah has already spelled out in 7,23? Actually, when you look at verse 21 you notice that the death of the creatures is reported in the reverse order, i.e. first the animals, then the human beings. According to our interpretation there is no contradiction here. Whereas verse 21 discusses the timing of the deaths, verse 23 discusses the dissolution of the remains of the dead creatures. Man's remains dissolved first though he had died last.”
Again, we see the confirmation of the earlier idea that man dissolved first.
Rabbeinu Bahya, Bereshit 7:23:1
וימח את כל היקום , “He obliterated all existence.” The Torah here includes all living creatures on earth as having been killed by the boiling waters which covered the earth.”
Radak on Genesis 7:23:1:
וימח, The word is in the kal conjugation similar to וישע in Genesis 4,4, but it is in a transitive mode. There are verbs which by definition are in a transitive mode though they appear in the conjugation kal. וימחו מן הארץ, if G’d wiped out these creatures, וימח, is it not obvious that they were wiped out, וימחו? So what do these words tell us? The repetition is to indicate that they were so thoroughly wiped out that not a trace of them remained. There were no ruins left behind, concerning which anyone could ever say: “this building had been owned or built by a certain individual.” Our sages in Sanhedrin 108 understand the repetition asוימח referring to their destruction in this physical material world, whereas the word וימחו refers to their obliteration also from the world to come.”
Ramban on Genesis 7:23:1:
“[He] obliterated (vayimach). After stating that all flesh perished and that everything on dry land died, Scripture adds that even the bodies were obliterated. The word vayimach signifies dissolving.”
Sforno on Genesis 7:23:
1וימח את כל היקום, “the structure of all the living beings was completely dissolved, but not that of the plants.”
Sforno on Genesis 7:23:2:
This is why the Torah added the words מאדם ועד בהמה, עד רמש ועד עוף השמים וימחו מן הארץ, “man or beast, moving creatures, including the birds of the sky disintegrated completely.” No traceable remains survived.”
Two crucial issues must be understood from all the quotations above.
While talking about the “traceable remains” Sforno points out that plants survived. Of course, he cannot mean they survived in their original places of growth, but as rabbi Miller describes, patches of floating vegetation survived on the surface of the Floods waters to disseminate seeds or put the roots in the soft ground after the Mabul. No animals of larger size survived out of the Ark i.e. no reproduction was possible for those species of animals that remained in the hostile environment of the hot waters and mud of the Flood.
The remnants of the flora and fauna embedded in the layers of strata underwent the process of fossilization, where the biological material was almost completely replaced by mineral content. In the light of the newest discoveries of soft tissue in some dinosaur fossils we must say “almost”, as some of the cells survived, although damaged, over four thousand years covered with mineral deposits and within fossilized bones.
Nothing of this biological material allows any form of reproduction as DNA in the surviving cells is severely damaged. I-H we will come back to this topic when the time comes.
The other issue explaining what exactly dissolved and how to understand the report that nothing of the antediluvian survived is Radak’s statement that: “The repetition is to indicate that they were so thoroughly wiped out that not a trace of them remained. There were no ruins left behind”
And indeed, there are some reports about man made items being discovered in the strata or in coal mines, but besides the veracity issue of those reports, nothing else from the civilization possibly counted by hundreds of millions if not billions, nothing of them can be traced.
All megalithic structures, those on the ground as well as those under the water, were built by postdiluvian civilizations. This subject will be explained later I-H.
At the end of the 150 days, the waters ceased to increase and the Ark rested on the area which became or was to become - Mount Ararat.
Sforno on Genesis 7:24:1 writes the following:
ויגברו...חמישים ומאת יום. “These 150 days are counted from the beginning of the 40 days of rainfall. The level of water on the surface of the earth kept increasing for 150 days, concluding on the 17th of the seventh month (Nissan). On that date the ark came to rest.”
It is hard to imagine that the wind didn’t blow for the first 150 days of the Mabul but now from the Torah and from the commentators we have reports about some extraordinary winds that began to blow at this time of the Mabul.
Or HaChaim on Genesis 8:1:3 writes:
ויעבד אלוקים רוח על הארץ וישבו המים. “G'd made a wind pass over the earth and the waters subsided.
The Torah here wishes to tell us that G'd had commanded the waters to become tumultuous just as He had commanded the waters during the six days of creation to swarm with fish, etc. Here G'd commanded the waters to conduct themselves with their full power; as a result of that the remains of the creatures which had died disintegrated completely. Had it not been for this fact there would have been no point in verse 24 telling us that the waters swelled on earth for 150 days. After all, the remains of all creatures had already disintegrated previously.”
Radak on Genesis 8:2:1 further writes:
ויסכרו, “They were shut, i.e. prevented from adding further turbulence on the surface of the waters which had flooded the globe. As a result of the wind blowing, the earth gradually began to dry out, the moisture being blown away, gradually. However, these subterranean wells were not all of them shut off. This enabled some of the waters on the surface of the globe to flow back gradually into the bowels of the earth from which they had come forth. While it is true that at the time these waters had risen to the surface, they had found many more apertures through which to rise, and their appearance on the surface had been rapid, now it seeped back at a much slower pace.”
Tur HaAroch, Genesis 8:2: explains the purpose of the wind:
1ויכלא הגשם, “The rain ceased.” Here the Torah cannot refer to the rain that descended as part of the deluge, seeing that this rain had stopped already on the 27th of Kislev, after 40 days. The Torah reports here that during this period of over 200 days after the first of Sivan and the family of Noach and the animals leaving the ark, no normal rainfall occurred. The strong prevailing winds at this time prevented any rain clouds from forming and descending. The purpose of the wind was to gradually restore the atmosphere to its traditional dryness.”
Once more we will conclude this section with a prolonged but detailed description of the Mabul events by Rabbi Avigdor Miller from his commentary on Sefer Beraishis - Genesis:
Beraishis 6:19
“From All the living, from all flesh, two of each you shall bring into the ark.
At the beginning, all animals equally distributed the earth, for the climate everywhere was mild and uniform. (… here Rav Miller writes about frozen animals in the tundra of Alaska and Siberia, although it will be explained I-H, that those remains are postdiluvian) It is evident from fossils everywhere that previously there had existed a more even distribution of plants and animals. Therefore, the animals that entered the Ark did not need to travel great distances, because all of them were available in the vicinity. It is understandable that the Flood uprooted trees and shrubs, and therefore everywhere there were floating masses of land vegetation tangled with seaweed and loaded with muddy debris, on which insects of all kinds were enabled to subsist for the duration of the Flood. These floating masses were not substantial enough to support animals, and certainly could not keep them alive for the twelve months of the Flood.
7:19. AND ALL THE HIGH MOUNTAINS THAT ARE UNDER ALL THE HEAVENS WERE COVERED. This explains the remarkable phenomenon of lay of deep-sea denizens' fossils everywhere. Fossil remains of whales have been found even on mountains, far away from the sea. Wherever one goes today, the remains of marine animals render clear evidence that the ocean had at one time covered all the continents and even the loftiest mountains: "all the high mountains." From where did this enormous quantity of water come? This is a valid question, in view of the fact that the earth's supply of water is constant, never increasing or diminishing. The answer is that the seas have more than sufficient water to cover the globe, as was the case at the beginning (see 1:6-7). By means of excessive evaporation and heavy rainfall, and because of even minor changes in the configuration of the sea bottom (see 1:9), water fell from above and rushed up from the seas below to inundate all the continents. The seas certainly became shallower, but they contain more than enough to flood the dry land and yet hold their own.
7:22• OF ALL THAT WAS ANT HE DRY LAND, DIED. Dinosaurs perished, but the whales survived. marine animals were not wiped out by the Flood. But upheavals the Flood had taken place also in the seas. "On this day were split open all the fountains of the deep (7:11). Earth split apart the sea bottom, and volcanoes erupted from under the waters. Great masses of fishes were suddenly imprisoned in hot silt or lava and remained in a petrified state. In many instances, such masses of fossilized marine creatures have been unearthed, and because no similar process has been observed in our times, the sole explanation is the universal Flood which had suddenly entombed large numbers of fish and had preserved them in stone as testimonials of the unequaled catastrophe.”

Roshey Hehurim – Mountains with peaks

Psalm 104
תְּ֭הוֹם כַּלְּב֣וּשׁ כִּסִּית֑וֹ עַל־הָ֝רִ֗ים יַֽעַמְדוּ־מָֽיִם׃
You made the deep cover it as a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
מִן־גַּעֲרָ֣תְךָ֣ יְנוּס֑וּן מִן־ק֥וֹל רַֽ֝עַמְךָ֗ יֵחָפֵזֽוּן׃
They fled at Your blast, rushed away at the sound of Your thunder,
יַעֲל֣וּ הָ֭רִים יֵרְד֣וּ בְקָע֑וֹת אֶל־מְ֝ק֗וֹם זֶ֤ה ׀ יָסַ֬דְתָּ לָהֶֽם׃
mountains rising, valleys sinking— to the place You established for them.
גְּֽבוּל־שַׂ֭מְתָּ בַּל־יַֽעֲבֹר֑וּן בַּל־יְ֝שׁוּב֗וּן לְכַסּ֥וֹת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
You set bounds they must not pass so that they never again cover the earth.
הַֽמְשַׁלֵּ֣חַ מַ֭עְיָנִים בַּנְּחָלִ֑ים בֵּ֥ין הָ֝רִ֗ים יְהַלֵּכֽוּן׃
You make springs gush forth in torrents; they make their way between the hills,

Once the waters of the Flood began to diminish, the Ark rested on the surface strong enough to hold it in one place.
As we can read in the text of the Torah and commentaries, for many days the ground was still too soft even to walk on. However, it was thick enough to anchor the vessel from further movements.
We have no further information coming from the Scriptures, or later commentaries about the details of the diminishment of the waters especially what caused it. Violent tsunamis overflowed the drifting continents leaving deposits of mud, land, and oceanic origins mixed with volcanic ash spewing out of the innards of the Earth. Now the desaturation of this mud began. The surface was partially dried by the power of the strong winds that also cleared the atmosphere from excess moisture. But the land beneath was still heavily saturated and the water needed channels to flow to the lower elevations and ultimately to the newly formed oceans.
Most people are familiar with the idea of irrigation, where canals filled with water saturate the ground to provide moisture for vegetation. From the swampy country of my origins I know about melioration, where canals are dug to allow the ground to desaturate to be productive.
The waters of the Mabul needed such canals.
As the process of the continental drift was coming to the end, the land masses further fractured beneath the layers of sediment, causing mountain chains to rise and forming the initial valleys for the water to flow down. As the water and thinner mud flowed toward the lower elevations, new valleys were formed. The Initial valleys deepened or filled up with secondary sediment. The mountain peaks were formed -
נִרְא֖וּ רָאשֵׁ֥י הֶֽהָרִֽים׃.
We have no information if the place where the Ark settled was still in the process of uplifting at this time of the year of the Mabul. Besides the logical consequence of the fact that the waters now calmed, i.e. the tsunamis stopped to overflow the continents, we don’t see an indication of the time framework of the processes of shattering, uplift, and folding of the masses of wet deposits, or when those processes came to its end.
The common understanding of Roshey Hehurim, as the top of the mountain ‘peaks would’ require at least some of those mountains to be of the same height, which is not a fact as even mount Ararat as it looks today has one peak slightly higher than the other peak, and the contemporary look may be a result of erosion which happened in the last 44 hundred years. Mt. Ararat seems to be of volcanic origins all together, which indicates that even in to 17th of Sivan, when the Ark anchored there, she was sticking up from the plain of the mud deposited at her foothills. The nearest mountain peak potentially visible from the Ararat is Mt. Aragats in Armenia and is some 3400ft lower than Ararat. No other mountains of similar high are possible to be seen from Mt. Ararat. All of it, if that peak in Turkey is indeed the Biblical Mt. Ararat.
But the most important argument against the common understanding of Roshey Hehurim as ‘peaks of the mountains’, is the fact that the Torah describes them as visible before Noach opened the window of the Ark.
Thus, the shaping of the tectonic swells caused by masses of land coming to a still or bouncing to another fragment of the antediluvian continent; shaping those dull swells of land in to mountain chains which we are more familiar with today; this began soon after the first 150 days of the Mabul, and continued till its end and or even after.
Below we will present a selection of commentaries about the receding waters until the land became first possible to walk on and then to begin new life:
Or HaChaim on Genesis 8:3:1
וישובו המים מעל הארץ. “The waters retreated from the earth's surface. The waters which had flooded the earth kept retreating towards the oceans. They decreased naturally, starting 150 days after the onset of the deluge.”
Radak on Genesis 8:4:
1ותנח התבה בחדש השביעי, “This is the month of Sivan being the seventh month counting from the end of the rain descending which occurred in Kislev. Even though, as we know, the rains had begun to fall in the month of Marcheshvan, the Torah speaks here of a count beginning in Kislev seeing that the end of the rains and the end of the ark floating around have something in common in terms of stages of the deluge ending.
על הרי אררט, Perhaps those were the tallest mountain range, or it happened that the ark was in that region on the day in question. At any event, the mountain range of Ararat is one of the highest mountain ranges that we know of. What is clear is that lower mountain ranges on earth did not become visible to people in the ark until the tenth month. The meaning of the line is that the process of the waters diminishing continued progressively until at the beginning of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. These “mountains” were actually only hills.”
Radak is pointing out, that people did not see the mountains until the 10th month, when the window of the ark was opened. It indicates two things. The first is that since Noach couldn’t see outside for several months from the time when we are being informed that Roshey Hehurim began to appear, this information is a matter of prophecy. Secondly, if it is not a matter of actual visibility, it is mentioned as a part of the process of the receding waters which shaped the mountains to make them visible in the formation of the peaks for Noach, when he saw them for the first-time months later.
Tur HaAroch, Genesis 8:4:
1ותנח התבה בחודש השביעי, “The ark came to rest in the seventh month.”
(...)
On this day the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, for then G’d made a strong easterly wind blow (verse 1).This wind dried out the surface of the earth.(The wind accelerated the lowering of the water level dramatically.) (…) The flooding of the earth continued at this level for 150 days. At that point G’d made a strong wind sweep over the earth that accounted for a sudden and substantial drop of the water level on earth as well as a drying of the atmosphere. The water level dropped so much on that day as a result of that wind that the ark landed on top of Mount Ararat on that same day.
(...) The meaning of the words (verse 1) “G’d made a wind sweep the earth so that the waters calmed,” is something that occurred simultaneously with the retreat of the subterranean waters into the bowels of the earth. You will note that the Torah speaks of a wind sweeping over the earth, not over the water.
Or HaChaim on Genesis 8:5 writes:
והמים הלוך וחסור.
“The waters kept ebbing away. Part of the water retreated whereas part still flooded the earth until the tenth month.”
Again, we can see from Or HaChaims commentary, that the waters flowed toward the lower elevations and ultimately toward the oceans for most of the second half of the year of the Mabul. Forming temporary lakes which some of them drained immediately as they were filled up from constantly flowing and seeping from the mud waters. Once natural basins formed by the folding ground were filled with receding water, the lowest part of the surrounding terrain broke to allow the water to continue its way toward the ocean. Some of those postdiluvian lakes survived for thousands of years and some remnants of those lakes exist till our days. New rivers formed precisely in those carved and still partially soft mud which hardened as time passed. Some of those rivers exist until today some can be traced only on the topographic maps and old riverbed deposits.
Radak continaues on Genesis 8:5:2
עד החודש העשירי, This does not mean that during this month the waters had already receded completely; what happened was that the waters receded progressively until relatively low mountain tops became visible. The process continued further. The “tenth” month described was the month of Av, seeing it was the tenth, counting from the month of Marcheshvan when the rains had started falling.
Sforno on Genesis 8:9 is completing the previous commentaries:
1כי מים על פני כל הארץ, even on the tops of the mountains which had become visible, everything was still thoroughly wet so that even there לא מצא מנוח לכף רגלו, it could not find a resting place for its foot.”
We will not be occupied with the sequence of the bird sent by Noach as it is not a subject of our interest and does not bring much to the general topic of the geological formation of the postdiluvial world.
However we will quote one more comment from Radak on Genesis 8:12:2
ולא יספה שוב אליו עוד, “This is when Noach realised that the surface of the earth had dried sufficiently and that the pigeon had found a resting place on earth as well as on many trees so that it did not bother to come back to him. This happened in the 601st year of Noach’s life, seeing that the Torah mentions that it was on the first of the first month of that year. (verse 13) Noach’s 600th year had been completed on the 30th of Ellul, and he had entered the 601st year of his life on the first of Tishrey, which is the first month of the year. On the 17th day of the second month he had completed a full year’s stay in the ark. Even though the surface of the earth was “dry” in the sense that it was no longer covered by water, it was still too muddy, and the surface was misleading, seeing that beneath the immediate surface it was soft, spongy. It was not yet ready for walking on without risking that one would break through a very thin veneer of dry earth. This is why G’d had not yet commanded him to leave the ark (until the 27th of that month) At that time, as testified by the word יבשה, the earth had dried sufficiently to make using it as one’s habitat a safe endeavor.”
Finally, Rashi on Genesis 8:13:2 explains the meaning of “dry land”
חרבו “[THE WATERS] DRIED UP — It (the earth) had become like clay, for now its surface had become somewhat hardened.”
Radak on Genesis 8:13:1 in accord with Rashi.
“[Began] to dry. It was still like mud, dry on the surface but soft underneath.”

Summary

The catastrophic event described in the Bible and preserved in Jewish national memory, although it has miraculous aspects of the story, but it happened on this planet and the remnants of this cataclysm should be possible to trace.
First to mention, is the fact that all major masses of lands, continents and sometimes even smaller islands are matching like a piece of a puzzle to some other landmass now divided by oceanic waters.
The South American eastern coast matches to the African western coast. The Northwestern African coast matches to parts of the North American continent. For example, if any New Yorker wonders where in Africa was his town originally close to? The coast of New York and New Jersey was in the neighborhood of Morocco or even Gibraltar. We will make it a subject of a separate essay where we will try to follow the different coastlines in attempt to reconstruct the antediluvian continent. It must be pointed out he that modern theory of the continental drift or rather plate tectonics, and existence of a single continent Pangea, developed less than eighty years ago. However, the observation of the matching coastlines was made first not long after the developing of the first maps of the African and South American continents approximately five hundred years ago.
Needless to say, that statement of the Scriptures and Jewish sages predate hundreds and even thousands of years those observations.
Second - we must ask ourselves the question – what type of rocks should exist on Earth after such an upheaval like the Mabul?
Some kind of surface existed before the catastrophe. According to our sages’ the surface of the land was striped together with hard rock beneath a fertile level and grinded and dissolved. Further, those mixtures of grinded rock were deposited again in the form of mud, only to dry eventually and became rock again.
Some of the rock material was under tremendous pressure of the deposits above or was heated and pressured by the moving and folding masses of land. We would basically expect three major types of rock.
That of the original structure which was formed at the time when our world was created, that of grinded and cemented again from the original rocks mixed with volcanic ash, and that of the changed structure due the pressure and heat.
These are precisely the three types of rocks that we find on our planet – igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.
Third – As it is described by our sages, organisms growing and living before the Mabul were all cast in to the muds of the Flood and no reproduction was possible from the remnants of what deceased as a result of this embedment in the rocks and sands.
This is exactly what we find in different layers of the deposited strata, from liquid and gas fuels filling chambers between different layers of the strata to fossils almost in every layer of this strata encased in their eternal graves.
Sedimentary rocks from so called Precambrian eons will be discussed B-H in the future as most of them were not deposited at the time of the Noah's Mabul.
Fourth – Due to the muds covering all of the surface of the Earth and later the uplifting of the mountain chains, we must find those fossils not only on some lower elevations but also high in the postdiluvian mountains.
And again, this is what we find in the Himalayas, Alps, Andes, Rocky Mountains and everywhere else.
Fifth – Receding water should carve valleys and riverbeds leaving pluvial lakes in every basin which is separated from oceans by mountain chains.
Once more, this is exactly what we may observe in ancient and contemporary topography of the continents. Giving only examples from our country, we will list just few major such lakes.
Lake Echo – Arizona, Great lake of Utah – Utah and Colorado, Lake Bonneville – Utah, Lake Sevier – Nevada, Lakes Pyramid and Lahontan – Nevada. Those are only the biggest lakes that once existed but dried or drained now, within the 48 lower states. Although Lake Missoula was a major lake but it filled up probably only as a result of the melting glacier at the end of the Ice Age, proximity 3500 years ago.
I-H in the first of the following essays, we will attempt to provide more details about physical evidence of what we were able to learn above from our historical material. As it was said, not strictly historical in a general character but where in magnitude on information inherited from the previous generations of the Sages. A careful eye can find enough to build a general timeline of the Mabuls events.

By Matys Weiser