Appendix A
An Interview with the Author
1. How much of this story is fact?
The basic story of Noah and the ark can be found in the Bible -- Genesis chapters six through ten. I also picked up a few other details from isolated verses throughout the Bible. Anything beyond that is fiction.
2. Did you consult any other sources?
I gleaned additional information from the Book of Enoch which was purportedly written by an ancestor of Noah. The Bible says Enoch not die, but was taken up alive into heaven by God. Enoch’s story can be found in Gen. 5:19 – 24.
3. Do you trust the truth of Enoch’s writing?
Several other books of the Bible refer to or quote Enoch’s writing, prompting some to argue that the people of Jesus’ time considered Enoch’s book to be scripture. In the New Testament, Jude 14 directly quotes the Book of Enoch and gives the source of the quote. My purpose in using background from the book was simply to enrich a fiction story.
4. Where did the concept of giants and the Nephilim originate?
God introduces those non-human creatures in Genesis six, compressing hundreds of years of history into a few sentences. The Book of Enoch doesn’t change the
biblical account, but adds detail to the story, explaining that giants and Nephilim comprise two separate groups / species with the giants resulting from the unions of Nephilim and human women. Enoch also says the giants are the evil spirits – the demons that roam the earth even today.
5. Why did you say the ark was “probably” 450 feet long?
The ark was measured in cubits, which is the distance from the tip of a man’s fingers to his elbow. Based on the size of today’s human, we consider that eighteen inches. But we can’t know precisely how long a cubit was then because we don’t know the size of the people at that time.
6. Why are some of your characters hundreds of years old?
Genesis clearly states that people before the Flood lived upwards of 1,000 years. Noah was a vibrant 600 when the Flood began and lived for another 350 years after that. His sons were all in their mid-to-late nineties yet young enough that none had yet fathered children. Isaiah prophesies that after God creates the new heavens and earth his people will again live as long as the trees (see Is.65:22).
7. Did the giants really have six fingers?
That detail comes not from the book of Genesis, but later historical books of the Old Testament which talk about giants from Gath who have six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot (see 1 Chron. 20:6).
8. How accurate is this novel?
I’ve striven to keep every detail from the Bible strictly true and to say nothing that contradicts God’s words. But since the Bible tells us very little about any of the people of that time I had to embellish the events and characters from my own imagination to make them come alive for the reader. For instance, the Bible tells us nothing about Shem’s wife except that she was on the ark and likely infertile for over two years. (A careful reading of Genesis 11 implies the infertility.) I based every other “fact” about Atarah on research or personal experience.
9. It seemed far-fetched to me that Atarah could recognize evil practices and call out to God in her circumstances. Can you explain why you think she would?
The idea that God would speak to Atarah when she knew nothing of him originated from a conversation I had with a woman who remembers calling to God for help as very young child -- even though no one had ever told her about him. But even more convincing proof comes from the suicide video recorded by Ricky Rodriquez, the cult murderer, who was raised from infancy in the “Christian” free love and pedophilia cult, the Family of God (now known simply as The Family). His testimony, along with the more than thirty suicides of other children born to cult members, demonstrates that even adults taught from birth that pedophilia is “normal” recognize that as a lie and are tormented because of the abuse they received.
10. Have you accurately portrayed the pagan worship of Noah’s time?
The Bible does not tell much about Noah’s contemporaries, simply saying God destroyed those people because of their wickedness. However, pagan worship down through history seems to fall into the same patterns again and again. I named the City of a Thousand Gods for a powerful Hittite city. The god Ninlel mimics Molech from the Old Testament. Priests of the Roman goddess Isis castrated themselves publicly. I deliberately glossed over details.
11. Do you know for certain that people used metal back then?
Yes. In the fourth chapter of the Bible, Genesis talks about Tubal-cain who forged instruments of iron and bronze and his brother Jubal who was “father of all who play the lyre and the pipes.” Those two men lived long before Noah.
12. How could ancient peoples have bathrooms with flushing toilets and showers?
While researching, I discovered ancient civilizations much more advanced than I expected. Thirty-five hundred years ago, Carthage boasted fancy tiled bathrooms with showers and flushing toilets that emptied into sewers flowing under the city.
13. Where are the names of Noah’s daughters-in-law recorded?
Noah’s daughter-in-laws are not mentioned by name in the biblical account or in the Book of Enoch. To give them names, I searched the Bible for female names that might fit. When I couldn’t find a feminine name I liked, I altered a masculine
moniker to create one that sounded female to my western ears. I found “Atarah” only once (see 1 Chron. 2:26 ). The Hebrew meaning of that word speaks of “crown” or the portion of the prayer shawl that covers the wearer’s head.
14. Was the underground complex in City of a Thousand Gods purely fiction?
Throughout history people have hidden in caves and holes during dangerous periods. The history channel filmed an entire series on underground cities.
The complex in my novel very closely resembles the rooms and churches dug twenty levels deep into the volcanic mounds of Cappadocia, Turkey. Sometimes as many as 20,000 Christians hid there at a time to escape persecution.
15. Is there anything in recorded history similar to Atarah’s ash storm?
The Oklahoma dust storms of the 1930’s. Winds whipped up dust that flashed with static electricity and buried cars overnight. On Black Sunday the sky in Washington D.C. turned dark with dust blown 1,000 miles from Oklahoma. I also gleaned details from my son’s experience of a sand storm in Al Asad, Iraq.
16. How did you come up with maggots as an effective way to cleanse wounds?
Doctors used that method to clear infections as late as World War II when antibiotics were unavailable.
17. How could Noah have known about clean and unclean animals when God didn’t give information concerning them until Leviticus eleven, hundreds of years later?
Noah’s entire life of 950 years is covered in about 2,000 words in the Bible. (That’s approximately two words per year of his life.) Those chapters record that God talked to Noah and gave him detailed plans for the ark. We can’t know everything God told Noah, but we can know God explained clean and unclean animals to him since Noah included the correct number of each on ark.
18. Do you think your credibility suffers when you place dinosaurs on the ark? Everyone knows they’ve been extinct for millions of years.
I agree with Ken Ham’s thoughts in his Answers in Genesis Series: Dinosaurs in the Bible. (Watch it free on the Internet.) There are numerous references to dinosaurs in God’s Word, indicating they lived after the Flood. The Bible refers to them as “dragons” or “leviathan” since the word “dinosaur” wasn’t coined until the 1800’s. There were only about fifty general types of dinosaurs that would have been on the ark. The average size: sheep-sized. Some no bigger than chickens. Plenty of room for all on the ark. As far as what killed them off . . . Ham believes they died off just like the animals mysteriously facing extinction today. The fossils we find were formed during the Flood. In addition, back in the 1700’s Matthew Henry said, “Notice the beasts going in each after his kind . . . to intimate just as many as were created at first were saved now, and no more” (see Gen. 1:21-25). We know God created dinosaurs since we’ve found the bones. So they must have been on the ark
Appendix B
Historical / Biblical Basis
Before the flood . . .
It had never rained; a mist came out of the ground to water the plants.
Humans lived nearly 1,000 years. Though the Bible doesn’t explain why, it may be that the ocean of water in the heavens somehow protected people. After that, water fell as rain and life expectancy declined within a few generations (see Gen. 11:10-25).
Many years before the Flood, people already formed weapons and musical instruments from brass and iron (see Gen. 4:21,22).
Only eight persons were rescued on the ark. Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives.
Noah was 600 year old when his family entered the ark.
His sons were all in their nineties yet still youthful; none fathered children until after the Flood. Shem’s first child was born when he was one hundred years old, two years after the Flood.
The Nephilim (singular Nephal), probably fallen angels, were on the earth in those days. They were supernatural giants who mated with human women and produced what the Bible refers to as “heroes of old.”
The Ark . . .
The unit of measure used in constructing the ark, the cubit, was approximately eighteen inches. It was the length from a man’s fingertips to his elbow.
Noah spent 120 years building the ark.
The ark had a roof, one door in the side and one window that ran all the way around ark a cubit from the top.
The ark stretched nearly a football field and a half long (450 feet), rose as high as a four-story building (45 feet), and was 75 feet wide.
According to a footnote in the Ryrie Study Bible, Moody Press, it is estimated that there are nearly 17,600 species of animals, making 45,000 a likely number Noah might have taken onto the ark.( Other sources estimate even higher numbers.)
That same footnote says that the ark had the capacity of 522 railroad stock cars and only 188 cars would be required to hold 45,000 sheep-sized animals.
The ark was constructed with three decks and waterproofed with pitch inside and out.
In addition to Noah’s family, the ark housed: two of each unclean animal, seven of each bird, and either seven or seven pairs of each clean animal (animals suitable for consumption).
The Flood . . .
Because humans had grown so wicked. God flooded the world, destroying everything that moved on the earth except Noah and his family,
Rain poured from the heavens and the “fountains of the deep” were opened.
The rains lasted forty days and forty nights.
Water rose higher than the highest mountain and the ark floated on the surface.
Noah and his family resided on the ark with the animals for over one year.
After the Flood, God placed a rainbow in the sky to assure Noah he would never again destroy the earth with water.
Please read the entire story of the Food in the Bible, Genesis 6 – 10.
Then go to Jeannie’s blog where you can read more about what is fact and fiction here.
http://jeanniestjohntaylor.blogspot.com
