Creationism

The book of Genesis, the first of the "Five Books of Moses" in the Hebrew Bible, has served as the explanation of the origin of the universe and all life for millions of people for over two millennia. According to this account, a single creator-god fashioned humans and every other living thing in all their complexity.

At the end of the European Middle Ages, Western tradition held that all of the world´s inhabitants had been created by God in one place, the Garden of Eden, soon after the formation of the earth. But as the scientific revolution began to unfold some 400 years ago, naturalists started to catalog fossils according to the layers in which they were found. Soon a very unexpected and troubling pattern emerged.

Noah's Ark Toy

This Noah's Ark model, made from cast resin in China for the Western market, is based on the story of a worldwide flood told in the Bible's Book of Genesis. According to this account, God destroyed the world with water but first instructed Noah to construct a great ark and fill it with male and female members of each species. Noah, his family, and the animals thus escaped extinction. After the flood subsided and the ark reportedly came to rest upon Mount Ararat, the inhabitants began to repopulate the Earth (Genesis 6-9). Geological evidence, however, fails to substantiate such a global inundation in Noah's time (about 3000 B.C.) and the tale is strikingly similar to an ancient Sumerian flood tale known as the Epic of Gilgamesh.