Back to Noah...

According to the bible, all of us descend from Noah and his sons. There were many before Noah, but all perished in the Great Flood. It has always fascinated me that all cultures trace back to Noah, this great figure in Jewish/Christian scripture. All cultures spread out from Mount Ararat, where Noah's ark settled as the flood waters descended.

Therefore my fascination has to do with how Noah's descendants spread out from the ark's resting place, the settling of those regions, and how, by the time of Abram, the knowledge of the Creator God, the one true God described in the Hebrew scriptures, the God of Noah, had fallen to the place of myth, legend, and folk lore.

So all of the ancient cultures, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Armenian, Chaldean, Egyptian, etc. and their religion, beliefs, practices, societies, art, architecture, economies, agriculture, governments, armies, trading, and history give me clues regarding their origins. And knowledge of them helps contextualize my reading of the scriptures that refer to these cultures, religions, nations, and armies that touched the Hebrew nation in one way or another. With my perspective adjusted on these cultures referred to in my bible I sometimes can read the inferences previously missed.

Currently I am reading Michael Grant's The Ancient Mediterranean 2002, History Book Club. I recommend it as it has served to expand my knowledge of the cultural influences upon the region.