'Ancient' Man, The Mabul, Migdal Bavel and The 'Ancient' World(s)
I'm going to be childish and just let your minds (all 1-4 of them...), mull over the fonts and punctuations in the title line for a bit (twoish weeks) while I get all my "Flood" related material together. I will be relying heavily on the Rabbinic/Kabbalistic works that discuss Shemitot (Sabbatical Cycles of Creation), the 974 generations before Adam HaRishon for a discussion of the "ancient" world, and the worlds that preceded 'it'. There'll be discussion of what makes for Mankind then and now, what animal species are known to be capable of (as well as the human potential to "lose humanity" in absence of civilizing imperatives/imposition), the Mabul as a potentially regional event, the "mythic" functions of Torah with Shubert Spero's essay, catastrophism and anomalous archeological finds as evidencing earlier 'worlds' and their destruction), bicameral mind stuff, Divine "minim" and scientific taxonomies, rise of languages, the extreme longevity in Torah and other ancient sources, remaining problems and possible resolutions, etc, etc. I will try to offer as many links as possible to material available on the Net.