https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDoM4BmoDQM
He believes a number of fringe things I don't support, like when he talks about Baalbek in other videos.
[[That video now has a follow up https://youtu.be/lyV8TUlV3Ds.]]
Here is a playlist of the full documentary on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzaG2Oyvx5GAFhqrPSo5CyrmBNL3Z1E3
It brings up the debunked Dogon/Sirius mystery stuff, but other then that seems like solid research.
Now I was aware of Atlantis possibly being in North-West Africa long before I heard of the Richat Structure. So these advocates of the theory would benefit by mentioning how broadly Atlantis in this region theories were proposed before the Richat Structure was even discovered in 1965.
Like the theories of French geographer E. F. Berlioux first published in 1874, and expanded in 1883 in L'Atlas primitif et l'Atlantis, of the Saharian Sea, which located Atlantis in the Hoggar mountains of the Saharan Atlas. A different part of North-West Africa, but still in the ballpark broadly.
That theory was among the influences on French novelist Pierre Benoit (1886-1962) when he wrote his novel L'Atlantide, first published in France in February 1919. It was adapted to film multiple times before 1965, and influenced other fiction including some Italian Sword and Sandal films, the character of Queen Antinea was an important influence on the modern Femme Fatale archetype.
http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/atlantide.htm
These two different theories could be compatible, the Hoggar Mountains could have been home to one of the Colonies of Atlantis.
Herodotus refereed to Atlantians in North-West Africa in Book IV of his Histories, sections 184-185. Diodorus Sicilus Library of History Book III Chapters 52-57&60-61 talks about people of North-West Africa (Libya to the Ancient Greeks was all of Saharan Africa west of Egypt and Cyrene, not just modern Libya) including people called Atlantians and the Libyan Amazons (and also claims the Gorgons were actually a Human Matriarchal Tribe of the region rather then Snake monsters). The curious thing about Diodorus account though is it's the Amazons rather then Atlantians who's history resembles Plato's Atlantis. Their capital city is on an island in a Marsh, they build a vast empire through conquest including making a connection with Aegytpos, but are stopped by Greeks, sometime after which their homeland is said to be submerged. His account does equate ancient Atlantian Kings with the Titans and Olympian deities however.
The question for me as a Biblical Literalist is, how do we fit this into a Biblical View of history?
First, if Atlantis (or whatever it was originally called) was a Post-Flood Civilization, they were probably among the descendants of Phut who is traditionally associated with North-West Africa. I believe Ezekiel 38 uses Phut as an idiom of the Far West, not unlike Greek Mythology associating Mount Atlas with the Far West.
But the idea that the Sinking of Atlantis is another memory of Noah's Flood should also be considered.
I've already explained why I think it's futile to assume the Euphrates of Genesis 2 must be where the Post-Flood Euphrates is. That was in the context of arguing for Eden being Aden in Yemen, a theory I still lean towards, but in my search for truth I consider many theories.
The Garden of the Hesperides in Greek Mythology are often thought to be a corrupted Greek memory of the Garden of Eden, and it is traditionally placed near Mount Atlas as the Titan Atlas was sometimes the father of the Hesperides. In Plato's account of Atlantis the innermost island included a Sacred Garden of Poseidon. So could Atlantis also be a corrupt memory of Eden?
Maybe when Cain was exiled from Eden he was exiled from the Richat. Or maybe only from the inner most Island and it was the city he or his son founded that became this great imperial capital.
I've also Biblically argued for The Flood being proceeded by a major war.
And maybe in light of some speculation on my Comparative Mythology Blog the Gorgons could be an all female tribe descended from Lilith.
What I've said above can apply to a Global Flood model, which remains over all my view of The Flood.
However I said when addressing the Racist associations of Old Earth Creationism that I could be open to a local flood interpretation of Genesis, it's an Old Earth model I'm completely against (though I am intrigued by Peter Hiett's The History of Time and the Genesis of you theory which is the only such compromise that doesn't separate the Genesis 1 and 2 Adams or in some way claim not all Human descend from Adam and Eve).
I've looked at some of Michael Heiser's material on the subject. But here is the thing, if the purpose of a Local Flood model is to make The Bible fit more with what mainstream science assumes. Then Adam and Eve have to be placed in Africa not the Near East.
I have also found some sites arguing that via correcting possible translation ambiguities Genesis 7 could have been describing a Tsunami, which fits with what is proposed to have happened to Atlantis in the Richat Structure theory. So maybe it's possible Noah's Ark was built inside or near the Richat Structure, then a tidal wave took it out to the Ocean and it somehow wound up landing somewhere in the Near East.
What's important is all Homo-Sapiens descend from both Adam and Eve. If there are some who don't descend from Noah, the mainstream interpretation of the Genetic evidence implies they would have been in Africa. Now Racists could attempt to twist that kind of view to their means too, saying non Noahites are not as Chosen as the rest of us. But Romans 5 and 1st Corinthians 15 promise Salvation to all descendants of Adam, and Romans 11 that all Ethnicities will be grafted into Israel.
I've talked about Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups on this Blog before. Not all my conclusions there necessarily need to be abandoned under this hypothesis. Here is a Tree of how mainstream scientists view the descent of Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups.
People who descend from A or B but not the rest are all indigenous to Africa.
The most attractive way to interpret that in this proposed Local Flood model would be BR is descent from Seth or Enos and CR is descent from Noah. I would then guess that C is Japheth (Enlarge is a mis-translation in Genesis 9, something I intend to talk about elsewhere, C is attested among Greeks and Cypriots). DE is Ham as Haplogroup E dominates much of Africa including Egypt including some ancient Mummies), Sudan, Ethiopia and North-West Africa, and has presence in the Middle East and even the Far East. And lastly F is Shem from whom comes Abraham who's descendants were destined to be the most numerous. People of Hamite Pater-lineal ancestry did get incorporated into Israel via the Mixed Multitude and The Torah specifically saying to welcome Mizraimites, so that's why there are both Ashkenazim, Shaphardi and other Jews who are in Y-Haplogroup E. (Though I've also been considering a model that would switch Ham and Shem.)
In-spite of all that speculation, I still lean towards a Global Flood. It's simply that if you want to convince me of a Local Flood model, this is the only viable one.
