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Besides their powerful, super-human rulers, Antediluvian civilizations were wicked and violent (Gen. 6:5). This leads us to believe that they were not struggling to survive, rather they were basking in excess; they could afford to become corrupt because of the surplus of resources.
Besides their powerful, super-human rulers, Antediluvian civilizations were wicked and violent (Gen. 6:5). This leads us to believe that they were not struggling to survive, rather they were basking in excess; they could afford to become corrupt because of the surplus of resources.
== Level of technology ==
=== Minimum ===
Antediluvian civilization must have commanded techniques of shipbuilding and naval architecture on a par with the highest technologies of ancient [[Egypt]], [[Greece]], and [[Rome]]. Only with such technology could one man, with his three sons, have built anything as massive, and as eminently seaworthy, as [[Noah's Ark]].
=== Limit ===
Surprisingly, the level of [[technology]] of antediluvian civilization ''knows no limit,'' except the limits that physical laws set. Conventional theory states any civilization earlier than modern civilization must leave traces on the land on which it stood. But antediluvian civilization must have stood ''on [[precambrian]] rock'', that is, ''deep to the entire [[geological column]].'' The reason: the Great Flood laid down ''all'' the [[geology|geological]] layers. So violent was it that it surely destroyed every artifact of [[human]] kind, except one vessel, about 515 feet long, built to proportions that struck the best balance among the competing concerns of strength, stability, and sea-kindliness.
Shane Johnson, in ''[[Ice (novel)|Ice: The Greatest Truths Lie in the Deepest Shadows]],'' developed, for this novel, a theory of how antediluvian civilization could increase in technology without practical limit and still remain undetectable. One must surely expect great advancement by remembering that men lived 900 years on average, and had at least 1,656 years (per the [[Masoretic Text]] of the [[Bible]]; see the Annals of Noah in [[Genesis]] chapter 5) to advance their technology before the Flood. Possibly the antediluvians did not have a unified civilization, and did not share many technological elements, especially those useful for making [[weapon]]s.<ref name=Protector>Cf. ''Protector'', a "Known Space" novel by Larry Niven. In it, Niven proposed a progenitor civilization for human beings. Family leaders in that civilization fought bitter and never-ending feuds and kept military technology top-secret or closer. This had the result of constant war. Niven speculated that human beings, with their ability to co-operate and forge long-standing alliances, could eventually defeat their progenitors in war, should the two civilizations ever come in contact.</ref> Or perhaps the antediluvians organized central [[government]]s, and eventually one central government. In the Johnson version, that government fails completely, and the civilization lapses into [[anarchy]] and chaos.
Nevertheless, Johnson reminds his readers that in 1500 years (from the Fall of Rome to [[Project Apollo]]), modern humankind, limited though the human life span was, advanced from the total post-Roman desuetude to developing telecommunications and sending crews to the [[Moon]]. Given a life span of 1000 years, Johnson speculates that antediluvian civilization could easily have placed a working base on the Moon, achieved total [[gravity]] manipulation, and built a surveillance network under which no activity could escape official notice (so long as anyone was still paying attention!). He also speculated on bases on [[Mars]] and even a now-destroyed [[planet]] of which the [[asteroid]] belt would constitute the remains. That no survivors have since tried to reach [[Earth]] since then, Johnson attributes to outbreaks of [[mutiny]] and mutual murder on every one of these bases, upon the sickening realization that the Earth has suffered the ultimate destructive event. (Mr. Johnson clearly did not know about the [[Hydroplate Theory]]. Else he would never have speculated about a planet once orbiting in the space the asteroid belt now occupies. Johnson did, however, correctly predict that the [[dwarf planet]] [[Pluto]] did not exist before the Flood.)
The current development of [[cloud storage]] and [[streaming]] technology suggests a further reason why none of the [[literature]], [[art]], [[music]], or [[cinema]] of the antediluvian period survives. An event as violent as the Flood surely was, would have utterly destroyed the infrastructure that supports these technologies, and every byte of information they held.
== Legends ==
== Legends ==
The legendary kingdom of [[Atlantis]] may have existed during this period.
The legendary kingdom of [[Atlantis]] may have existed during this period.
== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Ancient History]]
[[Category:Ancient History]]
[[Category:Civilizations]]
[[Category:Civilizations]]