Why is the Flood story so common across the World

[old man emu]

You would be aware of the biblical story of Noah and the Ark. "God" angry with the people, and decided to get rid of the present ones and start again. "God" directs a good man to build a survival craft and save the known animals. "God" deluges the world. Good man rides out the flood and when the waters subside he lets the animals out and humans and animals start over.

 

The Noah story can be traced back to the Sumerian Flood myth:

 

The gods were angry at mankind so they sent a flood to destroy him. The god Ea, warned Utnapishtim and instructed him to build an enormous boat to save himself, his family, and "the seed of all living things." He does so, and the gods brought rain which caused the water to rise for many days. When the rains subsided, the boat landed on a mountain, and Utnapishtim set loose first a dove, then a swallow, and finally a raven, which found land. The god Ishtar, created the rainbow and placed it in the sky, as a reminder to the gods and a pledge to mankind that there would be no more floods. No problem with the Israelites using a story they picked up during their period of slavery in Babylon. 

 

But why is a destructive flood brought on by the "gods" such a common theme in places that we suspect had no cultural contact with the Mesopotamian civilisations. Here's a similar recounting of a destructive flood in the Sioux Creation story. Before the 17th century, the Santee Dakota (Isáŋyathi; "Knife" also known as the Eastern Dakota) lived around Lake Superior with territories in present-day northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.  In the 1800s, the Dakota signed treaties with the United States, ceding much of their land in Minnesota. Failure of the United States to make treaty payments ontime as well as low food supplies led to the Dakota War of 1862, which resulted in the Dakota being exiled from Minnesota to numerous reservations in Nebraska, North and South Dakota and Canada. Which is how they got mixed up with the Lakota Sioux and Custer. The ancestral Sioux most likely lived in the Central Mississippi Valley region and later in Minnesota, for at least two or three thousand years.

 

The Mesopotamian civilisations arose arose about 3000 BC, but small villages would have developed well before that time. We can accept that the ancestors of the Sioux were wandering the US/Canadian border regions about the same time as hunters and gatherers.

 

Is there anything we know of that could explain a massive flood within the cultural memory in both places sometime before 3000 BC? There is.

 

Lake Agassiz was a very large glacial lake in central North America. Fed by glacial meltwater at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined. Lake Agassiz's major drainage reorganization events were of such magnitudes that they had significant impact on climate, sea level and possibly early human civilization. The lake's enormous freshwater release into the Arctic Ocean has been postulated to have disrupted oceanic circulation and caused temporary cooling. The draining of 13,000 years ago may be the cause of the Younger Dryas stadial. Although disputed, the draining at 9,900–10,000 years ago may be the cause of the 8,200 yr climate event. A recent study by Turney and Brown links the 8,500-years ago drainage to the expansion of agriculture from east to west across Europe; they suggest that this may also account for various flood myths of prehistoric cultures, including the Biblical flood narrative.

 

Can it be so? One thing that could indicate a massive sea level rise from this melt water is that in the Sumerian, and subsequent Israelite flood story, the boat builder's boat comes to rest in the mountains of Ararat,  the term used to designate the region in which Noah's Ark comes to rest after the Great Flood. It corresponds to ancient Assyrian Urartu, a name for the Kingdom of Van. We normally think that if you put a boat into flood waters, it will go downstream. Bit the mountains of Ararat are way upstream where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers begin. The only way a boat will go upstream is if the water is flowing in that direction. 

 

About the same time as the freshwater release from Lake Agassiz,around 6500–6200 BC, Doggerland an area of land, now submerged beneath the southern North Sea, that  connected Britain to continental Europe was flooded by rising sea levels. And the coastal Aborigines of NSW have stories indicating that people were forced from a much more easterly coastline by rising waters. Archaeological studies indicate that the people around Sydney's coastline arrive there about 5000 BC. 

 

 

[Bruce]

The movie tried to be accurate as well as plausible and it sure failed on the second count.  AND why did the chinese historians of the day not even notice anything?

 

 

[old man emu]

What movie???

 

The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, which is long after the rise of the Mesopotamian civilisations, and even longer after the actual Lake Agassiz flood event.

 

 

[spacesailor]

If the sea (Atlantic) rose enough it would have flooded over the Straights of Gibraltar, thereby flooding the Mediterranean, Then "A man with a boat " would become immortal .

 

spacesailor

 

 

[old man emu]

The Zanclean flood or Zanclean deluge is a flood theorized to have refilled the Mediterranean Sea 5.33 million years ago. There wasn't even a "man in the boat" at that time (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/little_man_in_the_boat )

 

 

[spacesailor]

Monkey on a log ?.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[old man emu]

Where are the Atheists when you need them?

 

 

[facthunter]

Where did all the water come from for this to happen and when the episode was over where did it go to.?  Underwater creatures were exempted apparently, and the mass of birds landing on the only place (The ARK) would have sunk it. Why didn't all the creatures just eat each other and from a breeding  herd of just two the gene pool would have been deficient. It's such a silly yarn I'm surprised ANYONE gives it any credence .  Nev

 

 

[willedoo]

It makes you wonder how stories like that make it to print. Re-wind back to when the bible first started appearing in print. In those days, anybody who could read was probably a reasonably intelligent person and would easily see that the logistics of such a yarn didn't make sense. Today, we can pick the bible to pieces, but back then, people were no less smart than we are now. Maybe they also thought it was BS but the power structure made them shut up and toe the line. Can't think of any other reason why people of any intelligence would believe that, no matter what century you lived in.

 

 

[Litespeed]

If you did not believe you were a Heretic and liable for a nasty death.

 

So you towed the line.

 

AS per my tagline........

 

read below

 

 

[facthunter]

Where did you tow the line to?  Non believers are still getting a hard time.. Godly is Good though the "believer" examples haven't  always lived up to the ideal.. .. By their works will they be judged. so it goes.  If that's the case, some should be terrified of death. . You can fool some of the people some of the time but I would imagine you couldn't fool God anytime, if he's around, and a real god. Nev 

 

 

[willedoo]

I might get struck by lightning for thinking this, but if there is a god, logic tells me he's a bit of an elitist. Imagine a pile of good people all rocking up at the pearly gates and being told "Piss off, you haven't had water splashed on your head. Go to hell." Well, that's not a very nice person at all.

 

 

[old man emu]

Where did all the water come from for this to happen and when the episode was over where did it go to.?

 

The water came from the melting of the North American ice sheet. The ice sheets melt a lot at the bottom and the water accumulates. In the case of the Lake Agassiz outflow, Scientists think that there was an ice dam across the outlets which caused the meltwater to back up. Eventually the ice dam was broken and the water flowed off the land into the sea. At the time, all the other areas of ice sheets were melting, but their meltwater was able to run away relatively gently to the oceans and so slowly raised overall sea levels.

 

Can't think of any other reason why people of any intelligence would believe that, no matter what century you lived in.

 

The reason is the culture which you were brought up in. If your culture has the strong belief in gods, then you take on that belief as you grow up. Why would you even consider an alternative view if the culture was running along nicely with the view it developed for itself? The only reason people in the 21st Century question the existence of gods is because the culture which formerly believed in "God" isn't working so well. Mondern Man seems to be doing the things  that in the not too distant past could only be done by "God". Appeals to"God" don't seem to get results. In some past cultures, if the appeals to the gods were not answered, the people killed off the religious hierarchy.

 

You have to accept as fact that the Old Testament stories of Genesis were absorbed by the Hebrews from the stories or earlier groups. The big change that the Hebrews did was to ditch the pantheon of the earlier groups and to believe that there was only one god. The Hebrews used the old stories because the meaning and lessons from them applied equally to monotheism and polytheism.

 

It's little wonder that this One God idea didn't catch on amongst the Hebrews' neighbours. Can you imagine the furor in the temples of all the gods? The priests and their associates would have terror visions of the dole queue. Even when Christ was preaching an alternative view in Jerusalem, the High Priests had kittens.

 

 

[spacesailor]

WHAT IF.

 

IN the beginning of Earth's time !.

 

There was TWO Earths, binery planets,  gently spinning around each other,

 

No a care in their universe, 

 

Then one of those "near Earth" astoiroids Didn't Miss.

 

One planet took a big hit & lost a third out into space,

 

With another third colliding into the binery planet.

 

The damaged planet would have remolded itseft into a nice Moon for the OUR world.

 

The lump that landed on a water planet  (like Saturn's Titon ) would  have made a great Gonwawanaland ( or whatever the new name is ),

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Bruce]

I reckon the flood story is easy to explain: a smart farmer saved himself,his family and even some of his stock with a big raft.

 

Then the story grew with the retelling.

 

Big floods in the fertile crescent would have happened lots.

 

 

[Bruce]

There was a movie about Noah, with that NZ "The gladiator"  guy being Noah. They had an ark as big as the bible said, which of course needed a forest of trees and robot-like angels as constructors.  All arranged by god of course. What obvious nonsense, but good fun for a movie.

 

What mucked the movie up was the bit about Noah going insane after the event.. they shouldn't have tried to stick so close to the biblical story. We like our heroes to behave better. I think the movie lost money.

 

 

[Bruce]

Russel Crowe, it just came to me.

 

 

[Yenn]

Religion has changed a lot in my lifetime. When I was a kid there was a lot of education telling us what I now consider is a pack of lies. The priests and teachers doing that teaching seemed to actually believe it themselves. Nowadays I don't think the priests and teachers really believe, but it is a good way of controlling others as well as making a living.

 

Just looking at God, I can see that he is a bit like Trump, but doesn't have the same amount of confidence.

 

 

[facthunter]

What Blasphemy, comparing TRUMP to God!! God has his faults but Trump is the greatest at "everything". Superlatives are inadequate at describing  him.

 

     ' Yenn that wasn't Education. A lot of  It was indoctrination.  Young minds are more receptive and  malleable and all religions  (or CULTS) like to get them young and repeat stuff a lot. Nev

 

 

[Bruce]

There is a test of whether the senior priests believe their own stuff, and that is to see how many of them do suicide missions.

 

AND the rest of them should be happy for him  when one of them goes to paradise.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Getting back to why a flood story occurs across different cultures - so do ghosts, demons, angels, vampires and all sorts of monsters.

 

'Tis all just the shite of bulls, methinks.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

The sea rose hundreds of feet very quickly drowning places like Bass Strait and Doggerland. It would be surprising if this was not remembered in myth and legend.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

I might get struck by lightning for thinking this, but if there is a god, logic tells me he's a bit of an elitist. Imagine a pile of good people all rocking up at the pearly gates and being told "Piss off, you haven't had water splashed on your head. Go to hell." Well, that's not a very nice person at all.

 

 

 

 

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[Old Koreelah]

The sea rose hundreds of feet very quickly drowning places like Bass Strait and Doggerland. It would be surprising if this was not remembered in myth and legend.

 

Which is why most relics of really ancient cultures are still to be found: they are under the sea. Miles out to sea off our coast.

 

 

[old man emu]

Notice how the legend of Atlantis does not contain any gods as major protagonists. That's because we know who created it - Plato. The story is a parable. Atlantis ("island of Atlas") is a fictional island mentioned within an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias, where it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges "Ancient Athens", the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato's ideal state in The Republic. 

 

However, the cause of the destruction of Atlantis in Plato's fable might be a recollection of the destruction of the Minoan civilisation by the explosion of the volcanic island of Thera (now Santorini)   which occurred about 3,600 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization. The tsunami caused by the explosion was noted by the Egyptians, and is also thought by some to be a source for the Flood story (without taking into account the global extent of flood stories in ancient cultures).