The great flood

Flood myths are all around the world, on every continent. The one from the bible is just an ancient hebrew myth, it resembles a summerian myth.
In all the myths there are simmilar elements : gods being angry at men ,in some of them one man is warned and escapes with a boat, waters cover all the land, then the survivors escape on the highest peaks when the water receeds.
Also many of them tell about other "creations" where the people were "bad" and the world was destroyed and reborn. Acording to the maya we are number 5
How do you think these myths appeared ? Was there a great flood , what could have caused it ?

Babylonian

Three times (every 1200 years), the Gods became distressed by the disturbance from human overpopulation. The Gods dealt with the problem first by plague, then by famine. Both times, the God Enki advised humans to bribe the God causing the problem. The third time, Enlil advised the Gods to destroy all humans with a flood, but Enki had Atrahasis build an ark and so escape. Also on the boat were cattle, wild animals and birds, and the family of Atrahasis. After seeing the suffering caused by the flood, the Gods regretted their action, and Enki established barren women and stillbirth to avoid the problem in the future.

Hindu

Manu, the first human, saved a small fish from the jaws of a larger fish. After hearing the smaller one beg for protection, Manu kept the fish safe, transferring it to larger and larger containers as it grew, finally returning it to the ocean.
Because of this kindness, the fish returned to warn Manu about an imminent flood and told him to build a boat, stocking it with samples of every species. After the flood waters rose, Manu tied a rope to the fish's horn. The fish led him to a mountain and told Manu to fasten the ship's rope to a tree so that it would not drift. He stayed on the mountain (known as Manu's Descent) while the flood swept away all living creatures. Manu alone survived.

Celtic

Heaven and Earth were great giants, and Heaven lay upon the Earth so that their children were crowded in the darkness between them. One of their sons led his brothers in cutting up Heaven into many pieces. From his skull they made the firmament. His spilling blood caused a great flood which killed all humans except a single pair, who were saved in a ship made by a beneficent Titan. The waters settled in hollows to become the oceans.

Here are some links to flood myths :

www.dreamscape.com...
www.talkorigins.org...
en.wikipedia.org...


[edit on 13-3-2007 by pai mei]

[edit on 13-3-2007 by pai mei]

do we have to go through this again
its been covered over and over and over again already
use the search function eh Pai Mei

I won't hurl myself into this either, since I DO believe in the Bible. All I can say is that years ago I was working in an area of New Mexico where the level ground between two mountain ranges was about a mile in elevation. One day while exploring a mountain that was over a mile above the base I found a sea urchin fossil embedded on a rock. The explaination given in the Bible of how an ocean creature could have been about two miles above sea level, 200-300 miles from the Gulf, is all I need to explain it.

Originally posted by pai mei
www.dreamscape.com...
www.talkorigins.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

Actually, that's an interesting question. It occurred to me after talking to the paleongologist that I do volunteer work for, that it might be possible to construct a cladogram of the myths and see if markers can be identified and see what relationships might appear. Alas, he's on vacation this week or I'd bounce it off him and get some suggestions for the defining characters.

I know of other myths that derive from a source. So, yes, I think it would be interesting to see if relationship trees can be consructed.


The "My World, and Welcome To It" section

Here. You can boggle your mind with this:
en.wikipedia.org...

...and after you've finished boggling, then scroll down this page and find the section on cladograms:
www.brooklyn.cuny.edu...

...and terminology. You have to know what to call things and how to define things before you can work with the tools:
biology.fullerton.edu...

(and this, boys and girls, is the mind of the researcher at work. Always a new problem, always a new angle)

For those who like challenges, this page starts to go into the parsimony algorithmns and cladistics:
www.dinosauria.com...

More depth:
www.dinosauria.com...
www.mun.ca...
(is everyone hiding in the corner by now?)

[edit on 13-3-2007 by Byrd]

The Epic of Gilgamesh is probably the oldest recorded ( non oral ) account of the flood but I personally like the one were the Earths Physical Pole flips dragging all the land masses through the ocean to their new location on the compass.

Perhaps this is a reoccuring event and the accounts of all these civilizations who experienced floods are not of the same time period.

I did not open this thread to prove the bible wrong. I am not an atheist, I am more into buddhism. The existance of all the other flood myths only proves that the one in the bible is true.
I believe there was a global flood, and it happened fast, that is why all the myths tell about boats and very few survivors. What else could have caused all the myths ?
10000 years ago they say we were living in caves. But the earth is very old, look how far we got in just 10000 years.
There are traces of nuclear explosions in ancient India and they also have a poem about them. Troy was just a fantasy story until someone decided to go digg it up.

s8int.com...


New theory of mine :
10000 years ago or earlyer there were some advanced civilizations, and they were destroyed by some flood, not all the people on earth experienced it, then the flood myths appeared. Simple

[edit on 14-3-2007 by pai mei]

Originally posted by mazzroth
The Epic of Gilgamesh is probably the oldest recorded ( non oral ) account of the flood

no it wasn't
www.abovetopsecret.com...
it was the one that the Hebrews stole and then rewrote changing all the characters when they wrote the bible 1700years after Gilgamesh was written though

Originally posted by pai mei
The existance of all the other flood myths only proves that the one in the bible is true.

Why? Flooding is a natural part of our earth. No wonder every civilization talk about it: Its happened to every civilization at one time or another. Hell even if they live in the bloody desert chances are high they've experienced a flood!

Originally posted by pai mei
There are traces of nuclear explosions in ancient India and they also have a poem about them. Troy was just a fantasy story until someone decided to go digg it up.

s8int.com...

That's not a real reliable site. The "nuclear explosion" bit is actually NOT in the Mahabdarata.

Here's the real text from the book. Please look though it. You'll find the text quoted is nowhere in there.
www.sacred-texts.com...

There are no world flood myths below the Sahara, nor among the Oceanic peoples, including the Australian Aborigines. If I recall there are also none in pre-vedic Indian mythology, though I could be mistaken.

Now here's two interesting facts. A good long while ago (I think it was 25,000 years ago, thereabouts? Longer?) There was some sort of event that greatly reduced the human population, resulting in a big loss of genetic diversity... EXCEPT in Africa below the Sahara. Thus sub-saharan Africans have the most diverse genetic makeup of the human species - followed by Australian Aborigines.

So there was some catastrophic event that struck the population of humanity in the Sahara and beyond region. My theory is a drought / flood, due to the Nile shifting to its current course after seismic unheavals at its headwaters. A drastic drought in one corner of the human wold with a big flood at another, resulting in the creation of a nigh-inpenetrable desert, would create probably the first "world disaster" mythos of humankind.

The majority of humanity is decended from the survivors of the Sahara event. They settled along rivers, and mingled the flooding of those rivers with their older, world destruction myths.

At least, this is my theory of the thing

There are myths in Oceania and in lower Africa :
www.talkorigins.org...

Palau Islands (Micronesia):

"The stars are the shining eyes of the gods. A man once went into the sky and stole one of the eyes. (The Pelew Islanders' money is made from it.) The gods were angry at this and came to earth to punish the theft. They disguised themselves as ordinary men and went door-to-door begging for food and lodging. Only one old woman received them kindly. They told her to make a bamboo raft ready and, on the night of the next full moon, to lie down on it and sleep. This she did. A great storm came; the sea rose, flooded the islands, and destroyed everyone else. The woman, fast asleep, drifted until her hair caught on a tree on the top of Mount Armlimui."

Most cultures have flood myths. Because, whilst not always a common occurrence, most cultures have at one time or other experienced major floods of one type or another And events of that nature tend to stick in the memory. Just like Katrina won't have been forgotten by the people who experienced it in 5 years time.

Of course, nowadays we have TV and books and stuff for entertainment - we don't spend the nights all sat around the fire telling stories - so Katrina won't become enshrined in local folk myth the way it would have done had it hit 2,000 years ago ....

Some of the flood myths clearly do originate with similar events though. Oddly enough, the Mesopotamian flood myth fits into that category.

To say though they mean there was only one, truly global, flood is like suggesting the fact that all cultures have stories about people falling in love means that they too all originate from one event

Polarity reversal of the Earth will cause a 'Great Flood'.It seems to be documented in the geological record and it didn't happen just once....it could have happened within the timeframe of these ancient civilisations,yet not one of these myths state anything in relation to the physical shape of the Earth afterwards....was the land masses the same as before or different?...and if they were different then it seems to enhance the theory of polarity shift...as this would cause untold geological activity...shifting,moving,sinking,raising land masses.All myths have a basis in reality yet some seem to be perpetuating religious bias...which when seen in actuality shows the ignorance of man and his surroundings in those eras.

ok so whats polarity shift when its at home ?

Originally posted by pai mei
There are myths in Oceania and in lower Africa :
www.talkorigins.org...

Palau Islands (Micronesia):

"The stars are the shining eyes of the gods. A man once went into the sky and stole one of the eyes. (The Pelew Islanders' money is made from it.) The gods were angry at this and came to earth to punish the theft. They disguised themselves as ordinary men and went door-to-door begging for food and lodging. Only one old woman received them kindly. They told her to make a bamboo raft ready and, on the night of the next full moon, to lie down on it and sleep. This she did. A great storm came; the sea rose, flooded the islands, and destroyed everyone else. The woman, fast asleep, drifted until her hair caught on a tree on the top of Mount Armlimui."

Read again. There are flood myths, but no "god got pissed and drowned the entire world except for one guy and a bunch of animals on a boat". Tou see a lot of myths explaining lakes or rivers, or even just the origin of water. And then there's the whole "flood of beer" thing which, to me, hardly sounds tragic...

And then there's the whole "flood of beer" thing which, to me, hardly sounds tragic...

wow someone else who noticed that Egypt does have a flood myth
I like Sekhmet
en.wikipedia.org...
shes my kinda gal

Originally posted by FlaBama
I won't hurl myself into this either, since I DO believe in the Bible. All I can say is that years ago I was working in an area of New Mexico where the level ground between two mountain ranges was about a mile in elevation. One day while exploring a mountain that was over a mile above the base I found a sea urchin fossil embedded on a rock. The explaination given in the Bible of how an ocean creature could have been about two miles above sea level, 200-300 miles from the Gulf, is all I need to explain it.

Listen if you were in mexico yuv'e got to remember your plate tectonics. Where you were at probably used to be a lot lower therefore water was there and centuries later you got a sea urchin fossil.

[edit on 17-3-2007 by TheTimeIsUp]

Look again, all the myths contain angry gods, do you want them t obe exactly the same and to be a Noah in each one ?
This one contains a possible explanation :

Yamana (Tierra del Fuego):

Léxuwakipa, the rusty brown spectacled ibis, felt offended by the people, so she let it snow so much that ice came to cover the entire earth. This happened at the time of Yáiaasága, when men seized power from the women. When the ice melted, it rapidly flooded all the earth. People hurried to their canoes, but many didn't make it, and more perished when they couldn't find sheltered places. Some people reached the five mountaintops which stayed above the flood. These mountains were Usláka, Wémarwaia, Auwáratuléra, Welalánux, and Piatuléra. The water stayed at its high mark for two days and then rapidly lowered. Signs of the floodwaters still show up on those mountains. The few families which survived rebuilt their huts on the shore. Men have ruled women since then. [Wilbert, pp. 27-28]

The moon-woman Hánuxa caused the flood because she was full of hatred against the people, especially the men, who had taken over the women's secret kina ceremony and made it their own. A few people survived on five mountaintops. [Wilbert, p. 29]

The sun sank into the sea, causing its waters to rise tumultuously and to cover all the earth except the summit of a single mountain. A few people survived there. [Gaster, p. 128]

www.talkorigins.org...

[edit on 18-3-2007 by pai mei]

To say though they mean there was only one, truly global, flood is like suggesting the fact that all cultures have stories about people falling in love means that they too all originate from one event

this is a good point however i beleive it is equally ignorant to say a great flood didn't happen where it would be fair to say " i don't know"

although people like to have opinions on things and lack there of somehow equates to lack of intelligence in alot of minds, so instead we get ignorance

Originally posted by pai mei
Look again, all the myths contain angry gods,

do you want them t obe exactly the same and to be a Noah in each one ?

That....'angry gods'.....is, to my mind- - the ?hinge pin?.

all the diverse & farflung gatherings of men in prehistory used myths to
explain the powerful forces of nature.

each culture had concluded that there were ~4 forces or elements that seemed to have a mind-of-their-own; fire-water-earth-air + spirit

its also possible that early men might not have shared the 'Flood-Boat' myth, that only came about when the cultures actually met & exchanged/intermingled...

look at the different 'creation myths' around the world,
? how could the 'creation' process be so diverse?
? how could a 'Flood, family in boat' story be so universal?
~~its not because one is truer than the other...its more likely that cultural cross-contamination occurred~~