Flood Stories from Around the World and a Hydrodynamics Challenge
Mankind's Collective Memory of a Global Deluge
Many dismiss the biblical account of a worldwide flood as a myth, a fanciful allegory of some sort, or just an interesting but far-fetched fairy tale. But imagine this:
You move to a new town, and you begin hearing reports about an old man who lives in a ramshackle cabin up on the hill above the town. All of these stories differ from one another in some details, but they all have several basic elements in common; No two are exactly alike, but they all have the same general theme: the man was a standout athlete, but he had been unable to pursue a career in sports because he robbed a business and spent his youth incarcerated.
One story says he was a basketball player, another that he was a football player, yet another that he was a baseball player, and still another that he was a champion at tiddlywinks (or tiddledywinks, as it was called at one time). One story says he robbed a bank, another a 7-11, another a Denny’s, and yet another a laundromat. In one story he used a gun, in another a knife, in another a wiffleball bat, and in yet another no weapon at all was used. The stories differed in other details, too, such as what he was wearing at the time the crime was committed, what year it took place, how long he spent in prison, where he was incarcerated, etc.
But they all agreed that the man had been an exceptional athlete, he robbed a business, and he went to jail.
Wouldn’t you say that, while it’s possible that these stories are all wrong and bear no resemblance to any truth whatsoever, the chances are very good that the commonalities the stories share lead you to give credence to the basic claims, i.e. that there is a high degree of likelihood that something similar did take place?
A couple of similar accounts about the man may be a coincidence, but when there are several, with the basic nubs in common, there is likely something to the reports.
The same thing can be said of the Bible’s account of a global deluge during the days of Noah — the so-called Noachian Flood. How so? In that there are flood “myths” or stories all over the world, even in places where flooding does not normally occur, and they bear resemblance to each other in many aspects.
All over the world, flood legends bear enough similarity to the Bible account to make you at least contemplate the implications. All over the Americas, in Greece, India, and China, in Europe (such as Greece and Russia) as well as in the South Pacific and Asia, flood stories are told. There are also ancient civilizations, such as the Babylonians and Sumerians, whose flood legends have been discovered.
In Philip Freund’s book Myths of Creation, the author estimates that there are more than 500 Flood legends recounted by over 250 tribes and peoples throughout the earth. It seems that a shared global memory of a worldwide flood has left an indelible impression on peoples practically everywhere.
These flood accounts that have been passed down among groups around the world tend — although each is unique — to often have certain elements in common such as:
A man was warned by God of the coming flood
The flood caused general destruction
One or more people survived the flood by sheltering in a boat
The boat landed on a mountain after the waters subsided
Flood survivors repopulated the earth (that’s probably obvious)
Some of the accounts also tell of violent giants who lived on the earth prior to the global deluge, which corresponds to the Bible’s account of “fallen angels” coming to earth, materializing human bodies for themselves, exercising a corrupting influence on mankind, and generally wreaking mayhem on the earth, “filling it with violence.”
One interesting case of a flood myth which somewhat mirrors the Bible account is the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, which recounts the tale of a man named Utnapishtim who survived a worldwide flood after being told to build a huge square ship (good for floating, not designed for sailing to anywhere) filled with animals and his family. When Utnapishtim’s floating vessel came to rest on a mountain, he in turn released a dove, swallow, and raven, until the last one did not return, as it found land on which to reside. Utnapishtim then offered a sacrifice. These details bear quite a bit of similarity to the Bible’s account of the flood.
A Greek legend which is also in some respects reminiscent of the Bible account tells of a time when the earth was inhabited by violent creatures who Zeus decided to destroy by means of a great flood. In this account, Zeus told a person named Deucalion to build a large chest and to get into it. When the flood finally subsided, the floating chest came to rest on a mountain.
Although these accounts (and the countless others “left as an exercise to the reader” to search out and examine) differ in their particulars, the common features listed above are at the very least thought-provoking. It seems obvious that they share an origin in a humongous and unforgettable cataclysm that seared itself into mankind’s collective conscious (or subconscious?). The basic stories have so much in common that it logically leads to the conclusion that they were inspired by ancestors’ memories of a watershed event that was passed from generation to generation (becoming, as usually happens with that form of storytelling, a little muddled in the process).
And note that these flood legends, or stories, were formulated and passed on generally among groups who have only been exposed to the Bible in recent times (and thus were not based on or inspired by the Bible’s account).
So, with the striking commonalities of these accounts and the sheer volume of them in circulation around the earth, doesn’t it at least move you to contemplate whether such a collection of related similar accounts from all over the world could be something more than mere coincidence?
Again, many dismiss the Flood as a myth, a fanciful allegory of some sort, or just an interesting but far-fetched story. But when you accept it as founded on truth, many riddles are resolved. How different might the explanations be of why seashells have been found on mountaintops; how the Grand Canyon was formed; how the continents broke apart; and how mastodons and other animals have been found swept together in mass graves, often dying en masse and so quickly that they were still “chewing their cud” just prior to their freeze-dried demise (Really? Mastodons were killed by glaciers engulfing them as they sat — or, to be literal, stood — there placidly chowing down?).
I would love to see the results of a computer model of how the earth’s continents were originally situated, and how a flood as described in the Bible would affect them. It’s hard to understimate the power (the sound and the fury!) of so much water rushing everywhere all at once. What would 40 days of constant torrential downpour do? Valleys would be shaped and deepened, canyons scooped out, trenches hollowed out, mountains lifted, animals and trees tossed about willy-nilly. The sheer volume of the cataclysm had to be deafening. Hydrodynamics scientists, consider this a challenge to you.
There are doubtless other historical events currently being explained by resorting to eyebrow-raising conjecture that may not really hold water (no pun intended).
Clay, I really enjoyed this….I actually learned a few very interesting facts……And here all the time I thought I knew everything!🤪😜