There are flood myths from all over the world

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Contents

Claim

Many cultures around the world have flood myths, indicating the universality of the Flood.

Source

Response

  1. Given the fact that most cultures have been located near bodies of water prone to regular flooding (e.g. Egypt and the Nile) it is unclear why anyone should think that the prevalence of flood-type myths is a mystery that requires any explanation at all, let alone a Divine "explanation". Most ancient cultures had only a very limited understanding of the size of planet earth. To them, their little land was the "world", and if it was flooded it would have been "a flood covering the world".
  2. It is possible that flood-event experiences propagated among related cultures. Common shared experiences of floods in no way mean said flood was of divine origin or covered the entire world.
  3. For any villages that existed on a continental coast 12,000 years ago, there was a Great Flood. Between then and now, sea level has gone up 100-160 meters. Cultures that have flood myths are most likely recounting that event, from their ancient pasts, which there would have been some cultural memory of through oral tradition. The current western South American coast, for example, was quite far inland at the beginning of the Holocene, and people would have settled in places which are now underwater. This has been an obstacle to modeling human migration patterns of the era, since the vast majority of evidence of it across the coastal world would be underwater now, and most likely eroded into meaninglessness.
  4. Many myths represent the experience of the populace writ large. People who live in regions with large reptiles tell stories of gigantic reptiles. People who live in areas prone to forest fires tell of the fire big enough to destroy the world. People who live near glaciers have myths of when the world was consumed by ice. The prevalence of flood myths needs no explanation except that humans like to live near water and water sources have a tendency to flood periodically.
  5. Examination of flood myths indicates they can vary extremely, from world-destruction to world-creation, from localized to encompassing the entire planet. Very few of the world-destroying flood myths describe humanity escaping in a boat. Some speak of people avoiding the flood by hiding within giant trees, escaping to higher ground, and in some cases, the myths speak of how the entire world was completely destroyed (i.e., the Aztecs), or how the flood was stopped before any devastion occurred (i.e., the Chinese). If there was one primal flood, more consistency would be expected. Given that all but Noah's family perished in the Biblical flood myth, these other cultures would have to be descendants of Noah's family after repopulating the world. Wouldn't they have much the same story?
  6. Given the (above mentioned) severe contradictions that the other flood myths have in respect to the Genesis version (see creationist site: http://members.aol.com/adobebill/E_Flood.html#a_Fld ), why do creationists bother with this argument? If Genesis is literally true, then these other myths must be false. If they are false, how do they add weight to the Genesis account? And, more importantly, what makes them so sure that the Genesis flood myth the only true one, rather than a garbled version of another culture's flood myth?
  7. Other myths appear amongst many cultures. Numerous cultures recognize creatures that live off of stolen human blood, frequently identified as unnaturally prolonging their lives after death. Nearly every (if not actually every) culture has myths of humans who can change shapes into animals, either at will or under some imposed circumstance. Does the prevelance of these myths indicate that vampires and werewolves actually exist? Also, the average creationist would certainly reject the idea that there are many gods, despite the fact that belief in Pantheons occurs worldwide.
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Fallacies contained in this claim

External Links

  1. Isaak, Mark, 2000. Flood stories from around the world. [2]

Further Reading

  • Dundes, Alan (ed.), 1988. The Flood Myth, University of California Press, Berkeley and London.

Acknowledgements

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