Flood myth
- This article is on mythology involving great floods. For other uses of the word, see the disambiguation page deluge.
The Great Flood sent by a god or gods to destroy most of civilization is a widespread but not universal theme in myth. The story of Noah and his ark in Genesis, the first book in the Bible, is probably the most well known. Another well known flood story occurs in Hinduism, in the Puranas scriptures. These are the most familiar versions to modern readers because these myths form part of the belief system of some modern religions, but a large percentage of the world's cultures past and present have stories of a "great flood" that had devastated earlier civilization.
Ancient Near East
Out of the Levant came Genesis while three surviving examples of other Mesopotamian flood myths are the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Akkadian Atrahasis Epic and the Sumerian Eridu Genesis (the Sumerians also referred to a great flood in the Sumerian king list).
Similarities between the Eridu, Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, and Genesis flood stories include a favored man (Ziusudra/Utnapishtim/Atrahasis/Noah), who is divinely chosen to build an ark. He places all the animals in the ark, the ark lands on a mountain after the flood dissipates, and birds are sent fourth to see whether the waters receded. These similarities suggest that these epics, all written in the same part of the world, stem from a single source. Despite this, their aims were all entirely different. (Unfortunately, copies of the Eridu Genesis that have survived to this day are so fragmented that it can not be understood without help from the other related flood epics mentioned above.)
Gilgamesh Epic
During Gilgamesh's search for immortality, he meets a man, Utnapishtim, who had succeeded in attaining such a goal. Utnapishtim goes on to explain how he attained it, that an assembly of gods resolved to destroy mankind by means of a flood. Though the decision was to be kept secret, the god Ea (in the Sumerian account, Enki) warned Utnapishtim about it and instructed him to build a survival vessel. After the flood, an assembly of gods was called and they make Utnapishtim immortal. After the Deluge, Utnapishtim lived on the island of Dilmun and had achieved a great age when Gilgamesh sought him out for the secret of immortality.
Unfortunately, since it is irrelevant to the subject of Utnapishtim's immortality, no cause is given in the Gilgamesh Epic on why the divine assembly resolved to destroy mankind.
Atrahasis Epic
The Babylonian Atrahasis Epic (written no later than 1700 BC), gives human overpopulation as the cause for the great flood. After 1200 years of human fertility, the god Enlil felt disturbed in his sleep due to the noise and ruckus caused by the growing population of mankind. He turned for help to the divine assembly who then sent a plague, then a drought, then a famine, and then saline soil, all in an attempt to reduce the numbers of mankind. All these were temporary fixes. 1200 years after each solution, the original problem returned. When the gods decided on a final solution, to send a flood, the god Enki, who had a moral objection to this solution, disclosed the plan to Atrahasis, who then built a survival vessel according to divinely given measurements.
To prevent the other gods from bringing such another harsh calamity, Enki created new solutions in the form of social phenomena such as non-marrying women, barrenness, miscarriages and infant mortality, to help keep the population from growing out of control.
Chaldean
The God Chronos warned Xisuthrus of a coming flood, and Chronos ordered Xisuthrus to write a history and to build a boat measuring 5 stadia by 2 stadia to carry his relations, friends, and two of every kind of animal. The flood came, rose, and killed everyone except those in the boat. After the floodwaters subsided, Xisuthrus sent birds out from the boat, and all of them returned. He sent them out a second time, and they returned with their feet covered in mud. He sent them out a third time, and the birds didn't return. The people left the boat and offered sacrifices to the Gods. Xisuthrus, his wife, daughter, and the pilot of the boat were transported to live with the Gods.
Genesis
The ancient Israelites believed that sins commited had physical consequence on the land on which they lived, so physical solutions had to be made. For example, the land became polluted when murder was commited (spilling someone's blood and thus staining and cursing the ground). Several generations since mankind left Eden, the land became filled with such pollution. God then brought on the great flood not as a punishment for human wickedness but to wash away the pollution caused by evil deeds. God spared Noah (for being the only righteous man) and his wife, his three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives (instructing Noah to build a survival vessel) so mankind and the earth could begin a clean slate. In the 600th year of Noah's life, 1656 years after creating Adam, God sent the flood. According to the account, the rains lasted 40 days, and the waters covered the earth for 150 days, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ar'arat, and in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month of Noah's life, the face of the Earth was dry. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month of Noah's life, the earth was dry, and God instructed Noah to leave the ark.
Similar to the post-flood events in the Atrahasis Epic, new solutions were made so a flood would not ever be needed again. God's solution was the invention of laws to keep mankinds evil in check. Most of these that he handed down to Noah dealt with murder and blood spilling, in order to prevent the earth from becoming once again polluted. Interestingly, the first of the post-flood laws, a commandment to be "fruitful", "multiply", and "Swarm over the earth", is thought to be a conscious refutation, from the biblical author, of the Atrahasis Epic. The law "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" also began here. The new convant also permitted men to eat meats and God promises not to destroy the Earth by flood again.
Greek
The wrath of Zeus is ignited against the Pelasgians, the original inhabitants of Greece. Deucalion has been forewarned by his father to build an ark and provision it. He and his wife Pyrrha are the surviving pair of humans when the waters recede. Accounts differ on which mountain they landed on (Mount Parnassus, or Mount Etna, or Mount Athos, or perhaps Mount Othrys in Thessaly).
After the flood has subsided, Deucalion and Pyrrha give thanks to Zeus. However, the repopulation of the world is the work of Thetis, who advises the new primal pair, "Cover your heads and throw the bones of your mother behind you." With the stones of Gaia thrown over their shoulders, the primal pair repopulate the land. There is no mention of the plight of animals in this flood myth.
Though Deucalion is no longer allowed to be the inventor of wine as Noah still is, his name gives away his secret: deucos + halieus "new wine sailor." His wife, named "wine-red," just happens to be the sister of Ariadne who mothered with Dionysus, several winemaking progenitors of Aegean tribes.
Scandinavia
In Norse mythology, Bergelmir was a son of Thrudgelmir. He and his wife were the only frost giants to survive the deluge of Bergelmir's grandfather's (Ymir) blood, when Odin and his brothers (Vili/Hönir and Ve/Lodur) butchered him. They crawled into a hollow tree trunk and survived, then founded a new race of frost giants.
Americas
A pious man named Tapi lived in the valley of Mexico. The Creator told him to build a boat and to take his wife and a pair of every animal that existed into the boat. His neighbors mocked him for his foolishness. After he finished the boat, it began to rain, flooding the valley; men and animals tried to escape in the mountains, but the flood reached to the mountains and drowned them. The rain ended, and the waters receded. Tapi sent out a dove, and rejoiced to find that it did not return, meaning that the ground had dried and he, his wife, and the animals could leave the boat.
Inca
Among the Inca, Viracocha destroyed the giants with a Great Flood, and two people repopulated the earth. Uniquely, they survived in sealed caves. In Maya mythology, Huracan ("one-legged") was a wind and storm god caused the Great Flood after the first humans angered the gods. He supposedly lived in the windy mists above the floodwaters and spoke "earth" until land came up again from the seas.
The people moved away from Sotuknang, the creator, repeatedly. He destroyed the world by fire, and then by cold, and recreated it both times for the people that still followed the laws of creation, who survived by hiding underground. People became corrupt and warlike a third time. As a result, Sotuknang guided the people to Spider Woman, and she cut down giant reeds and sheltered the people in the hollow stems. Sotuknang then caused a great flood, and the people floated atop the water in their reeds. The reeds came to rest on a small piece of land, and the people emerged, with as much food as they started with. The people traveled on in their canoes, guided by their inner wisdom (which, it is said comes from Sotuknang through the door at the top of their head). They travelled to the northeast, passing progressively larger islands, until they came to the Fourth World. When they reached the fourth world, the islands sank into the ocean.
Four monsters grew in size and power until they touched the sky. At that time, a man heard a voice telling him to plant a hollow reed. He did so, and the reed grew very big very quickly. The man entered the reed with his wife and pairs of all good animals. Waters rose, and covered everything but the top of the reed and the heads of the monsters. A turtle then killed the monsters by digging under them and uprooting them. The waters subsided, and winds dried the earth.
India
In Hindu scriptures (the Puranas, and Shatapatha Brahmana, I, 8, 1-6), an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a fish, Matsya, warned Manu of a terrible flood that was to come and that it would wash away all living things. Manu cared for the fish and eventually released it in the sea. There the fish cautioned Manu to build a boat. He did so, and when the flood arrived, the fish towed the ship to safety by a cable attached to his horn.
External link: Deluge myths from ancient India
Batak, Indonesia
The earth rests on a giant snake, Naga-Padoha. One day, the snake tired of its burden and shook the Earth off into the sea. However, the God Batara-Guru saved his daughter by sending a mountain into the sea, and the entire human race descended from her. The Earth was later placed back onto the head of the snake.
The flood came, and the Ark carried Noah, Aborigines, and animals, to the flood plain of Djilinbadu in Australia (about 70 km south of Noonkanbah Station, just south of the Barbwire Range and east of the Worral Range), where it can still be seen today.
Theories of origin
Many scholars of mythology have pointed out that early civilizations were founded around rivers on fertile plains that often flooded, and that this fact, added to the natural drive to make stories more dramatic, would be all that is needed for these deluge myths to form. A supporting point for this idea is that cultures that live in areas where flooding is less likely to occur often do not have flood myths of their own.
Alternatively, some geologists believe that quite dramatic flooding in the distant past might have influenced the myths. One of the latest, and quite controversial, theories about the possible origins of some of these flood myths is the Ryan-Pitman Theory, which argues for a catastrophic deluge about 5600 BC from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea that may have influenced some of the flood stories. Many other prehistoric geologic events have also been advanced as possible foundations for these myths.
Some Christians, Muslims, and Jews believe the flood story in Genesis is historically accurate, either exactly as written (because they believe in the inerrancy of the Bible) or as the most historically accurate account available due to its extensive detail regarding the size and design of the ark, dates of the events, and the geneologies of those in the ark. Others, including most biblical archeologists, believe the story of Noah's flood is a legend or myth. These people accept the story as an allegory intended to convey meaning, not historical fact, or as an article of faith beyond scientific dispute.
See also
External links
- http://home.apu.edu/~geraldwilson/atrahasis.html
- Mark Isaak, "Flood stories from around the world"
- Noah’s Flood and the Gilgamesh Epic (Includes a table comparing features of some flood legends)
Reference
Alan Dundes (editor), The Flood Myth University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988. ISBN 0-520-05973-5 / 0520059735