Flood stories

Hopefully everyone that asked for homework did it!

Here is a overview of flood stories. The fact that there are so many from all over the globe tells us that something happened that caused a great flood. Did it happen to a guy named Noah? Probably not.There are stories older than Noah. Did he manage to get every creature known to man on a boat within a short period of time and keep them from eating each other? Probably not. Did the flood cover absolutely everything? Probably not.

We do know that a great part of the world was under water , and even two miles of ice at different periods in the earth's history. We don't know everything that happened or exactly when, but we do know there were catastrophic events, and the flood is one of them. The fact there was a flood doesn't prove there was a Noah, but that there was a flood. Many cultures have a flood story. Actually just about every culture does. Different cultures have this story in remote locations that never knew each other existed when the stories were being told. The place of the dry land where man could finally come off of his safety zone (it wasn't always a boat) changes, as does how long things lasted, and how many people and animals were involved. Some cultures say the flood was the next to last ending of this world (there have been others in many cultures), some say we have more to go. So all the stories are not exactly the same, but they all are centered on a great flood that devastated the earth.

Once we think about things with a modern mind, we know that in all probability the Noah story didn't happen the way it is told. It is pretty easy to figure out that if you tried to do what Noah did, you would fail miserably. Just take this into consideration. Let's say the whole world was covered with "miles deep" waters. Where did it go? Seriously? When we have floods, we usually have droughts. This past year farmland flooded in the spring, and is still under water, but the state of Texas is in a severe drought. Water doesn't appear and disappear. It evaporates and rains back down (or mist, fog, etc). The water we have stays constant, it just redistributes. Can a God make it rain beyond capacity? I suppose he could, but then with that power, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just suck all the bad people off the planet? Why kill innocent animals, plants, even sealife with fresh water? We know sea levels are higher, and we know we have ice caps, so some water went there, but to cover the entire earth in extra water? We would spin out of our orbit. We had a great flood, but to say it covered everything, is most likely not true.

Was there a time of catastrophic floods? Apparently. We also know that ice was two miles thick from the north pole south to southern Indiana/northern Kentucky, so sure it is possible. When that ice melted we were left with new lakes, streams, and a higher level of the ocean.

So all that aside, who has the stories of the great floods?

The story of Gilgamesh. We have historical records telling of how he heard from Utnapishtim about a great flood. Apparently people were making too much noise and disturbed the gods living here on earth, they decided to cause a flood to clean man off of the earth. Ea (lord of the waters) told Utnapishtim to tear down his house and make a boat and to put all living things he could find and seeds on the boat. He was in a storm for 7 days, and landed on a mountain. He burned cedar and myrtle , a sacrifice to the gods, and the gods allowed him to stay.

The tablets with this story come from ancient Sumer. There are others with a similar story where "Noah" is not only Utnapishtim, but Atrahasis, Xisuthros, and Zisudra.

The Aztecs believed that  in the time of the fourth sun (or fourth creation of this world), there was a great flood and man turned into fish. Two humans named Coxcoxtli and Xochiquetzal survived. In Central American, the god Tezcatilpoca destroyed all mankind with a flood, except Tezpi, his wife and children. They too had animals and seeds with them.

The Popal Vuh (ancient texts of Guatemala), has a"great flood story" which was an experiment of sorts. The first humans were figures made of wood.  They displeased the Creator by acting like the gods. The result was a great flood.

The Chibcas of Columbia, the Canarians of Ecudor, the Tupinamba of Brazil, and the Pehuenche of Tierra del Fuego, all have great flood stories. There are other stories in Peru, and Chile. There are similar stories in the Native Americans of North America. The Inuit have a story of a flood and earthquake. The Luiseno of southern California talk of fleeing to the mountaintops to be saved. The Hurons, Algonquins, Iriquois and Chickasaws all have flood stories. The Hopis talk of different ways the world has ended in the past , and how mankind was saved in different ways.

There are more stories. They come from Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia,Greece, India, Egypt, and the places we already discussed. Some stories have a race being saved, some a couple, or a family. Some brought animals and seeds, others did not. Some built a boat, some fled to mountains, and some even lived in a box for a few days. Not all the stories are exactly the same, and many are much more realistic than Noah's story.  The fact remains, something must have happened. We know that every event from the sun rising in the morning to lightning flashing in the sky, was blamed on the gods in the ancient days. This makes it hard to say that any "god" actually, purposefully made a flood. It may have been a time of great glacial melting that flooded the earth, and the people who told the story not only put their superstitious fears into it (the gods must be upset!), but embellished it. The fact is that because it really was so long ago, we will never know for sure.

Some day, look up the Hopi creation stories, or the Chinese legends. They are very insightful and written by very intelligent people. That all being said, none of these cultures say we are at the end of the world, including the Mayans. Until all this 2012 hype, if you asked a Mayan about the end of the world being imminent, they would say , "What are you talking about?". Even the concept of Rapture is not a Biblical concept, it is something that preachers have come up with in the last century. People like Harold Camping. When you generate fear, you get business.

Be careful what you believe, and make sure that you research properly. There is so much craziness out there, it isn't funny.

Learn, research and grow!


Peshaui Wequashimese



(C)2012 Dr. R M Wolf. May not be used, copied or reproduced without prior written permission