Flood Myth Origin

[Furrowed Brow]

Flood myths are widespread across ancient cultures and go back millennia and before the bible. For example, in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh the Noah character is Utnapishtim. Warned about a great flood wrought by angry gods Utnapishtim is instructed to build a boat. He fills the boat with his family, grain and animals. After the storm he releases a bird in search of dry land. The Sumerian root of the biblical story of Noah are compelling.

Question 1: Is the biblical story of Noah rooted in older stories?

After a period of warming around 15,000 years ago the Earth cooled for 1,200 years. This period is named the Younger Dryas and lasted between 12,900 years and 11,700 years ago. The Younger Dryas ended abruptly. It is clear that in this period the planet went through notable climatic changes including rapid rises in sea levels that could according to some have happened in a matter of weeks. There may also have been some later very large floods around 7,000 years ago in the region of the Black sea.

Question 2: Do all the various flood myths reflect floods make for a good story or were there many smaller local flood events that inspired all these different stories, or were there a few very large floods, or was there a single cataclysmic flood that affected a large part of the planet at one time as someone like Robert Schoch might argue

[paarsurrey1]

Flood myths are widespread across ancient cultures and go back millennia and before the bible. For example, in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh the Noah character is Utnapishtim. Warned about a great flood wrought by angry gods Utnapishtim is instructed to build a boat. He fills the boat with his family, grain and animals. After the storm he releases a bird in search of dry land. The Sumerian root of the biblical story of Noah are compelling.

Question 1: Is the biblical story of Noah rooted in older stories?

After a period of warming around 15,000 years ago the Earth cooled for 1,200 years. This period is named the Younger Dryas and lasted between 12,900 years and 11,700 years ago. The Younger Dryas ended abruptly. It is clear that in this period the planet went through notable climatic changes including rapid rises in sea levels that could according to some have happened in a matter of weeks. There may also have been some later very large floods around 7,000 years ago in the region of the Black sea.

Question 2: Do all the various flood myths reflect floods make for a good story or were there many smaller local flood events that inspired all these different stories, or were there a few very large floods, or was there a single cataclysmic flood that affected a large part of the planet at one time as someone like Robert Schoch might argue

There could be many great floods, only one of them was in Noah's time, which has the religious significance, please. Right, please?

Regards

[H.sapiens]

Flood myths are widespread across ancient cultures and go back millennia and before the bible. For example, in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh the Noah character is Utnapishtim. Warned about a great flood wrought by angry gods Utnapishtim is instructed to build a boat. He fills the boat with his family, grain and animals. After the storm he releases a bird in search of dry land. The Sumerian root of the biblical story of Noah are compelling.

Question 1: Is the biblical story of Noah rooted in older stories?

After a period of warming around 15,000 years ago the Earth cooled for 1,200 years. This period is named the Younger Dryas and lasted between 12,900 years and 11,700 years ago. The Younger Dryas ended abruptly. It is clear that in this period the planet went through notable climatic changes including rapid rises in sea levels that could according to some have happened in a matter of weeks. There may also have been some later very large floods around 7,000 years ago in the region of the Black sea.

Question 2: Do all the various flood myths reflect floods make for a good story or were there many smaller local flood events that inspired all these different stories, or were there a few very large floods, or was there a single cataclysmic flood that affected a large part of the planet at one time as someone like Robert Schoch might argue

There could be many great floods, only one of them was in Noah's time, which has the religious significance, please. Right, please?

Regards

There were many great floods, none world wide. There was no Noah, thus there were no actual floods that meet the religious significance specification.

[Furrowed Brow]

There could be many great floods, only one of them was in Noah's time, which has the religious significance, please. Right, please

There are many flood myths of which the story of Noah is just one. It is trivial to say there is only one story that looks exactly like the Noah story; from that observation it would be faulty to assume the Noah story is independent of all the other other flood myths without further analysis. If the story of Noah is essentially true and its truth is independent from earlier stories - you may have a point but in this thread that point needs to be argued for. And how likely is it that the story of Noah is not derived at least in part from the story of Utnapishtim? If the similarities between the stories are not accidental then the later Noah story and the earlier Gilgamesh flood myth share a heritage. And if this is true - which look more likely - it pushes elements of the Noah story back to an early Sumerian period when Enki was the god of water and the Noah character was called Utnapishtim (a name that changes to Atra-Hasis in a later Sumerian version of the story).

The Sumerian uniform tablets also provide an object lesson in how a story is developed and crossed fertilised with later versions of the story. Within the Sumerian additional details begin to appear in later versions. There is a version where Utnapishtim is the protagonist and a later version where Atra-Hasis is the protagonist and there are details that first appear in the later Atr-Haissi version that then appear on later tablets with the Utnapistim version. There are tablets with version of the story that indicate a river flood and other tables that point to a world wide flood.

[paarsurrey1]

[Replying to post 12 by H.sapiens]

There were many great floods, none world wide. There was no Noah, thus there were no actual floods that meet the religious significance specification.

world wide

I never said the Noah's flood was worldwide, Noah was a messenger/prophet of the local people he lived with, so why should the flood be world-wide?

Regards

[Furrowed Brow]

I never said the Noah's flood was worldwide, Noah was a messenger/prophet of the local people he lived with, so why should the flood be world-wide?

The biblical story is clear that the water killed everything other than those on the Ark and that all the mountains were covered in water.

Genesis 18-23 (New International Version)
The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

The biblical flood myth is clearly meant to invoke a flood that covered the world entire. I understand the Islamic tradition is that everyone who was not not on the Ark drowned - which evokes a worldwide flood but maybe Islam is less explicit on this point.

This thread however is not intended to be about whether there was a worldwide flood in the biblical sense that covers all mountains - the OP kind of assumes there was no such thing. What is up for debate is whether there was a single maybe very large flood that inspired the myth or many smaller local floods, and then the issue is whether some of the flood myths have the same literary origins. Is there a single source to the myth or many sources and many floods and many stories - with some being conflated and merged. IF you are suggesting the Noah flood was a local event then do other flood myths share the same literary heritage or were there many floods inspiring many stories whose resemblance is accidental? So I could also ask whether the Islamic version of Noah derives from the older Sumerian story?

Given that we know there was a very large flood when the black sea filled around 7,600 years ago - this invites questions as to whether this single event is the source of a worldwide flood myth. On the other hand if it is not it is odd such a cataclysmic event did not register in the folklore of the near and middle Eastern region of that time.

[paarsurrey1]

I never said the Noah's flood was worldwide, Noah was a messenger/prophet of the local people he lived with, so why should the flood be world-wide?

The biblical story is clear that the water killed everything other than those on the Ark and that all the mountains were covered in water.

Genesis 18-23 (New International Version)
The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

The biblical flood myth is clearly meant to invoke a flood that covered the world entire. I understand the Islamic tradition is that everyone who was not not on the Ark drowned - which evokes a worldwide flood but maybe Islam is less explicit on this point.

This thread however is not intended to be about whether there was a worldwide flood in the biblical sense that covers all mountains - the OP kind of assumes there was no such thing. What is up for debate is whether there was a single maybe very large flood that inspired the myth or many smaller local floods, and then the issue is whether some of the flood myths have the same literary origins. Is there a single source to the myth or many sources and many floods and many stories - with some being conflated and merged. IF you are suggesting the Noah flood was a local event then do other flood myths share the same literary heritage or were there many floods inspiring many stories whose resemblance is accidental? So I could also ask whether the Islamic version of Noah derives from the older Sumerian story?

Given that we know there was a very large flood when the black sea filled around 7,600 years ago - this invites questions as to whether this single event is the source of a worldwide flood myth. On the other hand if it is not it is odd such a cataclysmic event did not register in the folklore of the near and middle Eastern region of that time.

Quran- The Corrective Recitation - of all religions does not mention that the flood covered the whole world.

Regards