Flood Legends (14 page)

This is, ultimately, the question telephone mythology is asking us to answer: do we even believe that there
could have been
a great Flood? Yes, it
is
true that the multiple, often eerily similar, versions indicate a flood
probably
occurred. Yes, it
is
clear that the Deluge,
if
it happened, was truly global, and, yes, we can reasonably and logically disregard a few of the versions as inaccurate. Need we believe, for example, that a pelican paddled about the earth in a canoe, rescuing drowning survivors? On the other hand, can we so quickly discard the idea of a family surviving the Flood in a large,
extremely stable
vessel? Still, is the idea not laughable? After all, aren't the most popular images of the Flood — those of Noah's ark — nothing more than silly little bathtub toys with animals sticking out of every window, ready to tip over at the slightest gust of wind?

We've seen that the sheer mass of mythology pertaining to the Deluge is highly indicative that, at some point in our past, the world was flooded and most of mankind was destroyed, save for a few people. The volume of literature portraying this story also tells us that, whether by the aid of some god, the survivors' own holy powers, or the world's largest floating wildlife preserve, the animals of the earth survived as well.

Still, we choose not to believe. Do we choose not to believe what we read because the evidence is stacked against the story? I hope that is no longer the case (that
should
no longer be the case). We have seen how, despite coming from differing cultures, the stories all share common threads. No, we cannot rightly disbelieve because of lack of literary evidence. Perhaps, then, we choose not to believe because we have difficulty believing in anything pertaining to the supernatural.

For some, this is the case. Since many do not believe in any type of deity — whether it is God, Brahma, or Kaputano — they immediately dismiss
all
versions of the story. Why? The answer is simple: the stories
all
require
the involvement of a god
. In the Fish Story, Brahma
warns
Manu of the catastrophe, and Brahma
saves
Manu during the catastrophe. In Genesis, God
warns
Noah of the Deluge, and God
saves
Noah from the Deluge. In the Kariña version, Kaputano
warns
them …and Kaputano
saves
them. The same is true in Australia, North America, China, Africa, and Europe: almost every version has some supernatural involvement. Without this god, the story
is
impossible. How would the heroes of the Flood have had warning, if not for their god? Furthermore, who would have
sent
the Flood as punishment, if not an angry god?

Because of this, many of us reject the myth. We reject it because we choose not to believe in someone greater than us. I think we also reject it because the stories remind us most of all that, if there is a god, we are held accountable for our actions. We often wish to live in a consequence-free environment where our actions have no penalties. The Bible calls these penalties
justice
. The Hindus call them
karma
. But accountability is not popular and therefore we ignore it. Accountability is not popular and therefore we fictionalize it. Accountability is not popular and therefore we
symbolize
it.

This is, frankly, poor and — I am afraid —
lazy
thinking. We have evidence supporting a story, and we have a story supporting the existence of a deity. What happens when we do not believe in a divine being? That means that we now have a choice: dismiss the evidence because of our belief, or
change
our belief because of the evidence. Which is more logically sound?

And
still
we reject the story.

What about those who do believe in a god and still reject the story? For those people, I have no explanation. There are many who claim to follow the Bible but disbelieve the clear, unambiguous teachings of the Flood. Why? I have no idea. Either way, though, it amounts to the same: we disbelieve, simply because we
choose
to disbelieve.

Suppose a good friend of yours — someone who is generally reliable — called you while you were on your way to work yesterday morning. She was hysterical, crying . .. the whole works. The one thing she kept repeating was that she had seen an elephant walking down the main road of your city. Would you believe her? Maybe, but probably not, no matter how reliable she may have been in the past; it is an
elephant
, after all, and elephants don't normally go traipsing through the city. No sooner do you hang up with her, however, than your husband calls. He claims that he saw an elephant heading down one of the side roads of the city, not too far from where your friend says she spotted the pachyderm. Do you believe him? Probably, but maybe not; he may be your husband, but that does
not
automatically make his story plausible! Let's say you arrived at work, and one of your co-workers is
also
crying — just a real mess. She says she was frightened half to death by a near collision with a large gray elephant on the way to work. This elephant was on a different street than the one your husband claims to have seen, and a mile or so from the main street where your friend encountered the elephant. Now, here's the question: do you believe your co-worker? The stories
do
differ slightly, but they also have a pretty common theme, and so you might not believe the story,
exactly
, but you would at least be tempted to investigate further. Now, what if
10
different people told you that an elephant was loose in the city? How about
20
? Would you believe it then?

An oft-referenced work in this book has been Theodore Gaster's
Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament
. In it, Gaster gives
more than 65
examples of Deluge stories from around the world, not including the three primary versions we have considered here, nor does it include some of the
other
hundreds of versions that are also out there. The stories come from every continent and every major people group. They all agree on one important point: the world was flooded, and only a handful of people survived.

How long do we continue to ignore it? How long do we turn our blind (but "enlightened") intellects away? How long do we scoff at what our ancestors have
all
tried to tell us? How long do we, like Sisyphus, push against our very intellects, trying to put the flood myth where
we
think it deserves to be? How long can we play this game before it finally rolls down on top of us, when we realize — too late — what it was we were vainly hoping to accomplish?

Thinking More Broadly

Contrary to what many may believe upon reading this work, this is not about "proving" a global flood. It reaches deeper, asking us to abandon preconceived ideas and to
think
. We should be willing to look for
connections
— not only those connections that dwell in metaphor, but also the kind that dwell in
history
. When we take a story at face value — that a global Flood occurred, for example, and the survivors then scattered throughout the earth — we open up an entirely new field of interpretive thought. Unfortunately, by "selling out" — immediately disregarding all myth as either fiction or a symbolic representation of the truth — we potentially miss out on our own history.

Is the story of the Flood another
Iliad?
Is it destined to be another Kraken legend? Do we shrug our shoulders and dismiss it simply because someone, somewhere, tells us it isn't true? Or do we take warning from it and seek out the truth of our existence? If Someone were angry enough to wipe out mankind by a global catastrophe, might that same Someone be trying to get our attention in other ways today?

Where do we go from here? That is entirely up to you. Talk to the person who handed you this book. If you picked this book up yourself somewhere, do more research on your own. All I ask is that you not be afraid to believe in something just because it is "religious"; religion and logic are not necessarily opposites, and "faith" and "thought" are not contradictory terms. Don't hide from the
Mahābhārata
just because you're not Hindu, and certainly don't disregard the Bible just because you are an atheist. There may be more truth there than you realize.

Appendix A

Primary Texts

The Flood According to the Torah (Gen. 6:9–9:17)

This is the line of Noah. — Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God. — Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness. When God saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its way on earth, God said to Noah, "I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with all lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make it an ark with compartments, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make an opening for daylight in the ark, and terminate it within a cubit of the top.
¹
Put the entrance to the ark on its side; make it with bottom, second, and third decks.

"For My part, I am about to bring the Flood — waters upon the earth — to destroy all flesh under the sky in which there is breath of life; everything on earth shall perish. But I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark, with your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives. And of all that lives, of all flesh, you shall take two of each into the ark to keep alive with you; they shall be male and female. From birds of every kind, cattle of every kind, every kind of creeping thing on earth, two of each shall come to you and stay alive. For your part, take of everything that is eaten and store it away, to serve as food for you and for them." Noah did so; just as God commanded him, so he did.

Then the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the ark, with all your household, for you alone have I found righteous before Me in this generation. Of every clean animal you shall take seven pairs, males and their mates, and of every animal that is not clean, two, a male and its mate; of the birds of the sky also, seven pairs, male and female, to keep seed alive upon all the earth. For in seven days' time I will make it rain upon the earth, forty days and forty nights, and I will blot out from the earth all existence that I created." And Noah did just as the LORD commanded him….

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day

All the fountains of the great deep burst apart,

And all the floodgates of the sky broke open.

(The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.) That same day Noah and Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, went into the ark, with Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons — they and all the beasts of every kind. ... They came to Noah into the ark, two of each of all flesh in which there was breath of life….

The Flood continued forty days on the earth, and the waters increased and raised the ark so that it rose above the earth. The waters swelled and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark drifted upon the waters. When the water had swelled much more upon the earth, all the highest mountains everywhere under the sky were covered. Fifteen cubits higher did the waters swell, as the mountains were covered. And all the flesh that stirred on earth perished — birds, cattle, beasts, and all the things that swarmed upon the earth, and all mankind. All in whose nostrils was the merest breath of life, all that was on dry land, died. All existence on earth was blotted out — man, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

And when the waters had swelled upon the earth one hundred and fifty days, God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark, and God caused a wind to blow across the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were stopped up, and the rain from the sky was held back; the waters then receded steadily from the earth. At the end of one hundred and fifty days the water diminished; so that in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters went on diminishing until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.

At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven; it went to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out the dove to see whether the waters had decreased from the surface of the ground. But the dove could not find a resting place for its foot, and returned to him to the ark, for there was water all over all the earth. So putting out his hand, he took it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again sent out the dove from the ark. The dove came back to him toward the evening, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the waters had decreased on the earth. He waited still another seven days and sent the dove forth; and it did not return to him anymore.

In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the waters began to dry from the earth; and when Noah removed the covering of the ark, he saw that the surface of the ground was drying. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

God spoke to Noah, saying, "Come out of the ark, together with your wife, your sons, and your sons' wives. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds, animals, and everything that creeps on the earth; and let them swarm on the earth and be fertile and increase on earth." So Noah came out, together with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives. Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that stirs on earth came out of the ark by families.