Flood Myths
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[edit] Introduction
Myths of a large or a universal flood may be found in cultures worldwide. Some of them sharing other common features besides the universal flood motif, such as the construction of a boat, a divine origin for the flood, et cetera. A large, well-referenced list of flood stories may be found here.
The existence of widespread flood myths, some having other features in common with the Biblical account of the flood, has been offered by some creationists as evidence for the historical reality of Noah's flood.
We are unable to say what proportion of cultures have a flood myth: it is difficult to prove that a culture does not have a flood myth, due to the well-known problem of proving a negative: we have seen it claimed, for example, that the Japanese have no such myth, but we have not seen it claimed by someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of Japanese mythology.
Whether or not such legends are ubiquitous, which we doubt, they are certainly widespread: a fact that calls for investigation.
[edit] Dependence of common features
In assessing the significance of common features of flood myths, we must ask whether they are independent. Let us explain by analogy. Imagine yourself as a police officer wondering if a suspect matches a description of a criminal: are they one and the same, or are the resemblances so few that they might well be accidental? So you would count the resemblances, but you would not do so naively. The fact that both have ginger hair would be evidence in favor of their identity; but the further fact that both have white skin would not be further evidence in favor of their identity, because we expect men who have ginger hair to have white skin.
The same applies to frequent features of the myths. Given that a culture has a myth about a universal flood, we would expect them to attribute it to a deity, if any reason for the flood is given at all, because pre-scientific people all over the world attributed all meteorological events to deities.
Again, given that the flood is attributed to a deity, we would expect that the flood should be attributed to an angry deity, rather than a good-natured God trying to do everyone a good turn.
Then, given that there was a universal flood, and that humans and animals are living still, there must have been some way for the survivors to survive. The myths are diverse in this respect: sometimes people cling to driftwood, or retreat to the mountains, or seal themselves in airtight drums; and sometimes they build boats. We would expect there to be some way for people to survive such a flood; and we would expect that a high proportion of the myths would involve boats.
In short, many of the resemblances between flood myths are very much what we would expect, given the one common feature of a universal flood, and therefore do not constitute additional evidence of a common origin for these stories.
This still leaves us with the question of why there are so many myths of a universal flood in the first place.
[edit] Hypotheses
There are a number of hypotheses to explain the prevalence of stories of a universal flood: we list some here. Those that cannot be proven false cannot be proven true, either, and must, we think, always remain mere hypotheses.
We should add that these hypotheses are not mutually exclusive: some may apply to some flood myths, others to others; different resemblances between just two flood myths may have been caused by different mechanisms.
[edit] Descent with modification (1)
Young Earth Creationists often claim that all flood myths have a single common origin; that the story was passed down from generation to generation; and that the transmission of the myth was error-prone, so that the myths changed gradually over time and, in geographically isolated areas, diverged, until the various lineages of myths came to have narratives incompatible with one another and with their common ancestor.
Yes, it's ironic, isn't it? Nonetheless, it would be a plausible hypothesis if only the flood had actually happened (a question outside the scope of this article). The ethnological data is certainly consistent with creationist claims, just as a hoofprint is consistent with claims of a unicorn. On the other hand, it should be borne in mind that given the abundance of other hypotheses, as listed below, which do not involve miracles, it would be rash to claim that widespread flood myths constitute hard evidence for creationist claims.
[edit] Descent with modification (2)
Alternatively, suppose that the flood story is mythical and basal to modern Homo sapiens, and was passed down and altered in just the same way as the previous hypothesis. This requires that the myth should have survived, though much altered, for fifty thousand years or more.
We forgive the reader any feelings of incredulity at this hypothesis; we share this feeling. Nonetheless, there's no real evidence on which to base our incredulity, since we have absolutely no way of knowing how long a myth, or the essentials of a myth, may be preserved in the oral tradition.
The case mentioned below of myths about stealing fire has been claimed by some ethnologists as evidence that myths can last for a long time. The argument is that since the idea of stealing fire makes sense only in a cultural context where people knew how to tend a fire but not how to start one, the myths of stealing fire must date from this low state of technological development.
[edit] Lateral transmission
Myths can be, and are, transmitted from one culture to another. To take an obvious example, the flood story believed by WASPs is not part of their Anglo-Saxon heritage; indeed, so little is known about pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon religion that no-one could say whether the Anglo-Saxons had any traditions about a flood.
In the same way, in many parts of America and Africa, missionaries preceeded both ethnologists and literacy; it is highly likely that in some cases some of the Bible stories the missionaries told were assimilated into the oral tradition before it was recorded in writing.
In this context we may note that the flood myths which most closely resemble that of the Bible are those to be found in the region in which the Bible was written.[1]
[edit] Local flooding
Some people have suggested that each myth of a universal flood arose from natural and local flooding; some have gone so far as to try to identify Noah's flood with an overflowing of the Mediterranean into the Black Sea, which fits the Biblical account only insofar as there's a lot of water involved.
It is possible, we suppose, that an account of a very large flood might, in the course of being handed down from generation to generation, turn into a universal flood, and then be embroidered with the kind of details we expect in a universal flood myth.
It is of interest in this connection to note that many pre-scientific accounts of earthquakes either state explicitly or clearly imply that earthquakes are also global rather than local events.[2][3]
[edit] Proto-geology
Another way in which flood myths might arise is as follows. Suppose a person without knowledge of modern geology observes distinctly marine fossils in a high place such as a mountaintop. What could be more natural than to suppose that the site was once covered by water (which is correct); that therefore the mountaintops were once covered by water (which is not correct, but would be a thoroughly reasonable conclusion for someone lacking knowledge of modern geology); that the flood covered the whole world (since what covers the highest places must necessarily cover the lower ones); that this was the act of a god or gods (since pre-scientific people attribute all meteorological phenomena to divine activity); that the gods in question were angry (since flooding the earth would have devastating consequences); and that there must have been some way that some people and animals survived the flood (since they still exist).
We may note that it would be particularly difficult for creationists to reject this hypothesis, since they maintain that the line of reasoning sketched out above is not only plausible, but broadly correct: it might, then, have occurred to anyone in any culture who happened to see a marine fossil.
We can find at least one account of just such a thought process. In his Refutation of All Heresies, the early Christian writer Hippolytus of Rome describes the thinking of the Greek philosopher Xenophanes:
- And Xenophanes is of opinion that there had been a mixture of the earth with the sea, and that in process of time it was disengaged from the moisture, alleging that he could produce such proofs as the following: that in the midst of earth, and in mountains, shells are discovered; and also in Syracuse he affirms was found in the quarries the print of a fish and of seals, and in Paros an image of an anchovy in the bottom of a stone, and in Melita parts of all sorts of marine animals. And he says that these were generated when all things originally were embedded in mud, and that an impression of them was dried in the mud, but that all men had perished when the earth, being precipitated into the sea, was converted into mud. (Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of All Heresies, Book I [4])
[edit] Other widespread myths
The wide dispersal of flood myths has been the cause of debate because of its relevance to the long-running debate between Biblical literalists and everyone else. It is worth noting in this connection that there are other widely distributed myths.
For example, the myth of the acquisition of fire, most familiar in the West in the form of the Greek myth of Prometheus. Variations on this myth can be found worldwide, with the following common (though not invariable) features: fire is stolen; the original possessors of fire are not human; nor is the thief; the thief is altruistic, stealing not for personal gain, but for the benefit of others (humans or animals) who are in need of it; the thief is not caught and punished (the Promethean myth being the one exception we know of); the thief is often marked by the fire during the act of theft; if so, and the thief has descendants, the mark is hereditary; the thief is a "trickster hero" who features in other myths performing other acts of daring and cunning.
Myths of this type may be found in North America[5][6][7][8][9], South America[10], Europe[11][12][13], Asia[14], Africa[15][16], Australia[17], and the Pacific[18][19].
No-one claims in this case, as creationists claim of the flood myths, that the widespread nature of the myth is evidence of its truth. Unless they are prepared to do so, they must admit that there are ways for a myth to become widespread other than reporting a historical event.
[edit] Conclusion
In the light of all the alternate hypotheses not involving a miracle which would account perfectly well for stories of a universal flood, and in the light of the other widespread myths for which no-one claims historical accuracy, we find that the creationist invocation of flood myths as evidence for an actual universal flood has little weight, especially when contrasted with the abundance of geological and biological evidence that no such event took place.
