Season

Season 3

Episode Number

110

Release Date

July 2, 2021

Introduction

All around the world, people know there was a flood. Practically every culture has a story about it. In some ways they're very different and in some ways, they're very similar.

Abrahamic Faiths

The Abrahamic religions share the story of Noah and the Ark

Sumerian

The epic of Gilgamesh (most often brought up)
Recorded on 12 stone tablets
Gilgamesh reigned for 126 years; was afraid of death and searched for immortality
Utnapishtim was an immortal man met by Gilgamesh; his story is similar to Noah
Utnapishtim was given immortality after building a ship called “preserver of Life” and surviving the great flood. He brought his relatives and all the species aboard the ship

Note, someone like Noah would seem immortal to people who lived after him and had significantly shorter lifespans!

Aztec

Titlacauan (an Aztec god) warns a man and his wife of a flood
They are sealed inside a cypress tree
In this story the people aren’t killed in the flood, they’re turned into fish!
The man and woman disobey Titlacauan (who told them only to eat one ear of maize) and eat fish

This is reminiscent of the Garden of Eden where God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
They are punished for disobedience; Titlacauan turns them into dogs

Then the world starts over (somehow)

Greeks

Zeus is the angry god
Zeus has Deucalion (the son of Prometheus) construct an ark for him an his wife
The flood is 9 days long and the world is destroyed (the Biblical flood lasts about a year)
The ark rests on Mount Parnassus
After the waters recede, Deucalion offer sacrifice to Zeus
Zeus tells them to throw stones over their shoulders to repopulate the earth; those thrown by Deucalion become men and those thrown behind his wife became women

Hindu

A fish (perhaps a deity) tells a man the world is to be destroyed in a great flood
He builds a boat and ties it to the horn of the fish
This boat is guided to a mountain
He performs a sacrifice
A woman rises from the sea and that is who he repopulates the earth with

China

A farmer captures and imprisons a thunder god
The farmer's his children release the thunder god
So the thunder god warned them there would be a flood
They hid in a gourd he gave him that would keep them safe
The brother and sister are the only survivors
Multiple endings exists (mostly to get around incest)—one says the repopulated the human race by creating them from clay

Remember God created humans from the dust of the earth, often referred to as clay

Norse

Earth flooded with blood, not water, when Odin and his brothers killed a giant

Giants are first mentioned in the Bible at the time of Noah's flood
Revelation 14:20 talks about blood running so deep it reaches the horses' bridles

A couple made an ark and were saved

Aboriginal

A frog drank all the water causing a drought
The other animals tried making him laugh
When he laughed the water came out and flooded the land
His laughter sounds like thunder (thunder seems to be a running theme)

Buddhist

Samudda-vāṇija Jātaka
1000 Dishonest carpenters, they upset the village by taking money without delivering

Interesting that they are carpenters (Messiah is also a carpenter)

They built a ship to leave and arrive on an island haunted by spirits
The spirits give them one rule: bury their human waste to keep the island clean
They ignored the rules, so the spirits decide to flood the island
One spirit becomes a ball of light in the sky and warns them they should flee
Another spirit told them the first spirit was joking
There was a wise ruler and a foolish ruler over the carpenters
The wise ruler told his people to build a ship; the wise man and his people set sail, while the foolish man and his people died

First Nations

Waynaboozhoo survived a flood caused by the great spirit via a raft
He floated for a month
He sends animals into the water to get mud from the old world to rebuild
3 different animals attempt to get the mud (reminds of the 3 with the dove to find land in the Biblical account)
The mud grew on a turtles back until it was the size of the whole earth

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man:
Luke 17:26 CSB

Disclaimer

I believe that all religions and cultures trace their origin back to Adam and Eve. While I believe the Bible to be the true and preserved Word of God, I believe that we can find bits of truth in other religions and cultures. The purpose of this series is to examine the themes that remained universal to highlight universal knowledge--in this case, the pattern of a flood story and survival.

References and Footnotes

Lennlee Keep. "A Flood of Myths and Stories". PBS. February 14, 2020
"World Flood Myths". Ark Encounter; visited June 2021

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PSALMS to God is a blog, podcast, and YouTube channel that discusses many topics and issues, always keeping YHWH as the anchor. Hosea 4:6 says “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”—here, the aim is to always ask questions and study to find the answers. You can keep up with new content by signing up for the weekly newsletter.

The Great Flood