Most cultures of the world seem to all have a similar tale of a mythic flood that all but wiped out the civilizations of the time. This flood of yore, of fame was so huge and devastating that it all but annihilated civilization.
Indeed many times archaeologists – many of them famous and of great repute have thought that they in their diggings and studies had actually uncovered as well as documented actual proof and direct evidence of the giant flood which we in the “Western World” know and refer to a “Noah’s Flood” of biblical fame and origins.
However the flood strata unearthed in various Mesopotamian cities do not correspond directly to each other in date or dates. Was there perhaps more than one giant flood on record or is there even a pattern of the emergence of these giant floods? Or where these strictly local events in passing and occurrence not a large scale universal catastrophe? It is possible of course that in the grand scheme of events that in each locale , each little city state – the major center of its direct area and hinterlands , that a local flood was interpreted and remembered in folklore as a much larger cosmic event or events – the mythical deluge.
The flood story is told again and again in similar but different manners and specifics throughout history and almost across the globe. The first reported tale is that of the Babylonian’s, often referred to as the “Sumerian”. It is thought that the Sumerian Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh is a flood story that is the source for the Noah story. The earth is flooded; the hero builds a great ark. In the end the hero is saved and both he and his wife are given immortality. This story later was expanded by the Babylonians to include a cycle of 3 floods each 1200 years apart and mankind being punished for overpopulation by being given barren women. On to Noah where the flood was the creator’s punishment for mankind’s evil and sins. An ark is built again. After the flood recedes the creator promised Noah (and mankind that never again will live creatures be destroyed en masse – at least by a flood of water.
What is most amazing is that this same story is told across all cultures – whether it be Australian aboriginal *( who believe that the ark came to rest after the flood , and the animals and human disembarked , not in the middle east but in Australia itself , to the Babylonian Chaldean , the Persian Zoroastrianism, the Indian Hindu culture where a fish that was saved and protected repaid mankind by warning it of the impending great flood, the Greeks who believed that the great flood was punishment from the gods.
What is amazing is that even across the Atlantic Ocean in the then unknown America’s the Aztecs and the Mayan Indians each had similar flood stories the Aztecs being a punishment for an early type of man, and the Mayans whose flood story even included the dove figure. Even in many North American aboriginal first people’s mythologies be it Chippewa , Navaho , Hopi , or any of a greater number of unstudied mythologies of the first peoples of North America in one form or another a flood story or epic moral tale takes shape and is told and retold.
What is amazing is that a similar tale of a great catastrophic flood, which occurred in the early history of mankind, which was given or formed by the great creators of the earth and universe, is told across the globe. All cultures it seems , no matter where they were located on earth , or how distinct or isolated their people’s or cultures were or are today seem to have the same basic mythology with a similar message or moral tale.
Zoroastrian
Most cultures of the world seem to all have a similar tale of a mythic flood that all but wiped out the civilizations of the time. This flood of yore, of fame was so huge and devastating that it all but annihilated civilization.
Indeed many times archaeologists – many of them famous and of great repute have thought that they in their diggings and studies had actually uncovered as well as documented actual proof and direct evidence of the giant flood which we in the “Western World” know and refer to a “Noah’s Flood” of biblical fame and origins.
However the flood strata unearthed in various Mesopotamian cities do not correspond directly to each other in date or dates. Was there perhaps more than one giant flood on record or is there even a pattern of the emergence of these giant floods? Or where these strictly local events in passing and occurrence not a large scale universal catastrophe? It is possible of course that in the grand scheme of events that in each locale , each little city state – the major center of its direct area and hinterlands , that a local flood was interpreted and remembered in folklore as a much larger cosmic event or events – the mythical deluge.
The flood story is told again and again in similar but different manners and specifics throughout history and almost across the globe. The first reported tale is that of the Babylonian’s, often referred to as the “Sumerian”. It is thought that the Sumerian Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh is a flood story that is the source for the Noah story. The earth is flooded; the hero builds a great ark. In the end the hero is saved and both he and his wife are given immortality. This story later was expanded by the Babylonians to include a cycle of 3 floods each 1200 years apart and mankind being punished for overpopulation by being given barren women. On to Noah where the flood was the creator’s punishment for mankind’s evil and sins. An ark is built again. After the flood recedes the creator promised Noah (and mankind that never again will live creatures be destroyed en masse – at least by a flood of water.
What is most amazing is that this same story is told across all cultures – whether it be Australian aboriginal *( who believe that the ark came to rest after the flood , and the animals and human disembarked , not in the middle east but in Australia itself , to the Babylonian Chaldean , the Persian Zoroastrianism, the Indian Hindu culture where a fish that was saved and protected repaid mankind by warning it of the impending great flood, the Greeks who believed that the great flood was punishment from the gods.
What is amazing is that even across the Atlantic Ocean in the then unknown America’s the Aztecs and the Mayan Indians each had similar flood stories the Aztecs being a punishment for an early type of man, and the Mayans whose flood story even included the dove figure. Even in many North American aboriginal first people’s mythologies be it Chippewa , Navaho , Hopi , or any of a greater number of unstudied mythologies of the first peoples of North America in one form or another a flood story or epic moral tale takes shape and is told and retold.
What is amazing is that a similar tale of a great catastrophic flood, which occurred in the early history of mankind, which was given or formed by the great creators of the earth and universe, is told across the globe. All cultures it seems , no matter where they were located on earth , or how distinct or isolated their people’s or cultures were or are today seem to have the same basic mythology with a similar message or moral tale.