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Where else has the Flood in Genesis been documented?

I am a little bemused by someone's quote:

"The Flood probably DID happen, as it is recorded in the myths & ideologies of all religions & cultures."

I've seen this a lot, but no one really documents WHAT other religions and cultures support this notion of the worldwide flood.

Update:

Furthermore, if there exists documentation from other lands that the Flood happened, then doesn't that pretty much disprove the Flood, since dead civilizations don't write?

Update 2:

"You know that the Bible is a document, right?"

Correct, but that is the source of the story, so that is already accounted for. Where ELSE are there documents, as some people have claimed?

Update 3:

That's true that other civilizations have tales of a great flood. I suppose the more pressing question (to the apologists) is: How can we know that their tales of a flood are about "Noah's Flood"? Lots of stories are borrowed among religions: the Underworld, virgin births, etc. So, many cultures sharing a flood story is not surprising, but how do you know the Sumerian flood was about THE flood? Especially when you consider the Sumerians would have been wiped out before realizing they were hit by a catastrophic flood.

20 Answers

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Actually, there are flood stories found in the mythology of other cultures. Certainly not "ALL religions & cultures", but more than a few. This is not too surprising when you consider how both universal and catastrophic floods can be:

    http://talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

    But to call these documentations of an actual worldwide flood is utterly ridiculous. They're juts archetypes. There are stories about giants and talking animals too found in different cultures too; that doesn't mean they actually happened.

    Never mind the fact that the one found in the book of Genesis said there were no survivors other than Noah, so I have no idea why a Christian creationist would call other stories evidence of their own story.

    Source(s): "Myths are about the human struggle to deal with the great passages of time and life - birth, death, marriage, the transitions from childhood to adulthood to old age. They meet a need in the psychological or spiritual nature of humans that has absolutely nothing to do with science. To try to turn a myth into a science, or a science into a myth, is an insult to myths, an insult to religion, and an insult to science. In attempting to do this, creationists have missed the significance, meaning, and sublime nature of myths. They took a beautiful story of creation and re-creation and ruined it." - Michael Shermer
  • 1 decade ago

    Not everything that is a myth started out as a true story. I don't know how many times I've also heard of the flood supposedly being in all cultures and religions. A myth is a myth and geological records show no earth-wide flood occurred. Some may have a myth, Moses got his from the Sumerians.

  • 1 decade ago

    The Genesis flood was borrowed by the Babylonians from the Sumerians and was a local flood.

    The latest great flood which was recorded was the tsunami a few years ago; due to plate tectonics floods will happen in coastal areas.

    The Sumerian flood was actually reported from archeologists years ago but there were no other areas which had the sediments from a flood dating to the same time period.

  • Amy
    Lv 6
    1 decade ago

    Archeologists have found evidence of a massive volcanic eruption on Crete. It was larger in force than Krakatoa and took out a major part of the island. The resulting tsunami would have engulfed the entire Mediterranean basin. To the authors of the Bible this was the known world. I believe this event is the origin of the flood myths.

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    None of them. Well there's the Epic of Gilgamesh, which Genesis plagiarizes. But most cultures have 'flood myths' because humans build settlements near water! They are not similar to each other nor world wide.

  • AJ
    Lv 4
    1 decade ago

    The Bible documented it. Also the Epic of Gilgamesh. (although this one talks about it but is not totally accurate) The Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh were written after the flood happened and Noah and his ancestors probably wrote about it. Cause anyways, if everyone had died during the flood, how could we all be here and know about it?

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Nowhere.

    There are *some* records of *local* floods in *some* other cultures -- but this idea that "all religions and cultures" record some kind of global food is absolutely incorrect. The only other flood story that could possibly be interpreted as "global" (though it doesn't say so) is in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which pre-dates the Hebrew flood story by many hundreds of years.

    And good point, by the way, about the contradiction...:)

    Peace.

  • 5 years ago

    relatively everyone Thank guy for his special debunking of this absurd delusion... the only factor no longer touched by utilising many human beings this is the impossibility of having each and every species of animal contemporary on earth all on one boat... people who say there grew to become into 40k animals or 3 million animals, it is not suitable how many you assert there have been.. this is scientifically impossible for each animal, insect, and plant to in high quality condition in this boat on the comparable time. additionally, anybody who can no longer see the Bible as a replica of a replica would not be attentive to jack approximately historic previous.

  • 1 decade ago

    Most human habitation clusters along rivers. Rivers flood. Sometimes they flood catastrophically. Is it so surprising that legends of great floods abound?

  • 1 decade ago

    Major floods have occurred throughout history and recorded. Some grew into legends. The ultimate legend of a worldwide flood is fantasy.

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