Essay on Flood Legends From Around the World

The war went on for years and all the men of the Golden Age were killed. Zeus saved all of his brothers and sisters from Kronos and he built Olympus, which was a palace of the gods. Zeus married Hera, his sister, and they had many children. Soon, the world was filled with many gods.

Many of the same ancient stories can be found in different cultures. Each story differs in a small way, but the general idea remains synonymous. One story that is paralleled in several cultures is the legend of a great flood. The epic of Gilgamesh resembles the Bible’s story of Noah’s Ark, but specific details differ in several aspects.

Noah and his family entered the ark as God had commanded. After seven days, the waters of the flood were over the earth. All the wellsprings of the great deep burst and the casements of the heavens were opened. (Genesis pg 32) It rained for forty

Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.” 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.” This was God’s command to Noah, unlike Utnapishtim who was told the secret of the flood by one of the gods.

ANSWER: I personally believe that every culture has a flood myth, because it serves as a purpose of order, and how we came to be to explain how everything evolved. I think its purpose is to make people act in a certain way if not that is one of the consequence that could occur and wipe everything out.

“And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy the earth. Make yourself an ark…” (Genesis 6:13-14, English Standard Version) “For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.” (Genesis 6:17, ESV) “And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female.” (Genesis 6:19, ESV) “Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.” (Genesis 6:22, ESV) “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of

The two flood myths mentioned above have a few similarities. The first is that the floods had come from the anger of powerful beings. The first story mentions that the God Jupiter had been angry

Both Gilgamesh and Noah build arks because of an impending devastation of the earth by rain and flooding. Shamash had warned, "In the evening, when the rider of the storm sends down the destroying rain, enter the boat and batten her down." (p. 147) God told Noah, "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." (p. 172) Both boats were built to detailed specifications in order to withstand the torrents of rain. Following the cessation of the rain, both Noah and Gilgamesh send out birds as a test of the recession of the waters so that they can safely exit onto the land. Gilgamesh sends first a dove, then a swallow, and then a raven, who, "…saw that the waters had retreated, she ate, she flew around, she cawed, and she did not come back." (p. 148) Noah first sends a raven which, "…went to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. " (p. 173) He then sends a dove that returns to the ark having found no resting place. After seven days Noah again sends the dove which returns with an olive leaf in its bill. "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 any more." (p. 173) Both Noah and Gilgamesh, immediately upon leaving their boats, make a sacrifice. Gilgamesh says, "Then I threw everything open to

In Thomas C. Foster’s book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster discusses that in every piece of literature, there is no originality. Each literary work is connected in one way or another to a different literary work, making “one story”. Having striking similarities, but being written 2000 years apart, the flood stories of Utnapishtim in The Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah in the Bible back up what Foster says. Gilgamesh in an old epic about a man named Gilgamesh and his quest for immortality, while Noah is a not quite so old story of when God flooded the earth. Each story is unique in its own way with having slight differences, perhaps caused by the extensive time period between each, but the similarities are

First, there is Charybdis. Born to the Sea God Poseidon, Charybdis was a naiad that similar to Athena and Zeus had a strong Father-Daughter relationship. When Poseidon went to war against Zeus and created various storms, Charybdis brought uncanny quantities of water upon beaches. Due to this, villages, fields, forest, etc. would flood. After Charybdis had won land for Poseidon, Zeus was enraged and with that Zeus had transformed her

“In the beginning Almighty God created heaven and earth and everything that goes with them and, last of all, two human beings, Adam and Eve, from who have come families. Their progeny multiplied and spread over all the world” (p. 83). As time passed, some people were good and obedient to God’s commandments, however, some people were not. They turned to a life of sin. God did not create heaven and earth for people to misbehave, so he sent a destructive flood to “drown the world and all creatures living in it” (p. 84). Before He drowned the world, God has Noah build an ark so that he could save

Ever since sin had entered the scene, it had run rampant over the face of the earth and had taken control over the lives of almost everyone on earth, except Noah and his family. Because of the rampant sin, God decided that it was time to

When God blessed Noah, He set the rainbow as a sign that He would never flood the earth again.

Almost all myths around the world have the particular section on the “Great Flood.” It has been universal, indicating that at some point in their lifetime, all of the cultures experienced a flood that almost wiped

The everlasting covenant the Lord gave to Noah and his sons can be interpreted as the greatest result of the flood. The Lord blessed Noah and his three sons and instructed them to be fruitful and multiply. He then goes on to affirm in Genesis 9:11, "I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." The sign of this covenant was presented as a rainbow in the clouds, a sign between God and the earth as a continuous reminder of his promise made to all the varies living creatures that would roam the earth in generations to follow. Never again would he destroy his precious creation by flood. Like a slate wiped clean, the earth was once again