6- Mythology and The Flood

Offspring of The Gods

Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Genesis 6:1-4.

From the Sumerian text, we know the names of a few of those children of the gods; They are An, Enlil, his half-sister Ninki, and Enkil. One must, of course, suppose there were many more.

It is interesting to note that the sons of God were sexually compatible with the daughters of men.  Not only did they have children but those children were mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Genesis 6:5

Noah's Flood in Mythology

Almost every culture in the world has a story of "The Flood".  Of course, the facts from each background are different.  Those who hold the Bible to be true in every respect will, of course, insist that all the facts presented in the Bible are the facts to accept and all others must be rejected.  If we are to follow that line of thinking lets remind ourselves that the writer(s) of the Books of Moses borrowed heavily on oral stories based on the ancient Sumerian writings.

So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Genesis 6:7-8.

It is striking that the Bible says, the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth. Bible teachers insist the God is omniscient; He perfectly knows the future as well as the past.  If that is true, 

• Did He not know what would happen?  
• Did He not see that mankind would become vile and need to be destroyed?  
• If He did see the future could He not have avoided this heartbreak for himself?

Some scholars believe that memories of real disasters, such as the violent and unpredictable floods that occurred along Mesopotamia's Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, underlie mythological accounts of catastrophic rains and inundations.

Floods are among the most powerful and devastating of natural events. Long after the water has subsided, people remember and talk about the loss and destruction. Moreover, the scale of devastation is often so great as to convince people that the flooding is the work of supernatural beings.
Sitchin’s View — World Mysteries Blog

Archaeologically we find that there is no evidence that the histories of hundreds of civilizations ended in a deluge. Palaeontology also does not bear this story out as there were no mass extinctions to suggest a world wide flood. Even common sense tells us that if the world were to flood that the fresh waters and salt waters would mix and kill all of the fresh water fish. 

www.templeofsumer.org/biblicalpar.html‎

Freshwater fish cannot survive in salt water.  Yet, the death of fish and other creatures of the sea are not mentioned at all in the Bible's account of the flood.  So if the freshwater and the saltwater had intermingled, would not the Bible have mentioned the fact that the fish also died?

Here is a short version of a few of the ancient myths: 

The story from India has a fish, telling the first man, that a flood will be coming.

The first man built a boat and was rescued.

Here is a good one from Egypt.

Ra, the supreme god, was afraid his people would overthrow him so he asked Hathor, one of his goddesses to kill the people. Hathor killed so many people that the Nile and the ocean became red with blood. Hathor drank the bloody water.  Feeling that things had gone too far, Ra ordered slaves to make a lake of beer, dyed red to look like blood. Hathor drank the beer, became very drunk, and failed to finish the task of wiping out humanity. The survivors of her bloodbath started the human race anew.

The story from China seems a lot more localized and has to do with controlling the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers.

Read more: 

http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Fi-Go/Floods.html#ixzz2t9f8tHyl

Of all the world's flood myths, which I have read, the Mesopotamian version (namely, Noah's flood) comes the closest to being believable.  Most of the others have mythological beasts (or gods) doing impossible, mythological things.

Legend says that they (the demigods) first helped to civilise man but they later destroyed the evil people, on this planet, with a huge flood. The Sumerians arrived in Southern Iraq fully civilised, 5,000 years ago, and their scribes say that they were survivors of the Flood.  According to them, it was not just eight people that survived, but rather, a complete civilization.

In the Sumerian version, Enlil, one of the gods who created the humans was fed up with them because they became so numerous and noisy.  So he wanted to drown them all, but Enkil, who was always at odds with Enlil, warned the king Atra-hasis, whom we call Noah, of the coming disaster, and because of the warning Atra-hasis built an ark and saved himself, his family and some animals.

The Sumerian story says that it rained for seven days and seven nights but in the Bible story it rained for forty days and forty nights.  Again, remembering that numerology was important to Jewish scribes, it is perhaps not surprising that the writer chose the number forty as the length of time it rained.  "Forty" in the Bible, represents God's punishment.  For more on this see: 

http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/40.html

It seems that unless we insist on taking the Bible literally, in every case, the story of Noah and the Ark also has some unbelievable facts in it.  Those pros and cons have been argued "to death" and do not need to be pursued here.   However, the important thing here is not whether every detail is exactly true.  The main thrust here is the lesson it teaches.

We noticed in 5:29, And he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord has cursed.  The point of this story is that God had cursed the earth.  To Adam God said Cursed is the ground for your sake. 3:17.  Noah was the one through whom the curse would be removed.  

It is easy to see that Noah typifies Christ.  The human race was cursed because of sin but Christ died to remove that curse.  The fact that God the Father raised Christ from the dead proves that Christ's death was not in vain.

To read other things I have said about "Noah's Flood" go to:                                                   http://spaceshiptheology.blogspot.com/2013/08/e-dthe-cast-noah-mariner.html