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Bskillet
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Username: Bskillet

Post Number: 709
Registered: 8-2008
Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 8:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I have heard that a huge number of cultures all have some myth or story of a great flood where (at least) one man escaped by building a boat. Many of these include him saving wildlife as well. I found a page called Flood Stories from Around the World that describes the stories.

Some of them are extremely similar to the Biblical account. For instance:

quote:

Welsh

The lake of Llion burst, flooding all lands. Dwyfan and Dwyfach escaped in a mastless ship with pairs of every sort of living creature. They landed in Prydain (Britain) and repopulated the world.

Lithuanian

From his heavenly window, the supreme god Pramzimas saw nothing but war and injustice among mankind. He sent two giants, Wandu and Wejas (water and wind), to destroy earth. After twenty days and nights, little was left. Pramzimas looked to see the progress. He happened to be eating nuts at the time, and he threw down the shells. One happened to land on the peak of the tallest mountain, where some people and animals had sought refuge. Everybody climbed in and survived the flood floating in the nutshell. God's wrath abated, he ordered the wind and water to abate. The people dispersed, except for one elderly couple who stayed where they landed. To comfort them, God sent the rainbow and advised them to jump over the bones of the earth nine times. They did so, and up sprang nine other couples, from which the nine Lithuanian tribes descended.

Greek

The first race of people was completely destroyed because they were exceedingly wicked. The fountains of the deep opened, the rain fell in torrents, and the rivers and seas rose to cover the earth, killing all of them. Deucalion survived due to his prudence and piety and linked the first and second race of men. Onto a great ark he loaded his wives and children and all animals. The animals came to him, and by God's help, remained friendly for the duration of the flood. The flood waters escaped down a chasm opened in Hierapolis.

Cherokee Indians
Day after day, a dog stood at the river bank and howled piteously. Rebuked by his master, the dog said a flood was coming, and he must build and provision a boat. Furthermore, the dog said, he must throw him, the dog, into the water. For a sign that he spoke the truth, the dog showed the back of his neck, which was raw and bare with flesh and bone showing. The man followed directions, and he and his family survived; from them, the present population is descended.

Lakota Indian

In the world before this one, the people didn't know how to behave or how to act human, and the creating power was displeased. He placed three dry buffalo chips under a sacred pipe rack and saved a fourth for lighting the pipe. He sang three songs to bring rain, which caused the rivers to overflow; then he sang a fourth song and stamped on the earth. The earth split open, and water flowed from the cracks and covered everything.

Montagnais Indians

Being angry with giants [see Gen. 6:1-4], God commanded a man to build a large canoe. The man did so, and when he embarked, the water rose till no land was visible anywhere... [The Montagnais story also contains a tale similar to Noah sending out birds to find dry land.]


Others, like the Transylvanian Gypsy story, seem to conflate something like Adam and Eve with something like the Flood:

quote:

Men once lived forever and knew no troubles. The earth brought forth fine fruits, flesh grew on trees, and milk and wine flowed in many rivers. One day, and old man came to the country and asked for a night's lodging, which a couple gave him in their cottage. When he departed the next day, he said he would return in nine days. He gave his host a small fish in a vessel and said he would reward the host if he did not eat the fish but returned it then. The wife thought the fish must be exceptionally good to eat, but the husband said he had promised the old man to keep it and made the woman swear not to eat it. After two days of thinking about it, though, the wife yielded to temptation and threw the fish on the hot coals. Immediately, she was struck dead by lightning, and it began to rain. The rivers started overflowing the country. On the ninth day, the old man returned and told his host that all living things would be drowned, but since he had kept his oath, he would be saved. The old man told the host to take a wife, gather his kinfolk, and build a boat on which to save them, animals, and seeds of trees and herbs. The man did all this. It rained a year, and the waters covered everything. After a year, the waters sank, and the people and animals disembarked. They now had to labor to gain a living, and sickness and death came also. They multiplied slowly so that many thousands of years passed before people were again as numerous as they were before the flood.


What I find fascinating is that some stories, like the Welsh story and the Native America stories, have details that are very similar to the Biblical account, even though these pagan cultures would have had no contact with the ancient Israelites or knew anything of the Biblical story until the coming of Christian missionaries.

(Message edited by bskillet on June 17, 2010)
Yenc
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Username: Yenc

Post Number: 113
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Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 8:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I haven't read it, but I understand that the ancient tale of Gilgamesh is also eerily similar to the biblical flood account.
Bskillet
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Post Number: 710
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Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 8:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

True, but atheists often attribute that to cultural sharing, since the Mesopotamians were in close contact with ancient Israelites. Some of the Native American stories, like the Montagnais, are incredibly similar, even including a deity being angry with a race of giants. For instance, consider the Pawnee Indian story:

quote:

The first people on the earth were giants, very big and strong. They did not believe in the creator Ti-ra-wa. They thought nothing could overcome them. They grew increasingly worse. At last Ti-ra-wa grew angry and raised the water to the level of the land so that the ground became soft. The giants sank into the mud and drowned.


Compare this to Genesis 6:1-4:

quote:

When mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves. And the LORD said, "My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years." The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterwards, when the sons of God came to the daughters of man, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men.


There are several other Native American stories that refer to some giants whom their creator deity was angry with because the giants were wicked. That is a major parallel to the Biblical text that really strikes me, since these people had no exchanges with anyone who knew anything of the Bible until the 16th century, at the earliest.

(Message edited by bskillet on June 17, 2010)
Dennis
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Posted on Friday, June 18, 2010 - 7:21 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

There are over 270 flood stories told in cultures all over the earth, which owe their origin to this one global event. According to Genesis 7:20, the highest mountains were at least twenty-two and one-half feet under water, so that the ark floated freely above the peaks. This would include the highest peak in that area, Mount Ararat, which is about 17,000 feet high. That depth further proves it was not a local flood, but a global flood.

Dennis Fischer

PS: This brief post was typed with only my left hand due to a broken right hand. I am recovering well. My Christian physician insists that "God will do all the healing."
Yenc
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Username: Yenc

Post Number: 115
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Posted on Friday, June 18, 2010 - 9:48 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This thread is really interesting! I regularly read the websites of Answers in Genesis (AiG) and Institute for Creation Research (ICR), both of which have wonderful articles pointing people to the Bible and showing how science affirms Scripture. Evolution is strongly pushed in the public schools and in secular science publications, and many Christians waffle by supporting "Intelligent Design" as a compromise. These Christian organizations are courageous "voices crying in the wilderness" that deserve our support.
Yenc
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Username: Yenc

Post Number: 116
Registered: 6-2008
Posted on Friday, June 18, 2010 - 9:50 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This thread is really interesting! I regularly read the websites of Answers in Genesis (AiG) and Institute for Creation Research (ICR), both of which have wonderful articles pointing people to the Bible and showing how science affirms Scripture. Evolution is strongly pushed in the public schools and in secular science publications, and many Christians waffle by supporting "Intelligent Design" as a compromise. These Christian organizations are courageous "voices crying in the wilderness" that deserve our support.
Asurprise
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Username: Asurprise

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Posted on Friday, June 18, 2010 - 6:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The Chinese character for "flood" is a boat with eight people in it. :-)
River
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Username: River

Post Number: 6341
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Posted on Friday, June 18, 2010 - 11:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Haaa!:-)
Snowboardingmom
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Username: Snowboardingmom

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Posted on Saturday, June 19, 2010 - 12:06 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Actually, the chinese character for "boat", not "flood", has eight people in it. But just the same, the correlation is revealing!

Not sure if this will show up on all your computers but here's the breakdown:

Boat: 船

Vessel is 舟 (left side of character), and eight is 八 (which is on the upper right corner of character), and mouth is 口 (which is the lower right corner of character). So all together the word "boat" is made up of the words "vessel", "eight", and "mouth" (or person).

Pretty cool, huh?

Grace
Snowboardingmom
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Posted on Saturday, June 19, 2010 - 12:12 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My favorite Chinese character "revelation" is the word righteous. The top part of the character is the word "lamb", and bottom of the character is the word "I" or "Me". So the word righteous is actually "the lamb over/covering me".

That's REALLY cool!

Grace

(Message edited by snowboardingmom on June 19, 2010)
Dennis
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Username: Dennis

Post Number: 2017
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Posted on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 8:06 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Grace, thanks for sharing those interesting linguistic tidbits that give us an in-depth and precise meaning to certain words and/or Chinese characters. However, we cannot always rely upon linguistics for our theology (e.g., the etymology of the word "sabbath" in Spanish or Portuguese, etc.).

Dennis Fischer
Colleentinker
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Username: Colleentinker

Post Number: 11334
Registered: 12-2003


Posted on Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 10:21 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

So cool, Grace! Way to go with your learning Chinese!

Colleen

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