Amaleq13

That doesn't seem like a very credible explanation when the actual myths are considered:

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


Given the rather significant differences in detail across all these stories (specifically when there is no evidence of direct borrowing) common sense suggests that we are not dealing with a single story changing (often quite drastically) over numerous retellings but independent stories involving a common experience (survival of massive flooding) told in various social contexts. The only constants shared by all these stories is a lot of water and at least one survivor.

cjack

But if "common sense" tells you the story got altered in other cultures, wouldn't that common sense be equally applied to the Biblical account?

If not, what makes the Biblical account immune to common sense?

Celsus

Can you explain? I thought ANE myths (Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, Noah, Ovid's, etc.) are quite clearly all evolved from a single source (Atrahasis originals dating to the late third millenium, or possibly earlier) with near identical themes, sequence of events, etc.

To get back on topic, spin is spot on. Manetho dates to the third century BCE, but all extant materials of him contain numerous revisions (Josephus (1st century CE), Eusebius' version in Jerome (4th-5th century), Armenian translations (6th-8th century), and Julius Africanus' version in Syncellus (c. 9th century). Even earlier, his text was altered by Jewish/anti-Jewish polemical writers prior to Josephus.

Beyond that, most of Manetho's sources are lost, but there are possible inspirations (we have no idea how well these passed down). The Old Kingdom Annals (c.2500-2200 BCE, which incidentally, would have been during the Noachian flood) are too early, and seem to list the rulers as only humans (compared with predynastic deities in Manetho). Others include Thutmose's list, Seti's list, the Saqqara list, and Ramesses list (duplicate of Seti's). All date to around the 15th to 13th centuries BCE, all of which are inscribed in stone at various locations. One possible candidate for an actual source that Manetho might have got his hands on (but probably didn't) is the Turin Royal Canon (c. 14th dynasty Ramesses II 1290-1224 BCE) which disagrees to some extent with Manetho anyway.

A good introduction on Manetho is Berossos and Manetho: Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt by G.P. Verbrugghe and J.M. Wickersham.

Joel

Amaleq13

My parenthetical comment ("specifically when there is no evidence of direct borrowing") was a reference to these stories. As I understood the original comment, it included even those myths involving floods from more distant cultures where direct influence is not likely.

When these other myths are considered, the idea that they were all inspired by the same story or even the same "world-wide" flood is not credible.

Tom Sawyer

I don't think you even need an actual flood to get the flood story in numerous ancient cultures. If you have people wandering through the mountains or fields and finding fish skeletons in the rocks, they're going to correctly assume that the area was once under water. Not having any way to understand plate techtonics, but knowing that floods put areas of land underneath the water, they naturally assumed that there was once a big flood that was large enough to put entire mountains under water.

That leads to the next question of why <insert local god here> decided to flood everything and, if everywhere was flooded, why are there still people and animals around afterwards? A little bit of deductive reasoning, based on the most up to date knowledge of the time, and you have the stories of Noah, Gilgamesh and everyone else. The cultures that didn't come up with these stories either came up with something else that hasn't survived the millenia or had more important things to do than make up silly stories about murderous, evil sky-demons.

judge

I'm not arguing whether or not there was a global flood or not, but there is a common argument as to why we have evidence of Cultures in places like China before the flood.
Christians generally use a corrupted text. The following site outlines some arguments in this regard starting at the heading 1/3 of the way through, (2). THREE MAIN VERSIONS FROM ONE ORIGINAL TEXT.
http://www.ldolphin.org/barrychron.html

Jack the Bodiless

Magus:
So the ones who kept the Ark story were the survivors who were Noah's descendants, whereas the ones with stories about surviving in caves, on mountaintops, in trees and so forth were "different cultures" who were NOT Noah's descendants?

Just how many people DID survive the Flood, Magus?

Amaleq13

How do we classify the story where the survivors float around in a giant nut shell that one of the gods dropped? Does that qualify as an "ark"? Or the one where various people and animals survived by grasping floating logs. You are giving him a very difficult task.

chapka

Actually, the earliest (still somewhat controversial) evidence of writing from China may date back as far as 10,000 years, although the best evidence of modern Chinese characters only goes back to the Shang dynasty oracle bones, around 2,000 BCE. However, we do have strong archaeological evidence as to what was happening at the date of the alleged global flood in c. 2,400 BCE and the Tower of Babel, which I assume would have to take place centuries later. Specifically, the Shang and pre-Shang Chinese were developing a strong, populous civilization, including, for example, metallurgy far in advance of Mesopotamia.

What we lack in China immediately after the flood is any connection to Judaism or the culture of Mesopotamia.

Is there a creationist response to this set of facts other than pretending that archaeology is part of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy?

nermal

That site's neat. I'm bookmarking it for later entertainment. I especially liked the way he not only knew the speed of light changed over time, but what the value was for the flood time as well. Oh, and the changing decay rates was good as well. I suspect this guy walked past a physics book or two at the library and absorbed his considerable wisdom.

Ed