Ancient Stories of the Flood

A detailed Summary of Ancient Stories of the Flood

Stories of a primeval flood exist in all parts of the world, virtually every branch of the human race has traditions of a Great Flood that destroyed all of mankind, except one family.

The closest parallel to the Biblical story of the flood occurs in the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, our fullest version of which is furnished by an Akkadian recension prepared, in the seventh century B.C. for the great library of King Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. The story itself is far older. We have fragments of versions dating as much as a thousand years earlier, and we possess also portions of a Summerian archetype.

In the Mesopotamian version: the gods apparently displeased with the evils of mankind decided to destroy it by means of a great flood. Ea, the god of wisdom and subtlety, was privy to their council and warned Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah, of the coming disaster. Utnapishtim was told to build a ship thirty cubits long and thirty cubits wide. Provision it and put in it specimens of every living thing. Then to board it with his family and possessions and launch it on the waters.

For six days and nights the wind and flood raged. On the seventh day the flood abated. Everything, including mankind, had turned to mud and c

In England the Druids had a legend that the world had been re-peopled from a righteous patriarch who had been saved in a strong ship from a flood sent to destroy man for his wickedness.

Older versions, of which only fragments survive, tell virtually the same story, though the hero is sometimes called Atrahasis, or "Superwise," rather than Utnapishtim. In Western Asia the legend of the flood is of Summerian origin, and is now known from the excavations at Kish and Ur to have been based upon an historical catastrophe. In the Summerian version the hero is named Ziusudra, "the long lived." He too was warned by a god of the coming flood, and ordered to build an ark, which grounds on a mountain after seven days and seven nights. Like Utnapishtim, Ziusudra offered sacrifices to the gods and was rendered immortal and sent to the remote island of Dilmun.

In all the flood stories the hero is rescued by reaching high ground. The mountain of deliverance is usually identified by some prominent local hill or elevation.

These traditions of the flood, though mixed with polytheism and some evident myth, show that the flood had become a fixed fact in the memory of the inhabitants of Babylonia. And now an Actual layer of Mud, evidently deposited by th

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 847
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History

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Ancient Stories of the Flood

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