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It seems to me that the Biblical Flood of Noah fame did actually take place. Apparently, it all began in 2007 BC and affected most regions of the planet. Biblical descriptions of the flood appear to describe a major event in which a comet or asteroid struck the earth in the middle of the Indian ocean with other fragments striking in other oceans.
The Epic of Gilgamesh describes pretty much the same event as does Egyptian and others all over the planet.
Then again it has been hypothesized that the Biblical flood happened as written and that people who descended from the survivors spread across the globe carrying the legend with them.
Thing is, many of these flood myths have a common theme and that is of some survivors being told by their god to take seed and animals onto a boat so that they can start again.
The Biblical Flood myth has been done to death - literally. It is Dead. And we need another Flood thread like Noah needed a hole in the Ark.
But I am curious on one point - what is the Egyptian Flood myth? One point in the discussion is that the Egyptians and Chinese do not have one. There was one dug up, but it was related to the regular flooding of the Nile, not a global flood.
Egypt:
People have become rebellious. Atum said he will destroy all he made and return the earth to the Primordial Water which was its original state. Atum will remain, in the form of a serpent, with Osiris. [Faulkner, plate 30] (Unfortunately the version of the papyrus with the flood story is damaged and unclear. See also Budge, p. ccii.)
The Chinese flood - despite the attempt to make it look like it conforms a global flood - related to the flooding of the yellow river. An ongoing problem in China. We can look at it in detail, but as I recall, an official was appointed to build up the banks and prevent a disaster and he succeeded. This is related to regular flooding from meltwater from the river source. It is nothing to do with a global flood caused by a meteor impact or ice melting post Ice -age, and even if it could be shown to be so, that hardly fits in with all creation destroyed by a flood that overtopped mountains as per the bible.
The Egyptian one as I recall conflates a creation of everything from primeval waters with a Nile - riverine flood involving a goddess getting a lot of blood into the Nile. We can look at this in detail, too, if you want. It refers to the idea of a creator -god eventually returning everything to the waters from which it came.
Neither of those are anything to do with a Biblical flood which is, I argue, derived from the riverine floods of Mesopotamia as described in the Ut-Napishtim-Ziasudra/Noachian -legends of Sumer and Babylon. I am rather surprised to see Wiki giving space to these attempts to relate the Chinese and Egyptian myths to a Global flood, but then, there have been reports of an ongoing struggle against people going in and editing the Wiki articles to make them support religious views.
The bottom line is that the global flood legends were at least something that looked like the supported the Noachian flood. The argument that China and Egypt didn't have any such legends was a good counter (and I have to admit that I didn't go out of my way to point out that the civilizations of China and Egypt post -dated the ballpark 4,000 BC date for the flood) and the argument that widespread flood legends implied that it wasn't total, as people survived, could easily be countered by making them all decendents of Noah all telling the Biblical flood...garbled a bit, of course.
But then the discovery of the black Sea flood caused by a global (but not total) rising of the seas caused by ice melt post Ice age, explained all the flood legends and of course NOT being total, completely sank the point of the Biblical flood - to destroy all creation, which evidently it didn't.
It seems to me that the Biblical Flood of Noah fame did actually take place. Apparently, it all began in 2007 BC and affected most regions of the planet. Biblical descriptions of the flood appear to describe a major event in which a comet or asteroid struck the earth in the middle of the Indian ocean with other fragments striking in other oceans.
The Epic of Gilgamesh describes pretty much the same event as does Egyptian and others all over the planet.
Then again it has been hypothesized that the Biblical flood happened as written and that people who descended from the survivors spread across the globe carrying the legend with them.
Thing is, many of these flood myths have a common theme and that is of some survivors being told by their god to take seed and animals onto a boat so that they can start again.
Early civilizations around the world typically began and prospered in river valley regions, or at the junctures of great rivers, because of easy access to irrigation water for crops, and because of the fertile soil for crop cultivation. These areas are especially fertile precisely because they flood periodically. A catastrophic flood, the sort of drastic flood that only occurs once every 500 years or so would naturally seem like a world-wide disaster to ancient peoples. And it explains the flood legends which occur right around the world, because they may well be based on some measure of actual fact.
Well, is seems there is indeed a Chinese global flood myth in which only two people survive, these being brother and sister and the world was repopulated from them. There are several flood myths in Chinese culture but it is not certain how they interrelate.
it makes sense to me that the destruction of Antlantis and Lemuria could be the same flood referenced in the Noah narrative
I don't think you can prove the existence of the flood myth be using other myths as evidence.
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that I didn't go out of my way to point out that the civilizations of China and Egypt post -dated the ballpark 4,000 BC date for the flood) and the argument that widespread flood legends implied that it wasn't total, as people survived, could easily be countered by making them all decendents of Noah all telling the Biblical flood...garbled a bit, of course.
