# The "great flood" myth is found in many religions. Any evidence it really happened? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 12, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755 "2003-11-12T03:16:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ronbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@ronbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ronbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/21 "2003-11-12T14:09:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by T0Mmy \* > \*\*Mountains are formed by Tectonic plates moving together and being forced up into the air. It therefore stands to reason that these fossils found at the top of mountains started off under the sea once. The Himalayas for example where formed when India crashed into asia. The bit in the middle was under water and was raised. \*\* Would you have known that if you lived 2000 years ago? Two of my pet peeves: 1. People that think ancient explanations are stupid because we know better. 2. People that think ancient explanations are truth because is says so in their Holy Book. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/22 "2003-11-12T14:38:35Z")
BTW, excellent whooshing, **ronbo**. Hey, people, do we need big blaze-orange-colored legal disclaimers in three languages? Sign me in with the “the story got better as time went by” camp – enough major cultures in the Neolithic/early Bronze ages probably experienced massive disasters – what we’d call a “500-year flood”-- so that an oral tradition of surviving a Great Flood would arise in several places, together with a story that the surviving people and animals floated, that the reputed ancestor of the current population was among the survivors, and why, of course that it was the God(s) who chose him to survive, what other explanation could there be? Plus yes, the preliterate had people smart enough to notice some terrain features that implied there had once been water over the land. ---
**Author:** ![ronbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@ronbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ronbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/23 "2003-11-12T15:06:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sailor \* > \*\*Where? cite? what specific circumstances? \*\* [Here](http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC364.html) and [here.](http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/bi/1995/shells.html) > [@](#): > > **Not “obviously”. There are many ways for seashells and fishbones to end up at a mountaintop. They could be carried there by swallows.** No, that is not compelling. The majority of sources agree that this land was indeed under water. Ignorance is not an insult, it is the human condition. We are all ignorant of things to which we’ve never been exposed, one cannot be expected to intuitively know everything. There is not enough time or brainpower to know everything. pet peeve: 3) People that purposely hold on to their ignorance. (Related to pp #2). **sailor** : I’m guessing from the tone of your response that this is also one of your pet peeves. I think we are in agreement that there was not a world-wide flood: the land uplifted. I believe the ancients would have be aware of Seashells buried on mountaintops. My point was that a Flood was a logical explanation for when these stories were written. Why anybody believes these stories now is beyond my understanding. ---
**Author:** ![beajerry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@beajerry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beajerry)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/24 "2003-11-12T15:09:52Z")
You guys are making Judge Roy Moore very angry. ---
**Author:** ![ronbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@ronbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ronbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/25 "2003-11-12T15:23:35Z")
By "now’, I mean having the opportunity to review current understanding. ---
**Author:** ![Flying\_Monk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/48db29/32.png) [@Flying\_Monk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flying_Monk)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/26 "2003-11-12T15:26:16Z")
"They could be carried there by swallows. " What do you mean, African or European swallows? ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/27 "2003-11-12T15:26:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Exapno Mapcase \* > \*\*Not only is there no direct evidence for any such connection, but the time lapses are so great that we have to posit an oral tradition lasting thousands of years and covering thousands of miles. > > Not to mention that there is no good way to connect such an event to any mythologies outside their Mediterranean basin. > \*\* I agreed with a lot of your post, but the evidence that most of the stories came from _one_ source is the similarity in the stories, analogous to looking at DNA-differentiation and figuring out all dogs came from _one_ domestication of wolves, not several. It’s not just that there was this big flood - it’s also that one family built a boat and were the only ones to escape the flood. So is it the Black Sea flood? Impossible to say, but it’s a tantalizing hypothesis the flood stories (or most of them) have one source. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Exapno Mapcase \* > \*\*None of this is science in the usual sense of the word. It’s closer to modern day mythmaking. \*\* You’re right. It’s not science, until someone can come up with a hypothesis, and a way to test the hypothesis. However, examining the evidence to come up with hypotheses is not an invalid methodology, so long as one understands they haven’t proved anything, they’ve only generated the right questions. So I disagree with your second statement. Nobody is saying ‘case closed’ (or shouldn’t be). They’re simply recognizing it as an intriguing possibility. Now somebody has to be clever enough to come up with a way to test it. ---
**Author:** ![Flying\_Monk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/48db29/32.png) [@Flying\_Monk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flying_Monk)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/28 "2003-11-12T15:28:52Z")
Sorry, I couldn’t resist…and SOMEONE was going to say it… ---
**Author:** ![Phnord\_Prephect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@Phnord\_Prephect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phnord_Prephect)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/29 "2003-11-12T16:06:25Z")
Yep, Flying Monk, I was working my way thru the remaining posts to be sure nobody had beaten me to it. Also trying to work in the joke about “they could have had it on a line”. I’m so ashamed. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/30 "2003-11-12T17:11:14Z")
: quietly stepping into the line behind **Flying\_Monk** and **Phnord Prephect** : ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/31 "2003-11-12T17:31:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bup \* > **I agreed with a lot of your post, but the evidence that most of the stories came from _one_ source is the similarity in the stories** I flatly do not believe this. Take a look at the link in **Astro’s** post, especially Part 2. (Giving tentative credence to this site, since we don’t know where he got the material from or how accurately it is paraphrased.) The first few myths mentioned there have a surface similarity, pardon the pun. But the deeper in you go the more differences appear. > [@](#): > > It’s not just that there was this big flood - it’s also that one family built a boat and were the only ones to escape the flood. Is this the similarity you refer to? If so, read the flood myths pages again, because it just ain’t so. > [@](#): > > it’s a tantalizing hypothesis the flood stories (or most of them) have one source. I guess it is. It’s also a hypothesis that floods are so common and the metaphor of washing away evil so compelling that flood myths should be widely spread but locally generated, especially in the total absence of any plausible mechanism for worldwide dissemination of the memory of a single event. Floods happen. Flood myths happen. That’s all we know for sure. Which should we go with as our working hypothesis, yours or mine? Intriguing doesn’t trump plausible. Occam’s Razor (which for a change I think is actually applicable here) tells me to use my hypotheses as our basis for understanding until some contrary evidence appears. ---
**Author:** ![Yossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/9de0a6/32.png) [@Yossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yossarian)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/32 "2003-11-12T17:31:39Z")
Please note that there is pretty good evidence that suggests that there was no such Black Sea flood (i.e., the “Noah’s Ark Hypothesis”): > [@](#): > > Controversy surrounds reconnection of the Black Sea and Mediterranean during Holocene sea-level rise. This reconnection and its causes have implications for European and Middle Eastern archaeology, paleoclimate, and marine sedimentation; e.g., genesis of organic-rich muds (sapropels). Bill Ryan, Walter Pitman, and co-workers propose reconnection via a catastrophic flood of Mediterranean water into the Black Sea at ca. 7.5 ka, with speculation that this was the historical basis for the biblical story of Noah’s Flood. In contrast, this paper suggests a more complex and progressive reconnection over the past 12 k.y. Today, the Black Sea exports considerably more brackish water than the saline inflow it receives from the Mediterranean. There is a stratified, two-layer flow that has a strong effect on aquatic life and seabed sediments. The “Marmara Sea Gateway” (narrow straits of Dardanelles and Bosphorus, and deep intervening Marmara Sea) provides a set of natural flow valves (and sediment traps) that in principle should contain a record of the reconnection. Using 7500 line-km of seismic profiles, 65 soft-sediment cores, and 43 radiocarbon dates, we recognize a 10–11 k.y. history of low surface-water salinities in the Marmara Sea and northern Aegean Sea. The low-density surface layer promoted uninterrupted water-column stratification and depleted oxygen concentrations at depth and is attributed to persistent Black Sea outflow across the Bosphorus Strait. Seismic data reveal a climbing delta on the middle shelf south of the Bosphorus exit, active only from ca. 10 to 9 ka based on radiocarbon dating of its distal prodelta. The strength of the early outflow is confirmed by the progradation of this delta, and contemporaneous severe water-column stratification leading to deposition of sapropels in basinal areas. Ryan and Pitman’s argument for a catastrophic Black Sea flood hinges on the rapid first appearance of euryhaline (Mediterranean) mollusks on Black Sea shelves at ca. 7.5 ka. In our view, this colonization was not a consequence of catastrophic flooding but rather the outcome of a slow establishment of two-way flow in the Bosphorus and a time lag during which the fresher waters of the deep Black Sea were replaced by more saline inflow, eventually allowing marine organisms to colonize the Black Sea shelves. Link to the full article (HTML): > **[Error 404 - Page Not Found](https://documentsdelivered.com/404.php)** > > Error 404 - Page Not Found Link to the full contents of the issue of GSA Today the article appeared in (includes a link to the pdf version): > **[Error 404 - Page Not Found](https://documentsdelivered.com/404.php)** > > Error 404 - Page Not Found ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2003, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/33 "2003-11-13T00:56:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Exapno Mapcase \* > **Floods happen. Flood myths happen. That’s all we know for sure. Which should we go with as our working hypothesis, yours or mine?** That wasn’t the OP. ---
**Author:** ![jimpatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9e5f3/32.png) [@jimpatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimpatro)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2003, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/34 "2003-11-13T03:42:09Z")
NEEP! ---
**Author:** ![Snake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Snake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snake)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2003, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755/35 "2003-11-13T08:13:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tusculan \* > \*\*: quietly stepping into the line behind **Flying\_Monk** and **Phnord Prephect** : \*\* Almost had coffee come out my nose at the thought of migrating coconuts … I’ll now get in line too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-flood-myth-is-found-in-many-religions-any-evidence-it-really-happened/212755.md?page=1)