Flood Legends (9 page)
Authors: Charles Martin
Tags: #History, #Biblical Studies, #World, #Historiography, #Religion, #Chrisitian
One last objection to the vessel residing on Mt. Ararat involves the volcanic and glacial activity on the mountain. Ararat is an active volcano. Though the last eruption was in 1840, the eruption and subsequent earthquakes were destructive enough to completely erase the village of Ahora and carve out the Ahora Gorge,
where the ark is supposedly located
. It calls for an extreme stretch of the imagination to expect the ark to survive some 3,000 years of weather, let alone the volcanic activity that affects the area.
In the Sanskrit version, we are told that Manu's boat landed on the peak of Mt. Naubandhanam. What we know about the resting place comes only from the text: it is called "the highest peak of the Himalayas." Today, the highest peak is known as Mt. Everest, in English, but has gone by the Hindi name of
Sagarmatha
for centuries. In fact, I have been unable to locate any existing record of the name
Naubandhanam
outside of the
Mahābhārata
. The
Atharva Veda
, written several centuries before the
Mahābhārata
, does refer to one of the summits in the Himalayas as
Navaprabhramsana
, which means "Gliding Down of the Ship."
2
However, this name, too, is not found outside of the literature. It seems that history, for now at least, has lost the location of Manu's mountain.
The Gilgamesh Epic
, containing one of the other better-known versions of the Flood myth, was written around 600 B.C. and stored in the library at Nineveh. In the epic, the hero, Gilgamesh, speaks with the survivors of a deluge. The survivors tell him that the vessel has come to rest on the peak of Mt. Nişir. Nişir, like Naubandhanam of the Sanskrit version, has an obscure past.
Many claim that
Nişir
is simply the Babylonian name for Ararat, though this claim has little to no supporting evidence. Traditionally, Mt. Nişir is located in the modern-day Zagros Range of Iran. During the reign of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal (883–859 B.C.), Mt. Nişir referred to a mountain now known as Mt. Cudi,
3
and some claim that it is on
this
mountain that the tomb of the Flood hero is said to be located.
4
However, the so-called Tomb of Noah does not exactly have a sign labeling it as such!
What a mess! Mountains are missing, boats are elusively hiding, and rumors abound. So what are we to make of this? How can we synthesize these different names, these different locations, and these different cultures, and find a common thread? The easiest and most often sought solution is to dismiss the peak as purely fictitious, viewing it as a symbol that refers to "the edge of the world."
5
This is convenient and easy, considering the peaks themselves are difficult — if not impossible — to locate, as we have already seen. Theodore Gaster, in his book
Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament
, notes that many cultures believed that a local mountain range was the end of the earth. Therefore, he argues, we should not view the mountains in the Flood myths as
actual
mountains. Instead, we should view the mountains as
symbolic
writing, indicating that the vessel came to rest beyond the reach of the known world, rather than at an actual given location. He gives as an example the Malayans, who viewed the Caucasus mountain range as "the hills of Qâf," a barrier protecting the earth from the "surrounding cosmic ocean."
6
Since there is no "surrounding cosmic ocean," he argues, we can view these mountains — and other fictitious mountains — as symbols. This makes sense …but only if we take the entire Flood story as a fable. If we take the Flood myth as history, and assume that the vessel was a
real
vessel, then we must also assume that it came to rest at a
real
location. Besides, as we shall see, the belief that the mountains were "the edge of the earth," so to speak, is not commonly held amongst
all
ancient peoples.
To many cultures, mountains — rather than representing the end of the world — merely served as barriers separating the peoples from more barbaric, less civilized cultures. The Hittites, for example, viewed the Caucasus Mountains as the dwelling place of the backward
Lullu
people, and the Greeks placed the Hyperboreans "in that general area."
7
This was not a fictional realm where monsters waited beyond the edge of the map to gobble up sailors and ships, but a real location with real inhabitants. In other words, as plausible as it is that the mountaintop location of the Flood vessel is merely symbolic, we cannot claim this is truth without being dogmatic, for mountain symbolism is
not
universal from culture to culture.
There may be a second theory, however, derived from our application of the diaspora and telephone mythology. The name probably refers to the highest peak visible
in the region in which this story was told
. Though its final location has been lost today, the peak was probably an actual mountain peak, easily identifiable to the original audience of the story.
If
the peak exists, then we can make two fairly safe assumptions. Either the peak named in a particular version of the story
is
the final resting place (and, hence, the source of the dispersion), or, as a
result
of the dispersion, has become a localized version of the actual resting place.
Parents wishing to instill the reality of the story to their children would gesture toward the local mountains and say, "That peak there is where the vessel landed." It is, simply, a way of making the story more personal and more tangible. To refer to a mountain "far away," or "further than the known world," would not suffice.
Through the diaspora, then, it is possible to understand given mountain names as personal and idealized versions of the original myth. This does not diminish the reality of an original resting place of the Flood vessel, but merely points out a possible explanation for the many varied locations given throughout the world.
For those who are unsatisfied with this explanation, there are a few potential connections between several versions. There is, for example, scant evidence to indicate that the Zagros mountain range, home of Mt. Nişir, was once considered part of the Ararat mountain range, tying the Gilgamesh epic to the
Torah
.
8
There is also a possible connection between the
Epic of Gilgamesh
and the
Mahābhārata
. Everest is called, in Hindi, Sagarmatha, and it is believed that the Zagros Mountains derived their name from the Sagarthian peoples, a name eerily similar to the Hindi name for Everest.
9
Understand, however, that both of these are merely conjectures and point to no real conclusion. The soundest reasoning for now, I believe, remains the idea that the different mountains named in the versions are all localized versions of the original resting place for the vessel. Other research may indicate something else later on, but for now, I'm comfortable with the "local legend" interpretation.
All four of these aspects — heroes, crew, cargo, and resting place — provide a clear example of telephone mythology in action. We see diverging details that fit within each culture's ideological framework, but we also see similarities that point to a common source. So again, while the independent evolution of local flood accounts is
possible
, it seems highly
improbable
.
The last detail we will look at in this book involves the appearance of animals at the end of the Flood. In some versions, the animals are sent out from the vessel as sort of a "litmus test": they are used to test whether the land is inhabitable again. In other versions, the animals are already external to the vessel and act as an "alert" that the land is dry again.
Endnotes
8-1
Lost Ship of Noah: In Search of the Ark at Ararat
(New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1987), p. 33.
8-2
Atharva Veda
, Book XIX, Hymn XXXIX, verse 8.
8-3
: jyoo-dē.
8-4
8-5
Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament
(New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 128–129.
8-6
8-7
8-8
Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal
, vol. 10, no. 1 (1996): p. 147.
8-9
Wikipedia
. http://en.wikipedia.org, 2006.
Chapter 9
The Flood: Animals After the Deluge
Bored with the scenery, the man told an otter to dive down into the waters and see what he could find. The otter returned with a piece of earth. The man took the earth in his hand and breathed on it, and it began to grow. So he laid it on the water, kept it from sinking, and watched as it continued to grow. As it grew and grew, the man saw that it was becoming an island.
— The Flood according to the Montagnais, Hudson Bay
The last thread to which we will turn — very briefly — is the use of animals to determine the state of the earth after the Flood. The animals vary from version to version. There are birds in some versions, a fox in one, and a deer in another. And as much as the animals may vary, their uses vary, as well. In some, they are sent out of the vessel to
test for dry land
, while in others they are sent out onto
already dry land
. In a few versions, the animals are
outside
the vessel already. In these versions, they simply
announce
to the people inside the vessel that it is safe to come out and repopulate the earth. These are vast differences and seem, at first glance, irreconcilable. Is there a way to account for these changes? Let's take a look at the other versions in some more detail. For the full text of each of these versions, see appendix B.
In the Babylonian
Epic of Gilgamesh
, Utnapishtim first sends out a dove. The dove can find no place to land and so returns to the ark. Next, he sends a swallow, which also returns. Lastly, he sends a raven, and the raven, finding land, does not return. This has a
strong
resonance with the Genesis account. The main difference, of course, is that Noah sends out a
raven
first, and then he sends
two
doves. This idea of using a sort of "litmus test" for finding land is found farther east in Burma. In Burma, we're told the Chingpaw survivors use a series of cocks and needles to see when the earth is once again ready for habitation. They spend several days dropping the needles and cocks into the water, waiting for the cocks to crow and the needles to make a sound as they strike bottom. Once the cock crows, they figure dry land must be on the way. When they finally hear the needle strike the earth, they realize that the land is again dry and they can exit the vessel (though the precise connection between dry land and the rooster crowing is never explained).
The Hareskin Indians report that the hero of the Flood sent a muskrat into the water in order to see if he could touch the bottom. He failed, and after some time had passed, he tried again. He said that he could smell the earth, but he couldn't touch it. Lastly, the beaver tried, and when he came back, he was holding some mud in his hand. The hero took the mud, blew on it, and it turned into dry land. He then sent a fox onto the land. The man used the time it took the fox to run around the land as an indication of when the restoration of the earth was complete.
A similar idea is found in the Montagnais belief — from the Hudson Bay region of North America — except it is an otter that dives down and a reindeer that runs in a circuit around the land. Lastly, in Timor, the Rotti use animals as an appeasement to the water-god. After throwing a pig, a goat, a dog, a hen, and a cat into the waters, the god finally withdraws the flood and brings about dry land again by making special use of an osprey.
Obviously, some of the versions drew from each other. The Montagnais and Hareskin versions are clearly related to each other, both geographically and literarily. The stories are, in fact, so closely related that we could argue they developed together, borrowing from each other. The same could be said for the Hebrew and Babylonian versions. What we
should
be asking is whether or not we can find a deeper thread among
all
the versions. Can we find, in other words, a connection between, say, the North American versions and the version from Timor? Or can we perhaps find a parallel between the Babylonian version and the Chinese tales?
Do these threads exist?
There actually appear to be
two
strong threads here. The first thread involves the use of birds. We find this thread spreading from Mesopotamia — the Babylonian and Hebrew versions — and east. The Asian versions almost all have this thread. In China, for example, the Bhanars tell of a brother and sister that escape the Deluge by hiding in a box. They know when the waters have receded because a rooster, sent by their ancestors, crows. The thread changes, of course, in that the rooster comes from outside of the vessel rather than from within, but this common theme of a bird
alerting
the crew to the presence of dry land is quite strong.