Hipparchia
Registered Senior Member
Oh, I do like a challenge!
Floods
- Thread starter timojin
- Start date
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Go for it! You found me something last time.Oh, I do like a challenge!
So a very unusual flood in the story - not at all like the ones they saw most years. People didn't even have time to get to their boats.
Nobody in the cultures featuring Noachian flood myths saw only one flood per lifetime - they saw flooding to some degree almost every year.
Gawdzilla Sama
Valued Senior Member
"Nobody"?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Interestingly, the third of the references cited by Hipparchia in post 121 contains the following passage in the end notes:
" Flood mythology among maritime societies is virtually universal (see the essay “Flood Stories from Around the World.” Published at http://www. talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html) and is most likely linked with eustatic rises in sea level during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. As Teller et al. (2000) point out, a rapid marine transgression occurred in the Arabo-Persian Gulf during this period and likely displaced people living along this waterway. Such momentous events were surely passed down orally for generations. What makes southern Mesopotamia unique com- pared with other parts of the world is that writing developed early in association with the formation of state-level societies, so the flood story was ultimately recorded, formally as in the well-known Epic of Gilgamesh. Following Occam’s razor, we hypothesize, as do Teller et al. (2000; see also Potts 1996), that the origin of biblical flood mythology is most likely in southern Mesopotamia rather than in the vicinity of the Black Sea. "
So, while admittedly speculative, this hypothesis does seem to have appealed to a number of researchers. I think I would be prepared to agree that is seems more plausible at least than to link the ME flood myths to inundations of the Black Sea.
" Flood mythology among maritime societies is virtually universal (see the essay “Flood Stories from Around the World.” Published at http://www. talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html) and is most likely linked with eustatic rises in sea level during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. As Teller et al. (2000) point out, a rapid marine transgression occurred in the Arabo-Persian Gulf during this period and likely displaced people living along this waterway. Such momentous events were surely passed down orally for generations. What makes southern Mesopotamia unique com- pared with other parts of the world is that writing developed early in association with the formation of state-level societies, so the flood story was ultimately recorded, formally as in the well-known Epic of Gilgamesh. Following Occam’s razor, we hypothesize, as do Teller et al. (2000; see also Potts 1996), that the origin of biblical flood mythology is most likely in southern Mesopotamia rather than in the vicinity of the Black Sea. "
So, while admittedly speculative, this hypothesis does seem to have appealed to a number of researchers. I think I would be prepared to agree that is seems more plausible at least than to link the ME flood myths to inundations of the Black Sea.
Hipparchia
Registered Senior Member
I think it may be related to the association of the Dibba transform fault, the obducted Oman ophiolite and the strike slip fault that displaces the contact between the Zagroz mountains and the Makran fold belt. But that's by way of being a wild guess based on their common "intersection" at the Straits - see the sketch map below.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
I think it may be related to the association of the Dibba transform fault, the obducted Oman ophiolite and the strike slip fault that displaces the contact between the Zagroz mountains and the Makran fold belt. But that's by way of being a wild guess based on their common "intersection" at the Straits - see the sketch map below.
My congratulations, Doctor!
Yes indeed. That fault that offsets the Zagros and Makran parts of the Arabian/Iranian plate contact seems to be crucial in shaping the part of the Arabian plate that pushes against it. Thank you very much.
So indeed, no reason to presume the strait was formed by an erosion process: it seems to be purely a gap in the mountains arising from the plate motions and the faults in the region.
Problem solved.
Again, the people in the story didn't have boats to get to. You might as well say they didn't get a chance to fly away in their zeppelins.
I think it may be related to the association of the Dibba transform fault, the obducted Oman ophiolite and the strike slip fault that displaces the contact between the Zagroz mountains and the Makran fold belt. But that's by way of being a wild guess based on their common "intersection" at the Straits - see the sketch map below.
Thank you for the interesting site.
Hipparchia
Registered Senior Member
You are welcome. Would you now also take the time to answer the question I posted in #106: "timojin, would you mind telling the assembled masses - is my interepretation of your meaning, accurate or not? If not what did you mean. Thank you in advance."
You can find my interpretation in post #79, but I'll repeat it here for you convenience.
- There was a major flood in the ME several millenia ago
- The impact of this flood was so great that it was retained in oral memory and eventually written down
- By that time it had acquired details and exagerations that obscured most of the facts, other than the central one that there was such a flood
- Perhaps the flooding of the Gulf was what initiated this tale that then became a myth
Yes there must have been a major flood after the last freeze period . Difference between straight of Hormuz in depth about 50mt. and Arabian gulf about 150 mt. as the sea level rised 100 mt. the water could have flooded the basin as the brake through art Gibraltar.
Sumerian culture existed 5400 years Bc. the writing available started around 3600 years Bc ( Hebrew present year 5778) . Since Hebrew history ( bible ) started with Mesopotamian ( garden of Eden ).
The fact is that there was a melting of glaciers in Illinois ,Wisconsin . at that time.
I tend to believe things can start with an event and they can become exaggerated, but initially it would come into a poems and passes mouth to mouth for long time.
Hipparchia
Registered Senior Member
Thank you.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Thank you both for a very illuminating discussion on the geomorphology of the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz, and the effects of sea level rise after the last Ice Age. I have learnt a lot of good stuff here.
For some reason. Or something like that - details are missing.
Which made no sense, right? Lots of people had boats - the entire audience for the early versions of the story, for example.
Not quite. The Big Melt was pretty much over by then, and the glaciers were gone (leaving behind a strange and hydrologically very active landscape, with remnant ice ice buried everywhere, rebounding bedrock, and water in large quantities finding its paths to the sea.
I can't find a counterexample. Can you?
Not the flood story problem. Some kind of "erosion process" almost has to be behind a Noachian Flood - ice blockage coming to a break point, a moraine or rock formation dam broken by earthquake or extreme rainfall - a suddenly open new downhill connection for a huge amount of water.
We know such things happened. We know the people were there. One or more actual floods - sudden, catastrophic, and enormous beyond the experience of anyone alive in the area - seems like the default explanation.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Sure, all we can do is conjecture about the origin of any flood story, if we lack specific evidence linking it to a time, place and event. But it seems to me that a sea advance at the rate of 3 metres (10ft) per day for many years would be traumatic enough for the communities flooded out that it could have been remembered in folk myth by the peoples displaced from their homes by it. I suppose we just add this one to the pile of possible alternatives.
That's the catastrophic flood default, yes. I'm not sure I follow your intent.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Intent? Merely to draw attention to this rapid flooding of the Persian Gulf basin, as being another dramatic - and not erosion-based - flood event that I suspect is far less well-known than, say, the Black Sea inundation, or the seasonal flooding of Mesopotamia, which seem to be the most commonly cited possible origins for the Gilgamesh story.
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Hipparchia
Registered Senior Member
Also the Black Sea flood, as a rapid, catastrophic event, is disputed. See here. That brings it to the same level, or less, as the flooding of the Gulf. In terms of proximity to the source of the myth one would favour Gulf over Black Sea anyway.
This is speculative. The same can be said of the Gulf flooding. We know it happened. We know people were there. The event would have been beyond the experience of anyone alive and would have directly impacted multiple generations.iceaura said:
I do not claim it is the default explanation, but I agree with exchemist that it should rank at an equivalent level until such times as further data is available.
The Bible purports to explain the origin of a lot of things. The Flood story directly explains the origin of rainbows. It's not much of a stretch to see it as explaining the origin of rain - no rainbows without rain. Even if the target audience had rainbow, rain and boats, they believed that Noah's world didn't. At least we have no reason to think they didn't believe the origin stories. So they didn't need a big flood to imagine a huge flood.