Flood (Hastings' Dictionary)

A story connected with the early history of man, which tells how, in con- sequence of their sins, especiallv those of violence, God destroyed by a flood the whole race, excepting only Noah and his family and two (or seven) pairs of every animal. The.se were saved in a huge ark or chest, which Noah had been directed to make when first warned of the coming flood.

As the waters were abating, Noah sent forth a raven which did not return, and afterwards a dove twice at a week's interval, in order to ascertain whether the ground was dry. This was shown to be so by the dove returning the second time with an olive leaf in her mouth. The ark finally settled on Mt. Ararat. On leaving the ark, Noah ofl'ered up a sacrifice which appeased God, who promised never again to destroy tlie earth with a flood.

Simple and uniform as this story appears, it is a fact admitting of no reasonable doubt that the account of Genesis is really composed of two Flood stories, which, whUe agreeing in general purport, difler considerably both in character and detail. One belongs to the early source of the Hexateuch known as J, the other to the post-exilic P. They •jir.V be clearly distinguished here by the names of Go^ and other well-known characteristics of these documents.

The sections ascribed to J in Kautzsch's A T are 6^'^ 7"' ''*• ^^' i^'- 22-23 gsb-a^t. 6-13. ub. i-o-aa j^q p g»-22 ^e. 11. U-U. 18-21 ^S4«_g2a g3b-B. 13a. 14-19 gl-l? (qjj 7'-' see below).

It wUl be suificient to notice that in P we find the minute directions regarding the construction and size of the ark, the blessing of Noah, the laws against murder and eating blood, the covenant of the rainbow ; in J only we have the picturesque narrative of sending out the raven and the dove, and the sacrifice of Noah, which so pleased J" that He determined never again to curse the ground.

In some respects the accounts of J and P contradict each other, {a) According to P one pair of every kind of animals is to be selected (6°'), according to J seven pairs of clean and two of unclean (7''''). But in 7^', where the actual entry is made, a reviser has, it would seem, combined the statements of J and P so as to agree with P.

As it stands, the distinction between clean and unclean animals in that verse is purposeless, and indeed has the effect of emphasizing what appears like an act of disobedience on Noah's part, who took only one instead of seven pairs of clean animals as directed in V. In J this verse must have run much as follows: ' Of clean beasts, seven and seven, of unclean beasts, two and two, went unto Noah into the ark.'

In P the statement was probably, ' Of the fowl after its kind, and of the cattle after its kind, and of everything that creepeth upon the ground after its kind, two of every (sort) did he bring into the ark, as God commanded Noah.' (6) According to P it was 150 days before the waters began to subside (8*), and it was 8 months and 13 days before the tops of the mountains were visible (cf. 7" and 8"), and a whole year and 10 days before the earth was perfectly dry (8").

According to J the duration of the Flood was only 40 days (7" 8'), and even before this the water had considerably abated (8-''- »■ "'"• "• '">). (e). Wliat is in P a covenant with Noah that the waters should ' no more become a flood to destroy aU flesh ' (9"), is in J the self -deliberation of J' in consequence of Nojili's sweet-smelling sacrifice (8"- "). See Hexateuch. I. Hlstoricity of the Flood.

— Until compara- tively recent times the belief in a deluge covering the whole world and destroying all men and animals except those providentially preserved in the ark was practically universal among Christians. The fossil remains of marine animals, and the Flood traditions common to people in so many different parts of the world, were confidently appealed to as establishing the truth of the Bible story.

Our increased knowledge of geology on the one hand and of comparative mythology on the other have now shown the little value of such evidence, and on these and other grounds this belief has been now surrendered by most biblical scholars as untenable, (a) It has been frequently pointed out that the wliole quantityof moisturecontainedin the world, whether in an aqueous or vaporous form, if all reduced to water, would not be nearly enough to cover the highest mountains, supposing that the earth's sur- face was in anything like its present condition.

But there is no evidence or scientific probability that the whole surface was ever so contracted or so levelled as to admit such a possibility. (6) Again, a thorough examination and a comparison of the numerous Flood myths make it impossible to refer them all to one single event, (c). Anthropological science points in the same direction.

The diversity of the human race and of language alike makes it extremely improbable that men were derived from a single pair, and this, together with what we know of the early civilization of man, makes it impossible that a universal Flood should have occurred within at least many centuries of the time assigned by biblical chronology. The early relics of primitive man found in caves, ancient graves, etc.

, all over the world, point to an un- broken succession of human beings, their advance in civilization developing by gradual stages, and the whole extending over many thousands of years. (d) But, after all, the most obvious difficulties are those which lie on the surface in the narrative itself, supposing that it describes a flood extending over the whole world as we now know it. Noah is said to have collected together animals of every kind, one pair at least of each.

Let us try to imagine the long journeys necessary to different parts of the world, including the Tropics and the Arctic Regions, and that in an age when the diffi- culties and dangers of travellin" must have made it almost impossible, and the difficulty of captur- ing and bringing home the animals when captured.

How many years wiU it still take the Royal Zoological Society, with all the resources of modem civilization, to collect even single speci- mens of all the kno^vIl larger animals of the world, to say nothing of the hundreds of species still unknown, notliing of the myriads of insects, crustacem, etc., included in the ' creepin" things' of the Bible !

Again, the dimensions of the ark could not possibly have allowed room for the housing of all the creatures ; for, supposing that they were shut up in separate cells (' nests,' Gn 6'* RVm), almost as much space would have been required for passages to 1,'et at them as for the cells themselves.

We have also to take into account the immense amount of room required for the storage of food, especially that needed for the larger animals, such as hay for the elephants, and animals of different sorts for the carnivorae, besides all the food necessary for some time after the Flood, before revived vegetation should make fresh food procurable. Even if we could suppose that the dimensions of the ark permitted all this, how would it have been possible to keep all these animals alive?

The polar bear would have re- FLOOD FLOOD 17 quired very different conditions from the tiger or the Ijoa-constrictor. How, again, is it conceivable that eiglit persons should have been suificient to attend to the wants of all these animals, as well as to their own ? But besides all this, there is no pro- vision for making the ark seaworthy. It is merely a huge wooden box liable to capsize, and quite in- capable of weathering a storm.

The difficulties here pointed out readUy suggest the true answer. The Flood was not in the \vriter'8 view universal, as we should understand a universal Flood, simply because the world he is writing of is a totally different world from ours. It is a very little world. Men and animals are all living within easy reach of each other. Man is still the lord of creation. He can gather together the animals to be saved, whether beast of the field or fowl of the air, at his will.

No difficulties, even such as would have occurred in the writer's o>vn day, have any Elace in that ideal world of the distant past, where oly men walked with God, and there was no need of miracles, because everything was of course so difi'erent.

That the writers and compilers of Genesis sincerely believed the story we need have no doubt, but In the light of scientific and historical criticism it must be frankly recognized as one of those many stories or legends which are found in the folk-lore and early literature of all peoples. II. The Relation of the Bible Flood Stories TO SIMILAR Stories of other Peoples.

— It was formerly supposed that the many Flood stories found in difterent parts of the world were all traditions of the Bible Deluge brought by various peoples from the ancient cradle of the human race. A comparison, however, of the stories with one another and with the Bible narrative makes it quite clear that they stand severally In a very difi'erent relation to the latter, and are due to many difi'erent causes.

We may roughly divide these stories, according to their resemblance to the Flood story of Genesis, into the following classes : — i. First and foremost stands the Babylonian or Accadian account of the Deluge. This is so like the Bible story, both in its general drift and many of its details, that it cannot be other than a different version of the same. The Babylonian legend itself exists in two forms. One is contained in the fragments of Berosus, an Egyptian priest of the 3rd cent. B.C.

, who wrote a history of Babylon. The second is contained in a cuneiform inscrip- tion on tablets preserved in the British Museum, and first deciphered by George Smith in 1872. (a) Of these the first is very short and of com- paratively little importance, except that some difi'orences of detail in comparison with the other prove that the Babylonian story had a wide cur- rency.

The main differences are the clay which Xisuthros, the hero of the Flood, finds on the legs of the birds when they return for the second time, and the translation of Xisuthros' daughter and the pilot of the ship, as well as that of Xisuthros him- self and his wile. (6) The story of Berosus is altogether thro^vn Into the shade by the far fuller and more circum- btantial account found on the Accadian tablets. These contain an epic poem in 12 parts.

Each pait is connected with a sign of the Zodiac, and the 11th, containing the Flood story, has the sign corresponding to Aquarius, ' the water-bearer.' In this part the deified Slt-napisti, or, as the name is sometimes written, Kliasisadra(Xisutliros), com- municates tlie history of the Flood at the mouth of the Euphrates to his grandson Gisdubar (the Nimrod of Genesis). Ea, the ijod of wisdom, reveals to S!t-nnpisti the intention of the gods of Surippak— Ann, Bel, etc.

— to bring a Flood, and commands him to build a ship, and save what ho can of the germ of life. §!t-napisti expostulates on the absurdity of building a ship on dry land, but finally consents. The making of the ship is then given in some detail, among other things its dimensions (according to G. Smith, 600 cubits long, 60 broad, 60 high ; omitted by Sayce), and the pouring of bitumen over its sides, inside and out.

Food was brought into the ship, including beer and wine, and also all that he had of gold and sUver. ' Slaves and concubines, tlie cattle of the field, the beasts of the field, the sons of the people: all of these did I bring up.' The ship was built by the help of the sun-god Samas, who fixed the season for the Flood on the evening before Stt-napisti shut the door. A highly poetical description is then given "of the storm, brought about by the direct agency of the gods of wind, water, etc.

, so terrible that even the gods trembled and sought refuge in the heaven of Ann, where they crowded in a heap ' like a dog in his kennel,' and gods and goddesses wei)t for pity. For six days and nights the storm continues, and subsides on the seventh. The sea begins to drj'. Slt-napisti opens the windows and sees the corpses floating on the water. On the horizon he sees land, and the ship is steered for the mountain of Nizir, which it reaches the second day.

On the seventh day after this he sends forth a dove, which finds no resting- place and returTis ; then a swallow, which does tlie same ; and lastly a raven, which feeds on tlie carrion and does not return. The animals are sent forth to the four winds, and a sacrifice is offered on an altar which he builds on the peak of the mountain. The gods smelt the savour, and ' gathered like flies over the sacrifice.' Thereupon tlie great godde.ss lighted up the rainbow which Anu had created.

Bel, anfiry with the gods that liis will had not been fully carried out, alone refused to come to the altar. He stayed by the ship and would have stopped the exit of the survivors ; but Adar explained that Ea had revealed the counsel of the gods to Stt-napisti. Then Ea himself ex- postulates with Bel for wishing to destroy the faithful with the sinners. Better at any rate to send wild beasts, or famine, or plague.

After all, it was only by a dream that he had revealed the determination of the gods. Then Bel enters the ship and very graciously makes a covenant with Sit-najniti, saying that henceforth he and his wife are to be as gods, and S!t-napisti is to dwell at the mouth of the river. * (Sayce, Fresh Light, ch. ii.) This story is .said by experts to be as old at least as 3000 years B.C. That the early Hebrews derived the story from Babylonia, and not riceversd, may be considered a practical certainty.

While Babylonia from the days of the Patriarchs was highly ad- vanced in civilization, the Jews, even far down into their history, were comparatively simple and far less civilized even than the Canaanitish tribes, who themselves derived their culture from Babylon.

The Babylonian language and script had already before the Exodus become naturalized in Palestine, and been made, as the Tel el-Amama tablets show, tlie ofticial means of communication between tlie BaV)ylonian court and the various Canaanitish tribes. Thus there was more than one channel by which a popular story of Babylonia might become part of Jewi.'-h folk-lore. At tlie .

same time the variations in tlie storj- suggest that it is likely to have passed through many mouths before it reached its Bible form. Even the differences in Its religious character are more probably duo to gradual changen of thought and feeling than to a single literary process. It is, however, quite possible that if several variations of the story were, as is probable, current, some few particulars in the Bifile story may be actually more original than in the Accadian version.

The sending out of the birds in the lattei 18 FLOOD FLOOD Is rather pointless, as the non-return of the raven, wliich fed upon the corpses, proved nothing. Both the J and P stories are derived from the Babylonian, each document selecting for the most part, and sometimes enlarging upon, those details which best accorded with its own character and aim. ii. A very large number of Flood stories bear only a very general and probably accidental re- semblance to the biblical or Accadian Deluge.

The mere fact that a legend has to do with a Hood, even though it be a universal one, is not enough to constitute any real relationship to the Bible Deluge-story, tor such legends can be proved to have arisen from several dillerent causes. These causes may be roughly divided into three classes : 1. Some tiieory ot Creation which connects it with water as perhaps a creative element. Flood stories dealing with Creation bear coniimrison with ' the deep ' of Gn 1' rather than with Noah's Flood.

Thus the Binnas in the Malay Peninsula held that the earth was originally completely covered with a hard crust. God in early ages broke through the crust, so that the water covered the whole world. Out of the water He afterwards let rise Mt. Luluniet and other hills, as well as the plain on which the Binnas now live.

This conception of the centre of the world as a vast body of water we find again in a Flood story of the Acawoio (British Guiana), and is probably to be understood in the biblical phrase ' the water under tlie earth ' (Ex 20^), the idea being that the land floated on the water. 2. Most frequently, however, the Flood story is the highly coloured tradition of some historical event or extraordinary natural phenoireaon , A.

Among island and coastlanii peoples (a) the early settlement of their ancestors, who came in boats across the ocean. In such stories the par- ticular land in which they live was the land of refuge from the great Deluge. In the story of the Binnas this tradition is combined with the notion of Creation. The primeval man and woman were created in a boat, which moved over the waters until at last it stranded on dry land. (b) The appearance or disappearance of an island by a volcanic eruption.

Thus the inhabitants of the Minahassa (the northern volcanic peninsula of Celebes) relate that the land originally rose out of a flood ; and the stories of the Fiji and Pelew islanders appear to have originated from the dis- appearance of islands by volcanic action, (c) A ticfal wave resulting from an earthquake. The Flood story current among the Eskimo in the Prince of Wales Peninsula is expressly connected with an earthquake.

In a story of the Makah Indians (Washington Territory) it is related how the water flowed into the land from the Pacific, until Cape Flattery became an island. Similar features are found in the stories of some other Indian tribes — among them the Araucanians (in Chili), with whom the Flood is the result of an earthquake accompanied by volcanic eruptions. B.

Among inland peoples the causes of Flood stories are (a) very frequently the overflow of some river, especially where, by the bursting of its banks, a large plain is inundated. This is the case in China, where, however, the Flood stories have hardly passed out of the region of sober history into that of myth, and deal with floods similar to those which have been known to have taken place, — the last two during the 19th cent, in 1852 and 1881.

In the second of these no fewer than two millions are said to have perislied. The Chinese Flood stories, tlipn, are evidently not derived from Babylonia, ind we sliould avoid yielding to the temptation of appealing to the early connexion in language and script between China and Baby- lonia.* (6) The formation of a lake or inland sea, or its disappearance by the water eating out a channel for itself thro\igh soft rock, such as limestone.

Livingstone tells a legend describ- ing how the Dilolo Lake in Central Africa (on the southern border of the Congo State) came into existence as the consequence of a woman> curse pronounced upon a native chieftain wlio refused hospitality. The inhabitants of Thibet relate how once a flood covered the whole country and destroyed the .•ii)e-like inhabitants. By the compassion of a god the waters were drained oil', and the new people taught civilization.

In Santa F6 de Bogota in Colombia there is a story that there was once a hu"e flood brought about by the witchery of a wicked woman, who caused the Kio de Bogotil to overflow and till the basin-like plain of Cundinamarca. Her good husband changed her into the moon, and opened the present outlet through the limestone rock by which the water now flows down over the Falls of Tequendama (cf. Schwarz, Sintjluth, noticed in Expos. Times, viii., 1897, 271 f.) (c) The melting of the winter snows.

In the district of the Indian tribe of the Chippewas there is a story telling how a mouse once gnawed througli the bag which held the heat, and this escaping, the melting snow became a flood, which covered the whole world. 3. Not infrequently, and sometimes in con- nexion with one or more of the causes already mentioned, the Flood story appears to have originated in an attempt to account for some otherwise unexplained fact, as — (a) The dispersion of peoples and difference of language.

This is especially frequent among, if not indeed peculiar to, the Indian tribes of N. America. Among the Thlinkeets in the North West the diflerence of speech between them and the rest of mankind is naively accounted for by the breaking of the ark in two, their ancestors having been in one half, those of all otlier races in the other ! More frequently, the dispersion is the result of the boats drifting away in the waters of the Deluge, as, e.g.

, with the Bella Coola Indians (between 52° and 53° N. lat. on the coast of the Pacific). The ancient rock-carvings found among the aborigines of Mexico, in which, as it is said, a dove is depicted distributing gifts of speech in the form of tongues to the survivors of the Flood, would be a striking illustration of this kind of Flood story, could we be certain that this interpretation of it is correct ; but it is at least doubtful, (h) The red colour of some of the N. American tribes.

This colour is, according to the Crees, the direct consequence of the Flood, the Red Indians of to-day being the descendants of the single woman who was rescued, when the waters had all but covered her (see below, III. 9). On the other hand, the Herero, a native tribe of South Africa, relate that it was the Flood that brought to tlieir ancient home the white man and woman from whom tliey are descended ; hence their pale colour. (r) The existence of fossil remains on dry land, and even on hills.

It is curious that tlie same evidence which, from the days of Tertullian at any rate, has been frequently adduced as evitlence of the Bible Flood has been appealed to by several different peoples as evidence of their own Flood stories ; and if the remains did not in every, or perhaps in any, case actually give rise to the story, they certainly helped to give it credence and permanence.

^V'ith the Leeward islanders the mussels and corals on their hills are a standing proof of an ancient flood, in which all • See, e.g., "The Ori^n of Chinese Oultare and CMviiization,* Lippincott'a Monthly .Magazine, June 1S90 ; De Lacouperie, 'The old Babylonian Chara'^ters and their Chinese Derivatives, in Bab. and Oriental Record, March 18S3 ; and 'New Accadian Papers by Ball in PSBA, Nov., Dec., 1889 ; Feb., Jane. 1890. FLUUU lint one small coral island were immersed.

The Samoan islanders call attention to the fish whieli have been turned into stone ; and the central Eskimos of N. America can still see the outer shells of many mussels, fish, sea-dogs, and whales which M ere left upon the dry land by the Flood. (d) The same Eskimo tribes give a similar ex- planation of glaciers. They are the icebergs left on the tops of the mountains by the receding waters.

It is also important to observe that the cause of the Flood story has very often a special connexion with the locality to which it belongs. Thus we notice tliat the melting of the ice is a frequent cause with the extreme northernly tribes of N. American Indians. Eartliquakes are a common feature in the Flood legends of tribes on those coastlands of America where they frequently occur. The submergence or emergence of islands accounts for those of tribes inhabiting volcanic districts.

In China the Flood stories are associated with the bursting of the banks of the great rivers where such events occur, and are accompanied with great loss ot life and propert}'. Still more remarkable is it, on the other hand, that in Africa, where the over- flow of the great rivers is a regular and expected phenomenon, and, in fact, has become necessary to cultivation, and therefore cannot be considered as the result of special divine agency.

Flood stories are singularly rare, and never of this kind. iii. Very frequently an old mj'th has Tjecome mixed up with, or at any rate coloured by, the Babylonian or Bible story. Thus the account of the Grecian Flood (Deucalion's) as given in the de Ded Syrd of the pseudo-Lucian, a writer of tlie 2nd cent. A.D., differs from the earlier form of the story as contained in Ovid (Met. i.

163-437), for instance, by the addition of several details belong- ing to the Babylonian and biblical stories, such as the name Sisythes ( = Xisuthros), the buUding of a chest, the saving in it of Deucalion's family and pairs of every animal. Plutarch similarly intro- duces Deucalion's sending out the dove to ascertain the u'C'tthcr ( !), according as it returned or remained behind.

This colouring is probably, however, in most cases due to the teaching of Christian mission- aries, who would naturally emphasize and uncon- sciously, or perhaps even intentionally, exaggerate points of resemblance between native folk-lore and Bible stories. Andree (see Literature below) quotes a story to show how easily the Bible Flood could find its way into the folk-lore of an imaginative people.

A missionary heard a Flood story from a native Hottentot which bore a suspicious resemblance to th.'it of the Bible, and yet he was assured that it had been handed down from early ages. Sliortly after he met another missionary, who told him that he had liimself taught the native the Bible story.

It is not always easy to say positively that a legend has been influenced by the Bible Hood, but in the following cases it maj' be considered highly prolialile: — (a) When the legend resembles the Bible story in one or more definite particulars, but in general drift or in its more important features ditiers widely from it.

In that of the Mandari (a branch of the Kohls, East India), the flood out of which a brother and sister only liad lieen rescued under a tree, is put an end to by the serpent Lurbing, in con7iexinn vHh whom appears the rainbow. In the Lithuanian story the rainbow is sent to comfort a pair of wretched survivors, and counsels them to oiitain <ills|iring by jumping over the bones of the earth.

The Lummi Indians (north of Wasliington Territory) liave a story that an old man escaped on a raft to a mountain, and thence twice sent forth a crow, which returned the »econd time with a leaf, ih) When the parta FLOOD 19 corresponding with the Bible story break the context, and do not fit in well with tlie rest. This is obviously the case with a story of the Algocquins (an Indian tribe of N.

America), preserved in a very curious pictographic document, where, in the middle of a passage tlescriliing how some of the people were rescued on Turtle Island, the mention of a boat, as though an independent means of rescue, is very awkwardly introduced, (c) Where two forms of the story exist, in one of which the biblical features occur and in the other are absent. When, as with Deucalion's Flood, the former is known to be later, the probability of interpolation may be considered a certainty.

Among the Mandans, an Indian tribe on the Missouri River, according to a current Flood legend the ark is a tower-like building, and the supposed model of the building, which is preserved as a relic in a public place, is in shape like a wooden cylinder. But not only is this model called ' the great canoe,' but, in the festival which commemor- ates the Flood, the representative of ' the First Man,' who was saved therein, tells how 'the great canoe ' stranded on a high mountain.

Moreover, the festival is alwaj-s arranged to take place when the willows are in leaf, because, so they say, it was a branch of that tree, with all its leaves on, which the bird brought back to the ark. It is clear that we have here a confusion between two stories— an ancient legend according to which the survivors were saved in a tower, and the Bible Flood, (d) Where the Flood legend is mixed up with other stories from the Bible.

Thus in that of the Papagos (an Indian tribe, east of California), Montezuma, tlie hero of the F'lood, is so ungrateful to his de- liverer, that he presumes to build a liouse whose top is to reach to heaven, whereupon the great Spirit sends his thunder and destroys the building. Tliis evident borrowing from the Tower of Babel story makes us suspect that his sending out the jaclial after the Flood to see how far the land extended, originated in the sending forth of birds from Noah's ark.

In one of the Mexican legends, current in the neighbourhood of Choluln, an artificial mountain, raised as a memento of the mountain in the caves of which the .seven giants were saved from the Flood, threatened to reach to heaven, whereupon the gods sent down fire and destroyed several of the builders.

This legend, connected with a half-finished pyramid, shows how readily Bible stories found their way among the aborigines of Mexico, and explains why features of the Bible Flood so often occur in the Flood myths of various Mexican tribes. In the story of the Mandari, above referre<l to as giving special prominence to the Bible feature of the rainbow, the creation of man out of earth stands in close connexion with the Flood.

Similarly, the Flood story of the Macoushi (near British Guiana) relates how the first man found, on waking out of a deep sleep, a woman standing by his side. After this we can feel very little confidence in the originality of the statement that after the Flood the rat sent out by a survivor returneil with an ear of maize in its mouth.

This is evidently nothing else but a local adaptation of the dove and the olive branch, (e) The stories of the I'apagos ami Macoushi give another ground for suspecting bil)lical inlhiome, namely, where some well-known features of ft class of Flood legends appear so changed a-s to agiee with the Nonchian Deluge. Tlie object of the sending forth of animals in the Indian stories is, as a rule, to obtain earth to create dry ground for the survivors.

A rat is sent forth as well as other animals for this pur]iose in the legend of the Ojibways and the Chippuwas, a li^h in those of the tiac and Fox Indians. But in the stories of the Papagos and Macoushi the object 20 FLOOD FLOOD Is, as in the Bible, to discover the extent of dry land. In some cases, however, the appearance of bibli- cal details may be after all a mere coincidence.

The likelihoou of such coincidence becomes far greater than we might have thought when we take into account the very large number of Flood stories and the singular variety of detail. The following is an attempt to give as shortly as is practicable some idea of the extraordinary extent of this variety. III. Variety op Details in different Flood Legends.

— (1) The Beings destroyed by the Flood are often described as strange or unnatural beings, such as baneful monsters (Persian Burulehesh) ; ape-like men (Thibet) ; descendants of a primeval man and woman, who were drowned in the sea and became a whale and a crab ; the descendants appear, however, to have been human in form, at any rate capable of religious and moral delinquency (Andamanese) ; giants (later Scandinavian Edda) ; men, one tribe of whom consisted only of women, another of men with dog-like tails (Fiji islanders) ; gods of the earth upon whom the Flood was sent at the request of the nether gods (the Sac and Fox Indians) ; a demigod (Ojibways, see above) ; im- perfect men (Quich6 Indians of Guatemala) ; the descendants of gods and men (Miztecs of Mexico, of.

Gn 61-*). (2) The reasons for the Flood AreA\Sex&DX\j ^ve.n.

Very frequently to get rid of these monstrous forms of life (in the Bundehesh a second Flood is necessary to purifv the world of the poison which the monsters still left behind them) ; as in the Bible, to punish men for their wickedness (An- damanese) ; or, more frequently, for some definite crime or offence, as the refusal to wasli and work (Mandari) ; killing and eating a huge serpent (Dyaks of Borneo) ; cooking a fish in violation of a sacred promise (Gipsies of the Sieben Gebirge) ; the crime of the demigod Menaboshu against the water-serpents in kUIing their king and three sons in revenge for the destruction of his little pet wolf (Ojibways) ; the in hospitality of a local S.

African chieftain towards a woman who, in con- sequence, brought about a local flood through her in- cantation (Dilolo Lake) ; the insult perpetrated on a sea-god by a fisherman who fished in sacred waters and caught the god by his hair (Leeward Islands) ; the injury done to the raven by ' the wise man,' who had punished it by throwing it into the fire (Hare Indians, North America).

In one case, as already noticed, the Flood is the result of a quarrel between the gods of the nether and upper world (the Sac and Fox Indians). (3) The direct cause of the Flood is usually the rise and overflow of the sea, or of some river or lake ; rather less frequently a prodigious storm and rainfall. An exceptional case is the melting of the winter snow (Chippewas, see above, II. 2 B c). Once it is occasioned by the blood flowing from a slaughtered giant (later Edda).

Occasionally, the Flood consists of hot water (Finns). In the legend of the Quiche there is a second Flood of resin after one of water, and occasionally fire takes the place of water (so with the Yuracar^s in Bolivia, among wliom a legend of this sort has many parallels with the Flood stories of other peoples). In an Eskimo story the people are destroyed by heat as well as by the water.

In one case the Flood is caused by the accidental breaking of a jar (examined through curiosity) containing the waters of the ocean (Haiti Island). Similarly, a flood is caused by an inquisitive ape taking away the mat placed in a hollow tree to stop up the water which communi- cated with the water beneath the earth (Acawoio, Britiih Guiana).

(4) The Flood generally seems to have come unexpectedly ; but sometimes the survivors wer* forewarned, as a rule by a god, but occasionally through the medium of animals. In the sacred books of India it is the fish, which is no other than the incarnate Vishnu, or, in one form of the legend, even the great Brahma himself. In the legend of the Cherokee Indians (N.

America) it is a dog whicli tells liis master, having first attracted his attention by standing up to his neck in the water and refusing to stir. In one of the Peruvian stories it is the llamas which warn their sheplierd. He had noticed that they looked sad and gazed at the stars, upon which he inquired the cause, and was told of the coming Flood. (5) Tlie Flood is generallj' represented as uni- versal, though originating in sonv- '■"finite place ; but sometimes it is purely loi.

u^ (6) Men are usually drowned, t>i«. «• uue legend some of them are devoured by sea-monsters ( Algon- quins). In several of the Peruvian Flood stories tliey are changed into fish, and in one instance the dead bodies become salmon and frogs (Maidu, near Sacramento). (7) The number of survivors varies very greatly in the different stories. Where the inhabit-ants of the world are monsters, they are, of course, all destroyed. Sometimes even men are all destroyed, and a new set of men created.

Sometimes, on the other hand, they appear to Iiave all escaped (Kabadi, a south-east district of New Guinea). As a rule, the survivors are very few, most frequently a single family, or even less ; in several cases only one man or woman. Once it is only the coyote (prairie-wolf) of all living beings (Wappo, Cali- fornia) ; in another story it is the coyote and the demigod Montezuma (Papagos); in another the raven and his mother (Thlinkeets, Indian tribe of N. America, see below, III. 9).

(8) The reason why the particular survivors were permitted to escape is generally left unexplained. But when it is explained, it is usually, of course, because tliey had no part in the cause for which the Flood was sent. Thus in the Gipsy legend (see above. III. 2), while the wife who cooked the fish is struck by tlie lirst lightning flash of the storm which preceded the Flood, the husband, who was faithful to his promise, was saved. In the legend of the Leeward Islands (see above. III.

2), however, by a strange want of poetic justice, the penitent fisherman succeeds in appeasing the wrath of the god, and he and his family alone escape. (9) The methods of escape exhibit also great variety. In many cases it is by fleeing to a moun- tain or an island, the latter generally being left unimmersed by the rising water, not so much from its elevation as from its sacred character (AJgon- quins, Victoria, Leeward Islands, Greece, etc.)

Sometimes the place of refuge is the top of a tree (Karens in Burmah, Tupi in Brazil, Acawoio in British Guiana), or underneath (!) a tree (Mandari), or in caves (Mexicans of Cholula) ; once in the hole of a huge crawfish in a rice field ( Uraus, a branch of Kohls) ; in a tower expressly buUt for the purpose (Mandans, see above, II. iii. c). The most usual method of escape, however, is by a boat or raft of some kind.

In one of the Fiji stories, two gods themselves come in a boat, and fish the drowning bodies out of the water. The raft or ship is usually allowed to drift, but sometimes, as in the Accadian story, it is regularly steered. In the legends of India it is towed by the god-fish with a rope tied to his horn.

Sometimes, to prevent its drifting awa}', it is secured by a rope, fastened either to a stone acting as an anchor (Kamtschatka), or, more frequently, to a tree (Pelew islanders, Twanas of Puget Sound, AVashlngton Territory).

Occasion- ally, as in the Bible story, the means of escape is a floating ches', (Banar in Cambodia) ; in one legend FLOOD FLOOD 21 % nnt-shell, which conveniently fell from a god, who was eating nuts in heaven during the Flood, on to the topmost peak of a mountain, whither men had fled for refuge (Lithuanians). Usually, as in the Accadian and Bible stories, the ark lands on a mountain ; but, curiously enough, in some of the Persian legends the mountain of refuge itself floats like a boat.

Other means of escape are still more quaint. In one legend the raven and his mother, presumably in a pre-raven state of exist- ence, put on birds' skins and fly up to heaven, which the former, in his impetuosity, hits so violently that his beak gets stuck. In this pre- dicament he is obliged to wait till the waters reach him (Thlinkeets). In another the single surviving maiden succeeds in catching hold of a bird, which flies up with her to a rock of safety (Crees).

(10) The Flood usually disappears by subsidence or evaporation ; but, in isolated instances, it flows away do^vn a hole (Deucalion's Flood, Tinney Indians), or into a rift in a mountain, and so linds its way into the sea (Maidu). (11) The survivors in several legends send out aniTnals from their various retreats, usually to dive down into the waters, that they may get earth, out of which new land is created.

Of this we have a characteristic example in the story of the Ojibways, in which the surviving Menaboshu, after having stood on the topmost peak of a mountain for five days, with the water up to his mouth, in despair prays a passing sea-"ull to dive do>vn and discover whether the land has been entirely washed away. After the guU has dived several times to no purpose, Menaboshu sees the stiffened body of a musk-rat floating by. Having restored it to life, he sends it down on a similar quest.

After a long while the dead body of the musk-rat appears on the surface with a few grains of sand in its claws. These Menaboshu throws on the water, and they become little islands, which grow and join together until they form habitable earth. In the stories of the Sac and Fox Indians, it is a fish which returns with its huge mouth full of earth ; in that of the Chippewas, the beaver, otter, musk-rat, and northern diver, all dive down, and the last returns with mud in its webbed feet.

Sometimes, as in the Bible, and presumably the Accadian stories, the animals are sent forth to dis- cover whether or where the land is dry (Papagos, etc., see above, II. iii. e). (12) The survivors, hard put to it for food, some- times feed on fish, which they either cook by putting them under their armpits (!) (Tolowa in California), or with fire procured by rubbing sticks together, at which the god is angry, and turns tlie fisli into dogs (an old Alexican story in the Codex Chimalpopoca).

Fire is obtained in a similar way in the legend of the Dyaks of Borneo. In the Andamanesian story an arctic bird sends down a firebrand from heaven. In one of the Peruvian legends, meals are provided for the two surviving brothers by two parrots. (13) There is a very curious variety with regard to the methods by which the world was re-peopled after the Deluge. When all the inhabitants were destroyed, tliere was, of necessity, a new creation.

Most frequently, as in the Bible, the new men were simply the ofl'spring of the few survivors, but in severfu legends they appear as propagated in some strange and miraculous manner, as by stones thrown over the survivors' heads (Deucalion's Flood, Acawoio and other Indian tribes on the Upntr Orinoco). In one story cocoa-nuts are tlirown Willi a similar result (Maypuri and neighbouring tribes of .S. America).

In the Lithuanian story men come into being by the survivors leaiiing over the bones of the earth. According to tlie Pelew Islanders, it wis by intercourse of the gods with a woman whose dead body was brought to life, and indwelt for a time by a goddess. Another legend ascribes it to the union between the single surviv- ing maiden and a great eagle (Crees).

Still mor« curious is the legend of the Wappo, who ascribe the re-peopling of the world to the coyote, which planted the tail feathers of various birds in the places where wigwams formerly stood. According to the Tinney Indians, it was brought about by the gods changing animals into men. (14) The deification of Xisuthros after the Flood in tlie Accadian story has hardly a parallel in the myths of other peoples. Sometimes the survivor is already a sort of god (Papagos).

In the story of the Pelew islanders the gods wish to deify the last woman, whom they had already restored to life, but are prevented by the malice of the bird Tariit (Rallus pectoralis).

If we now examine these legends in connexion with their locality, we shall find that features which repeat themselves (leaving out of considera- tion what has been borrowed from the Bible story) in several legends are of two kinds : (a) those which characterize the legends of neighbouring or related tribes ; and (b) those which appear sporadic- ally, so to speak, in far separated peoples.

As examples of the first we may notice, generally, the tendency to combine Flood stories with animal fables common to almost all tribes of American Indians, and more especially the fables of the coyote, the jackal, and the raven, each of which marks off a definite group of tribes. We may instance also the floating mountain, which is confined to the neighbourhood of Peru. In many cases the second class belongs to the form which the legend would be most likely to take.

It is more likely that men would escape a flood by going up into a mountain, or by means of a boat or raft, than in any other way, and therefore we find this to be most fre- quently the case. But when we consider the great multiplicity of stories, it is not at all surprising that, in a few isolated cases, the imagination of different peoples should independently hit upon the same idea.

Where so many methods of escape suggested themselves, it mi^ht easily have occurred to more than one people that the boat of safety was like a chest, or, again, that the boat was tied by a rope. In the same way we may account for the really far stranger incident, the subsequent creation of men out of stones. It is of the greatest importance to notice that this second class of similarities is by no means confined to features contained in the Bible story.

Those who argue for the truth of the latter on the ground that several of its details are confirmed by other legends, are in danger of proWng too much. The same argument makes equally for the truth of other details not found in the Bible.

If all these stories are really the traditions of one single event, docs not the evidence point to a boat rather than an ark, if indeed the survivors did not merely ascend a mountain ; and is not the statement of tlie boat being moored by a rope, which appears in legends so wi<iely scattered, at least as probable as that of the senihng out of animals, on the presence of which, in dill'erent legends, so much stress is often laid ?

For, as a matter of fact, the stories which contain this feature are often liable to the suspicion of a Christian colouring on the grounds above given, and indeed it is just this picturesque touch which would inevitably most strike tlie imagination, and most easily find its way into tlie i>oi>ular stories of a people. It must also be borne in mind that there is a va.

st dillurence be- tween sendinrj out animals to ascertain how fai the waters were dry, and bcgginq them to dive doivn under the water to obtain earth for making dry land. The clay on the feet of the birds in the FLOOD FLOOD Babylonian story is connected with the first, that on tlie feet of the diver in the story of tlie Chippewas with the second.

In a word, all tliat the multifarious Flood stories really can be said to Drove is, that tliere was anion^ a very large number of ancient peoples the belief in a Flood, and often, though by no means so frequently, in a universal Deluge ; out this alone does not prove that they all describe one real event, still less that the one true account of that event is the Bible Flood.

It is rather the case that a thorough study and com- parison of these stories make both tliese hypo- theses extremely improbable. IV. The Cause of the Accadian Flood Story. — Four theories as to the origin of the Flood story are possible. That it was originally (1) a mere product of the fancy, (2) a nature myth, (3) a cosmogonic fable, (4) the poetical presentation of some natural occurrence.

The first is contrarj- to the analogy of similar legends among all peoples, and hardly needs serious discussion.

The second has in its favour the connexion of the Flood story witli Aquarius, and possibly, perhaps, the location of Sit-napisti at tl>e mouth of the Euphrates ; but, on the other hand, this watery subject, supposing the story to be already in existence, was specially suited for this particular zodiacal sign ; and the mouth of the Euphrates might be deemed a fittin" place for the deified hero of the Flood.

Tht tliiru finds some analog}' among the Flood legends of otlier nations, but the analogy of the great majority of F'lood stories is strongly in favour of the fourth, and there can be no doubt that it is correct. The question then arises, 'What event is likely to have given rise to the Accadian story ? ' (a) That it was a universal Deluge is, for reasons already given, quite out of the question.

(6) Writers have, however, still maintained (and founded their argu- ments on scientific grounds) that this Flood was much more than a local Uood, and really covered a very considerable area. Among tliese is the late Professor Prestwich, a man who, on account of his geological researches, is entitled to the highest respect (see Literature).

He maintains the view, that long after the appearance of paheolithic man there was a submergence of the crust of the earth, chiefly in Western Europe, but extiMiding to the N. W. of Africa, though probably not as far as Egypt, causing a gi"eat inundation of the sea, whidi rose (relatively speaking) at its highest to about 1500 ft. on the Continent, and 1000 ft. in England.

It seems to have risen suddenly and to have subsided soon ; that is to say, the inundation did not probably last more than a year or two at most. It destroyed a vast amount of animal and some human life, so that some species of animals became extinct in regions which they formerly inhabited : for example, the lion, panther, spotted hyrena, caffir cat, hippopotamus, African elephant in Europe and N. Africa, and all the then existing mammalia in Malta.

Theproof s of this inundation are : (1) the various forms of what the Professor calls distinctively Bubble Drift (distinct in character from tlie Glacial Drift in its various forms of breccia, etc. ), and (2) a sedimentary deposit {loess) found on mountains (distinct from all valley deposits left by rivers).

It seems prob- able to him tliat, when tlie Flood rose, animals of all sorts were driven to the mountains, where some escaped, from which the submerged districts were again re-stocked after the Flood. In one instance (at Palermo) it would appear that the light-footed animals, which would have had little diificulty in making their escape, survived, whereas tlie hippo- potamus became extinct.

Without attempting to call in question the geological arguments on wliicli this view is maintained, it will be readily seen that it is extremely difficult to make it square with the evidence of the Flood traditions of different peoples, to wliich Professor Prestwich himself appeals to fortify his case. Had this view been correct, we should certainly have expected to find wide recollections of the Flood throughout the region where it occurred, and more faint traditions in other parts.

Hut this is by no means the case, and the district of Babylonia, from which the most important and graphic Flood story originates, is, according to our ]>resent knowledge, wanting in those geological plienomena on which the Piofes.sor depends (indeed they have not yet been discovered even in the east of Europe), and thcicfore is ap])arently beyond the region of the sui>posed Deluge.

On the otlier hand, in Europe Flood legends are comparatively scarce, and usually of a very mythical type (£(/r^'«, Lithuanians, etc.); in N.W. Africa they are altogether absent. Again, they are most frequent by far in Northern and Central America, regions far removed from the supposed localitj' of the Flood.

The same objection, though not to the same extent, lies to the view that the Accadian Flood story is to be referred to geological changes in Thibet, by which what was once a great inland sea became a plain (see above, II. 2Bb). Jud^'ing from the genesis of similar legends, this Accadian story is far more likely to have originated in Babylonia itself, and to be due to some local cause.

The same analogy, if we take also into account the character of the country, suggests that our choice lies between a great overflow of the TigTis and Euphrates caused by an extraordinary rainfall, and the incursion of a tidal wave thiougli an earthquake somewhere in the south. Edward Siiss, whose views are mentioned by Andree, is inclined to think that both these causes were at work.

He argues from the description of the Accadian story, which speaks not only of the earth trembling, and the breaking out of the floods below the earth, and the waves of the storm-god reaching up to heaven — expressions which point to an earthquake accompanied by a tidal wave — but also of the whirlwind, and the thunder, and the overflow of the canals. Del. (Gen. 1S87, p. 164), Haupt {Amer. Journ. Philol. ix. 423 f.), and esp. Huxley (Essays on Controverted Questions, 5S0rt'.

, 619), agree w^ith Siiss, and Dillm. (Gen.^ p. 175) in- clines to the same riew. Andree gives several instances, recorded in history, showing to wliat an enormous distance an earthquake affects the movement of the sea. For example, an earthquake which took place in Peru on the 13th of August 1868, caused a gieat wave which struck the Sand- wich Islands on the following day, and on the day after washed the coastlands of Australia and New Zealand.

How terrible the destruction wrought by a local inundation may be, is shown by the cyclone which struck the coast of India on Nov. 1st, 1864, and involved the loss of 60,000 lives. It is not so very surprising that in Babjlonia, as in many other countries, such a flood should by long oral tradition have been magnified into a universal Deluge, from which only a few survived.

It lias been necessary in this article to lay con- siderable stress on points of resemblance between the Flood story of the Bible and the numerous Flood legends of other peoples. We have shown that, looked at from a merely historical point of view, they stand on a similar footing, and, in fact, that the Bible story is merely a later variant of one of them. Here, however, the resemblance ends. In tone and religious character the Bible story is immeasurably above all others.

It is true, indeed, that the God of the Flood, Who took pleasure in the sweet smell of Noah's sacrifice, stands far below the God of the psalmist. Who deliglited not in burnt-ofl'erings and sacrifice, but in a broken and FLOOD FLOOD troubled spirit.

But for all that, it ia a God who hated iniquity, traiisyressiou, and sin as utterly unwortliy of His own creation, not a deity avenging a merely personal insult, far less, as in the original story, a troop of gods wrangling with each other in jealous rivalry.

Even though it be true that the Israelites found this Flood story handed down from the religious mists of a far distant past, a religious student of Scripture will have no difficulty in recognizing that divinely guided religious feeling and insight by which an ancient legend became the vehicle of religious and spiritual truth. Literature. — George Smith, The Chaldean Account o/Genc^is, new ed. by Sayce ; KA 'f, 55-79 ; Sayce, UCM, 107 B. ; J. Prest- wich.

On Certain Phenomena l/cluiu/ing to the close of the last Geological Period, and on their beariiuj upon the Tradition of the Flood, MacmiUoD, 1895 ; Andree, Dia FlutsaQen, ethno- graphisch betrachtet, Brunswick, 1891, — an excellent work giving a summary of the Flood le^'ends of a large number of races, and made much use of in this article ; Charles Hard- wick, Christ and other Masters, Cambridge, contains some Flood le{;rends, see esp. pt. ii. iii. 3, pt. ill. ii. pp. 162-1C4 ; F.

Lenormant, Ori'jin^s de I'histoire d'aprH la Bible, Paris; Bee also in this DB the art. Basvlonu, p. 221. F. H. Woods.