Quote:
Originally Posted by Thor
If that massive flood did occur, it would have been something incredible and would have been a pervasive story throughout the ages, Ballard's discoveries in the black sea really seem to give credence to this being the basis of all the flood stories from that age.
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Yeah, maybe. Although I'm more of the opinion that there was no definable single event that produced the story. People who lived in coastal plains and river deltas were intimately familiar with seasonal flooding and overflows from storms. Ancient people tended to be both awestruck and terrified of the sea: it was seemingly endless and insurmountable. It is no coincidence that their cosmologies and creation myths featured water as an antagonistic threat to civilisation and human survival. The Atrahasis / Noah flood story is no different: it was likely a representation of well known catastrophic destruction that flooding caused, but then taken to another level in which the gods or a chosen great man stood vicarious over this great enemy.