The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

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Scott Mayers
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Scott Mayers »

Belinda wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:21 pm Scott Mayers wrote:
what importance do you think such a PARTICULAR myth would provide that was universally created in isolation from one another? When you first heard the story, did it have any 'connection' to reality as any allegory or moral lesson to you?
That particular myth was about a particular urgent emergency and how to deal with it practically and psychologically. Naturally I did not use that terminology when I first heard the story.
There is an interpretation of myths about fairies which resembles your fossils interpretation of Noah's Flood.The myths about fairies were to do with its being wise to propitiate them with gifts of food. This probably stemmed from colonisation, by a stronger race, of lands originally inhabited by an older race, even perhaps Neanderthals.These aborigines would have to retreat to secret places in the hills from where they would need to come stealing when they could, and were slightly threatening , but never sufficiently threatening for any bigger myths than minor folk tales.
If the myth was 'about a particular urgent emergency and how to deal with it practically and psychologically', specify what kind of real need during the most devastating flood would require having a character to (a) have a premonition to build a boat in anticipation of an expected world-wide flood that, (b) required saving a specific pairing of each animal such that (c) no animals were NOT saved?

The myth implied a prior set of unsaved land-based beings with the distinct division of a world before that differs from a world after. While surprise floods occurred frequently, what is the point of the specification of the division? ...and why is this particular story a common theme from distinct sources by distinctly differing cultures of different religions that get accepted by most if not all of them in the Middle East unless it had some common non-religious reason for relating a specific flood to universal destruction? [This is a response against the assumption of this myth being literally shared in kind by ALL cultures world-wide.]

I will try to expand upon this in my later response to uwot given he proposes the possible justification to be from the Black Sea theory. It can have some legitimacy by contrast and so needs separate attention.
Scott Mayers
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Scott Mayers »

uwot wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2021 10:52 am
Scott Mayers wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:57 amI agree that the Black Sea's deluge may have value of general flood myths but it wouldn't defend how the same kind of deluge involving the whole world would and all animals everywhere.
How big do you think the writers believed the world was?
I think that most people would know that the moon was spherical and not merely some flat-land, contrary to any more modern reinterpretation because most people then lived outdoors. Our own bias of not being able to even see the Milkyway Galaxy from most of the populations living in cities today would no doubt make people think that the Egyptian 'god', Nut, was literally some artificial construct of some psychedelic experience that had no basis in reality from its origins. As such, I think it in appropriate to assume that at least for the more 'educated' who could write, they had no one among them who would interpret the world as NOT being a sphere, even if the majority of people might find this an odd interpretation of reality.

The people of the modernizing settlements of the Middle East were still in transition from tribal nomadic life and so most there would likely trust the world as much larger than some remotely local community limitations that later European settlement peoples would be less familiar with. The scribes would be of a relatively luxurious class also who's works would be more likely to get passed on 'evolutionary style' by the mutlicultured peoples of the meeting places of the Middle East and the eventual Mediteranean traders who would know that the world was much bigger than their mere localized communities. As such, a flood myth that would be prominent in many of their diverse cultures would appeal to universally shared wisdom of a larger world, even if one might question its specific size or shape.

As to a special interest in this particular flood myth, only some real common belief of some DISTINCT division of existing animals from prior non-existing animals world-wide would be going beyond believability if it were thought to be about some relatively localized flood event or events collectively.

uwot wrote:
Scott Mayers wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:57 am[Maybe "Noah" comes from a word meaning "new" for instance(?)]
Easy enough to find out:"Noah is a given name and surname most likely derived from the Biblical figure Noah (נוֹחַ) in Hebrew. It is most likely of Babylonian origin from the word "nukhu" meaning repose or rest, which is possible in view of the Sumerian/Babylonian source of the flood story. Another explanation says that it is derived from the Hebrew root meaning "to comfort" (nahum) with the final consonant dropped."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_(name)
I only proposed a possible meaning of 'New' for 'Noah' because of the concept of a division of the old world from the 'new'.

I also don't trust many modern etymological sources from the very religions that have it in their best interest to divorce their unique interpreted roots that might suggest better validity of other prior religions or cultures. For instance, the term for what comes to us through interpretation as the "Ark of the Covenant" is etymologically begged to mean "cupboard" by Judeao-Christian roots for the likely fear of noting the probability of the root as being Egyptian and thus related to literal boats as the "ark" of Noah's was. Politically, the Judeao-Christians-and-Muslims would not like to admit Egypt as the likely original "promised land" as it would link the ritual of carrying official sacred artifacts by ceremonial boats by sea and land. [The ark was likely a remnant of the mono-culturalist/mono-theistic Egyptians who attempted to unify the divergent tribal beliefs into a single automous belief system. I'm picturing the Ark of the Covenant as an amphibious relic that held a broken obelisk of the ruins from Amarna, the place that Akhenaten was sent to after his rejection for a generation (40 years in the desert).

The point is that names, like "Noah" and other religious labels of recorded history, refered to titles of people based upon words of natural common understandings. So the names of the characters corresponded to post-interpretation of the characters' role in the stories. My proposed meaning for "Noah" had likely some direct meaning to the MAIN theme of the story of which I aligned to a division of a prior world to a new one. Emotional interpretations as you gave seem more biased if the meanings referred to the state of minds of the characters when the relevance of these would be more suitable for labels given to people based upon significant defining qualities of the stories. Thus, "Adam", would refer, for instance, to "the solid ground or Earth" while it opposing term, "Aten", as the same concept for the the perfect 'Solid' represented as what contains the sun. [I also think that "Aten" referred to 'up' or the sun at noon, where the Adam (Greek's 'Atom') refers to 'down' as directions. The alternatives for the rising sun is Eden, and the FALLing of it as Atum, relate. Then the sun at midnight is exactly beneath the Earth!]
uwot wrote:
Scott Mayers wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:57 amThe Greeks had their Titans as did many religions. This suggests the link to dinosaurs and other strange but structurally related beings to humans that would be spread from far reaches.
Maybe. I've heard of a theory that the Cyclops...well hang on let's google it:
"A possible origin for one-eyed Cyclopes was advanced by the palaeontologist Othenio Abel in 1914. Abel proposed that fossil skulls of Pleistocene dwarf elephants, commonly found in coastal caves of Italy and Greece, may have given rise to the Polyphemus story. Abel suggested that the large, central nasal cavity (for the trunk) in the skull might have been interpreted as a large single eye-socket." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopes
Actually, I had a personal experience as a kid when leaving the zoo in Washington, D.C. when I was tired. I thought that "cyclops" referred to what I saw later and when I matter-of-factly referenced that, my father thought that I was just deluded given there were no such thing. However, I later rediscovered it as what a dark ape with a high forehead and a whitened spot looks like at a distance. So I was correctly discribing what I saw. This is a probable example in kind that in the right light and distance is most 'cyclops' like:
At a distance these appear as the 'cyclops' origin by my first-hand experience as a kid
At a distance these appear as the 'cyclops' origin by my first-hand experience as a kid
SpotOnApeAsEye.jpg (40.77 KiB) Viewed 1374 times
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Belinda
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Belinda »

Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 7:21 pm
Belinda wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:21 pm Scott Mayers wrote:
what importance do you think such a PARTICULAR myth would provide that was universally created in isolation from one another? When you first heard the story, did it have any 'connection' to reality as any allegory or moral lesson to you?
That particular myth was about a particular urgent emergency and how to deal with it practically and psychologically. Naturally I did not use that terminology when I first heard the story.
There is an interpretation of myths about fairies which resembles your fossils interpretation of Noah's Flood.The myths about fairies were to do with its being wise to propitiate them with gifts of food. This probably stemmed from colonisation, by a stronger race, of lands originally inhabited by an older race, even perhaps Neanderthals.These aborigines would have to retreat to secret places in the hills from where they would need to come stealing when they could, and were slightly threatening , but never sufficiently threatening for any bigger myths than minor folk tales.
If the myth was 'about a particular urgent emergency and how to deal with it practically and psychologically', specify what kind of real need during the most devastating flood would require having a character to (a) have a premonition to build a boat in anticipation of an expected world-wide flood that, (b) required saving a specific pairing of each animal such that (c) no animals were NOT saved?

The myth implied a prior set of unsaved land-based beings with the distinct division of a world before that differs from a world after. While surprise floods occurred frequently, what is the point of the specification of the division? ...and why is this particular story a common theme from distinct sources by distinctly differing cultures of different religions that get accepted by most if not all of them in the Middle East unless it had some common non-religious reason for relating a specific flood to universal destruction? [This is a response against the assumption of this myth being literally shared in kind by ALL cultures world-wide.]

I will try to expand upon this in my later response to uwot given he proposes the possible justification to be from the Black Sea theory. It can have some legitimacy by contrast and so needs separate attention.
A myth is a cultural artefact. A culture is a response of a society to geographical and economic circumstances. E.g. a successful business or political enterprise will create a myth to legitimate the business or political regime.

Dealing with regular flooding is a big enterprise that requires a legitimating myth to help with the work."A premonition" is hardly an adequate description of an event that is predicted from living memory, or even recent ancestral memory. A story needs a protagonist. Noah is the protagonist in Noah's Flood.
It makes sense that farmers and herdsmen would save their seeds for the next crop, and their animal breeding stock. Animals breed by sex. One does not read a myth literally. If I were a herdsman I'd save my best ram and several of my best ewes. Really, what is not to undersatnd?

Obviously, real life Noahs did not save pairs of fleas or pairs of crocodiles!

The import of the myth for Christianity is that God made a covenant with Noah by which God would always provide Noah with hope that things would get better.
Last edited by Belinda on Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Age
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Age »

Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm
Age wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 2:31 pm
Scott Mayers wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:04 am
Yes, I assumed this a myth as you and others should know by now that I'm atheist.
Were you a so-called "atheist" BEFORE you make ASSUMPTIONS, like this one, or is it your ASSUMPTIONS, like this one, that makes you a so-called "atheist"?

And, does being a so-called "atheist" mean that that one HAS TO SEE EVERY word or story, written in the bible for example, as being a myth?
Scott Mayers wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:04 am If one is religious, would you be surprised if they simply begun a thread by assuming a default of truth to their particular scripture's story?
OBVIOUSLY, you have NOT YET WORKED OUT, by now, that, to me, NO MATTER what ANY one says, I suggest that it is much better for them that they have the ACTUAL PROOF, BEFORE they make the ACTUAL CLAIM. That way NO ASSUMING is NEEDED, and ONLY thee ACTUAL Truth is being said, shared, and told.
I cannot discuss this with you given YOU 'assume' that I should require a response that should satisfy you when I cannot even 'assume' you as being sincere to question me.
I suggest 'you' STOP ASSUMING ANY thing.

See, I was NOT ASSUMING absolutely ANY thing that you say and CLAIM I was here. And, even IF I was ASSUMING ANY thing here, WHICH I AM NOT, I CERTAINLY would NEVER ASSUME you 'should' or 'should not' do ANY thing, AT ALL. So, the rest of what you wrote WAS and IS therefore MOOT.
Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm I am already aware of your position regarding "assumptions". They are contradictory.
If you would like to begin to PROVE how my position regarding 'assumptions' is contradictory, then PLEASE go ahead.

But first off we will have to SEE what you SAY is ' my position regarding 'assumptions' ' just to make sure that you have it right, and to SEE that you are NOT just making ANOTHER Wrong ASSUMPTION.

We AWAIT your response and view here.
Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm Religion is based upon interpretations about reality that are BEYOND our ability to know by default.
Which is more or less EXACTLY like what the field of 'science' is based upon SOLELY. That is; 'you', human beings, making, and basing, 'your' interpretations about 'Reality', Itself, BEYOND 'your' ability to KNOW by default. And, when 'you' KNOW by, so-called, 'default', then it is NOT 'science' anymore, and instead just a Fact, which can NOT be refuted obviously. See, 'science' does NOT deal with Truths NOR Facts but ONLY deals with what is NOT YET KNOWN, or BEYOND 'your' ability to KNOW, 'by default'.
Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm The very word, 'religion' means 'of legend'
Does the very word, 'religion' mean; 'of legend', for EVERY one and how that word is defined in EVERY dictionary, and this meaning is taught in EVERY teaching of that word? Or, is this what the word 'religion' means, to you?

Also, and by the way, thank you for providing that definition and meaning here for us. That meaning fits in PERFECTLY with my views, and will come in VERY HANDY, later on. So, thanks again.
Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm and promotes FAITH as an essential 'assumption' regardless of any ability to prove real by any scientific means.
Do, some of 'you', people, who live in the days when this was written, have FAITH in the 'sciences', of 'your' days?
Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm So the default to 'not assume' is to have no beliefs assumed....thus no religion.
Okay, if you say so.

But, to 'not assume' is NOT to have 'no beliefs' AT ALL.

To 'not assume' is to NOT ASSUME, and, to 'have no beliefs' is to HAVE NO BELIEFS.

'Assume' and 'beliefs' are two VERY DIFFERENT things. Just like 'assuming' and 'believing' are two VERY DIFFERENT things as well.
Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm Any attempt at challenging this with you particularly has proven to be a waste of time and so I won't respond to futher digression on 'assumptions' with you.
What do you mean by 'further digression' here? From your eighth word in this response of yours here, and a slight 'digression' to providing the meaning YOU give to the word 'religion', you have been solely FOCUSED on 'assumptions', with me.
Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm [I believe that you are doing this on purpose and it is trolling behavior because you won't let anyone get passed your exponential explosion of infinite looping questions.
Do you REALLY ASSUME just little old 'me' could ask 'infinite looping questions'?

Also, I just asked you here the two VERY SIMPLE and VERY STRAIGHTFORWARD QUESTIONS:

Were you a so-called "atheist" BEFORE you make ASSUMPTIONS, like this one, or is it your ASSUMPTIONS, like this one, that makes you a so-called "atheist"?

And, does being a so-called "atheist" mean that that one HAS TO SEE EVERY word or story, written in the bible for example, as being a myth?


If you do NOT like to CLARIFY what the ACTUAL answers are, then so be it. But you have spend MORE TIME with your 'exponential exploding' response here than it would have taken you to just answer the two CLARIFYING QUESTIONS, Honestly.

But anyway, each to their own.
Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm If you are not doing this intentionally, then prove it by accepting our differences of opinion on the matter of 'assumptions' and let's move on to the discussion at issue.
OF COURSE we have DIFFERENCES of opinion on the matter of 'assumptions'. This has ALWAYS been ACCEPTED here.

Maybe if you had NOT been ASSUMING that this DIFFERENCE was NOT accepted previously, then we could have MOVED ALONG, a long time ago.
Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:27 pm Otherwise, I won't further respond to your posts.]
But I do NOT want you to further respond the way you have been. I would prefer you just ANSWER the ACTUAL CLARIFYING QUESTIONS I pose to you, so then we can Truly MOVE THIS ALONG. But ALWAYS REMEMBER that you are absolutely FREE to do absolutely ANY thing that you so WISH to do.
Scott Mayers
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Scott Mayers »

Belinda wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:12 pm Obviously, real life Noahs did not save pairs of fleas or pairs of crocodiles!

The import of the myth for Christianity is that God made a covenant with Noah by which God would always provide Noah with hope that things would get better.
I thought about adding the fact that water based animals were also not included but edited it out. That actually is suggestive of the fossil record given (1) the ocean is too vast for not knowing what animals no longer exist and (2) water based fossils exist from the lowest layers in the record which would not be required to question whether they died off or not.

As to the religious interpretations that grant religious value afterthefact that is irrelevant because you can interpret any 'value' to anything with religion no matter how absurdly a story may alter in time. The point of my take on scripture(s) is that they all had some initial justification based on non-religious foundations and that this particular story (not originally Judeao-Christian at all) does not make sense in light of looking back to the origins.

I say the same thing regarding supposed children stories that have passed on successfully in time that now appear as non-sensical. It is true that novel writers making scripts for shows on places like the adult swim channel that can appeal to creating non-sense from scratch. But for contemporary significant works that appeal strong enough to be published far and wide, the material that gets passed on relate to reality in some part that most people relate to.

As to the past when writing was expensive and rare, the priority to placing signficance of what is written was not arbitrary nor taken lightly. Written words meant something more signficant in the past than today and so whatever was accepted to be passed on had to have more realistic initial justifications. The particular world-wide deluge story was thus thought to be a SERIOUS reality or theory, even while they simultaneously ADD fictional substance as makeup.

Noah's flood myth is not 'simple' with respect to just any flood. The fact that most theories of the world's origins all the way back to the opening of Genesis suggests that they thought the world originated submerged in water had to have some native 'empirical' justification or it would not be accepted as 'significant' enough to trust. This makes further supporting sense if they noticed those early layer fossil evidence of water-based creatures in higher grounds that didn't seem to make sense to them. Otherwise, even people back then would not default to presume faith in a myth of a world originating in water as noted in Genesis. The question then would be why the fossils did not include land animal versions of existing animals and of those that no one ever saw at all (the giagantic or highly odd creatures no longer evident as existing)...and thus, this would justify a need for Nature (God) to have some reason for the myth.
Scott Mayers
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Scott Mayers »

Age wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:43 pm
Scott Mayers wrote: I cannot discuss this with you given YOU 'assume' that I should require a response that should satisfy you when I cannot even 'assume' you as being sincere to question me.
I suggest 'you' STOP ASSUMING ANY thing.
I will NOT ASSUME that you have anything of value worthy of reading. Thanks for the advise!
reasonvemotion
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by reasonvemotion »

The New Testament describes the Flood without exaggeration, purely as a literal event and in Matthew 24 and Luke 17, Jesus refers to the Flood as a historic event, which destroyed all humankind excepting those on the ark.

The apostle Peter also refers to the Flood in a literal sense and the Biblical description is also very clear on this point, referring to a worldwide destruction of the earth by the Flood, Genesis 6:13-14, not an isolated local event.
Belinda
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Belinda »

Scott Mayers wrote:
I thought about adding the fact that water based animals were also not included but edited it out. That actually is suggestive of the fossil record given (1) the ocean is too vast for not knowing what animals no longer exist and (2) water based fossils exist from the lowest layers in the record which would not be required to question whether they died off or not.
You might have added a smiley or a winkey! Is your reasoning so pedestrian that you must quibble about crocodiles?
As to the religious interpretations that grant religious value afterthefact that is irrelevant because you can interpret any 'value' to anything with religion no matter how absurdly a story may alter in time. The point of my take on scripture(s) is that they all had some initial justification based on non-religious foundations and that this particular story (not originally Judeao-Christian at all) does not make sense in light of looking back to the origins.
Noah's Flood actually is an entertaining story. The genre remains very popular : a small group of people having adventures in order to survive. E.g. War of the Worlds , or Day of the Triffids ,and lots more in novels and film plays including children's literature.The Biblical story of the Exodus and subsequent adventures of Jews, Christians, and Muslims ( Biblical or historical ) are the same genre. Moreover, the addition of explicitly religious material to stories of that genre fits well with the human need for hope and strong morale. The latter needs are more usually implied but in most Middle Eastern and European literature the moral code at least implicitly fits with Christianity and Judaism; God wants humans to survive and has in effect promised to bring humans through dangers to a happy land.

There are myths that cannot be adapted to Judeo-Christianity and naturally those have not been included in The Bible"!
uwot
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by uwot »

Belinda wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:12 pmIt makes sense that farmers and herdsmen would save their seeds for the next crop, and their animal breeding stock. Animals breed by sex. One does not read a myth literally. If I were a herdsman I'd save my best ram and several of my best ewes. Really, what is not to undersatnd?
I rather like this idea, it chimes well with that piece I wrote for the magazine several years ago: https://philosophynow.org/issues/104/Ph ... d_Branches
Scott Mayers wrote: Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:27 amThe fact that most theories of the world's origins all the way back to the opening of Genesis suggests that they thought the world originated submerged in water had to have some native 'empirical' justification or it would not be accepted as 'significant' enough to trust.
Absolutely there was empirical evidence. Here's part of the article:

Thales (c.624-c.546BC) was the son of nobles. It was common for rich Greeks to send their young men on educational ‘Grand Tours’ of Mesopotamia (essentially modern day Iraq) and Egypt, much as Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century aristocrats would visit Rome and Athens to broaden their minds (at least, that was the idea).
Even in Thales’ time, Mesopotamia and Egypt were ancient civilizations. Their antiquity was due in part to the ease with which agriculture, and hence large populations, were established and sustained by the regular flooding of the Tigris/Euphrates and the Nile.
The waters’ retreat leaves a film of fertile soil; as the resultant vegetation dies and decays underwater, it produces methane, which can be seen bubbling to the surface, and is a flammable gas. Hence the so-called ‘Greek’ elements – water, earth, air and fire – are all present where humans first settled, and seem to be linked; the belief was that one thing changed into another. Accustomed to things that change and develop being alive, people attributed change in nature to life; it is only a short step to give form to this life in the shape of gods. The creation myths of Mesopotamia and Egypt reflect this.
Belinda
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Belinda »

uwot wrote: Wed Dec 08, 2021 11:57 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:12 pmIt makes sense that farmers and herdsmen would save their seeds for the next crop, and their animal breeding stock. Animals breed by sex. One does not read a myth literally. If I were a herdsman I'd save my best ram and several of my best ewes. Really, what is not to undersatnd?
I rather like this idea, it chimes well with that piece I wrote for the magazine several years ago: https://philosophynow.org/issues/104/Ph ... d_Branches
Scott Mayers wrote: Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:27 amThe fact that most theories of the world's origins all the way back to the opening of Genesis suggests that they thought the world originated submerged in water had to have some native 'empirical' justification or it would not be accepted as 'significant' enough to trust.
Absolutely there was empirical evidence. Here's part of the article:

Thales (c.624-c.546BC) was the son of nobles. It was common for rich Greeks to send their young men on educational ‘Grand Tours’ of Mesopotamia (essentially modern day Iraq) and Egypt, much as Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century aristocrats would visit Rome and Athens to broaden their minds (at least, that was the idea).
Even in Thales’ time, Mesopotamia and Egypt were ancient civilizations. Their antiquity was due in part to the ease with which agriculture, and hence large populations, were established and sustained by the regular flooding of the Tigris/Euphrates and the Nile.
The waters’ retreat leaves a film of fertile soil; as the resultant vegetation dies and decays underwater, it produces methane, which can be seen bubbling to the surface, and is a flammable gas. Hence the so-called ‘Greek’ elements – water, earth, air and fire – are all present where humans first settled, and seem to be linked; the belief was that one thing changed into another. Accustomed to things that change and develop being alive, people attributed change in nature to life; it is only a short step to give form to this life in the shape of gods. The creation myths of Mesopotamia and Egypt reflect this.
We narrate constantly. Stories may be told for entertainment or titillation but these stories are less meaningful than stories that glorify life- supporting behaviour. Even at the banal and ephemeral level of a commercial firm experts are hired to make up a story called a 'brand image'.

With regard to Noah's Flood, when people are starving due to flood or desertification there is the temptation to kill the heifer or eat the seed corn, and the reasons not to do so is glorified by means of important myth.
Age
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Age »

Scott Mayers wrote: Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:37 am
Age wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:43 pm
Scott Mayers wrote: I cannot discuss this with you given YOU 'assume' that I should require a response that should satisfy you when I cannot even 'assume' you as being sincere to question me.
I suggest 'you' STOP ASSUMING ANY thing.
I will NOT ASSUME that you have anything of value worthy of reading. Thanks for the advise!
GREAT. That way it will be much easier for you to SEE what thee ACTUAL Truth REALLY IS, EXACTLY.
uwot
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by uwot »

Belinda wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:36 amWe narrate constantly. Stories may be told for entertainment or titillation but these stories are less meaningful than stories that glorify life- supporting behaviour. Even at the banal and ephemeral level of a commercial firm experts are hired to make up a story called a 'brand image'.

With regard to Noah's Flood, when people are starving due to flood or desertification there is the temptation to kill the heifer or eat the seed corn, and the reasons not to do so is glorified by means of important myth.
I agree that we are constantly narrating and contextualising. Perhaps you are right about Noah's Flood and the writers of the old testament understood it as you suggest, but I would have thought that Joseph and the 7 years of famine addresses that more directly. Maybe people weren't getting the message.
uwot
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by uwot »

Scott Mayers wrote: Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:44 pmActually, I had a personal experience as a kid when leaving the zoo in Washington, D.C. when I was tired. I thought that "cyclops" referred to what I saw later and when I matter-of-factly referenced that, my father thought that I was just deluded given there were no such thing. However, I later rediscovered it as what a dark ape with a high forehead and a whitened spot looks like at a distance.
Yep, seems reasonable. There is also a rare birth defect called cyclopia which results in babies with one eye.
Belinda
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by Belinda »

uwot wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:09 am
Belinda wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:36 amWe narrate constantly. Stories may be told for entertainment or titillation but these stories are less meaningful than stories that glorify life- supporting behaviour. Even at the banal and ephemeral level of a commercial firm experts are hired to make up a story called a 'brand image'.

With regard to Noah's Flood, when people are starving due to flood or desertification there is the temptation to kill the heifer or eat the seed corn, and the reasons not to do so is glorified by means of important myth.
I agree that we are constantly narrating and contextualising. Perhaps you are right about Noah's Flood and the writers of the old testament understood it as you suggest, but I would have thought that Joseph and the 7 years of famine addresses that more directly. Maybe people weren't getting the message.
I don't remember the story of Joseph and the 7 years of famine, and I'll accept your objection. I can't let go of my pet theory that memorable myths are integral to the structure of cultures.

There may be many myths on the same theme. I will google this.
uwot
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Re: The roots of Noah's Ark myth...

Post by uwot »

Belinda wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:23 amI can't let go of my pet theory that memorable myths are integral to the structure of cultures.
I think that is demonstrably true. We wouldn't be the same without Christmas and Easter.
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