#1 Worldwide Flood Legends

The Bible is God's Word, and thus contains His witness to the creation of the Universe. The Bible also treats its record of the Flood as a real event that actually happened with real people involved. If there had never been a global flood, then there should be no global flood legends found in cultures around the globe. And to be very generous, we may expect a few, but nowhere close to a global phenomenon.

The Division of Languages

Genesis 9 starts the record of the tower of Babel; after the flood, God commanded man to be fruitful and multiply (spread across the earth), but instead they came together and created a city and tower to prevent them from following God's command. In their own pride, they "wanted to make a name" for themselves. (Genesis 11). In response to this, God came down and separated/confused their language, and they dispersed, having different families leaving the area across the globe. These different language families changed over time into the various languages we have today.

This means that these people took their history (From Gen 1-11, and I suppose some groups in opposition to God may have had their own perverted histories already) with them as they left and dispersed into the land. With this we should expect some information to be lost, locations changed, names changed due to language changes, and other faults. We would expect different cultures to have retained some accurate history of the event, but have lost some or a lot of it. Only God's Word gives us an accurate account of the creation and past of Earth.

So What Do We Find?

There are well over 300+ flood legends worldwide, and the number is growing every year! John Morris with ICR has done research contributing to this list in his Icr.org article "Why Does Nearly Every Culture have a Tradition of a Global Flood?" and other scholars like Nozomi Osanai, who has done studies comparing Genesis and the Gilgamesh legend. Bodie Hodge says they have spoken to missionaries making first contact with tribes in the Amazon who claim that these tribes have legends of language splits, and a flood (A Flood of Evidence: 40 Reasons Noah and the Ark Still Matter, Pg 32).

Henry Morris and John Whitcomb in "The Genesis Flood" on page 48 mention that there are scores and hundreds of these legends in every part of the world. They also mention that Native American tribes have legends of one man building an Ark to save his family and animals from a global flood. They note that every trace of the Human Race has some form of a universal flood legend (with exceptions). Some evolutionists like Robert Schoch are noticing these flood legends in many ancient cultures.

What Are Some Of These Legends?

Provided below is a world map with numbered highlighted areas, each one corresponds with the numbered flood legends also provided below. (Example: Aztec Flood Legend (1) matches the highlighted area designated as 1). As you can see, the distribution of just the legends mentioned here are on just about every continent.

Aztec Flood Legend (1)

Tapi lived a very long time ago and was very pious. The creator told him to build a boat and seek refuge there, he was told to bring his wife and a pair of every animal. When the flood came, it covered everything, including mountains. The waters began to recede, and the boat landed in the mountains. When Tapi thought the water had receded to a low enough point, he sent out a dove to see if it would return. When the dove did not return, Tapi knew it was time to leave the boat.

Chinese Flood Legend (2)

China has multiple flood legends; the main one, closest to the flood account, involves a character named Fuhi/Fuxi who survived a flood with his wife, sons, and daughters to repopulate the Earth.

Hawaiian Flood Legend (3)

Thousands of years after the first man, the world became very corrupt, and man became evil. Only one good man, Nu-u, remained and built a giant boat with a house on top of it and took in animals and his family. Not long after, a flood came that killed everyone but Nu-u's boat, and his family survived and repopulated.

Miao Flood Legend (4)

So it poured forty days in sheets and in torrents. Then fifty-five days of misting and drizzle. The waters surmounted the mountains and ranges. The deluge ascending leapt valley and hollow. An earth with no earth upon which to take refuge! A world with no foothold where one might subsist! The people were baffled, impotent and ruined, Despairing, horror-stricken, diminished and finished. But the Patriarch Nuah was righteous. The Matriarch Gaw Bo-lu-en upright. Built a boat very wide. Made a ship very vast. Their entire household got aboard and were floated. The family complete rode the deluge in safety. The animals with him were female and male. The birds went along and were mated in pairs. When the time was fulfilled, God commanded the waters. The day had arrived, the flood waters receded. Then Nuah liberated a dove from their refuge, Sent a bird to go forth and bring again tidings. The flood had gone down into lake and to ocean; The mud was confined to the pools and the hollows. There was land once again where a man might reside; There was a place in the earth now to rear habitations. Buffalo then were brought, an oblation to God, Fatter cattle became sacrifices to the Mighty. The Divine One then gave them His blessing; Their God then bestowed His good graces. (https://www.icr.org/article/genesis-according-miao-people/).

Southwest Tanzanian Flood Legend (5)

Once upon a time the rivers began to flood. The god told two people to get into a ship. He told them to take lots of seed and to take lots of animals. The water of the flood eventually covered the mountains. Finally the flood stopped. Then one of the men, wanting to know if the water had dried up let a dove loose. The dove returned. Later he let loose a hawk which did not return. Then the men left the boat and took the animals and the seeds with them.

Babylonian Flood Legend (6)

Gilgamesh met an old man named Utnapishtim, who told him the following story. The gods came to Utnapishtim to warn him about a terrible flood that was coming. They instructed Utnapishtim to destroy his house and build a large ship. The ship was to be 10 dozen cubits high, wide and long. Utnapishtim was to cover the ship with pitch. He was supposed to take male and female animals of all kinds, his wife and family, provisions, etc. into the ship. Once ship was completed, the rain began falling intensely. The rain fell for six days and nights. Finally things calmed and the ship settled on the top of Mount Nisir. After the ship had rested for seven days Utnapishtim let loose a dove. Since the land had not dried the dove returned. Next he sent a swallow which also returned. Later he let loose a raven which never returned since the ground had dried. Utnapishtim then left the ship.

India Flood Legend (7)

A long time ago lived a man named Manu. Manu, while washing himself, saved a small fish from the jaws of a large fish. The fish told Manu, "If you care for me until I am full grown I will save you from terrible things to come". Manu asked what kind of terrible things. The fish told Manu that a great flood would soon come and destroy everything on the earth. The fish told Manu to put him in a clay jar for protection. The fish grew and each time he outgrew the clay jar, Manu gave him a larger one. Finally, the fish became a ghasha, one of the largest fish in the world. The fish instructed Manu to build a large ship since the flood was going to happen very soon. As the rains started, Manu tied a rope from the ship to the ghasha. The fish guided the ship as the waters rose. The whole earth was covered by water. When the waters began subsiding, the ghasha led Manu's ship to a mountaintop.

Delaware Indian's Flood Legend (8)

In the pristine age, the world lived at peace, but an evil spirit came and caused a great flood. The earth was submerged. A few persons had taken refuge on the back of a turtle, so old that its shell had collected moss. A loon flew over their heads and was entreated to dive beneath the water and bring up land. It found only a bottomless sea. Then the bird flew far away, came back with a small portion of earth in its bill, and guided the tortoise to a place where there was a spot of dry land.

Inca Flood Legend (9)

During the period of time called the Pachachama, people became very evil. They got so busy coming up with and performing evil deeds that they neglected the gods. Only those in the high Andes remained uncorrupted. Two brothers who lived in the highlands noticed their llamas acting strangely. They asked the llamas why and were told that the stars had told the llamas that a great flood was coming. This flood would destroy all life on Earth. The brothers took their families and flocks into a cave on the high mountains. It started to rain and continued for four months. As the water rose, the mountain grew, keeping its top above the water. Eventually, the rain stopped, and the waters receded. The mountain returned to its original height. The shepherds repopulated the earth. The llamas remembered the flood and that is why they prefer to live in the highland areas.

(5-9 are taken from https://nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html)

The Names of Noah

Many of the flood legends name their main characters with similar sounds to the Biblical record. I'll provide a short list of the ones that sound the most similar.

1. Germany (10)

   1. The name for the German/Scandinavian legend is Noes or Noe (Wright, ed., Reliquae Antiquae, 1841-1845, copy at London's Guildhall Library, Aldermanbury, p. 173).

2. Ireland (11)

   1. The Ireland legend uses the name Noeh (Annals of Clonmacnois).

3. Miao

   1. The Miao use the pronunciation Nuah (E.A. Truax, "Genesis According to the Miao People, Acts & Facts, 20 (4) 1991).

4. Central Asia (12)

   1. The Central Asian legend has "Nama" as their Noah (U. Holmburg, "Finno-Ugric, Siberian," in C.J.A. MacCulloch, ed., The Mythology of All Races v. /V (Boston, MA: Marshall Jones, 1927).

5. India

   1. India uses Manu (T.H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1969)).

6. Loyalty Islands (13)

   1. The Loyalty Islands, off the coast of Australia, name their pious man Nol (Gaster, P. 107).

7. Hawaii

   1. As mentioned already, Nu'u (D.B. Barrere, The Kumuhonua Legends: A Study of Late 19th Century Hawaiian Stories of Creation and Origins, Pacific Anthropological Records, No. 3, Bishop Museum, Honolulu, HI, 1969, p. 19-21).

Noah's Wife

There are well over 100 accounts of Noah's wife's name and a list can be found here (Francis Lee Utley, "The One Hundred and Three Names of Noah's Wife, The University of Chicago Press, Speculum, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Oct., 1941), Pg 426-452).

Conclusion

In an evolutionary timeline, no major global water catastrophes have occurred in the past history of Earth (no recent ones at least), and sedimentary layers have been laid down gradually over millions of years. These assumptions of slow, gradual accumulation of layers are called uniformitarianism. In this article series, we will look at the evidence and arguments that contend with the secular west's self-acclaimed "dogmatic truth" of evolutionary history and the rejection of the Genesis Flood and Biblical authority. Under these assumptions, there was never a flood that covered the entire Earth. So why is there such a massive global flood account around the globe, everywhere humanity grew into civilization? Many of these legends are from cultures surrounded by deserts and mountains, in locations where local flooding isn't impossible.

This issue is an accumulative approach, so if you read this, or one article, and are unsatisfied or question other things, please keep in mind that there is much more to be looked over here. Once we are done, we can look back at all of the evidence at once, but we have just started! One of the evidences of the Global Flood, the mass accumulation of Flood legends embedded in every culture, points in the direction of the Bible's Historical record, and not Evolutionary models. Amen