The Flood Story is perhaps one of the few themes that recur in almost every culture in the world. Although the Bible and the Torah include the most famous flood stories, these ancient writings were not the first to use this pattern. The scientific community recognizes that the oldest flood myth known to humanity is the Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells the story of Utnapishtim, who attained immortality by escaping from the flood on a ship. Moving beyond these fundamental writings, other cultures also have their own peculiarities in describing the flood myth.
Studying the myths of different cultures about the flood, it becomes clear that Gilgamesh is extremely unlikely to have become a model for writing local myths. Even the story of Noah, very similar to Gilgamesh, hardly had a direct correlation with the more ancient version (Dolansky, 2019). For example, the flood myth of Aztecs is completely different in detail from the usual plot. In this story, all of humanity drowned and turned into fish. But the man Note and his wife Nena were warned and survived in the hollow of the cypress. Disobeying the order to eat only maize, Nena and Note ate fish. As a punishment for this, they were turned into dogs. This story shows how plots can drastically twist from conventional readings.
Many flood myths arose in civilizations that were prone to flooding. The destructive nature of floods frightened people, significantly influencing the fearsome image of flooding in culture (Shah, 2021). The Chinese history of flood control is an excellent example of the emergence of a myth about this. Sister and brother freed the God of Thunder from imprisonment, for which God rewarded them and saved the children from the flood in a large gourd. The theme of incest, unacceptable to many people, made this story multivariate. This suggests that flood myths in many cultures may have changed and transformed.
Examples discussed in the essay in only a tiny part of a huge heritage of global flood stories. Nevertheless, the myths of Aztecs and Chinese underscored crucial features. Although the key element of flood exists in every story, details are radically different. The differences in the plot depend on the characteristics of the cultures. For example, there is a pattern that flood myths appear in flood-prone regions. Finally, flood stories can transform through time and have different endings.
References
Dolansky, S. (2019). Gilgamesh and the Bible. Bible Odyssey.
Shah, K. (2021). The flood story: A cross-cultural conundrum. Curiosity Shots. Web.