Artful Dodger:

> Ha! Good question. Perhaps the flood was local. Water, especially violent flood waters, can be very destructive. I remember studying the young earth view of the flood and didn't find it particularly convincing.

There is a theory that tries to explain the origin of the flood myth. I saw it in a documentary some 20 years ago.

The theory is that the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were blocked. The Bosphorus is the straight narrow passage that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The Dardanelles connect the Sea of Marmara to the Mediterranean. These straits are located in modern day Turkey. Because the area was formed of a solid landmass, it was blocked and the waters of the Mediterranean could not enter what is our modern Sea of Marmara. This created a plain that sat below sea level. Then an earthquake happened several thousand years ago and the landmasses of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles collapsed. The waters of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea came pouring in and flooded what today is the Sea of Marmara. The inhabitants in the area perished as their settlements were engulfed by the rushing waters.

Both western and Soviet archaelogists tried to find remnants of settlements under the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. However, no solid evidence was found to support this theory. There were settlements on the shores, but they did not go back far enough in time to prove the theory.

To me it was very interesting. It would show a cataclismic flood that gave origin to the myth, but would also be on a scale that is more logical than what is portrayed in the Old Testament and in other myths outside the Abrahamic religious tradition.

In reality, I think that flood myths are merely a reflection of our fear of water and our fear of the destructive power of nature. Flood myths exist everywhere, not just in the Old Testament.

The Popol Vuh of the Maya Quiche natives of Guatemala has a flood myth too. The Gods had created men made of wood, but these men were mute. They could not speak and thank their Gods for having created them. The Gods became angry and send a great flood that destroyed most of the men of wood. Those that survived ran away into the jungle and became monkeys. This flood myth has no relationship to any of the Old World myths. It merely represents two things: floods sent by the Gods destroy things, thank your Gods or they will send a flood to destroy you. The teaching in the myth is much the same as in the Old Testament. It is meant to have a didactical effect and not to be taken as some fundamental truth of what really happened.