The Great Flood — Myth, Memory, or Something In Between?

[Solvedit]

Distinct cultures were present before the Noahs Flood timeline (2348BC)
And distinct cultures were present after the Noahs Flood timeline.
There was no interruption.  No change of culture, language, or religion.
Again ... watch the archeology video .. 20 minutes ... educate yourself.

You mean right at 2348 B.C.  

Europe lost 90% of its population a few centuries before that.  

I don't know how you think you can make definitive pronouncements about no changes in culture, language, or religion of mostly pre-literate Europe and the Middle East, unless you mean fundamentalists can't definitely prove there were changes just after 2348 B.C.

[FlyersFan]

They were probably speaking Proto-Indo-Aryan and whether you like it or not, you are speaking a descendant of Proto-Indo-Aryan.  

English did not evolve from Sumerian from back in 2348BC.   Neither did Chinese and ancient Egyptian - both of which were intact before, during, and after the Noahs Flood date.   Those two were uninterrupted languages, cultures and religions.

 If Noahs Flood happened as the bible claims then everyone would be speaking the same language and would all be worshipping the same god.   We are not.   I suggest you watch the 20 minute video I presented earlier.

[Ravenwatcher]

I would be more persuaded to believe that the floods happened on and destroyed Mars and Noahs Ark was the escape pod that brought survivors to Earth.

[UltraBudgie]

Again ... watch the archeology video .. 20 minutes ... educate yourself.

G. Edward Griffin has a documentary. It's 52 minutes long. That's almost 3 times longer than your "archeology" video!

[andy06shake]

You've missed my point. I'm not saying it was a flood. I am saying the later accounts don't really remember the point of putting to sea for a long time.
There is no need to assume they remember the exact amount of elapsed time if they don't remember the point or didn't recount the point. If they were self-quarantining, they could have landed to gather supplies from time to time. Some of them probably got bitten by plague-infested fleas and died if they did that.
If later generations lost the point, especially because only a few of the original inhabitants of the area survived, then they embellished the account, like the game of telephone you cited. Only a few survived, and they were probably far apart from each other and did not get together to agree upon and write down their accounts.

They probably would have carried food and breeding pairs of animals which they wanted to raise for food when the plague subsided.
Some were probably lost in storms for sure. It is not something people would have done if they had a better choice. You're thinking it would not have been a good idea to try to spend a long time at sea in such a craft, but what if there were no other choices? And what if they could land from time to time to gather supplies and fresh water? Some of them were probably lost due to running in to plague carrying insects, animals, or people.

Perhaps the accounts do correctly remember that the people knew they would have to be at sea for a long time. Perhaps some of them were able to construct vessels which were designed to store food, water, and animals instead of ply coastal trade routes or fish.
In Moses' time, many of the details may have been forgotten.  Plus, nautical people at the time would have known how to fish.  Castaways have survived months and months at sea in recent times, and they probably had less knowledge of how to make their living from the world around them than ancient fishermen.

I mean it's a cool reinterpretation of the Noah's Ark tale, but it's historically and scientifically as implausible as the Biblical interpretation.

There is no archaeological, textual, or historical evidence that supports such an event.

And the ancient Near Eastern flood myths, including the Biblical one, are derived from Mesopotamian stories like Gilgamesh and Atrahasis.

Those tales predate Moses by centuries and clearly describe divine floods, not epidemics.

They symbolised the likes of divine judgment and renewal, not disease avoidance.

This is the Bronze Age, and the people back then lacked ships capable of sustaining even small communities for months, much less with animals aboard.

As to knowing how to fish, there were only eight people on the Ark, and two pairs of every predator. I'm apt to ponder feeding them fish is still rather an impossible task to accomplish, given the limited manpower available.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
https://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Atrahasi.htm

[FlyersFan]

Europe lost 90% of its population a few centuries before that.  

So what?
That's not 2348 bc.

The neolithic decline was in 3450 bc.
A full thousand years difference from the Noahs Flood time.
It was from bad agriculture problems, climate cooling, disease,
overfarming and social instability.  NOT from a world wide flood.
And it wasn't instant death ... it was over a period of 300 years or so.

Not evidence of Noahs Flood at all.   Not even close.

[Maxmars]

A lot of people think of the spreading of language forms as similar to a disease, or blight.

That's not how languages move and change. 
Languages are not an infection...  sometimes our metaphors trap us in misunderstanding.

All languages (in ancient history at least) are adopted... a manifestation of social cohesion...
it's a societal thing... not religious, not cultural in it's principle form. (Korean is a fascinating exception.)
 
So expecting to look at phonetically-derived developmental linkages does not actually speak to history.

It only speaks to the language forms prevalent when history occurred.  And only in the record-keeping regionally.

The two are not linked by causation....

[FlyersFan]

G. Edward Griffin has a documentary. It's 52 minutes long. ...

Okay ... I got 5 minutes into it and I'm falling asleep.
Is this about that NATURAL rock formation in Turkey?
It's been debunked a million times over.

[UltraBudgie]

Okay ... I got 5 minutes into it and I'm falling asleep.

G. Edward Griffin does have a soothing voice, doesn't he? I always appreciated that about him. Very recognizable.

One handy trick I've found with YouTube is that you can click "...more" on the video description and there is a button to show the transcript to the side when you're watching. You can then scroll through and find things that may be of interest to you, perhaps for example discussion of the anchor stones at Kazan. I like to copy the entire transcript to a text editor, then I can search for various things, like the mentions of Babylonian and Sumerian clay tablets.

[FlyersFan]

G. Edward Griffin does have a soothing voice, doesn't he? 

OMG ... I seriously was starting to doze.