flood 洪水神话

Compare and Contrast the Flood Myth between west and eastGuchuan Chang (Jetty)Group 8Matt HildebrandApril 1, 2015AbstractAlmost every culture have myth story about flood. However, part content of those are similar, partially are different. They are same in they all escape to high place and human reproduction after the flood. The differences are about the cause of the great flood and another one is what god played in the flood.Currently, more and more people pay much more attention to an assumption that there was a universal flood sweep the globe in ancient time.I t’s a very strange and mysteriousphenomenon that every culture had at least one flood myth. Looking at all of the flood mythsover the world, they can be divided in two large divisions: the flood myths of western culture and the flood myths of eastern cultures. Again, according to different areas, western flood mythscan be divided into many different specific stories: Babylonian, Biblical, Sumerian, Mesopotamian and on and on. Also, eastern flood myth can be divided in Indian flood myth and the flood myth in China. There are many interesting differences and similarities in the flood myth between western and the other countries. There are different in so far as the cause of the great flood and what role god play in the flood, they are the same in they all escape to high place and human’s repro duction after the flood.The reason of the great flood coming is different between western cultures and eastern cultures.In western culture, the flood coming allbecausehuman do a lot of bad things, thenflood coming because of god’s angry. The best known stories in the west is the story of the Noah’s Ark in the Bible, but it is looks like a copy of the flood stories of Mesopotamia recorded in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In these two stories, human evil leads god to want to give a punishment to humankind, then god determines to use the flood to wipe out humanity. According to Habel (1971), in his book Literary criticism of the old testament, “ In verses 5-8 the problem which god faces is the evil of man.This evil exists because of the“evil” in the “heart” of man”(p.13).In other words, in the western flood myth, flood coming is because the evil of the human, and god feel very angry that human don not have morality,their moral bottom line lower much than people in nowadays.Thus human crime is the only reason to cause the great flooding coming in western culture.In contrast, the flood in eastern myth is not because of the sin of the humanity, it is because of the natural disaster.Because the world is out of balance, the flood is needed for creating a new world from the old, so the heaviest flash flood rushed down the mountain and destroy everything. According to Koppers (1940-1941), in his article “Bhagwan, the sup reme deity of bhils: A contribution to the history of India and Indo-european religions”, “Manu […] brings about the rise of a new humanity, of new gods, in fact of an entirely new world” (p.289). In China there are a well known story about the god Nv Gua tell us that in Dong sea there are four enormous pillars support the world. One day, the support is broken by two god fight together; the world will destroyed because there are a gap in the sky. Fortunately the god Nv Gua sacrifice her life for collect the five colored stones to fix the gap in the sky to avoid the coming flood. According to Lewis in his book The flood myths of early China,“In fusing these stones, Nv gua is restoring order to sky by bringing the phases back into the harmony that would underline the reg ular movement of the celestial light”(p.111). Consequently, the reason of flood in western culture more likely to focus on human crime, however; the flood myth in eastern culture tend to depict disaster as the reason of the great flood.God plays different role between western culture and eastern culture. In western culture god is the decider, whodetermine the flood to punish human. In other words, they do “bad”things to humankind; they kill everyone except the most loyal believer of theirs. According to Habel (1971):1.S o Yahweh said to Noah, “go aboard the ark, you and all your household, for I haveseen that you are righteous before me in this generation. 2. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and one pair of the animals that are not clean,the male and his mate […]. 4. For in seven days time I will cause it to rain upon the earth40 days and 40 nights, and I will blot out everything animated which I made, from theface of the ground(p.19).Christian god Yahweh told Noah who is truthful and honest to him he plans a flood to extinct vicious people. He also said he want Noah separate himself from the punishment because Noah is a good person. So we can say the flood in western myth as act of god. The flood coming is because of god decided.On the other hand, gods in the flood myth of eastern culture play the h elper’s role. Eastern god helps people to resist natural disaster. God teach human how to saving their life in the upcoming catastrophe in different ways such as training river to control flood. According to Lewis, “These superhuman beings recognized the patterns implicit in the natural order, and from these brought forth the tools, technical procedures, virtues, and institutions that separated men from beasts”. (p.16). T he Chinese king Yu who sacrifice his whole life, including his marriage, useshis knowledge to teach people how to dredging old river aims at keeping the river course smooth and water clean; And he also useshis powerful energy to open many fresh river channels directly for away the flood; finally he use his magic power to treat the injured people from flood.In conclusion, eastern god plays a more kindly role than western god between western flood myth and eastern flood myth.Both survivors in western flood myth and eastern flood myth escape to high place. They both have some mysterious person tell them to prepare and cope with the catastrophe even they need same tool(boat) to move far away from death. A magic fish told king Manu there will be a upcoming flood that will destroy the world and he need prepare a boat to escape to a high place in Indian flood myth. Noah constructs the ark to save their life after god told them. According to Kvanvig(2011) writes in his book Primeval history: Babylonian, Biblical, and enochic: Anintertexual reading, “We start with the covenant. God makes a covenant with Noah after the flood. The content of the covenant is gods promise never again to destroy his creation in aflood ”(p.192). Before the flood come the god tells Noah to build a vessel to go to the high place to survive. And after the flood the god promise Noah he will not exterminate his creation again.The same thing happens in eastern myths; Manu use a vessel to move far from the flood. According to Koppers (1940-1941), “ Nor does the Hindu mentality seem to be troubled by the fact that seven holy Rsis embark with M anu on his rescue ship”(p.288). After a f ish told him a flood will come, Manu builds a vessel to escape to high place without an other person or animals; only he fled from the disaster. In conclusion, both flood myth between western culture and eastern culture have a mysterious role to tell survivals escape to high place and these people survived eventually.Both myth traditions have human reproduction after the flood.Both flood myth in western and eastern culture describe that, after the flood, the survivors become a new origin of humanity. In western flood myth stories after the flood, Noah’s family live s in the new world, then they multiply generation by generation; Noah and his family become the new “Adam and Eve” of humanity. According to Baggett in his article “The flood myth”,“Dundes also sees the flood motif as related to myths of male birthing and creating, as culturally linked to male-dominated societies” (para.5). Similarly, the survivalwho named Manu is the king of ancient India create a new world and new human birth after flood destroyed the old world. According to Koppers (1940-1941),“Manu becomes the (new) first parent although there is no question of wife or children”(p.288). Manu create a new clean wonderful world.New human is better than before the flood coming; they have more moral concept. The same reproduction phenomenon after thegreat flood maybe is because of in human thought destruction means rebirth. In conclusion, both flood myth in western culture and eastern culture have human reproduction plot.In conclusion, there are many similarities and differences between the flood myth of western culture and the eastern culture. Human evil lead god feel angry is the unique reason why flood coming in the myth of western culture, on the other hand; the flood in eastern myth come by natural disaster. God plays decider of the flood to punish human in western myth; however, eastern god always play the rescuer from the flood disaster. Both western and eastern myth describe one similar plot that there are someone told survivals to prepare and escape to high place before the flood coming and all survivals use vessels as tool to far away from the punishment. Both western and eastern myth describes human reproduction after flood, and human are better than before. So although there are some similar plots between western and eastern flood myth, but they are different basically. So there have not a worldwide flood in the ancient time. But according to both western and eastern myth have flood story,we can see ancient human over the world all fear the flood and all of them thought flood is mysterious magic, it can connect to god.ReferencesKvanvig, H. S.(2011). Primeval history: Babylonian, Biblicl, and enochic. Boston: Brill. Habel, N. C.(1971). The two flood stories in Genesis. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California. Dundes,A (Eds.),Literary Criticism of the old testament(p.29-42). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.Koppers, W. (1940-1941). The deluge myth of the bhils of central India. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California. Dundes,A (Eds.), Anthropos(pp.282-288). Dundes,A(Eds.). The flood myth. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California. Baggett, J.F.(1990). The flood of myth(book reviews). Journal for the scientific study of religion, 29(1), 126.Lewis, M. E. (2006). The flood myths of early China. New York: State university of New York.。