The Flood Myth in Religion

The Following Generation: Rebirth After the Flood

"He laid aside his lightnings; better seemed a different punishment - to send the rains to fall from every region of the sky and in their deluge drown the human race" (Ovid, 8).

In the myths of creation, the gods of each culture often destroy their first race of humans by flood. And as always, it is after this destruction that the gods decide to bring the human race back. This concept of rebirth after destruction is frequently addressed in myths of every culture, such as Genesis, Deucalion and Pyrrha, and The Creation Cycle. Although the situations are oftentimes the same, the treatment is not. The reactions of the characters within the story differ from culture to culture and allow various ideals, values, and beliefs of said culture to be inferred from them.

Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament dealing with the creation of the universe and ending in the history of ancestral peoples. It is the sacred text of the Hebrew and Israelite people, which was later incorporated into the Christian Bible. Noah was chosen by God to save himself, his family and all the animals from the flood that God would use to destroy the world. He did this by creating a large ark to house everything until the waters subsided. Once the waters had finally receded enough to create dry land, Noah and his family set out to people the world with their descendants.

The story of Deucalion and Pyrrha (Ovid, pages 10 - 14) is Greek in origin and is contained, along with other myths of the Greek and Roman period, in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The first chapter deals with both the flood and the survivors. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only survivors of a divine flood, which had been endured on a raft. When their survival is discovered, they are charged with continuing the human race by solving a riddle.