The Deluge: An Analysis of the Archetypal Flood Myth in Gilgamesh and the Bible

"Listen…to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true," wrote Plato (Timaeus, Jowett) before describing one of the great archetypal myths of human history: the Deluge. The Deluge is described in many texts, circumventing time and space, as if more than a mere force a nature, but rather a metaphysical phenomenon engrained in the human psyche. Almost every culture has a Deluge, a massive flood that wipes out civilization, cleaning the slate. "A large percentage of the world's cultures past and present have stories of a ‘great flood' that devastated earlier civilization." (Wikipedia, Flood Mythology). Though Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh are probably the most famous accounts of the Deluge, many cultures share similar stories: Norse mythology, Matsya in Hindu literature, and Deucalion in Greek mythology. Even the Aztecs have a flood story.

Why does the archetype of the great flood appear so often across cultures? Was there truly a global flood that eradicated the sum whole of human civilization, God's attempt to destroy evil and give humanity a rebirth, as described in Genesis? Does the repeating story have something to do with the fact that most early cities were built in the flood-zones of massive rivers? It is true, after all, that ancient cultures depended upon their home river for the survival of their entire civilization. Perhaps it seemed to them that their civilization was the entire world, and if their homeland fell then the world had indeed been destroyed. Many, though not all, cultures revered their river as a god. The Egyptians certainly worshiped the Nile, and the Amazon sustained life for hundreds of miles down its coasts. And why shouldn't their river be considered godlike? In many ways, a city's river was a god: Immortal, unending, life-giving, and uncontrollable. So perhaps the constant theme of the Deluge is based upon many different floods that occurred through out time. Or, as this paper will explore, perhaps the Deluge is something even more basic and principle to human nature.