Heretical Hippies

Flood Myths Part 2

Creation myth research was so intriguing that we continued our studies on floods. The subject of mythology is truly fascinating. Join us as we process what we learned.

Highly recommend the podcast Crecganford.

https://www.youtube.com/@Crecganford

Other links mentioned:

arkenencounter.com

biologos.org

apologeticspress.com

Duration:: 45m
Broadcast on:: 25 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

[MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, it's Carrie Jo. Hey, it's Anna. Join us as we learn new things, challenge our assumptions, and grow as people. Welcome to the Heretical Hippies Podcast. In this season, we are going to explore the intersection of curiosity and wonder, and hopefully develop some fresh ways to see the world and ourselves. So come along for the ride, or don't. Either way, we're going to hit record. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Heretical Hippies. I'm Carrie Jo, and I'm here with my friend, Anna. Hey, Anna. Hey. Hey. Good morning. Yeah, we are continuing on the two-part series of myths, or what we call it. So what we call them? Myth. Sure. Yeah. The first one was based on creation stories or myths. And the second one is going to be based on other stories or myths found in various cultures. So it was interesting when Anna and I went about digging for what we wanted to talk about, we kind of like to just give a broad set of stuff that we want to cover. And then we just let our own intuition and curiosity lead us in whatever direction we feel called to when we're looking things up. So a lot of the content we came up with is flood-related. It's not all flood-related, but a lot of it is. Anne's going to start us off by sharing what she found. And then we'll see what kind of overlaps that we have with each other. This should be interesting. Yeah. I love how we just enjoy researching on our own and going down whatever rabbit holes we want to do, and then bringing it all together and just seeing what happens. Yeah. It's kind of like it's a lot of fun. So, OK, I found flood stories all over the place. There's flood stories everywhere. I mean, they're everywhere. And like predominantly worldwide floods, not specifically locational floods, like isolated locational floods. That could be-- Yes, that could be argued. No, absolutely. But the story is told from a worldwide perspective, right? But there's always the idea that this is just their world. They think this is their world, you know? And so it's actually a location. But there's also-- I'm sure you'll get into this too. And I'm just like, there was a flood era on the earth, you know? So we'll get into that later. But I have stories from Mesopotamian, which is Sumeria, Babylon, that area. Greek, Hindu, Chinese, Native American, Mayan, Incan. So they're pretty much all very similar. There's the Mesopotamian, had a god name, and Babylon called Atra Cossus is similar to the Gilgamesh. If you're not familiar already, the Epic of Gilgamesh is a story that was written pre-Bible that was basically the same story, just slightly different. Yeah, very few details differ in that one. It's interesting. Exactly. It is very interesting. It's probably the most popular flood narrative that is out there. Like, you can actually find books on Amazon of the Epic of Gilgamesh. But this one is very similar as well. Babylon had its own version of that with a god name in Leole that sends a flood to destroy humanity. And there's this common themes all throughout all of these narratives that there's divine warning from a god. There's a hero chosen to survive, and there's the destruction of humanity. It was the reason for the flood. And then there's a subsequent repopulation as it was afterwards. And pretty much every one of these stories. My favorite one was the Sumerian one. And I don't know how to pronounce this. So forgive me if I'm pronouncing it wrong. But you get a gold bear for trying, just do it. Is this Yudra, I think, is how you pronounce it. So, is this Yudra was a Sumerian story about-- he was the Noah character in this story. And the god Enki, E-N-K-I, warns him of an impending flood. Now, the flood was being sent by the gods, like the pantheon of gods in this narrative. And Enki felt sorry for this Yudra. And Yudra was a king that he wanted to spare. And he provides instructions to him on how to build a boat to save himself, his family, and a host of animals. And the gods saw Enki's actions as a defiance, because they wanted to destroy humanity and start all over. And it's the same thing. Biblical narrative is like, OK, this is not going the way we wanted it to. The men is corrupt, basically. Let's wipe them off the face of the earth, right? Same exact narrative. And the Sumerian one I just mentioned is roughly 2100 to 2,900 BCE is the time frame they think it would have emerged. Yeah. There's also the little caveat on the dates. Anna and I are going to be saying a lot of dates. And we found these things from different sources. And the dates are, hopefully, obviously approximate. So if you hear us say 1 date, like 2,100 BCE versus 2,150 BCE, about the same topic, it's just because the sources have gathered, they're dating from other different sources. And it's always approximate when we're looking at historicity. So just be aware of that, listeners. We're not trying to pull the wool over your eyes. We're just sharing the information we found, which will vary from source to source. We are Google searching experts. Yeah, exactly. Well, I've caught myself not an expert, but we have fun doing it, so we're just trying to do a little labor for you. If, as a listener, you're interested in any of this stuff, you can carry on with the research. Right. Yeah, no, this is all just Google searches, you know? Yeah. And mainly just to broaden our perspective on what information is available and blend that with the narratives we already know, and then just broaden our perspective on how this has all gone down, you know? And that's what we're doing here as we present it. So there was a Greek version of the Flood. It was called Dukalion's Flood. Zeus sends a flood to punish humanity and Dukalion, the son of Prometheus, survives with his wife. There's a Hindu version that the god Vishnu takes form of a fish to warn the hero of a manu of an impending flood. There's a Chinese version. There's a Native American one, the great spirit sends a flood to punish humanity, and a wise old man survives with his family. There's a Mayan version one, and this is the one that I really-- I love the Mayan stories are so interesting to me, but there were gods. Mayan gods, Tipu, Gukamats, and Quetzalcoatl create humans and later send a flood to destroy them. And there's an ink inversion as well. These are areas all over the world, and various timelines, all, of course, in at least 200 to 2,900 BCE is a lot of the timeline that I found. Yeah, that's the gist of what I got out of the flood stuff. I'd love to hear what you research, Curie Jo. Yeah, so in my quest of myths, I was really intrigued by the flood myth in particular, so that's where I focused my efforts. Yeah, so you were talking about the epic of Gilgamesh, and I found some interesting Christian thought on that myth in particular, so they said that the Gilgamesh boat was cube-shaped, which would be deadly for its occupants in rough seas. I don't know that it was cube-shaped. I didn't read the story in the epic of Gilgamesh. I did not look for an English translation and read about it, but this is what is claimed on a Christian website. What were you going to ask, Anna? Did it say any reason why it was cubed? No, this website just states that the boat was cube-shaped. Well, I'll just read it. It's just like a few sentences. Under the title, clearly fiction. Gilgamesh boat is cube-shaped, which would be deadly for its occupants in rough seas. Only seven days were given for building it as well as to gather all the animals. Also, only seven days of rainfall covered the earth, and fickle gods destroy mankind but later give immortality to another. So this is their excuse for dismissing this story, which is hilarious to me on so many levels. I'll get into some of that a little bit later. But OK, so this is something else I found that was fascinating to me. So there was an archaeologist who was doing a study. His name was Bruce Mass, M-A-S-S-E. I think that's how you'd say it. He studied 175 flood narratives, which made me wonder how many are there. If he only studied 175, how many are there actually? And all I could come up with is there are over 200 flood myths that we're aware of throughout the world in history. Yeah, which that's incredible on its own. He really dug into 14 of these flood myths, because these 14 in particular, they refer to a full solar eclipse, which I had never heard that related to the flood myth. And this is pinpointed that there was a full solar eclipse because of what we know about the cycles and how it works. On May 10, 2807 BCE. So a long, long time ago. However, that fits within the time frame of some of these actual recorded flood myths that we have. Now, remember, these stories weren't always written. They became written as the oral traditions were passed down. And then eventually, humans were writing things down. So the hypothesis is that with this solar eclipse-- so scientists have looked at this, and they've thought, OK. They either think it was a meteor or a comet that crashed into the Indian Ocean around 3,000 to 2,800 BCE. And it created what we know today as 18 mile long underwater crater. And then that caused a huge tsunami that flooded coastal lands. The floods, like actual floods, like actual physical, real, historical, geographical floods, they followed what was known or is known as the last glacial period. And that lasted-- this is insane. The number of years that this lasted. The last glacial period was from 115,000 BCE, all the way up to 11,700 BCE. And that may sound weird going from 115,000 to 11,700. But remember, the BCE numbers count backwards to 0. And then they go forward to present day, counting of years. And so these floods are speculated to-- which makes sense. It means the speculation. But speculated to have inspired the flood myths that have survived to this day. So again, the oral history, oral tradition, passing those down based on actual events. And again, Anna and I also had already talked about a worldwide flood. And I am air quoting that. You can't see me. But it's only because their world was only so big. And it flooded their entire world, air quotes. So we have to keep that in mind that back when these stories were created, developed, passed on, they only knew a small, tiny little piece of earth. And they're assuming that that's all that existed. Because they hadn't explored any farther. So we have to keep those things in mind as we learn about these ancient myths. Because we like to apply everything to our current context, modern day, relate it to our own experiences, which is normal. But we can't dismiss the fact that these were all developed over a time period that they didn't know the earth was a globe, an orb, a sphere. They didn't understand how weather patterns worked. They would have seen a catastrophic flooding as something from deities wondering, what the hell did I do to deserve this? I mean, we all think those things, from various things, happened to us. So I think it's interesting when we put it in context like that. Any questions about that? Yeah, I wanted to-- So I thought I had heard at one point is just that there was an ice age, which would have required majority of the earth to be covered in water, basically. So I kind of thought like, what if that experience was embedded into the psyche of humanity? If I don't even know, we're humans alive at that time, I'm not even sure. You're getting some real good scientific research here on the heretical hippies. But the other thing is that I didn't realize that it was such a debate among scientists about whether or not the whole entire earth had actually been covered in it water ever, right? Yeah. And so there could have been very large floods covering continents even, but not the entire world. And that would have been devastating for the people that live there. There's supposedly research continuing to be done on this. And basically, they're trying to predict the past of what happened based on evidence we have today. And it's very apparently a lot more complicated than my pay grade. 100%. But yeah, if any of this isn't intriguing to you, I really encourage you to just do a search. You'll find lots of Wikipedia stuff. You'll find other articles written by PhDs. It's fascinating. The scientific aspect of it is very interesting. Actually, you're talking about, Anna, whether or not the whole earth was covered in water. And I did. I wish I had it left it up on my phone. But I did come across a chart or something that talked about, chronologically, the level of water on the earth. I'm not even going to guess on the years. But hundreds of thousands of years ago, they suspect that the whole earth was covered in water/ice, some form of water. And that's what accounts for starfish fossils on the top of mountains. But of course, I hear that. And I think, from my Christian days, oh, I immediately would have said to that, well, yeah, obviously, starfish were up there because the waters covered the earth when the flood came, right? The biblical narrative of the flood, I would have been basing everything off of scripture. So that's how I would have come at that information. But scientists have discovered through the layers of fossils that exist on various elevations of the earth that they think the water just gradually receded. And then land appears, and those land animals are found below where some starfish fossils appear. So it's interesting overlaying this information with a scientific lens versus overlaying the information with a narrow Christian worldview. And I don't say that with judgment. I'm just stating that that was my experience. I feel like the possibilities are opened up to so much more information that I won't dismiss now, now that I'm not viewing it through such a narrow lens. And that's been really fun for me. In this digging that I've done. - Oh, yeah, by the way, I just looked it up. Yes, humans existed during the Ice Age. There you go. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, so they, and that I think is - Or multiple ice ages is what there is. - Correct, and like I was stating the last glacial period, that would have been the last Ice Age, if you will. I mean, that was in 115,000 BC. So, and again, scientists even, not just archeologists or anthropologists, scientists speculate that these flood myths survived from back then to now, which that's so cool to me. So, I found some evidence for, or should I say evidence against the Bible flood story, being the OG, the one that all of their flood stories stem from, and one of which is the Epic of Gilgamesh. I'm telling you, this Epic is pretty epic. It's aptly named. It is significantly older than the book of Genesis. Like when it was written, it's the oldest remaining physical copy we have of the flood story. This is the Epic I'm referring to. So, archeologists are pointing to that as evidence that the cuneiform tablets on which it was preserved, predating the biblical account, they say that this points to, yes, there are similarities in the plot structure and key details between the biblical story and the Epic, or other ancient flood myths, not just the Epic, but they're suggesting that it's a shared origin. There's a shared origin for these stories rather than each of these flood stories independently being created. So again, that would point back to the floods experienced way back after the last glacial period, perhaps being the origin of these flood stories passed down for millennia. So that was fascinating to me. And if you just want a straight up chronological order of preserved flood accounts, I mean, physical written accounts, the Sumerian one Anna that you mentioned, you gave a day of about 2000 BCE, I found it was 2150 BCE. I mean, again, that's almost exactly the same given historical time frame. - Actually, mine said 2900. - Oh, 2900, okay, so yours was just, okay, your source said quite older than mine. Well, no matter, it was still the first one, the Sumerian one. - Yeah, probably the first one we have evidence of, I guess? - Correct, there's also oral stories that were passed down that we don't know the origin time frame. - Right, and yeah, those will remain a mystery 'cause we will probably never find a physical copy of it given the timeframe and the literacy of people or illiteracy. The Epic of Gilgamesh is around 2000 to 1800 BCE, somewhere around there, that's the Babylonian one. And the Genesis account is dated at 1300 BCE. So that's the chronological order of those main ones that we've kind of covered. And then Anna, you also mentioned the story from India of Manu in Matsuyu. I believe that's how you'd say it, that warned Manu, the human. That one was from, I found it was between 250 and 500 AD or CE, which would be the current dating system. So that's way more recent. And that's, yeah, so anyway. - Yeah, that was the most recent, I saw that too, the most recent one. - Yeah, there was a Chinese one, did you get that one? - I did not, though, that's the extent of the specific flood stories that I looked at. And then the rest of my information is basically related to how apologists would defend the Genesis account. - For our audience, and given my history, I'm immediately always thinking, how would a Christian debunk this? You know, like new things that I'm learning. How would I have debunked this or tried to? Because that was how my brain was kind of, what do I say, conditioned, brainwashed, into operating as always being apologists. Always have a defense for scripture, right? I mean, putting it on your experience, your mileage may vary, most people who are discipled, in some way or another, you are taught to always have an answer to give a reason for your faith, right? That's scripture. - Yeah, right. - So, yeah, it was also very interesting, the things I found from the apologists' point of view. But do you have anything you want to add? - No, start, I want to hear about what you learned. - Okay, so the first population of Google search thing that I found for apologists' point of view was actually from the website, the Arc Encounter, which I will cheekily report that there's a paywall. So, they're monetizing this shit, which is, it's not surprising, but it just makes me sick. So, the Arc Encounter, I actually shared from earlier, when I was saying that the cube-shaped boat, you know, would have sunk. But they actually, you know, their whole thing is to get you to come see the Arc in Kentucky. We have to keep that in mind. This literally is a sales pitch, this website. But it also is very indicative of how Christians try to shore up the cognitive dissonance that exists with what we know about historical flood accounts and, you know, the records we have of them versus what Christians claim to be the capital T truth about the flood. It's interesting because they actually do talk about the Epic of Gilgamesh. It says, when did the flood miss begin? And then it says, the oldest known recording of a global flood is the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh from the 18th century BC. Remember that being dated older than Moses' writings only confirms that this tablet was written earlier, not that its contents are original or correct. Okay, so there's a classic example of dismissing what we know scientifically, geographically, historically, all those things. But they can't get around the Epic of Gilgamesh. They cannot get around that. And what it is dated to because of all the other facts that line up and support that. So, you know, it's smart, you gotta cover your tracks. So there's one thing on the website. Another question they try to answer is, why are these myths similar? And it says, Noah's descendants stayed together until God confused their languages at Babel and they scattered. As the various people group spread around the globe, the story of the flood was shared until it became distorted and embedded in their respective histories. Okay, so a little bit of slamming, right? Like assuming that people are trying to distort the truth and they say the style of the Epic is of a poem. And most of it has nothing to do with a flood containing couplets and phrases that seem to point to recited fiction. That's what they state about the Epic and its account. And then they talk about other notable flood myths, which it says, although many other myths aren't as close, quoted, a match and were recorded later, they can point to a universal truth. There was a worldwide flood in the ancient past. I don't disagree with that. Like we have evidence for that, right? Clearly truth and accuracy were not of great concern in these distortions of Noah's flood. However, as some aspects of these myths are quite absurd. Which a Christian website calling aspects of other people's flood myths absurd is so interesting to me. Like saying, oh, this is absurd because it was cube shaped and God only let it rain for seven days. Like are you kidding me? There's no way that could cover the earth. Like that's absurd to them. I don't know, it's just so funny. So the Hawaiian, here's knocking on the Hawaiian myth. A man named Nu-U made a great canoe with a house on it and filled it with animals. In this story, the waters came up over all the earth and killed all the people. Only Nu-U and his family were saved. Oh, and then I will tell you this. There's a link below it that says, "How did Noah fit all the animals on the ark?" Which I thought, that's a fair question, right? Like that's a really fair question for anybody to ask. So I clicked it and there's the paywall and it tells you to come to the ark and country. Okay. So every one of these links is like the sales pitch, I guess. And then they talk about one from China, one from Greece. And there's not a lot of disrespect going on there. They're just kind of giving the few details of it. But here's where it says, "Non-fiction." The language of Genesis six through nine is descriptive and matter of fact in stating the details about ancient cultures and it freely acknowledges the shortcomings of its heroes. Such honesty and attention to detail is highly unusual in ancient mythology but appropriate for true history. I don't know, like this whole website kind of had me like feeling sick to my stomach but also laughing. The dismissal of other stories trying so hard to defend that your story is not a myth has to be exhausting. It was exhausting reading it honestly to think, oh my gosh, it takes so much energy to try to defend this as absolute truth. And like, you know, it actually happened. But yeah, so here are some other, that was just one website. If you're interested, that's the ark encounter. It's just arkencounter.com. If you're interested, we can put it in the notes. But here's some other apologist's way of, you know, defending their point of view. The entire world was flooded. We know that, that's what they claim. Which led to the worldwide fossil varying layers, thousands of feet deep, being thousands of feet deep. And then they use science when it's convenient versus like the epics depiction of things. So they throw in science. I don't have the specific example of a camera or what they use, but they're talking about the layers of fossils. Yeah, that's right. The starfish at the top of the mountain, they use science there when it's convenient, but then they just miss it for other things, like the epics. Okay, so all of the other flood legends point to the Genesis one being real. That's kind of what I was taught, that because there are so many flood legends, clearly it happened. But Genesis is the actual factual thing. And there's floods today, right? Right, but to cover a mountaintop, you know, to go to that level, like obviously there was a lot more instances of those extreme floods years ago. Clearly, because we do not experience anything on that level today, right? Yeah. So another website I found was Genesis Apologetics, aptly named. I couldn't get anywhere because immediately it was selling books. So yeah, that was another paywall, if you will. Like in order to get to the article that I clicked on, you had to, like you couldn't, you had to buy some subscription or like a seven week thing about a book that they were selling. It was pretty trashy. Okay, I am gonna give a shout out here to one website that I found fully anticipating that it was gonna suck, 'cause it was Christian based. And it's called BioLogos, B-I-O-L-O-G-O-S. But apart from them having a pop up right at the beginning, trying to sell a subscription to their content, I will say their take was not bad on the flood story with Noah. They were actually saying it's a story. Yes, did it actually happen? Probably not, but that's not the point of the story. You gotta get past the minutia and understand it was hyperbole. It was making a point. It was making a bigger commentary on humanity and God seeing the lens God saw humanity through. So I gotta give a shout out to BioLogos. It is Christian based, so if you're still a believer and you hold dearly to the scriptures, that's amazing. Check out the BioLogos. I was really impressed with their flexibility with scripture, but also with how seriously they took it. So I thought that was really cool. Amidst all this other bullshit that I was finding, it was like a little sparkling star. Another website was the Apologetics Press. And they were talking heavily about scripture. I mean, they had, oh, I don't know, I stopped counting. It was probably between 30 and 50 scriptures referenced. I mean, it's just what after another. They were just using every scripture to defend what they're saying. So it's like plugging a plug back into its own outlet, like using the bot, you know, it's like one of those things. But yeah, it used the scripture ad nauseum to prove, if you will, that the flood story was absolute truth. And they talked about creation scientists, which I had never heard of. And I'm thinking, okay, like I knew there were creationists and evolutionists, like I knew that line was drawn in the sand, but then how can you possibly be a creation scientist? Because to be a creationist, you have to dismiss a lot of science. So I thought that was a very interesting, like oxymoron, which made me want to do a little rabbit trail, which I might later, but again. - In regards to that, can I comment on that? - Yes, of course. So there are some creationists that believe in older. - Interesting. - Yeah. So it's actually one of the first things I learned about as a Christian that kind of really got me thinking about, there's got to be more perspectives out there than, you know, there's got to be more perspectives about scripture and how it's application and understanding. So yeah, there are creationists out there that are scientists, and yet there's the gap theory is what they call it, between, there's this place between, I think, verse one and two or two and three in Genesis that they believe that millions of years span. - Okay. - Yeah. And that when in the Hebrew, it's clearly the word that's used for a day, you know, like the next day, you know, each day, or I guess in Hebrew, the way I was taught it was that that specific word does mean 24 hours, but it also means like a hundred years or a very long time. - Okay. - So something along those lines, forgive me if I'm not getting that exact right, but it's like, it can be taken, kind of like you were saying, like remember back in the day? - Right, right. - Similar type connotation. And so taking those two things into account, the gap theory and then the translation of the word day, there are Christians, believers in scripture that think that account of the flood narrative or even the creation story is all applicable to science and from those perspectives. - Mm-hmm. - No, that's fascinating. Yeah, like I said, that one, Biola logos, I thought was interesting in how they approached the flood story, like very open-minded, but still rooted in scripture being meaningful. But then kind of on the other end of the spectrum, this apologetics press with that, I was stating, you know, talks about creation scientists. At the end of that article, I just share this because it's just so reflective of what the rest of the article was doing or aiming for. It says, as usual, there is no reason ever to doubt the Bible. If the Bible says a global flood happened, then you can trust that it did. So that's gaslighting right there. I just wanna point that out to our listeners. I've heard those things throughout my Christian experience so many times. It just shuts down any critical thinking. That is gaslighting. It's not okay. - It's dismissive, it's very dismissive, yeah. And then it goes on to say, as scientific evidence is gathered, it will support what the Bible says every time. Psalm 111 verse two, "The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them." So just be aware, if you start looking up your own things, be aware of articles that start talking in absolutes, that start defending the Bible to a point where it leaves no wiggle room for thinking outside of the box. I'll just encourage you in your own digging and your own considering of any topic that you learned about in Christianity to just realize that you're not gonna spontaneously combust if you start thinking outside what you've been taught. Christianity is so good. In my experience, I always caveat that, okay, I always know that, that's what I'm saying, in my experience. It shut down any kind of trying to figure things out. Like when things didn't make sense, when I first became a believer, I would ask these questions, well, how do people believe that the earth is 6,000 years old if we have fossils that are millions of years old? And I was given some line of, well, carbon dating can't be trusted, it's so new, and that was 20 something years ago. So I was just always given some answer to shut it down. So if that starts happening to you, just first become aware of it. Oh, they're shutting down my critical thinking. And then secondly, if you decide to wander outside of those clear drawn boundaries, you're gonna be okay. It is safe. There are other people rooting for you on the other side of those boundaries. I just wanted to encourage you in your journey to give yourself permission. If you need permission, you have it from me. You have it from Anna. If you need spoken permission to follow your curiosities, please, please do so, you owe that to yourself. Your self deserves that. So I'm stepping off my soapbox now. And that's honestly, that's what I had for the apologist trying to debunk. And again, those are just a few examples from websites that I had come across. I would bet none of these were super unfamiliar to our Christian listeners. Right. Well, and I think there's a growing, I mean, you know, I are from the 1900s, you know? We're pretty ancient. Yeah. So we have a unique experience that we bring to how we, the information that we're learning and how we present it, and a lot more Christians today are coming at it from different perspectives. Like I was mentioning, like the old Earth creationists and more progressive Christians are looking at scripture from more a loose perspective, you know? Like more like it's fairy tale. And these are stories that we can learn from and that we don't have to look at as absolute truth to still get whatever wisdom that we can actually apply to our life, you know? We're not going to be building an arc in our lifetime. We're not going to be probably, you know, repopulating the Earth in our lifetime, you know? So yeah, it's, what can we really get out of the story? I'm really curious because, you know, if you were to look at the flood story, I guess what would be a lesson that is trying to be portrayed through this story. And the first thing that comes to my mind is just you better love the gods, you know, or the god, or he's going to wipe you off of it, the face of the planet, you know? - I want to point out that none of the gods that wiped out the population were women, none of them were female deities that I'm aware of. And I find that interesting within the patriarchal context of most ancient cultures. - Sure. - Not all, for sure. There were definitely matriarchal societies and cultures that existed and do exist, but we just don't hear as much of those. - Right. - And the feminist side of me wants to point that out, because I find that to be very interesting and reflective of the culture and times that they were created in. - Yeah, if you go down that rabbit trail, like there's a narrative that Ricky told me about recently, forgive me for not having more information, but that the god that created the Earth, there's this, it's a completely different myth, not biblical, use his feces to create the Earth because he wanted to be able to give birth like a woman, so bad, but couldn't. And so, he used his feces to create the Earth. So that's a creation myth, you know, that I learned about. - That's hilarious. - After we recorded the last time, but. - Yeah, there was so many. - So we all come from a pile of shit, basically. - A pile of shit, but it was because he was so, this particular god was basically jealous that he couldn't give birth like a woman, man, and so. - It's interesting. - So what comes out of a man? Poop, right? - Yeah. - And so he's like, well, I guess I can make something out of that. (laughs) - That's so funny. - Yeah, it is. - There's so much to learn out there about, I think the human condition and the human like psyche, the human experience is so beautiful and chaotic and wild. And that's the other thing that I learned about the flood narrative, is that this primordial waters is where we all begin, right? We learned about that in the first episode. And now the flood is kind of taking us back to the beginning. It's a rebirth process. And so there also can be that narrative, can also bring that type of storyline to it. Like all things come to an end, but there's also going to be a rebirth of it, you know? Can be another thing you can get out of it. And also the waters in general, the primordial waters symbolizes the power that the gods have, that you should be afraid of them, right? You should not just worship them. You should not just love them, but you should be afraid of them because they can wipe you off the face of the planet, basically. And then also, I think maybe too, like my own personal take on this story would have, if I had heard this, I wouldn't think one possible scenario would be, I would want to combine forces with other people. Like it would force me to want to be in community more, so that we are working together, 'cause the gods are so big, they could wipe us off the face of the earth. We need each other to survive, you know? Like we need to bond together to make this work and to please the gods together. It also makes me wonder how, or it makes me think how little they thought of humanity, you know? - Right, 'cause they're always being wiped out 'cause the gods are pissed at them. - Right, yeah. - I mean, that either means that the expectations are unrealistic or people really were corrupt. - Yeah. - You know, like, I mean, when you're in a survival setting where there is no law, there is no organization, it's more chaotic. I mean, people do whatever they have to do to survive. I mean, I'd imagine it was a brutal time, you know? And so they're exposing that brutality and I don't know what the word is, but just the disgustingness. - Yeah, barbaric. Yeah, barbaric hearts of man and saying there's only very few people worth saving, you know? That's an interesting take on it as well. - It really is. I mean, it's a fun thing to stop and actually think, well, what do I think they were trying to say? What do I glean, you know, from this myth? To me, that's such, so much a richer experience than just taking it at face value that this happened, these are actual people, actual animals that were saved. Next chapter, you know? It's just so fascinating to see how my mind makes sense of it. - Yeah, yeah. - Well, and obviously you and I grew up hearing the flood story from the Bible and I don't know that it really changed my heart in any way. - Right, I think it was an example of God's vast power and his mercy to save one family. But I was never taught to think of the fact that he killed every other living thing. I was shown the merciful lens, like look how merciful he was to save this family and his spouses. - I was in the Louvre in Paris when I was 17 years old and I saw a painting there and I don't know who did it, but it was the flood story and it was horrific, horrific. It was like a mountain top with people and babies and mothers drowning off the sides of this mountain in the water and at the peak of the mountain there's like a woman with a child and she's got her arm reached out to the arch where Noah is. - Oh my gosh. - And it's like so powerful because it was from that perspective of well, let's stop looking at things from Noah's perspective and let's start looking at it from everybody else's perspective. It would have been horrific, it would have been horrible and I wonder if the flood narrative was kind of like also this way of man's way of just like looking at it, like, okay, let's look at it, glasses have full kind of way. Like let's figure out a way to spin this so that at least there's some mercy and grace in it. - Yeah. - Maybe. - It's possible. I mean, who knows what was going through their minds? Who knows what the actual event was like and who survived and what kind of stories they made up in their heads. - You're right, like we make stories up about things that happen to us all the time. Say somebody cuts you off in traffic and you're like, oh, what an asshole, like he doesn't know how to drive or whatever, well, Stephen always says to me, you don't know, they could be rushing their wife to the hospital who's in labor. He's like, he's always so nice to know how you use things and me, I'm just like, like wrath, you know, like he deserves wrath. So it is interesting 'cause we don't really know the stories that they were making up, but it's fun. It's fun to like in previous episodes, we've said wildly speculate and try to see maybe how we would have viewed it if that had happened to us. - Yeah. - It's been a fun thought experiment, a fun digging in a little deeper and it kind of piqued some more curiosities for me. So I think I'm gonna follow those rabbit trails a little bit. - Yeah, for sure, me too. It was a lot of fun. - Yeah. - Thanks for doing this with me again. - As always, it's a pleasure. - It's awesome. Okay, so I have to confess, Anna and I both are failing you people today because in the last episode, we said we were gonna try to find our closing statement and speak it in a different language. And in our attempts to do so, we either found that A, we couldn't replicate it well enough on the spot or B, what would this mean to people who were the native speakers saying this phrase in their language, probably butchering the pronunciation. And we just abandoned it. We're like, "No, that's a little too far." So we will close out our episode true to a heretical hippie fashion and say, - Peace out, motherfucker. - Motherfucker. (laughing) (upbeat music) - Hey, if you made it this far, damn, you're a rock star. Thank you so much for listening to us and let us know who you are. We wanna hear from your sweet little face. Check back in for the next episode to experience more hippie nonsense, talk more heresy and share more labs. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Creation myth research was so intriguing that we continued our studies on floods. The subject of mythology is truly fascinating. Join us as we process what we learned.

Highly recommend the podcast Crecganford.

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