Flood myth Puns

I was having a conversation with a Christian about whether the flood myth from the epic of gilgamesh was written before or after the Noah's flood. I insisted that the Mesopotamian myth was older but since I am no expert I would like to clear things up

Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal?

December 7, 2021 • 52 min

If look into the mythology of just about any culture in the world, you will find a myth about a great flood that destroyed humanity and submerged the Earth in the distant past. Does this mean that a great flood actually happened?

I just find Aquarius' connection to this lost memory of humanity about a great flood so interesting. Aquarius' connections with stories like Deucalion, Noah's Ark, Ea and the Nile flooding (Comment if there are more flood stories i missed).

I'm most interested about Aquarius' connections to Deucalion and Noah's Ark (especially Noah's Ark, i've searched in this sub and r/astrology and didn't see a post about it).

Why are we associated with this lost memory in history? Why are there so many stories/interpretations about it? Is there another memory lost in history like this one?

I just reallyy want to know everything about it.

I need to start with an apology for beating this dead horse. If you click through my previous posts, the global flood has been a primary focus for quite a while. Mostly because my educated, retired petroleum engineer father told me he was disappointed in me and then said the flood was literal.

Between 50-80% of all life on earth is in the ocean, not on land. In fact, 99% of livable space on earth is in the ocean. Source

The amount of water needed to cover the earth would real havoc on all aquatic life.

Salinity: the changes in salinity alone would eradicate fresh water and ocean water organism.

Depth: all life that requires sunlight (reefs, sea fans, etc) would be buried by 30,000’ of water. So much water that visible light would not be able to penetrate.

Breeding patterns: many aquatic life migrate for breeding; whether this is to find a quiet cove or even to bury eggs on land.

So, God, in his infinite wisdom, had a 900 year old man construct an impossibly large ship that could only hold a minority of life on earth. Including kangaroos from Australia, of course.

But then god was like, don’t worry about the majority of life on earth, I’ll wave my magic wand and take care of them.

No, father, I am disappointed in you.

Neanderthals and denisovans split from the ancestors of sapiens an estimated 800-340kya. they therefore had rather divergent genomes, with a larger difference than comparing sapiens populations today. Because these species lasted until rather recently were have been able to sequence their genomes and compare their genetics to our. We have observed that in Eurasian populations, between 1-3% of alleles are more similar to Neanderthal genes than african alleles, strongly suggesting introgression of these alleles by interbreeding with these extinct hominids. The highest rate is reportedly in Papuans where up to 7% of alleles are denisovan (https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(19)30218-1.pdf).However, some African populations do not carry any introgressed genes, while others are thought to carry some admixture with unknown archaic hominids.

Now in the flood myth, all extant human populations are derived from a single family. If the sapiens-neandethal admixture happened BEFORE the flood, then all populations should have neandethal admixture. If the admixture happened AFTER the flood, why are there no neandethal fossils, tools after 32kya and why is there no mention in the bible or any other literature?

I've been giving a lot of thought recently to the widespread flood myths that ancient cultures had. I know there is no geological/archaeological evidence for a all-consuming flood, but was wondering if anyone knew of a balanced book that looked at everything. I know there is some evidence that there was a Black Sea Deluge several thousand years ago, and that that event likely influenced some of the flood myths.

A great number of myths seem to exist across many unrelated cultures that can't be theough naturalism: for example, the myth of humans being created from clay exists in abrahamic traditions, sumerian legends, south american and australian indigenous traditions. Similarly, a great flood or deluge where god/gods wiped out disobedient populations seems to be cross cultural. the cosmic egg understanding of the universe (splitting of the heavens and earth, seven heavens, raising the heavens as a dome) appears in many mythologies.

Why specifically do we see these narratives pop up again and again? Why do some of these myths seem to be universal? is it similar to jungian archetypes?

I mean why do so many flood myths exist throughout the world?

What would a/the Proto-Indo-European flood myth be/look like?