In our quest to find the origin of Man, thus far, we have as of late stumbled down a Creationist’s line, specifically that which would place human origins after some major flood or similar catastrophe. As this reasoning goes, regardless of what came before this deluge, all of us are descendants of the survivors of this flood. In the myths we have been studying, these survivors are said to have been very few, in fact most flood myths accept a destruction of all human beings except the ark-builders and his ken. We see this in the Sumerian myths, in the Egyptian tales, in the Bible, and we see it also in the Mesoamerican lore. An extensive summary in this regard, although not always correct or properly substantiated, can be found here.
The Mesoamerican Flood Myths
While many Mesoamerican legends are important to our search, consider the history of the Mayans, a very popular study these days, and especially relevant to us here is their “sacred book” the Popul Vuh. A story pretty similar to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian versions of a devastating flood initiated by gods can be found there, and a careful perusal of the text will reveal at least two different versions of a worldwide deluge:
1. The Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Maya, contains within its creation story a tale of the destruction of the first beings by a flood. This flood differs from others in that it is not a punishment, but rather a remedy for a faulty creation. The Feathered Serpent first created man from mud. These creatures were a failure; they couldn’t see, they dissolved when it rained, etc. So the god broke them up and tried again. “This time he made men out of wood. They were better than the mud-men. They could walk and talk; they had many children, built many houses, but they had no minds nor souls nor hearts. The Feathered Serpent – Quetzalcoatl was disappointed with what he had created, so he sent a great flood to cleanse the earth of his mistake”
2. In the beginning was only Tepeu and Gucumatz another name for Quetzalcoatl. These two sat together and thought, and whatever they thought came into being. They thought earth, and there it was. They thought mountains, and so there were. They thought trees, and sky, and animals etc, and each came into being. But none of these things could praise them, so they formed more advanced beings of clay. But these beings fell apart when they got wet, so they made beings out of wood, but they proved unsatisfactory and caused trouble on the earth. The gods sent a great flood to wipe out these beings, so that they could start over. With the help of Mountain Lion, Coyote, Parrot, and Crow they fashioned four new beings. These four beings performed well and are the ancestors of the Quich…” [source here, read the Popol Vuh yourself here, very nice .pdf file]
While these Mesoamerican stories attempt to explain a similar – if not the same – flood scenario, unlike the other myths we have already discussed there is explicit mention that the world-wide catastrophe(s) were instigated by the gods to correct mistakes of prior Creation. This consequent “gods learn as they go” approach is indicated largely everywhere, except in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, where it is under-emphasized. However you look at it, destruction myths of any kind under the watchful mind of the Creator(s) all imply, if not mistakes early on by the creative forces, then at least a series of halfway-points in the progression that is the flowering of the world, Mankind included. They lend credence to the belief that we were, and continue to be, incomplete – as a planet, as a species, and as individuals, and perhaps we will continue being “destroyed” so long as we are still becoming, still “perfecting ourselves”, as Gurdjieff would have said.
We can even imagine a perfect God – an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God – nevertheless always trying to make himself, and what he makes, better, without such advancement in anyway speaking against His perfection. Maybe change and improvement are necessary parts of perfection.
The Olmecs, about whom we are still very much in the dark, and who were, as a civilization, ancient even by Mayan standards, also had a flood myth involved with their understanding of Creation:
The first sun was ‘Jaguar,’ it lasted 676 years, and finally the people were eaten by jaguars; the second was ‘Wind,’ it lasted 364 years, and finally the people were torn up by wind and turned into monkeys; the third was “Fire-rain,” it lasted 312 years, and finally it rained fire all day and the people were turned into hens; the fourth was “Water,” it lasted 52 years, and finally water covered all the mountains and the people were turned into fish. [Lehmann, 1938: 323-27, #l400-1403]
The Aztecs also had their own flood legend, one also indicative of the conventional rendition of the story:
When the Sun Age came, there had passed 400 years. Then came 200 years, then 76. Then all mankind was lost and drowned and turned to fishes. The water and the sky drew near each other. In a single day all was lost, and Four Flower consumed all that there was of our flesh. The very mountains were swallowed up in the flood, and the waters remained, lying tranquil during fifty and two springs. But before the flood began, Titlachahuan had warned the man Nota and his wife Nena, saying, ‘Make no more pulque, but hollow a great cypress, into which you shall enter the month Tozoztli. The waters shall near the sky’. They entered, and when Titlacahuan had shut them in he said to the man, ‘Thou shalt eat but a single ear of maize, and thy wife but one also’. And when they had each eaten one ear of maize, they prepared to go forth, for the water was tranquil. [Ancient Aztec document Codex Chimalpopoca, translated by Abbé Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg]
These worldwide deluge myths show the extent to which they form an essential element of world mythology, so much so that we have to wonder whether this widely-reported flood is more true legend than religious fancy.
Analysis of the Flood Myths
I encourage everyone to read a bit more about these myths. What the evidence forces me to accept, for speculative purposes at least, is that there was indeed, a long time ago, a very catastrophic flood, and perhaps many floods and other catastrophes, which, as Immanuel Velikovsky painstakingly asserted, and much archaeological and geological evidence seems to prove, destroyed nearly completely every living thing on the Earth, Man included, and possibly many times. We cannot be good researchers, scientists, or historians if we do not accept the evidence staring us in the face, and extant literature attesting to such catastrophes comes from just about every region of the globe. We would be ignoring obvious evidence, reports at least as voluminous as any that on any subject in the annals of human history, if we did not. In short, if we do not acknowledge that there was at least one very catastrophic and world-altering flood, we would be blindfolding ourselves to the Truth.
But let us not forget the devil, and so be his advocate for a moment on the matter. First of all, the only possible explanation for such catastrophes perpetrated by otherwise omniscient gods is that human beings, like the globe and, perhaps, the universe, is merely in a state of becoming. We are not quite complete, us humans, the Earth, or the universe. We are all coming-to-be, and works in progress.
We can, furthermore, ask some meta-questions about the old presumptions. Suppose, some ten thousand years ago, an unsuspecting wandering human being came upon some object, some technology, some type of writing, bug or plant, or even giant bone that he could not account for by his own wit. Let’s say he could not determine what the object was more because of its oddity than the limit of his intelligence. He takes it to his friend/tribal chief/wife who confirm to him that the object is baffling, unknown to them also. How can they account for such an object? Where could it have come from? When did it begin?
Here we must acknowledge Man’s central place in answering for the nature of reality, the proof of humanism if ever there could be one, specifically that it is by Man’s naming that anything at all exists. When an ancient cave-dweller cleans out his fire pit and notices an insect he has never seen, in fact one nobody in his village has ever seen, and while the bug is very “real” as all could see, that bug did not come to be – that is, is did not yet have any existence – until it was given a name by Man. Yes, before it might have been known by “insect”, even “worm”, just as it could be known as “thing”, but it was not defined as a distinct creature with a certain identity – until it was named “maggot”. That we now know there are apple maggots distinct from, oh, root maggots, proves the continuing of this process to this day. Nothing can be talked about or discussed, in truth nothing exists at all until a human being gives it a name. The Bible confirms this, for instance, as God left it to Adam to name all the things of the world.
In trying to answer for these unknown objects and images, unbeknownst-to-them dinosaur bones for instance, the ancients were probably led logically to look for something like a flood myth, or some other idea of worldwide catastrophe, to account for these unknown anomalies. Stories about what can only be giant fossils being discovered by ancients and reported by men like Herodotus and Thucydides talk about even human giants, and would be controversial but nevertheless good examples of such discoveries. I have many questions about the sources of some of these skeletons below, but it is on point here:
A. Modern man which averages about 5 to 6 feet tall.
B. 15-foot human skeleton found in southeast Turkey in late 1950’s in the Euphrates valley during road construction. Many tombs containing giants were allegedly uncovered there.
C. Maximinus Thrax Caesar of Rome 235-238 A.D. was purportedly over 8 feet tall.
D. Goliath was supposed to have been 9 feet tall. I Samuel 17:4 late 11th century.
E. King Og spoken of in Deuteronomy 3:11 whose iron bedstead was approximately 14-feet by 6-feet wide. King Og was supposed to have been at least 12-feet tall.
F. 19-foot human skeleton allegedly found in 1577 A.D. under an overturned oak tree in the Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland.
G. 23-foot human skeleton said to have been found in 1456 A.D. beside a river in Valence, France.
H. 25-foot human skeleton supposedly discovered in 1613 A.D. near the castle of Chaumont in France.
I. Almost beyond comprehension or believability was the find of the remains of 2 separate 36-foot human skeletons uncovered by Carthaginians somewhere between 200-600 B.C.
[Source Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum]
One could write a good thesis upon the speculation about human history that has driven religion and science alike. Technically, there does exist the very small possibility that there may not have been any actual global flood at all, and similarly there may not have been any collaboration amongst peoples remote from one another on the subject. It may simply have been that such a deluge idea, making its way around the globe by humans retelling the same story regardless of its truth or not, served the purpose of providing a feasible solution to many of their unsolved riddles.
For our purposes here, I think we will have to say that if we all are descendants of the Flood survivors, then we all have blood in us which would seem to predate the catastrophe. Noah survived his flood, taking with him the blood of his forefathers who we are told did not. But Noah had a lineage which reached back to Adam and Eve. Thus, the original origin of Man had to come prior to the flood, not after it. It is true human beings are descended from Noah and Eve, as we and many others have said. But I think it would be a major mistake to think that somehow we are of a different kind of Adam. We may be a different Adam, a changed Adam, but Adam we began and Adam we remain.
Next chapter we will move on finally to Roman numeral III, where we will attempt to begin a universal summary of the various global traditions regarding the origin of Man. We will be looking for common denominators, and we will be spending some time checking out the dates attributed to these legends.
Truthopia 