ABSTRACT
Traditions of a great flood are found in the oral and written memories of many cultures, both extant and extinct, nearly all over the world. The best-known account is that found in the biblical Book of Genesis 6-9, according to which God completely reshaped the original creation by means of a worldwide waterborne catastrophe. From the survivors of Noah’s ark, both human and animal, God “replenished the earth,” and human and natural history alike began anew. The precise relationship of this host of narratives to the biblical tradition is not settled. They may all stem from some singular event in the ancient past or from a number of similar, but unconnected, events. The Genesis account of the Flood also bears an obvious relationship to other ancient Near Eastern flood narratives (such as that preserved in the Epic of Gilgamesh), but the nature of that relationship (that is, the priority of literary influence) is uncertain.
