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Skeptic's Tim Callahan Oversimplifies Chinese Flood Myths

10/17/2012

14 Comments

 
In today’s eSkeptic, Skeptic magazine religion editor Tim Callahan offers a useful summary of how and why claims of a “universal” myth of a world-destroying flood are wrong. However, in doing so, Callahan makes several mistakes and oversimplifications that are worth pointing out. As I noted when I criticized skeptic Ben Radford, accuracy counts. It’s also worth pointing out that Callahan’s book, The Secret Origins of the Bible, relied heavily on outdated theories, especially the long-exploded concept of the Solar Hero, in attempting to analyze the origins of Biblical stories.

Let’s dismiss the nitpicking first: In his opening paragraph, Callahan claims that the program Ancient Aliens airs on the History Channel and that it features commentary from “Zecharia Sitchen.” As most readers probably are aware, Ancient Aliens currently airs on H2, History’s sister station, where it moved after three seasons on History proper. Zecharia Sitchin (the surname spelled with two i’s) died in 2010 and is not a featured commentator on the show, which premiered in April 2010, only a few months before Sitchin’s death.

More importantly, though, Callahan oversimplifies the prevalence of flood myths. Let me state up front that I do not believe that the evidence supports the assertion that all such flood myths ultimately derive from a single, exceedingly ancient source. Ancient people were more than capable of imagining their own floods, just as they imagined stories of the sun and the stars. Additionally, as Callahan rightly notes, many cultures have no flood myth whatsoever, at least none that has any traits recognizably in common with the Biblical flood. However, it does no one any good to pretend that such stories don’t exist in some places.

Callahan cites Chinese mythology as providing evidence that such flood myths are not universal.

Picture
Does this large country with an unbroken history going back to ancient times have a flood myth, replete with a boat on which a few survivors escape, from thence to reestablish the human race? It does, however that particular flood myth comes from an ethnic minority called the Miao. They speak a language similar to Thai and appear to have immigrated to China from Southeast Asia. The only other flood myth from China involves annual flooding from rivers and the need for people to work together to prevent such destruction. It involves no ark and no destruction of all life on the planet.

Let’s begin with the Miao flood myth, which should not be simply dismissed because the Miao “immigrated” to China; the country has more than fifty ethnic groups and the Miao are, according to archaeology, among the oldest peoples of China, possibly dating back to 4000 BCE. This story tells how the god of thunder sent a flood to destroy the earth, and only a single sibling pair who used a bottle gourd as a boat. They moved around some stones, had a misshapen child, cut him up, and planted the pieces to repopulate the earth. The story has many similarities to the Greek tale of Deucalion and Pyrrah, though I could not say how that came to pass. It is probable, though, that they borrowed the story from the Han.

Far from Callahan’s assertion of but two flood myths, the Handbook of Chinese Mythology records 400 flood myths, which can be divided into four primary subtypes according to Chinese scholars who study the country’s myths. The second subtype is the one given above, in which the sibling pair escapes in a gourd from the wrath of the Thunder God, who kills all other humans. The first subtype, quite similarly, has a sibling pair escape in a stone vessel and repopulate the earth after all other people are destroyed through a world flood of unspecified cause because a goddess gives them a warning. According to Chinese scholars, this flood myth originated with the Han, the ethnic group comprising the majority of modern Chinese people. The third and fourth types, less relevant to our discussion, mix elements of the first two types with a story of the sole survivor obtaining a heavenly maiden to repopulate the earth.

According to Chen Jianxian, a scholar of Chinese myths, all four subtypes diverged from a common ancestor and were adapted to meet the cultural and social needs of the communities and ethnic groups telling them.

Now, I am no scholar of Chinese mythology, so I can’t really speak to the deep origins of these 400 flood myths. Given that there is no geological evidence of a global flood, that leaves a few possibilities I can think of:

  • The Chinese myths are indigenous developments, since there are only so many ways of telling a story about destroying and repopulating the earth.
  • The Chinese myths were influenced by Christian or Muslim contact and the Biblical flood story.
  • The Chinese myths were influenced by contact with India (perhaps with the arrival of Buddhism) and the Sanskrit flood myth.
  • The Chinese myths share a common ancestor with one or more Near East flood myths.

As I said, I don’t know the answer. But I do know this: Pretending these stories don’t exist to score points against creationists and ancient astronaut theorists does no one any good and actually works to reduce the chances that we’ll find answers to these questions and thus gain new knowledge.

14 Comments
Tim Callahan link
10/18/2012 08:57:16 am

First, let's start with the nitpicking criticisms.

The HIstory Channel and H2 are pretty much interchangeable, and I have come across "Ancient Aliens" on both of them. Zecharia Sitchin (sorry about misspelling his surname; how many mea culpas do you require for that?) was featured on the program. Dead or alive, he remains one the big guns of those asserting that alien astronauts visited our planet eons ago, used genetic manipulation to speed up our evolution, and created our first civilizations.

I will have to look up the Handbook of Chinese Mythology. What I have read of Chinese mythology so far has shown few flood myths besides that of the Miao and the myth of seasonal floods from rivers. Regardless of how early the Miao arrived in China, they still seem to have come from southeast Asia, one of those areas rich in flood myths.

As to the myth from the Han dynasty, since that dynasty began in 208 BCE, this would seem to be a late import. I suspect, in advance of reading the Handbook, that many if not most of the other flood myths in China will likely be imports or show the marks of cultural contamination via Christian and Muslim attempts to convert the locals.

One problem when looking for myths parallel to those in the Bible - whether one is asserting they were external sources of biblical myths or whether one is asserting the truth of the biblical myth and seeing the others as copies - is that of cultural contamination. For example, Chris White asserts there is a Celtic flood myth, similar to the biblical myth. In my readings of Celtic mythology I have yet to come across even a Celtic creation myth, much less a flood myth. However, these myths were recorded in writing by Christian monks, and the marks of Christian interpretation are to be found in them.

Thank you for bringing the Handbook of Chinese Mythology to my attention. I will look into it and investigate in particular the 400 flood myths.

As to your criticism of Secret Origins of the Bible and the "exploded" myth of the solar hero, I used the solar hero to explain the myth of Samson (Heb. Shimshon = sunlight). I still stand by the pagan / solar origins of the Samson myth. The only other solar association I recall using in my book had to do with the cross as a solar symbol. Universally, in ancient myths around the world, the cross is indeed a solar symbol. To the degree to which Jesus was in any way historical - and the evidence for his historicity is thin - what he was crucified on probably resembled a "T". Early Christianity indulged in a great deal of syncretism, incorporating the mother and child imagery of Isis and the infant Horus as that of the Madonna and child, for example. Christianity also appropriated its rivals' mythic motifs as a way of displacing them. Thus, the birthday of Jesus was, eventually, fixed at December 25, which was at the time the date of the winter solstice. It was also the birthday of the god Sol Invictus (L. "unconquered sun"). Thus, inclusion of the solar cross symbol was a natural move. I don't know that this is in any way an "exploded" theory.

Reply
Tim Callahan link
10/18/2012 09:59:40 am

I just looked at the Handbook of Chinese Mythology online. I see that it was published in 2005, which is probably why I hadn't seen before. There are two entries on flood myths in the Handbook, one pp. 74, 75 and on pp. 114 -117, the latter entry being an appendix.

The Handbook mentions two prominent flood myths on pp. 74, 75. One of these involves a flood imperiling humanity for generations that is eventually controlled. No ark is involved, and the flood obviously is not the sort of inundation found in the biblical flood myth. The second involves floods (plural) as a part of general cosmic disaster caused by a hole in the sky. The goddess Nuwa repairs the hole, ending the disaster: again, no worldwide flood and no ark.

In the appendix, pp. 114 -117, the Handbook does mention three types of flood myth in China, the first being of the type of those mentioned on pp. 74, 75, which depicts either the people fighting floods over generations or a valiant deity fighting floods by repairing the cosmos.

The second type involves a brother and sister or father and daughter in a boat, hollow gourd or some other vessel repopulating the earth after a universal flood. Unfortunately the book doesn't go into detail as to the ethnicity of those telling these myths.

The third type of myth involves a local flood and a sinking city. Hence, this is not the tale of a universal flood with salvation via an ark.

The handbook further states that all of these flood myths are recorded in documents from the Zhou dynasty, which began in 1046 BCE. While this is of respectable age, in terms of ancient myths, it's centuries later than the Akkadian flood myth of Atrahasis, known from tablets dated to ca. 1700 BCE. While the record of these myths in the Zhou dynasty doesn't preclude their being extant in China well before this, we cannot say at present that the flood myths in China involving anything like an ark were of native origin.

I do note that, outside of the appendix, the flood myths featured in the Handbook on pp. 74, 75 were not on a universal flood and did not involve an ark.

I will have to concede that I oversimplified the Chinese material. However, I still contend that the major flood myth stories of China have little or nothing to do with a universal flood in which a few people are saved in an ark.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
10/18/2012 10:07:01 am

The section on the 400 flood myths is on pp. 21-24 of the book, summarizing the work of Chen Jianxian. I have to differ about the myth. As given by Chen, the story of a sibling pair who alone in all the world are saved from a universal flood when a deity tells them to remain safe in a vessel (stone or gourd, by variant) and then repopulate the earth is pretty much identical in theme and content to the Near East flood myth. As I said, I don't know how this story came about, but it does appear to exist.

Jason Colavito link
10/18/2012 10:42:44 am

In researching Chen a bit more, I find that the most recent work finds 568 flood myths, attributable to increases in anthropological knowledge. There are 56 ethnic groups in China, and the flood myths are distributed throughout. According to Archie Chi Chung Lee, the Han version (the ethnicity, not the dynasty) is the Yu flood story, which was heavily euhemerized from a universal flood story to a specific riverine flood by Confucians. (This is, of course, speculative.) Lee's overview of the Flood myths and their relationship to China's understanding of the Biblical story can be found here: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/religious_studies/SBL2008/Lee.doc

Jason Colavito link
10/18/2012 10:02:19 am

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your comments. The nitpicking is just that; I didn't mean it as a serious criticism of your work. Everyone makes these kinds of little goof-ups, including (yes!) me.

While History and H2 might be interchangeable, they are different channels with different target audiences; "Ancient Aliens" spent three years on History before moving to H2 for season four, and now five, though they do sometimes cross-air the show on History proper. Sitchin is name-checked on Ancient Aliens: The Series (2010-present), but I can't find any evidence that he was interviewed on the show before his death. (It's possible he was in the 2009 special that served as a de facto pilot, but I don't see that this was the case.)

As for Samson, while I appreciate your point on his solar characteristics, this is a Victorian theory that is not universally supported. As early as 1877 Steinthal ("Legends of Samson") refuted the attempt to see extensive solar mythology in the Samson story, and Gregory Mobley, in "Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East" (2006), my source for understanding the Samson myth, makes the case that the solar theory is overblown. As with so much about mythology, authorities differ, though the broader solar hero theory of Max Muller, on which the Samson identification is based, was long ago discredited as a general explanation of mythology.

Reply
Tim Callahan link
10/18/2012 10:54:23 am

We'll have to agree to disagree about the Samson myth. However, Samson is clearly a mythic hero of a far different sort from the more legendary heroes of the rest of the Book of Judges, none of which share either his divinely ordained birth, nor his sexual appetites. Also, Samson's feat of killing a lion with his bare hands strongly parallels the myth of Heracles and the imagery Gilgamesh and Baal Melkarth.

I missed the material on pp. 21 - 24, since the table of contents listed flood myths as being on p. 74. I'll look into the material on pp. 21 - 24 and get back to you.

BTW: On a more friendly note, I recall reviewing your book for Skeptic tracing the ancient aliens mythos back to the stories of H.P. Lovecraft (sorry, I forgot the book's title). I'd like to see that material brought to public attention, along with Chris White's expose of the "Ancient Aliens" series.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
10/18/2012 11:01:10 am

I certainly don't doubt the Samson myth is a myth, or that it is related to other hero stories. I'm just not the biggest fan of the Max Muller-style Solar Hero idea, which to my mind was well-refuted in the twentieth century.

Yes, you did review my "Cult of Alien Gods" and gave it a nice review. I agree that it would be great if more people were aware of the interplay between science fiction and pseudoscience. More often than not, the crazy ideas start out as fiction. (To be fair though: my claim was limited to the fact that von Daniken borrowed from Pauwels and Bergier, who were influenced by Lovecraft; Lovecraft didn't originate alien gods all by himself, merely made them widely-known and popular.)

And by the way: I did enjoy "Secret Origins of the Bible" very much, and though I disagreed on some points, I thought overall you did a great job exposing the mythic origins of Bible tales. I learned quite a bit!

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Tim Callahan link
10/18/2012 11:17:59 am

I looked and pp. 21 24, and I must say that I did underestimate the complexity of the Chinese flood myth issue. I do note from the Lee article that what seems to be the dominant flood myth of China, the myth of the Emperor Yu, involves him carving channels to drain the flood waters into the sea - again, no ark.

I'll have to look up the Han people to see if their myth involves diffusion from some other.

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Jason Colavito link
10/18/2012 11:26:40 am

The Han are the dominant ethnic group of China; their flood myth is primarily that of Yu, which Lee says was euhemerized from a broader flood story. That they also have the "two people and a vessel" flood story may be due to borrowing from the southeast Asian flood story diffused with the 56 minority ethnicities of China, but this isn't certain and more work needs to be done.

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Tim Callahan link
10/18/2012 12:01:00 pm

Okay, so the dominant flood myth of China was that of Yu or Yao cutting canals to lead the flood waters to the sea: no ark, flood not universal.

I suspect you're right about their borrowing a southeast Asian myth of two people in a vessel.

I'd like to point out that, regardless of this disagreement we skeptics have with Chris White concerning the Flood, he did a thorough debunking of "Ancient Aliens."

Lu Xian link
12/14/2012 05:36:50 am

You both may want to take a look at our article concerning the Chinese Flood "myth'. Did it ever occur to you how close
the name Nüwa is to Noah, Nu-ah (Miao), Nu-u (Hawaii), Noe, Noahk (Hebrew), or Nu (Turkey & Hottentots or Sudan)? That is amazingly close. And how Dravidians name the sons of Manu as CHArMa, SHarMa, and Yapeti? That is pretty close to Ham, Shem & Yapheth! (And you ought to take a look at Bill Coopers treatise about the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Irish, Welsh (Brits), Saxon genealogies, all mentioning Sceaf or Japheth and his father Noah, long before they were evangelised, and dating back long before B.C!
FuXi, his wife Nüwa, three sons, and three daughters were the only people that escaped the great flood. It is claimed, that he and his family were the only people alive on earth, and repopulated the world! His wife called Nüwa (Noah!) however ONLY became a female AFTER the famous Chinese historian Sima Zhen, who also described him as a man with the surname of Feng. Most likely Nüwa changed to a female in Chinese legends because the “Nü” radical is found twice in the name’s two characters, which means “female” or “woman“. Later Chinese didn’t know that the characters were not chosen for the meaning but for the sound. So Nüwa did survive a global deluge that wiped out all of mankind and “fixed the broken sky or heaven” (Tian!) with 7 colored stones. Then “she” and Fuxi created new humans from clay!
Concerning Yu or Yao fighting the flooding in Post Flood China, that coincides with the many local floods all over the world, when the sea levels rose 120 M. because the Flood-caused Ice Caps began to melt around 1200-1500 BC when the oceans lost their higher temp. acquired during the high volcanic activity when the earth's crust cracked and critical water exploded out of subterranean chambers eventually forming the mid-oceanic rifts, or rather cracks in the crust which eventually sent the pieces in motion to form the present day continents!
But of course all of this will never fit into a mind with the paralysed paradigm of Darwinism that hobbles mainstream hysterical science and geology. But never MIND them! The over 500 ethnic accounts from all over the world speak volumes! IF anyone has ears to hear, that is! Merry Christmas, gentlemen!

Reply
Tim Callahan link
12/15/2012 07:55:18 am

First of all, due to the proselytizing activities on the part of Muslims (mainly in Africa, but some in south Asia as well) and Christian missionaries (worldwide) variations of a number of biblical myths were adopted through religious syncretism by peoples all over the world. For example, just about every ancient culture has a myth about why humans die. The three most common forms of these myths are the failed or perverted message, death in a container and forbidden fruit. Since these myths are found among widely separated peoples who have no contact with each other, they can be seen to have arisen separately as parallels, rather than being spread by cultural diffusion or religious contamination via missionaries.

The myth of the failed message is that God sends down a messenger telling humans that, when one of them dies they are to treat the body in a certain fashion that specifically does not involve burial. After a certain number of days the dead person will come back to life. Either through malice or incompetence, the messenger garbles the message and says the God says that, when one of them dies, they are to bury the dead, who will remain dead. Strikingly similar myths of this type are found among the Yenesi Ostiaks of Siberia and the Yoruba of Nigeria, with no contact made between them.

The story of Pandora's jar (Gr. pithos) from Greek mythology is an example of death in a container. The Montagnais Indians of Quebec have a very similar story. Their god gives a man a box containing immortality. As long as he keeps it closed humans will be immortal. However, the man's wife is curious, opens the box, much like Pandora opened the jar, and immortality escapes, dooming humans to die.

The first missionaries to reach the Efe pygmies of the Iturri rainforest in the Congo, made contact with them in the 1930s. They were Jesuit priests, who were also trained anthropologists. These Jesuits were quite startled when the Efe told them their story of humans condemned to mortality because of eating a forbidden fruit. The Efe story doesn't have a serpent tempter, and, given their isolation, the story could not have been spread to them by missionaries.

There are, however many instances where native peoples have forbidden fruit stories, where there are signs of obvious missionary contact. For example, one Siberian tribe has such a story, involving a serpent tempter. Considering the cold climate of their homeland and its general scarcity of serpents, it seems likely that the this tribe adopted this story from missionary tales.

As to the similarity of the name Nu-wa to Noah and your assertion that Nu-wa, a creator deity, was originally masculine, I suspect that the similarity of names is coincidental. In ancient Chinese paintings Fu-Xi and Nu-wa are represented as serpents with human heads. Fu-Xi has a man's head, and Nu-Wa is represented as a serpent with woman's head.

As to the many ethnic flood accounts - those at least which are not the result of cultural contamination by Christian or Muslim proselytizing, there still remains the relative scarcity of flood myths in Africa. The isolated Efe, for example, do not, to my knowledge, have a flood myth. The ancient Egyptians had a myth in which the human race is actually saved by a flood.

Finally, as to your geological assertions, these are simply absurd and in no way supported by any scientific evidence. You speak of "flood caused ice caps." I have absolutely no idea where you came up with such a concept. The melting of the glaciers at the end of the last glaciation may have caused sudden, rather than gradual, rises in sea levels about 10,000 years ago. This may have given rise to some flood myths. However, there was no widespread flooding across the world ca. 1500 - 1200 BC, i.e. during or toward the end of the Late Bronze Age. As to water exploding out of the mid-oceanic rifts, the only thing that would be pouring out of them at any time - including the present - is molten magma, not water. Science is not hysterical, as you characterize it. Rather, your representation of science belongs in the pages of some tabloid newspaper, along with assertions of animal human hybrid babies being born in Nigeria and other such nonsense

Reply
Lu Xian link
12/14/2012 05:42:10 am

I forgot to edit out the "three sons & three daughters" of Fuxi and Nüwa, as there is no record of just three, as they were the ancestors of ALL living creatures they created out of clay! So could you please edit that out! Thanks a lot! Cheerio!

Reply
Loren Thacker link
7/2/2015 02:52:53 pm

Whatever the Noah's ark story is, it is not science. The term "creation science" is an oxymoron. I would love to hear a creation scientist respond to this short essay: thackerlorenc.wordpress.com

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