1. Any overflowing of water; an inundation; a flood; a swell of water over the natural banks of a river or shore of the ocean, spreading over the adjacent land. But appropriately, the great flood or overflowing of the earth by water, in the days of Noah; according to the common chronology, Anno Mundi, 1656. Genesis 6:1 .
Word of the Day: Catachrestical
1. To overflow with water; to inundate; to drown. The waters deluged the earth and destroyed the old world.
1. A washing away; an overflowing of the land by water; an inundation; a flood; specifically, The Deluge, the great flood in the days of Noah (Gen. vii.).
2. Fig.: Anything which overwhelms, or causes great destruction.
Deluge
Encyclopedia Britannica
DELUGE, a submersion of the world, related by various nations as having taken place in a primitive age, and in which all, or nearly all, living beings are said to have perished. By this definition we exclude all partial floods, and also the theory which would account for deluge-stories as exaggerations of traditions of local inundations. Upon a low level of culture, as Von Hahn has shown, the memory of the most striking events is hardly preserved even for a few generations. It is best therefore to regard the story of the deluge as a subdivision of the primitive man’s cosmogony. The problem with which he had to deal was a complicated one,—given the eternity of matter to account for the origin of the world. The best solution which presented itself (and that only to the shrewder races) was to represent creation as having taken place repeatedly, and the world as having passed through a series of demolitions and reconstructions. (See Cosmogony). This explains the confusion between the creation and the deluge noticed by various travellers, e.g., among the Iroquois and the Santals—a confusion, however, which is only apparent, for the deluge is, when thoroughly realized, practically a second creation. Thus Manui the hero of the Indian flood-story, was, by permission of Brahma, the creator of the present human race. Noah is called by Arabic writers “the second Adam,” and Maui might with as good a right be called the Noah as the Adam of New Zealand. We, in the adult age of the world, have renounced those mythical forms of expression, but we still retain much of the feeling which prompted them. The wonder of creation is even to us constantly renewed in spring; to primitive man it was renewed in a special sense in each of the great world-cycles of mythology. We may lay it ...down, then, as a canon at the outset, that the various deluge-stories must be viewed in combination, and explained on a common principle. At the same time we must be careful not to confound different “deposits” of tradition, and must regard primarily the earliest and most original forms of myths. As in the case of the cosmogonies, a few typical specimens will be all that can here be described.
I. Among the Semitic races the seniority belongs to the Babylonians. Till lately, the only version of their story known to us was that of Berosus (Müller, Fragmenta, ii. 501), who relates that the god Kronos appeared to Xisuthrus, tenth king of Babylon ∖ cf. Noah, tenth patriarch] in a dream, and warned him of the coming deluge. The details remind us a good deal of the biblical narrative, except that Xisuthrus is also accompanied by a steersman and by his near friends. Even the thrice repeated letting-out of the birds is mentioned. At last the ship (as it is called) grounded “on a certain mountain,” where Xisuthrus erected an altar and sacrificed; after which both he and his companions disappeared [çf the “translation” of Enoch]. The duration of the deluge is not stated, and its cause is left to be inferred from the special commendation of Xisuthrus for his piety. Berosus has evidently drawn from cuneiform sources, but those sources have not yet been discovered. Our most valuable authority for the Babylonian deluge-story is the portion of the 11th lay of the great mythological epic, discovered by Mr George Smith. It came from the library of King Assurbanipal, and dates from about 660 b.c., but the Accadian original from which it was translated may well (says the cautious Assyriologue, Dr Schrader) have been composed between 1000and 2000 b.c., while the myths themselves will of course be much older. The hero of the deluge bears the name of Tam-zi (“the sun of life,” c∕. Tammuz), for so, with Mr Sayce, the signs should most probably be read. He is called the son of Ubara-tutu, an Accadian name meaning “the splendour of sunset” (Lenormant, Sayce). This version of the story differs in several respects from that of Berosus. The deity who warns Tamzi is Hea (god of knowledge and of the waters), who orders him to build a ship, and to put into it his household and his wealth and the beasts of the field. AU this is related by Tamzi to the (solar) hero “Izdubar.” He tells how he coated the ship within and without with bitumen (cf. Gen. vi. 14), how he intrusted all to a “seaman, ,j how Samas, the sun-god, and other gods (Hea is not now mentioned) sent rain, and. how the rain-flood “destroyed all life from the face of the earth.” (Why the deluge was sent is a little uncertain, owing to the mutilated condition of the tablets.) On the seventh day there was a calm, and the ship stranded on the mountain Nizir. Another seven days, and Tamzi let out “a dove” (I), then a swallow, both of which returned, and a raven which did not return. Then he left the ship and made a libation; Mr Smith’s “altar” is uncertain. Finally, Hea intercedes with Bel that there be no second deluge, after which “Tamzi and his wife, and the people, were carried away to be like the gods.” Such are the leading authentic features of the Babylonian narrative, or rather narratives, for its inconsistencies and repetitions are such as to force upon us the hypothesis that two documents originally existed, which have bean welded together by an editor.
II. The Jewish narrative, like the Babylonian, has been thought to consist of two documents, an Elohistic and a Yahvistic, which have been connected by an editor. They appear to differ in various details,— e.g., in the duration of the flood (the Elohist extends it to a whole solar year), and in the description of the introduction of the animals into the ark (the Elohist alludes to the legal distinction between clean and unclean). But they have certainly the same origin, for they entirely coincide in the main outlines (e.g., in ascribing the flood to the depravity of mankind, in the mode of Noah’s rescue, and in the promise that the catastrophe should not recur), and even in not a few expressions, among which are the names for the flood and the ark. They agree, furtheo, in this important point, that some expressions point to a universal deluge, others to one which only affected a level inland region like that of Mesopotamia. We naturally ask, therefore, are the former involuntary exaggerations I or “survivals” of a primeval myth 1 Both views are held by respectable critics; but the latter is more favoured by analogy and by the remarkable parallelism between both the biblical narratives (especially the Yahvistic) and the Babylonian.
These two—the Babylonian and the Jewish—are the only fully developed deluge-stories told by any of the Semitic nations. In. what relation, then, do they stand to each other 1 Was the Babylonian borrowed from the Jewish (or from some earlier form of the story, of which the Jewish is an abridgment), or vice versa ì On the ono hand, the Babylonian story as a whole perhaps produces an impression of greater originality than the Jewish; for (not to mention other points) in the former the order in which the birds are sent out is much more natural. On the other, the “ark,” or rather “chest,” of the Jewish narrative sounds more archaic than the “ship” of the Babylonian. The word for “deluge” in Genesis is also evidently archaic, as appears from the facts that it only occurs once again (Psalm xxix. 3), and that the editor in Genesis needed to explain it by the word “water” (Gen. vi. 17, “the flood, viz., water”). It is possible, therefore, to hold that the Jewish story is a distinct offshoot of a common Semitic tradition. Bolder critics will .maintain that the account in Genesis must be taken in connection with the other narratives which can be explained by, and are therefore possibly dependent upon, parallel Babylonian narratives. (See Babylonia and Cosmogony). They will urge that “chest” may have been substituted for “ship” to avoid an anachronism, mankind in Noah’s time not having perhaps reached the sea; and that the archaic word for “deluge” does not prove the antiquity of a developed deluge-story; also that there are traces in Genesis (see iv. 17-24, vi. 1-3) of another and presumably native Hebrew view, according to which the moral degeneration of man was explained without a deluge. The question is a large one, but may perhaps be reduced to this—Can the Yahvistic narrative in Genesis be safely broken up into several ì There is some evidence, both internal and (see the prophetic references to Genesis) external to show that it can, but it would be premature in this place to pronounce whether the evidence is sufficient. It will hardly be possible, however, to derive the Yahvistic flood-story from Babylonia, and not the Elohistic, as has been suggested ∙ for though the former is nearest to the Babylonian story (e.g., it ascribes the flood entirely to a rain-storm, whereas the latter introduces also the waters below the firmament), the latter agrees with it in all essential points, and even in the minor point of the bitumen. Let it be remarked in passing that, even if the material of the biblical narratives be taken from the Babylonian, the former have received a peculiar and original stamp, both by their monotheism and by the moral significance so emphatically given to the catastrophe, just as by the addition of the lovely story of the rainbow the Elohist has produced a conclusion far superior, artistically speaking, to that of his Babylonian predecessor.
III. Another of the great countries by which the Israelites might have been influenced was Egypt; but in this, even more than in a former, case a direct Egyptian influence is out of the question. The delugestory was entirely unknown in the Nile-valley. It is commonly said, but erroneously, that this was owing to the absence of sudden catastrophes of the nature of an inundation. But if the terrestrial deluge is really (see below) only a transformation of the celestial, there is no reason why the story should not have grown up in Egypt, if the imagination of its inhabitants had invited such a development; for the germs of the deluge-story certainly existed in Egypt. The Boole of the Dead constantly refers to the sun-god, R,a, as voyaging in a boat on the celestial ocean; and a story in an inscription of the archaic period (Seti I.) embodies a conception altogether analogous to that of the narrative in Genesis. According to this myth—which is described by Μ. Naville—Ba, the creator, being disgusted with the insolence of mankind, resolves to exterminate them. The massacre causes human blood to flow to Heliopolis, upon which Ra repents, and swears with uplifted hand not to destroy mankind again.
IV. The deluge-story exists in several forms in Indian literature. It does not, however, appear to be a genuine Aryan myth, for there is no clear reference to it in the Rig Veda. The ’ Satapatha Brahmana, where it first occurs, was written (Weber) not long before the Christian era. Another version, in which the lacuuae of the earlier one are filled up, is given in the Mahâbhârata, but this poem, though it existed in part before the Christian era, did not assume its present form till long afterwards. A third version, still more decidedly Indian in character, is given in the Bhâgavata Purâna, but the earliest possible date of this work is the 12th century a.d., which deprives its account of the deluge of all claim to originality. It is worth noticing, however, that it agrees with the biblical narrative in two subordinate points—the introduction of animals into the ark or box, and the interval of seven days between the warning and its fulfilment. The principal feature of the oldest flood-story is the part assigned to the fish, which warns Manu of the deluge, and ultimately saves him by drawing his ship to a northern mountain. The selection of the fish (which is clearly divine) is so out of character with the most genuine portions of Aryan mythology that it proves the foreign origin of the Indian narrative, perhaps we may even say, the Semitic origin. Not that the fish-god is peculiar to the Semitic world, but that he is un-Indian, and can so easily have reached India from a Semitic source. If the Indians sent apes, sandalwood, and purple (both names and things) to Assyria, why should not the flood-story have been sent in exchange with other products of Mesopotamia? True, the fish does not appear in the present form of the Mesopotamian story, but it probably did appear in the original myth, for among the titles of the god who warned Tamzi (see above) are “fish of the abyss,” “beneficent, saviour fish.” We admit the strong local colouring of the Indian story, which deceived even Weber (but not Burnouf), but this is exactly paralleled by the Hottentot colouring (Bleek) of several South African stories of Christian origin. Whether the early Iranians had a flood-story is perhaps uncertain, since the Aυesta gives but little information respecting mythology, and it has not come down to us complete. But none was known to the Persians about 1000 a.d. (al-Biruní).
V. In Greece there appear to have been several floating flood-stories, which in time became localized and attached to the names of heroes. They all represent the flood as destroying all but a few men, and even in their least original forms they still contain many peculiar features which can only have arisen from an independent exercise of the mythopaeic faculty. The most famous of them is that of Deucalion, and of this the earliest and simplest form is in Pindar (Olymp, ix. 64), who identifies the mountain where Deucalion and Pyrrha landed, and where without marriage they “gat themselves a race from stones” (not a late Greek etymological fancy, for it recurs among American tribes), with Mount Parnassus. Apollodorus (about 100 b.c. ) has infused fresh life into this story, perhaps from a Semitic source; he extends the range of the flood to “most parts of Greece,” and states that Deucalion (like Noah and Xisuthrus) offered sacrifice after the flood. Lucian (160 A.D.), laughing in his sleeve, gives a still more conspicuously Semitic account (De dea Syria, c. 12, 13), in which we hear for the first time of a “great box,” and of “children and wives,” “swine and horses, and the kinds of lions and serpents, <fcc., all by pairs,” as entering the ark. It was a confusion of this kind which led to the charge of Celsus, that the authors of the books of Moses had “put a new stamp on the story of Deucalion; ”—reason sufficient for confining ourselves as much as possible to primitive versions of mythic narratives.
VI. America, which abounds in cosmogonies, is naturally not deficient in deluge-stories. Mr Catlin says, that “amongst 120 different tribes that he has visited in North and South and Central America, not a tribe exists that has not related to him distinct or vague traditions of such a calamity, in which one, or three, or eight persons were saved above the waters on the top of a high mountain” (Okeepa, p. 2). It is extremely difficult to tell how far Christian influences may have determined the form of these stories. When, for instance, we find such a peculiar point as the sending out of the birds to see whether the flood had abated, we are disinclined to build any argument on the circumstance. We do find, it is true, strange points of agreement between the Greek and the Polynesian myths, yet considering the vast extent of Christian missionary activity in America, we are bound to special caution.
In addition to this, the American deluge-stories convey an impression that they have lost much of their original accuracy. The Polynesian myths, on the contrary, are still almost as transparent as ever. But we shall have occasion to speak of these presently.
Instead of proceeding further with a detailed examination of myths, let us briefly touch on three general questions arising out of the subject. (1.) Is the deluge-story found among all nations? The Egyptians and (probably) the Persians had none; and it is doubtful whether it exists in non-Mahometan Africa. Probably, too, large deductions should be made from the myths of savage tribes, on the ground of Christian influences, even when related by well-informed travellers. (2.) Was the deluge-story propagated from a single centre? An affirmative answer has often been returned, e.g., by Hugh Miller, Testimony of the Rocks, p. 282. It is impossible, however, to justify this from the mere fact of the superficial resemblance of the different narratives. These may be accounted for (on the ordinary historical theory of the flood-story) from the similarity of the circumstances of partial floods everywhere; or (if we regard it as based on a nature-myth) from the fact that, by a fundamental law of psychology, the universal wonders of nature everywhere receive (within certain limits) a similar mythic expression. Granting, therefore, in its fullest extent the non-originality of many deluge-stories, we maintain that the evidence points on the whole to the existence of several independent centres from which these stories were propagated. (3.) Restricting ourselves to the consideration of the non-biblical forms of the narrative, we now inquire, what was their original significance? A provisional answer, it is true, has already been given, but one which does not account for the peculiar details of the most original deluge-stories. The only explanation of these which has yet been offered is derived from comparative mythology. It is agreed by mythologists that the exclusive subjects of really primitive traditional stories are frequently recurring natural phenomena. Consequently the elementary mythic descriptions or pictures of these phenomena were the most available material when, at a later period of mental growth, the attempt was made to construct a rude cosmogonical theory. Those “demolitions and reconstructions” of the world of which we spoke at the outset could only be narrated on the basis of these earliest, simplest, most primitive myths. What then was the natural phenomenon which, in a mythic dress, formed the substratum of the deluge-stories? Not merely an annually recurring river-flood, such as those of the Euphrates, for the phenomenal basis of myths must be something strikingly wonderful as well as frequently recurring. This the inundations of a river are not, neither could they be regarded as calamities. But the phenomena of the sky and especially of the sun are, to the primitive man, daily miracles. Hence the theory (Schirren and Gerland) that the deluge of the stories we are considering has been transferred from the sky to the earth, that it is in a word an ether-myth. This mode of explanation is not set aside by referring to quasi-historical details in the deluge-stories. For as soon as the mythic stage begins to be outgrown, rationalism appears. In this transitional period (commonly of long duration) the old nature-myths are modified. Some mythic elements remain, others are turned into prose. The attempt to explain the existence of the world on the. basis of an ether-myth was an early symptom of the denaturalization of which we have spoken. At a still more advanced stage of the process, the flood often ceased to be universal, and was restricted to the home of those who related the story, or to the region from which they supposed themselves to have migrated. At last the shrewder intellects (e.g., among the Tahitians and some of the American Indians) even clutched at phenomena like those of fossil-shells found on hills to prove the literal truth of their deluge.
The most plausible arguments for the celestial delugetheory are derived from the Polynesian mythology. In the flood-story of Raiatea, given by Ellis (Polynesian Researches, ii. 58-9), the flood rose “as the sun approached the horizon;” and the island where the fisherman found refuge is called Toa-marama, i.e., moon-tree (tree reaching up into the moon), which reminds us of the Teutonic worldash-tree, Yggdrasil, and the mythic mountain of the Babylonians (see below) and other nations. At Hawaii the flood was even called “flood of the moon,” and at New Zealand “flood of day’s eye” (i.e., the sun). Schirren explains all these myths as pictures of sunset, just as he derives the cosmogonies from myths of sunrise. But most of them are more easily explained, with Gerland, as ether-myths. The sun and moon were imagined as peaks emerging out of a flood—sometimes as canoes, sometimes as a man and his wife—the sole survivors (except perhaps the stars, their children) from the inundation. There was, however, no fixity of meaning. The stars were sometimes regarded as ships; but so too were the clouds, “Tangaloa’s ships.” The Babylonian story, as represented in the 11th Izdubar lay, suggests a similar theory. The names of the hero...
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 7, p. 54 — signed T.K.C.
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Deluge
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
signifies, in general, any great inundation; but more particularly that universal flood by which the whole inhabitants of this globe were destroyed, except Noah and his family. According to the most approved systems of chronology, this remarkable event happened in the year 1656 after the creation, or about 2348 before the Christian æra. Of so general a calamity, from which only a single family of all who lived then on the face of the earth was preserved, we might naturally expect to find some memorials in the traditionary records of Pagan history, as well as in the sacred volume, where its peculiar cause, and the circumstances which attended it, are so distinctly and so fully related. Its magnitude and singularity could scarcely fail to make an indelible impression on the minds of the survivors, which would be communicated from them to their children, and would not be easily effaced from the traditions even of their latest posterity. A deficiency in such traces of this awful event, though perhaps it might not serve entirely to invalidate our belief of its reality, would certainly tend considerably to weaken its claim to credibility; it being scarcely probable that the knowledge of it should be utterly lost to the rest of the world, and confined to the documents of the Jewish nation alone. What we might reasonably expect has, accordingly, been actually and completely realized. The evidence which has been brought from almost every quarter of the world to bear upon the reality of this event, is of the most conclusive and irresistible kind; and every investigation, whether etymological or historical, which has been made concerning Heathen rites and traditions, has constantly added to its force, no less than to its extent. And here, it were injustice to the memory of ...ingenuity and erudition almost unexampled in modern times, were we not to mention the labours of Bryant, the learned analysist of ancient mythology, whose patience and profoundness of research have thrown such new and convincing light on this subject. Nor must we forget his ardent and successful disciple, Mr. Faber, who, in his “Dissertation on the Mysteries of the Cabiri,” has in travelling over similar ground with his illustrious master at once corrected some of his statements, and greatly strengthened his general conclusions. As the basis of their system, however, rests on a most extensive etymological examination of the names of the deities and other mythological personages worshipped and celebrated by the Heathen, compared with the varied traditions respecting their histories, and the nature of the rites and names of the places that were sacred to them, we cannot do more, in the present article, than shortly state the result of their investigations, referring for the particular details, to the highly original treatises already mentioned. According to them, the memory of the deluge was incorporated with almost every part of the Gentile mythology and worship; Noah, under a vast multitude of characters, being one of their first deities, to whom all the nations of the Heathen world looked up as their founder; and to some circumstance or other in whose history, and that of his sons and the first patriarchs, most, if not all, of their religious ceremonies may be considered as not indistinctly referring. Traces of these, neither vague nor obscure, they conceive to be found in the history and character, not only of Deucalion, but of Atlas, Cronus, or Saturn, Dionusos, Inachus, Janus, Minos, Zeus, and others among the Greeks; of Isis, Osiris, Sesostris, Oannes, Typhon, &c, among the Egyptians; of Dagon, Agruerus, Sydyk, &c, among the Phenicians; of Astarte, Derceto, &c, among the Assyrians; of Buddha, Menu, Vishnu, &c, among the Hindus; of Fohi, and a deity represented as sitting upon the lotos in the midst of waters, among the Chinese; of Budo and Iakusi among the Japanese, &c. They discover allusions to the ark, in many of the ancient mysteries, and traditions with respect to the dove and the rainbow, by which several of these allegorical personages were attended, which are not easily explicable, unless they be supposed to relate to the history of the deluge. By the celebrated Ogdoas of the Egyptians, consisting of eight persons sailing together in the sacred _baris_ or ark, they imagine the family of Noah, which was precisely eight in number, to have been designated; and in the rites of Adonis or Thammuz, in particular, they point out many circumstances which seem to possess a distinct reference to the events recorded in the sixth and seventh chapters of Genesis. With regard to this system, we shall only farther observe, that, after every reasonable deduction is made from it, which the exuberant indulgence of fancy occasionally exhibited by its authors appears to render necessary, it contains so much that is relevant and conclusive, that it induces the conviction that it has a solid foundation in truth and fact; it being scarcely possible to conceive, that a mere hypothesis could be supported by evidence so varied, so extensive, and in many particulars so demonstrative, as that which its framers have produced. Beside, however, the allusions to the deluge in the mythology and religious ceremonies of the Heathen, to which we have thus concisely adverted, there is a variety of traditions concerning it still more direct and circumstantial, the coincidence of which, with the narrative of Moses, it will require no common degree of skeptical hardihood to deny. We are informed by one of the circumnavigators of the world, who visited the remote island of Otaheite, that some of the inhabitants being asked concerning their origin, answered, that their supreme God having, a long time ago, been angry, dragged the earth through the sea, when their island was broken off and preserved. In the island of Cuba, the people are said to believe that the world was once destroyed by water by three persons, evidently alluding to the three sons of Noah. It is even related, that they have a tradition among them, that an old man, knowing that the deluge was approaching, built a large ship, and went into it with a great number of animals; and that he sent out from the ship a crow, which did not immediately come back, staying to feed on the carcasses of dead animals, but afterward returned with a green branch in its mouth. The author who gives the above account likewise affirms that it was reported by the inhabitants of Castella del Oro, in Terra Firma, that during a universal deluge, one man, and his children, were the only persons who escaped, by means of a canoe, and that from them the world was afterward peopled. According to the Peruvians, in consequence of a general inundation, occasioned by violent and continued rains, a universal destruction of the human species took place, a few persons only excepted, who escaped into caves on the tops of the mountains, into which they had previously conveyed a stock of provisions, and a number of live animals, lest when the waters abated, the whole race should have become extinct. Others of them affirm, that only six persons were saved, by means of a float or raft, and that from them all the inhabitants of the country are descended. They farther believe, that this event took place before there were any _incas_ or kings among them, and when the country was extremely populous. The Brazilians not only preserve the tradition of a deluge, but believe that the whole race of mankind perished in it, except one man and his sister; or, according to others, two brothers with their wives, who were preserved by climbing the highest trees on their loftiest mountains; and who afterward became the heads of two different nations. The memory of this event they are even said to celebrate in some of their religious anthems or songs. Acosta, in his history of the Indies, says, that the Mexicans speak of a deluge in their country, by which all men were drowned; and that it was afterward peopled by _viracocha_, who came out of the lake Titicaca; and, according to Herrera, the Machoachans, a people comparatively in the neighbourhood of Mexico, had a tradition, that a single family was formerly preserved in an ark amid a deluge of waters; and that along with them, a sufficient number of animals were saved to stock the new world. During the time that they were shut up in the ark, several ravens were sent out, one of which brought back the branch of a tree. Among the Iroquois it is reported that a certain spirit, called by them Otkon, was the creator of the world; and that another being, called Messou, repaired it after a deluge, which happened in consequence of Otkon’s dogs having one day while he was hunting with them lost themselves in a great lake, which, in consequence of this, overflowed its banks, and in a short time covered the whole earth. Passing from the more remote western to the eastern continent, nearer to the region where Noah is generally supposed to have lived, we find the traditions respecting the deluge still more particular and minute. According to Josephus, there were a multitude of ancient authors who concurred in asserting that the world had once been destroyed by a flood: “This deluge,” says he, “and the ark are mentioned by all who have written barbaric histories, one of whom is Berosus the Chaldean.” Eusebius informs us, that Melo, a bitter enemy of the Jews, and whose testimony is on this account peculiarly valuable, takes notice of the person who was saved along with his sons from the flood, having been, after his preservation, driven away from Armenia, whence he retired to the mountainous parts of Syria. Abydenus, after giving an account of the deluge from which Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah, was saved, concludes with asserting, in exact concurrence with Berosus, that the ark first rested on the mountains of Armenia, and that its remains were used by the natives as a talisman; and Plutarch mentions the Noachic dove being sent out of the ark, and returning to it again, as an intimation to Deucalion that the storm had not yet ceased. This, however, is by no means all: Sir W. Jones, speaking of one of the Chinese fables, says, “Although I cannot insist with confidence, that the rainbow mentioned in it alludes to the Mosaic narrative of the flood, nor build any solid argument on the divine person _Niuva_, of whose character, and even of whose sex the historians of China speak very doubtfully; I may nevertheless assure you, after full inquiry and consideration, that the Chinese believe the earth to have been wholly covered with water, which, in works of undisputed authenticity, they describe as flowing abundantly, then subsiding, and separating the higher from the lower age of mankind.” Still more coincident even than this with the Mosaic account, is the Grecian history of the deluge, as preserved by Lucian, a native of Samosata on the Euphrates; and its authority is the more incontrovertible, on account of his being an avowed derider of all religions. The antediluvians, according to him, had gradually become so hardened and profligate, as to be guilty of every species of injustice. They paid no regard to the obligation of oaths; were insolent, inhospitable, and unmerciful. For this reason they were visited with an awful calamity. Suddenly the earth poured forth a vast quantity of water, the rain descended in torrents, the rivers overflowed their banks, and the sea rose to a prodigious height, so that “all things became water,” and all men were destroyed except Deucalion. He alone, for the sake of his prudence and piety, was reserved to a second generation. In obedience to a divine nomination, he entered, with his sons and their wives, into a large ark, which they had built for their preservation; and immediately swine, and horses, and lions, and serpents, and all other animals which live on earth, came to him by pairs, and were admitted by him into the ark. There they became perfectly mild and innoxious, their natures being changed by the gods, who created such a friendship between them, that they all sailed peaceably together, so long as the waters prevailed over the surface of the globe. Scarcely less remarkable is the Hindoo tradition. It is contained in the ancient poem of the _Bhavagat_; and forms the subject of the first Purana, entitled _Matsya_, or “The Fish.” The following is Sir William Jones’s abridgment of it; and the identity of the event which it describes, with that of the Hebrew historian, is too obvious to require any particular illustration: “The demon Hayagriva, having purloined the Vedas from the custody of Brahma, while he was reposing at the close of the sixth Manwantara, the whole race of men became corrupt, except the seven Rishis, and Satyavrata, who then reigned in Dravira, a maritime region to the south of Carnata. This prince was performing his ablutions in the river Critimala, when Vishnu appeared to him in the shape of a small fish, and after several augmentations of bulk in different waters, was placed by Satyavrata in the ocean, where he thus addressed his amazed votary: ‘In seven days all creatures who have offended me shall be destroyed by a deluge, but thou shalt be secured in a capacious vessel miraculously formed; take therefore all kinds of medicinal herbs, and esculent grain for food, and, together with the seven holy men, your respective wives, and pairs of all animals, enter the ark without fear: then shalt thou know God face to face, and all thy questions shall be answered.’ Saying this, he disappeared; and after seven days the ocean began to overflow the coasts, and the earth to be flooded by constant showers, when Satyavrata, meditating on the deity, saw a large vessel moving on the waters. He entered it, having in all respects conformed to the instructions of Vishnu; who in the form of a vast fish, suffered the vessel to be tied with a great sea serpent, as with a cable, to his measureless horn. When the deluge had ceased, Vishnu slew the demon, and recovered the Vedas, instructed Satyavrata in divine knowledge, and appointed him the seventh Menu, by the name of Vaivaswata.” When we thus meet with some traditions of a deluge in almost every country, though the persons saved from it are said, in those various accounts to have resided in different districts widely separated from each other, we are constrained to allow that such a general concurrence of belief could never have originated merely from accident. While the mind is in this situation, Scripture comes forward, and, presenting a narrative more simple, better connected, and bearing an infinitely greater resemblance to authentic history, than any of those mythological accounts which occur in the traditions of Paganism, immediately flashes the conviction upon the understanding, that this must be the true history of those remarkable facts which other nations have handed down to us, only through the medium of allegory and fable. By the evidence adduced in this article, indeed, the moral certainty of the Mosaic history of the flood appears to be established on a basis sufficiently firm to bid defiance to the cavils of skepticism. “Let the ingenuity of unbelief first account satisfactorily for this universal agreement of the Pagan world; and she may then, with a greater degree of plausibility, impeach the truth of the Scriptural narrative of the deluge.” The fact, however, is not only preserved in the traditions of all nations, as we have already seen; but after all the philosophical arguments which were formerly urged against it, philosophy has at length acknowledged that the present surface of the earth must have been submerged under water. “Not only,” says Kirwan, “in every region of Europe, but also of both the old and new continents, immense quantities of marine shells, either dispersed or collected, have been discovered.” This and several other facts seem to prove, that at least a great part of the present earth was, before the last general convulsion to which it has been subjected, the bed of an ocean which, at that time, was withdrawn from it. Other facts seem also to prove with sufficient evidence, that this was not a gradual retirement of the waters which once covered the parts now inhabited by men; but a violent one, such as may be supposed from the brief but emphatic relation of Moses. The violent action of water has left its traces in various undisputed phenomena. Stratified mountains of various heights exist in different parts of Europe, and of both continents; in and between whose strata, various substances of marine, and some vegetables of terrestrial, origin, repose either in their natural state, or petrified. To overspread the plains of the arctic circle with the shells of Indian seas, and with the bodies of elephants and rhinoceri, surrounded by masses of submarine vegetation; to accumulate on a single spot, as at La Bolca, in promiscuous confusion, the marine productions of the four quarters of the globe; what conceivable instrument would be efficacious but the rush of mighty waters? These facts, about which there is no dispute, and which are acknowledged by the advocates of each of the prevailing geological theories, give a sufficient attestation to the deluge of Noah, in which “the fountains of the great deep were broken up,” and from which precisely such phenomena might be expected to follow. To this may be added, though less decisive in proof, yet certainly strong as presumptive evidence, that the very aspect of the earth’s surface exhibits interesting marks both of the violent action, and the rapid subsidence, of waters; as well as affords a most interesting instance of the divine goodness in converting what was ruin itself into utility and beauty. The great frame-work of the varied surface of the habitable earth was probably laid by a more powerful agency than that of water; either when on the third day the waters under the heavens were gathered into one place, and the crust of the primitive earth was broken down to receive them, so that “the dry land might appear;” by those mighty convulsions which appear to have accompanied the general deluge; but the rounding, so to speak, of what was rugged, where the substance was yielding, and the graceful undulations of hill and dale which so frequently present themselves, were probably effected by the retiring waters. The flood has passed away; but the soils which it deposited remain; and the valleys through which its last streams were drawn off to the ocean, with many an eddy and sinuous course, still exist, exhibiting visible proofs of its agency, and impressed with forms so adapted to the benefit of man, and often so gratifying to the finest taste, that, when the flood “turned,” it may be said to have “left a blessing behind it.” The objections once made to the _fact_ of a general deluge have, indeed, been greatly weakened by the progress of philosophical knowledge; and may be regarded as nearly given up, like the former notion of the high antiquity of the race of men, founded on the Chinese and Egyptian chronologies and pretended histories. Philosophy has even at last found out that there is sufficient water in the ocean, if called forth, to overflow the highest mountains to the height given by Moses,--a conclusion which it once stoutly denied. Keill formerly computed that twenty-eight oceans would be necessary for that purpose; but we are now informed “that a farther progress in mathematical and physical knowledge has shown the different seas and oceans to contain, at least, forty-eight times more water than they were then supposed to do; and that the mere raising of the temperature of the whole body of the ocean to a degree no greater than marine animals live in, in the shallow seas between the tropics, would so expand it as more than to produce the height above the mountains stated in the Mosaic account.” As to the deluge of Noah, therefore, infidelity has almost entirely lost the aid of philosophy in framing objections to the Scriptures.
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
[3,372 words — estimated reading time: 20 minutes]
[3,372 words — estimated reading time: 20 minutes]
Overflowed; inundated; overwhelmed.
Assemblage Roget’s Thesaurus §72
N. {opp. 73} assemblage, collection, collocation, colligation, compilation, levy, gathering, ingathering, muster, attroupement, team, concourse, conflux, congregation, contesseration|, convergence, meeting, levee, reunion, drawing room, at home, conversazione, assembly, congress, convention, conventicle, gemote, conclave, posse, posse comitatus, noah's ark, miscellany, collectanea, museum, menagerie, museology, crowd, throng, group, flood, rush, deluge, rabble, mob, press, crush, cohue, horde, body, tribe, crew, gang, knot, squad, band, party, swarm, shoal, school, covey, flock, herd, drove, atajo, bunch, drive, force, mulada, remuda, roundup, array, bevy, galaxy, corps, company, troop, troupe, task force, army, regiment, host, populousness, clan, brotherhood, fraternity, sorority, association, volley, shower, storm, cloud, group, cluster, pleiades, clump, pencil, set, batch, lot, pack, budget, assortment, bunch, parcel, packet, package, bundle, fascine, fasces, bale, seron, seroon, fagot, wisp, truss, tuft, shock, rick, fardel, stack, sheaf, haycock, fascicle, fascicule, fasciculus, gavel, hattock, stook, accumulation, congeries, heap, lump, pile, rouleau, tissue, mass, pyramid, bing, drift, snowball, snowdrift, acervation, cumulation, glomeration, agglomeration, conglobation, conglomeration, conglomerate, coacervate, coacervation, coagmentation, aggregation, concentration, congestion, omnium gaterum, spicilegium, black hole of calcutta, quantity, collector, gatherer, whip, whipper in
V. assemble, collect, muster, meet, unite, join, rejoin, cluster, flock, swarm, surge, stream, herd, crowd, throng, associate, congregate, conglomerate, concentrate, precipitate, center round, rendezvous, resort, come together, flock get together, pig together, forgather, huddle, reassemble, assemble, muster, bring together, get together, put together, draw together, scrape together, lump together, collect, collocate, colligate, get, whip in, gather, hold a meeting, convene, convoke, convocate, rake up, dredge, heap, mass, pile, pack, put up, truss, cram, acervate, agglomerate, aggregate, compile, group, aggroup, concentrate, unite, collect into a focus, bring into a focus, amass, accumulate, collect in a dragnet, heap ossa upon pelion
Adj. assembled, closely packed, dense, serried, crowded to suffocation, teeming, swarming, populous, as thick as hops, all of a heap, fasciculated, cumulative
Phr. the plot thickens, acervatim, tibi seris tibi metis
Water Roget’s Thesaurus §337
N. water, serum, serosity, lymph, rheum, diluent, agua, aqua, pani, dilution, maceration, lotion, washing, immersion|, humectation, infiltration, spargefaction|, affusion, irrigation, douche, balneation, bath, deluge, high water, flood tide
V. be watery, reek, add water, water, wet, moisten, dilute, dip, immerse, merge, immerge, submerge, plunge, souse, duck, drown, soak, steep, macerate, pickle, wash, sprinkle, lave, bathe, affuse, splash, swash, douse, drench, dabble, slop, slobber, irrigate, inundate, deluge, syringe, inject, gargle
Phr. the waters are out
River Roget’s Thesaurus §348
N. running water, jet, spirt, spurt, squirt, spout, spray, splash, rush, gush, jet d'eau, sluice, water spout, water fall, cascade, force, foss, lin, linn, ghyll, niagara, cataract, rapids, white water, catadupe|, cataclysm, debacle, inundation, deluge, chute, washout, rain, rainfall, serein, shower, scud, downpour, driving rain, drenching rain, cloudburst, hyetology, hyetography, predominance of aquarius, reign of st. swithin, mizzle, drizzle, stillicidum, plash, dropping, falling weather, northeaster, hurricane, typhoon, stream, course, flux, flow, profluence, effluence, defluxion, flowing, current, tide, race, coulee, spring, artesian well, fount, fountain, rill, rivulet, gill, gullet, rillet, streamlet, brooklet, branch, runnel, sike, burn, beck, creek, brook, bayou, stream, river, reach, tributary, geyser, spout, waterspout, body of water, torrent, rapids, flush, flood, swash, spring tide, high tide, full tide, bore, tidal bore, eagre, hygre, fresh, freshet, indraught, reflux, undercurrent, eddy, vortex, gurge, whirlpool, maelstrom, regurgitation, overflow, confluence, corrivation|, wave, billow, surge, swell, ripple, ἀνήριθμον γέλασμα, beach comber, riffle, rollers, ground swell, surf, breakers, white horses, whitecaps, rough sea, heavy sea, high seas, cross sea, long sea, short sea, chopping sea, hydrodynamics, hydraulics, hydraulicostatics, rain gauge, flowmeter, pegology, irrigation, pump, watering pot, watering cart, hydrant, syringe, garden hose, lawn spray, bhisti, mussuk
V. flow, run, meander, gush, pour, spout, roll, jet, well, issue, drop, drip, dribble, plash, spirtle, trill, trickle, distill, percolate, stream, overflow, inundate, deluge, flow over, splash, swash, guggle, murmur, babble, bubble, purl, gurgle, sputter, spurt, spray, regurgitate, ooze, flow out, rain hard, rain in torrents, rain cats and dogs, rain pitchforks, pour with rain, drizzle, spit, set in, mizzle, flow into, fall into, open into, drain into, discharge itself, disembogue, pour, pour out, shower down, irrigate, drench, spill, splash, stanch, dam, up, obstruct
Adj. fluent, diffluent, profluent, affluent, tidal, flowing, meandering, meandry, meandrous, fluvial, fluviatile, streamy, showery, rainy, pluvial, stillicidous|, stillatitious
Phr. "for men may come and men may go but i go on forever", "that old man river, he just keeps rolling along"
Redundancy Roget’s Thesaurus §641
N. redundancy, redundance, too much, too many, superabundance, superfluity, superfluence|, saturation, nimiety, transcendency, exuberance, profuseness, profusion, repletion, enough in all conscience, satis superque, lion's share, more than enough, plethora, engorgement, congestion, load, surfeit, sickener, turgescence, overdose, overmeasure, oversupply, overflow, inundation, avalanche, accumulation, heap, drug, drug in the market, glut, crowd, burden, excess, surplus, overplus, epact, margin, remainder, duplicate, surplusage, expletive, work of supererogation, bonus, bonanza, luxury, intemperance, extravagance, exorbitance, lavishment, pleonasm, too many irons in the fire, embarras de richesses
V. superabound, overabound, know no bounds, swarm, meet one at every turn, creep with, crawl with, bristle with, overflow, run over, flow over, well over, brim over, run riot, overrun, overstock, overlay, overcharge, overdose, overfeed, overburden, overload, overdo, overwhelm, overshoot the mark, surcharge, supersaturate, gorge, glut, load, drench, whelm, inundate, deluge, flood, drug, drug the market, hepatize, choke, cloy, accloy, suffocate, pile up, lay on thick, impregnate with, lavish, send coals to newcastle, carry coals to newcastle, carry owls to athens, teach one's grandmother to suck eggs, pisces natare docere, kill the slain, "gild refined gold", "gild the lily", butter one's bread on both sides, put butter upon bacon, employ a steam engine to crack a nut, exaggerate, wallow in roll in remain on one's hands, hang heavy on hand, go a begging
Adj. redundant, too much, too many, exuberant, inordinate, superabundant, excessive, overmuch, replete, profuse, lavish, prodigal, exorbitant, overweening, extravagant, overcharged, supersaturated, drenched, overflowing, running over, running to waste, running down, crammed to overflowing, filled to overflowing, gorged, ready to burst, dropsical, turgid, plethoric, obese, superfluous, unnecessary, needless, supervacaneous|, uncalled for, to spare, in excess, over and above, de trop, adscititious, supernumerary, on one's hands, spare, duplicate, supererogatory, expletive, un peu fort
Adv. over, too, over and above, overmuch, too much, too far, without measure, beyond measure, out of measure, with, to spare, over head and ears, up to one's eyes, up to one's ears, extra, beyond the mark, acervatim
Phr. it never rains but it pours, fortuna multis dat nimium nulli satis, 2. degree of subservience
No Bible verses found for "deluge".