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   XPost: alt.atheism   
      
   The book China—A History in Art tells us that one of the ancient rulers of   
   China was Yü, “the conqueror of the Great Flood. Yü channeled flood waters   
   into rivers and seas to resettle his people.” Mythology expert Joseph Campbell   
   wrote about the Chinese “   
   Period of the Great Ten,” saying: “To this important age, which terminates in   
   a Deluge, ten emperors were assigned in the early Chou-time mythology. Hence,   
   it appears that what we are viewing here may be a local transformation of the   
   series of the old    
   Sumerian king list.” Campbell then cited other items from Chinese legends that   
   appeared to “reinforce the argument for a Mesopotamian source.” That takes us   
   back to the same basic source of many myths. However, the story of the Flood   
   also appears in the    
   Americas, for example, in Mexico during the period of the Aztecs in the 15th   
   and 16th centuries C.E.   
      
   Aztec mythology spoke of four previous ages, during the first of which the   
   earth was inhabited by giants. (That is another reminder of the Nephilim, the   
   giants referred to in the Bible at Genesis 6:4.) It included a primeval flood   
   legend in which “the    
   waters above merge with those below, obliterating the horizons and making of   
   everything a timeless cosmic ocean.” The god controlling rain and water was   
   Tlaloc. However, his rain was not obtained cheaply but was given “in exchange   
   for the blood of    
   sacrificed victims whose flowing tears would simulate and so stimulate the   
   flow of rain.” (Mythology—An Illustrated Encyclopedia) Another legend states   
   that the fourth era was ruled by Chalchiuhtlicue, the water-goddess, whose   
   universe perished by a    
   flood. Men were saved by becoming fish!   
      
    Similarly, the Incas had their Flood legends. British writer Harold Osborne   
   states: “Perhaps the most ubiquitous features in South American myth are the   
   stories of a deluge . . . Myths of a deluge are very widespread among both the   
   highland peoples and    
   the tribes of the tropical lowlands. The deluge is commonly connected with the   
   creation and with an epiphany [manifestation] of the creator-god. . . . It is   
   sometimes regarded as a divine punishment wiping out existing humankind in   
   preparation for the    
   emergence of a new race.”   
      
    Likewise, the Maya in Mexico and Central America had their Flood legend that   
   involved a universal deluge, or haiyococab, which means “water over the   
   earth.” Catholic bishop Las Casas wrote that the Guatemalan Indians “called it   
   Butic, which is the word    
   which means flood of many waters and means the final judgment, and so they   
   believe that another Butic is about to come, which is another flood and   
   judgment, not of water, but of fire.” Many more flood legends exist around the   
   world, but the few already    
   quoted serve to confirm the kernel of the legend, the historical event related   
   in the book of Genesis.   
      
      
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