Roman mythology is based on the Greek, the Greek came from the Babylonian. But was the Babylonian based on? Many have said that these myths are a religious belief system. Or that they are stories about the original creation of earth.
I am here to tell you that these are the history of Noah and his family, on their time between the flood and the tower, in particular.
At the tower of Babel, humanity was divided. The people in the new languages and newly forming cultures went their separate ways. However, they still told their children about their history. They told their children about their patriarchs. Just as the Catholics used the song of the "12 Days of Christmas" to share their beliefs (see article) at a time when they couldn't write them, I believe these mythos (and those of other cultures) were historical in nature, not philosophical nor religious.
Let's look at these mythologies as the 'local telling' of the 'creation' of the world in which these people found themselves. Can I prove it? No. But I can sure list a lot of similarities that exist that support this theory!
Remember, the "creation" we speak of here, is the survival of Noah and his family, and the "creation" of the post-flood (anti-diluvian) world.
First, we need to re-construct the timeline of Noah and his family. (For full view of Biblical events in a time-line, see the article on this website.)
Noah is 600 years old at the time of the flood, which lasts a whole year. (40 days of rain, several months of floating around, and about one year later, they come out of the Ark onto the dry land around them.)
The civilization started by the four couples that come out of the Ark grows for 100 years, when they decide to build a tower. The tower is referred to as the "Tower of Babyl" and is the split up of the cultures of the world. At the tower, we went from one family/culture/language to multiple cultures and languages.
Each of these newly created cultures had the same history, pointing back to Noah and his 3 sons.
If what I have just written is true, then many myths should point back at Noah's family. Well, let's look to see how Greek mythology parallels Noah's family.
1."Titans" or "Giants" existing before the main characters exist.
In both the story of Genesis, and in Greek mythology, giants exist before the family does.
2.In Greek mythology, Zeus and his two brothers are the 3 main gods, and their father is Cronus, which is the Greek word for "time". In other words, he is "Father Time". What would you call an ancestor that was 700 years old at the time of the tower, and his three sons were at least 200? Especially if everyone else was less than 100? It would be easy to think of these very long living people as Gods, not just normal humans, don't you think?
3.One of those three sons has a descendant known as a great hunter. In the book of Genesis, he is named, "Nimrod" and is called "a mighty hunter before the Lord". The parallel in Greek mythology is Hercules.
4.The Greek Gods lived on the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Olympus. Well, Noah and his family stayed in the Ark at the top of the tallest mountain in the area for several months while the waters drained. The mountain on which they were "stranded" certainly was the highest mountain around. It is easy to see how their descendants would have referred to that mountain as the "home of the Gods".
5.Greek Mythology has yet another connection to Noah, yet this one is indirect. Many details of the Greek mythos came to them from the Babylonian. In the Babylonian mythos or history, their tenth king survived a flood. Count the generations from Adam to Noah and you get, yes, ten.
So, is Greek Mythology a figment of people's imagination? Is it an ancient religion? No. It is a telling of history by people that could not use the original language anymore, and as a result of that and other factors, has deviated a little bit from the facts. Yet, many of the core factors have not been lost.
I believe that it is reasonable to believe that Greek Mythology is nothing more than another viewpoint of the history of Noah and his family.
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Taken from: http://www.achievebalance.com/genesis/noah.htm
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