History Commons^™

Worldwide Waters: Laurasian Flood Myths And Their Connections, Logan A. Mcdonald

Honors College Theses

In various cultures, stories of great floods have arisen, and many scholars agree that the writers of these stories based their accounts on an actual flooding event. However, these narratives vary in characters, plot, and even their meaning to each culture. This thesis examines several Laurasian flood narratives, perhaps the most ancient narratives in Western literature, including those of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Sumerian, and Israeli cultures. These civilizations all rose and existed in close proximity to one another, which makes the historicity of a flooding event more probable. A structural examination of the narratives and a comparison of their …