Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
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130. Flood Legends
A gigantic flood may be the most common of all legends. Almost every ancient culture had legends telling of a traumatic flood in which only a few humans survived in a large boat.a The many common elements in more than 230 flood legends, suggest a common historical event that left a vivid impression on survivors of that catastrophe. This cannot be said for other types of catastrophes, such as earthquakes, fires, volcanic eruptions, disease, famines, or drought.
Figure 40: Chinese Word for Boat. Classical Chinese, dating to about 2500 B.C., is one of the oldest languages known. Its “words,” called pictographs, are often composed of smaller symbols that themselves have meaning and together tell a story. For example, the classical Chinese word for boat, shown above, is composed of the symbols for “vessel,” “eight,” and “mouth” or “person.” Why would ancient Chinese refer to a boat as “eight-person-vessel”? How many people were on the Ark?