Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
The point is, if it's not literally true *as* *written* then, as I said, there's no reason to expect to find the Ark on Ararat, or anywhere else -- and it's obviously not literally true. End of lecture.
That is obvious. For that matter, even if it were literally true, there is no reason to expect to find the Ark because the events occurred long ago and no trace of a wooden boat would last that long. However, I think you are missing Abd's point.
The point is, various severe floods have occurred and it is likely the Mediterranean - Black Sea flood occurred circa 5600 BC. This was by far the worst flood in human history, and it is not unimaginable that some memory of it survived for generations, giving rise to various myths. Naturally, these myths would be extremely inaccurate. Even events captured in writing a thousand years ago are inaccurate.
Anthropologists learn a great deal from mythology. There is a surprising amount of truth mixed in with the made-up stories. Abd referred to mythology as "a story about an inward journey and process, and a handbook for survival." In some cases this is true in a prosaic, literally way. The Polynesians used to memorize long epic poems that seemed to meander and made no sense to the first Europeans who heard them. It turned out these poems were navigation aids, describing the stars and way-points in the Pacific.
The Polynesians had no written language. Ancient people everywhere in the world knew that a person can commit tremendous amounts of text to memory when it is put into poetry. The Polynesians needed to keep in memory huge amounts of data or they would often have been lost at sea, so they used poetry as a practical means of recording information. Ancient stories such as the Bible, the Odyssey and the Ramayana were created long before writing was invented, and memorized for generations. Of course many variations arose, just as they do with folk songs such as the Ballad of Barbara Allen. There is probably some truth behind that story too, but with so many variations it is impossible to say when or where the actual events occurred.
- Jed
