pene.

THEOTHER PRESS

Wettheatay: Poveules 22

 

 

 

 

-» The Great Flood -*

What is the oldest surviv-
ing last-man-on-Earth story?

Well, it’s almost as old as
history. History began with
writing, because it’s through
writing that we can. get a
connected story of events.

History, then began about
3100 B.C. in the land that is
now called Iraq. Along the
lower course of the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers, there
lived a people we call Sum-
erieans, who were the first
to invent writing and other
various things. They were
clever people, obyiously.

As is true of all people,
the Sumerians had to deal
with natural disasters, and
about 2800 B.C. they had a
really bad one. The rivers,
which were their source of
life, overflowed. They did
this periodically, as rivers
will, but this time, they
really overflowed.

Why this incident was so

disasterous- whether
because of particularly
heavy rains, high tides, a
tidal wave, or a_ meteor

falling into the Persian Gulf,

Financial management is an

no one knows. However, it
seems to have been flooded,
and there was a great loss of
life.

Eventually, the flood re-
ceeded, and there was a
recovery, but after that, the
Sumerians recorded every
event as having happened
after the flood or before the
flood. Naturally since they
didn’t know what caused the
flood, they blamed it on the
gods. (That’s the advantage
of religion. You’re never
without an explanation for
anything.)

People being what they
are, there was a writer in
Sumeria who got a great
idea of telling the story of
the flood, but improving a
bit on it and making it a
little more dramatic than
actually occured. Why
drown just thousands? Why
not drown — everybody?
Everyone, that is, except for
one family, so that they
could account for the fact
that there were still people
living on Earth.

The story grew with addi-
tions from other writers

 

 

Right Angles
by

Doug Parsons

 

 

throughout the years, and
eventually there came into
existance the ‘Epic of
Gilgamesh, King of> Uruk’.
As part of the tale, the
writer described how and
why the gods decreed a
flood that drowned the
‘WHOLE Earth. The Sumer-
ians probably thought the
surrounding area was the
entire Earth.

He then described how
one man managed to escape
by the kindness and guid-
ance of one of the gods. This:
man’s name was
Ut-Napishtim, and he was
the first person we know of

the right to call yourself a CGA,

who was the ‘Last man on
Earth’.

The tale of Gilgamesh was
extremely popular, and _ it
was still to be found over
two thousand years later in
the library of Ashurbanipal,
the last great king of
Assyria.

The story of the flood was
taken up by other peoples
and other religions, probably
because in the first place, it

was very dramatic, in the
second place, it was
considered actual history,

and in the third place, the
majority of people lived
along the rivers and were
very familiar with floods.
‘The result was that the
Greeks had their story, and
the Israelites had their wi
which we’re all famili
with, of Noah. The story is
contained in the first eleven

chapters of Genesis, during

the seventh century B.C. It
stayed pretty close to the
original, as given in
Gilgamesh. (In our modern
world, we would call that
plagiarism.)

There are two things to
note about this first last man
story. In the first place,
Noah wasn’t really the last
man; he had three sons with
him. In the second place,
there were also four women
present- his wife and the
wives of the three sons. The
women weren’t important,
though. The Bible doesn’t
even mention their names.

The second thing to note

is that the biblical version of,

the tale of Gilgamesh was
accepted as actual history
for thousands of years. It
wasn’t until about 1800 that
geologists began to realize
that there had never been a
worldwide flood of Earth.
And even today there are
many who are certain there
was indeed a_ worldwide
flood ‘‘because the Bible
tells me so.’’ This -includes
the creationists, who are
very anxious to teach their

version of Babylonian
mythology in the schools as
‘science’. So don’t tell me
that Sci-Fi writers don’t
have influence.

It was only a few years
ago that scientists described
a natural disaster that may
really have happened and
may have nearly wiped out
life on Earth- the impact of
an enormous asteroid. It did
(so many say) succeed in
wiping out the. dinosaurs,
and this sort of thing may
have occured half a dozen

times before in  Earth’s
history. There are also
pandemics, such as_ the

Black Death, which is sup-
posed to have wiped ott a
third of the human species
in a third of a century.
However, the latest trend
in history is the threat of
Nuclear war, which would
certainly lead to a last man
on Earth situation, and
where |, personally, would
not wish to be that man.’

 

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