We read in Chambers's Encyclopædia, that:
"It was at one time extensively believed, even by intelligent scholars, that the myth of Deucalion was a corrupted tradition of the Noachian deluge, but this untenable opinion is now all but universally abandoned."[102:1]
This idea was abandoned after it was found that the Deucalion myth was older than the Hebrew.
What was said in regard to the Eden story not being mentioned in other portions of the Old Testament save in Genesis, also applies to this story of the Deluge. Nowhere in the other books of the Old Testament is found any reference to this story, except in Isaiah, where "the waters of Noah" are mentioned, and in Ezekiel, where simply the name of Noah is mentioned.
We stated in [Chapter II.] that some persons saw in this story an astronomical myth. Although not generally admitted, yet there are very strong reasons for believing this to be the case.
According to the Chaldean account—which is the oldest one known—there were seven persons saved in the ark.[102:2] There were also seven persons saved, according to some of the Hindoo accounts.[102:3] That this referred to the sun, moon, and five planets looks very probable. We have also seen that Noah was the tenth patriarch, and Xisuthrus (who is the Chaldean hero) was the tenth king.[102:4] Now, according to the Babylonian table, their Zodiac contained ten gods called the "Ten Zodiac gods."[102:5] They also believed that whenever all the planets met in the sign of Capricorn, the whole earth was overwhelmed with a deluge of water.[102:6] The Hindoos and other nations had a similar belief.[102:7]
It is well known that the Chaldeans were great astronomers. When Alexander the Great conquered the city of Babylon, the Chaldean priests boasted to the Greek philosophers, who followed his army, that they had continued their astronomical calculations through a period of more than forty thousand years.[102:8] Although this statement cannot be credited, yet the great antiquity of Chaldea cannot be doubted, and its immediate connection with Hindostan, or Egypt, is abundantly proved by the little that is known concerning its religion, and by the few fragments that remain of its former grandeur.
In regard to the story of "The Tower of Babel" little need be said. This, as well as the story of the Creation and Fall of Man, and the Deluge, was borrowed from the Babylonians.[102:9]
"It seems," says George Smith, "from the indications in the (cuneiform) inscriptions, that there happened in the interval between 2000 and 1850 B. C. a general collection of the development of the various traditions of the Creation, Flood, Tower of Babel, and other similar legends." "These legends were, however, traditions before they were committed to writing, and were common in some form to all the country."[103:1]