The Bible gives testimony that the Great Flood (Gen. 6-8) occurred in about 2348 BC, or about 1656 years after Creation. I believe this to be true, which immediately puts me at the mercy of scoffers, this being the end of the present age. This dismissive attitude toward the testimony about a worldwide flood was detailed in 2 Peter 3: 3-7:
First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." (NIV)
There is, however, a massive base of data about the Great Flood that concords with the biblical narrative. One element of this data is the testimony of oral traditions coming from every corner of the globe, all substantiating that narrative.
The question we asked ourselves was why this seemed to be lacking in the Badwe'e or Nzime oral tradition. Later on, my wife, Mary, suggested to me how they actually did tell the story before unintentionally distorting it later on.
Note that in the second case, "on the back of" precedes the word "snake", which bears a very close resemblance to "Noah". In the story that is told, there was a friendly snake that stretched from one bank of a river to another that enabled the descendents of Koo--the Njeme, the Nzime and the Badwe'e-- to escape pursuers. They crossed over the river on the back of a snake with the exception of a woman who chopped it with her cutlass and died when it went into the river, taking her with it.
First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." (NIV)
There is, however, a massive base of data about the Great Flood that concords with the biblical narrative. One element of this data is the testimony of oral traditions coming from every corner of the globe, all substantiating that narrative.
The question we asked ourselves was why this seemed to be lacking in the Badwe'e or Nzime oral tradition. Later on, my wife, Mary, suggested to me how they actually did tell the story before unintentionally distorting it later on.
As we reconstruct their story of the flood, they had a very brief but true summary of it:
"Our ancestors were saved from drowning in water through the help of Noah."
The part to note here is that the expression "through the help of" is communicated by the common dead metaphor "on (or 'in/at') the back of". This is not extraordinary. It is the normal way to convey the meaning "through the help or agency of".
It would have been a small step to take to go from that true statement to the one, showed below, that is distorted but contemporary and a part of a commonly-told story.
Note that in the second case, "on the back of" precedes the word "snake", which bears a very close resemblance to "Noah". In the story that is told, there was a friendly snake that stretched from one bank of a river to another that enabled the descendents of Koo--the Njeme, the Nzime and the Badwe'e-- to escape pursuers. They crossed over the river on the back of a snake with the exception of a woman who chopped it with her cutlass and died when it went into the river, taking her with it.As you can see, the expression "on the back of" was interpreted in its literal sense in the contemporary story, rather than in the original metaphorical sense.
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