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Re to Mani's comments on Vedas-Bible-Flood-Time

From the Bhakti List Archives

Tatachar • December 18, 1995 


Mani said:
>>I should point out that this timeline does not
>>exist in the Bible either. It was the invention
>>of one Bishop Ussher a few hundred years ago. He
>>did some interesting mathematics to arrive at
>>the 4004 B.C. figure.

This is true. There is no mention of date of creation 
as such in the Bible. However, the Bible lists geneology from
Adam down to Jesus. If we assume that  there are no lapses(everyone was
mentioned)
then the Math is quite obvious. Roughly 100 years per 
3-4  generation.

Also, the Bible gives the  life span of the  descendants from Adam to Noah.
Thus, we can easily calculate the timing of flood with respect
to creation of Adam. This is roughly 1000 years from the 
time of creation(Adam).

Mani also said:
>>Note that the flood myth is entirely absent in the
>>the oldest available strata of Indian religious
>>literature, the Rg Veda, Brahmanas, and Upanishads.

Purans talk about flood and Matsya Avataram, Manu rescuing
the life  with the help of Matsya, akin to Noah of the Bible. Varaha avataram
is about the lord as Varaha
lifting the mother earth out of water.  

Vedas also have some  texts 
which say that everything was covered by water (I don't recall the reference
now). Also, the Hiranya Garbha hymn mentions of high waters as briefly
described below:
Hiranyagarbha (the Golden Embryo) Hymn (Rig Veda 10.121)
This Hymn is semi-speculative and introduces two terms for the creator,
Hiranyagharba and Prajapati (the progenitor). 

In the beginning the Golden Embryo arose.  When the high waters came pregnant
with the embryo that is everything, bringing forth fire.  
He arose from that as the one life's breath of the gods. Once He was born, He
was the lord of creation. He is the God to whom we should pay oblations to.

-K. Sreekrishna
I would like to add: All myths and folk lores 
perhaps have some basis which we have not
figured out.
I am just trying to speculate a possible
synchrony here between Biblical age 
and  age of Kali Yuga.