The speaker visited Short Creek, an area near the Grand Canyon on the Utah-Arizona border, consisting of Hilldale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.
This area is known as the settlement of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS).
Joe Jessup, an FLDS patriarch, is shown with five wives, 46 children, and 239 grandchildren, illustrating rapid population growth through polygamy.
The FLDS church is recognized for its distinctive dress adopted in the last 20-30 years and its former president, Warren Jeffs, who is incarcerated for crimes and abuses.
Short Creek exhibits extremes: large, elaborate compound houses for leaders and many unfinished buildings.
The community's building industry uses "cheap or free labor" from children and descendants to construct houses in Nevada and Arizona.
Warren Jeffs's former compound had phone taps to monitor community members.
FLDS members are apocalyptic and built a mine to store food and hide in case of an apocalypse.
The FLDS church is a polygamous offshoot of the broader Latter-day Saint (Mormon) tradition.
Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter-day Saint movement, had ideas about the biblical flood.
Early modern Europeans, including 19th-century Americans, literally interpreted the biblical flood story as a historical event that wiped out all humans and terrestrial animals except those on Noah's Ark.
Joseph Smith attempted to reconcile the existence of native animals and peoples in the Americas with a universal flood.
The Book of Mormon (1830) presents two 19th-century ideas:
Refugees from the Tower of Babel brought animals to the Americas on boats, explaining the presence of American animal species.
Native peoples are descended from the lost ten tribes of Israel.
The explanation of animals coming from Babel on boats has "holes," implying all American species must have come from Babel as none were left in the Old World.
Between 1830 and 1840, thousands were attracted to the Book of Mormon's connection of the Americas to the Bible.
Joseph Smith declared the second coming of Christ was near and the "New Jerusalem" (Zion, peaceable kingdom) would be built in Independence, Missouri, on the frontier.
He later stated that the Garden of Eden was also located in Independence, Missouri.
According to Joseph Smith's reinterpretation, all humans lived in the Western Hemisphere (Missouri) before the universal flood.
Noah and his ancestors, back to Adam and Eve, lived in Missouri, built the ark there, and after the flood, landed at Mount Ararat in the Middle East, transplanting the human species to the Eastern Hemisphere.
The early Latter-day Saints, like Adam and Eve, were expelled from "Eden" (Jackson County, Missouri).
Adam and Eve, after leaving Eden, moved to Adam-ondi-Ahman in Davis County, Missouri, where Joseph Smith and his followers settled a new town.
They also settled Far West, Missouri, where it was said Cain slew Abel.
Latter-day Saints on the American frontier were literally interpreting and reimagining Genesis stories in their own lives.
Main Points Topic Body
Literal readings of the Genesis flood story persist, with Christian fundamentalists in Kentucky building a giant literal ark called "Ark Encounter" as a tourist site.
The Ark Encounter was ironically flooded, despite its purpose.
The flood story in Genesis (chapters 6-9) is a tale of global holocaust often retold for children.
Literary scholars believe the Genesis flood story is especially contradictory due to being spliced together from two hypothetical sources: the J (Yahweh) source and the P (Priestly) source.
The J source describes Noah taking seven pairs of clean animals and two of unclean animals, while the P source states two of every living creature.
The J source refers to God by the name "Yahweh," while the P source uses the general term "God" (Elohim).
J source - Noah offers sacrifices to God leading to the covenant and rainbow, but in the P version, there is no sacrifice.
The P source - no sacrifices are offered by Noah or Abraham
Despite literal beliefs, science, especially Geology and Paleontology, Concludes NO Universal Flood compatible with the geological and fossil record could not have occurred.
Despite the lack of a universal flood, flood myths are nearly universal, found in Mesoamerica, ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, India, China, European mythologies, African traditional societies, East Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.
The Mayan flood myth from the Popol Vuh describes gods destroying wooden people with a flood because they could not properly worship.
An early Indian flood story from the Vedas tells of King Manu encountering a small fish, Matsya, who grows giant and saves Manu from a universal flood by taking him by boat to the Himalayas.
In ancient Greek mythology, Zeus destroys men of the Bronze Age with a flood; Prometheus warns his son Deucalion, who builds a floating chest and repopulates the earth with Pandora's daughter Pyrrha by throwing rocks over their shoulders.
The earliest surviving flood stories come from ancient Sumerr, including the Sumerian Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh, predating the biblical story by thousands of years.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the survivor of the flood is Utnapishtim, who is granted immortality by the gods.
Gilgamesh, after his friend Enkidu's death, seeks Utnapishtim to learn the secret of eternal life.
Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that death is the lot of man and that his own immortality was a one-time gift.
Utnapishtim challenges Gilgamesh to conquer sleep, which he fails, but reveals the secret of a plant that restores youth.
A serpent snatches the youth-restoring plant from Gilgamesh while he rests, explaining why serpents can renew their youth by shedding their skin, while humans cannot.
One intriguing hypothesis for the ubiquity of flood myths is a massive inundation of what became the Black Sea around 7,000 years ago.
A personal family flood story from the speaker’s ancestors in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1936, illustrates how flood events, even significant ones, are not always passed down through oral tradition over generations.
The lack of mention of Noah by early prophets like Amos, Josiah, and Isaiah suggests the Noah story was written later than stories about David and Moses, which were already known.
Flood myths likely originated as ideological explanations for observed phenomena, such as marine fossils found on mountains, rather than historical memories of a universal flood.
The true value of flood stories lies in their exploration of universal human struggles with mortality, suffering, and life.
Main Points Q&A
Is the Noah's Ark story suitable for children, and if so, what moral should be taught?
Some believe it's okay to tell children, with a moral of "follow God's direction wherever it takes you" (faith).
Others argue it's not suitable, as God's actions (global holocaust) set a bad example.
Teachers who do tell the story may intend to convey that God saves the righteous, but this can be seen as a theological heresy (God's grace is not conditional).
What are the costs and benefits of insisting on historical truth for clearly mythical sacred stories?
Costs: Leads to a false sense of history, distorts the story's true meaning (e.g., the Noah story is about universal holocaust, not a "tiny flood"). It also damages credibility and misapplies spiritual lessons, as these stories were not meant to be history books.
Benefits: (Though not explicitly stated as a benefit in the discussion) The desire for mystery and enchantment in life is a positive one, but it shouldn't lead to pseudo-scientific explanations or conspiracy theories.
Examples of modern myths that have become historicized:
Slenderman: Started as a web forum contest creation, now a modern folklore study.
George Washington chopping down the cherry tree: A famous story from a biographer meant to show Washington's character, but it has been debunked as having no historical basis.
American history: A blanket condemnation, suggesting that societies often create identity stories that paper over uncomfortable truths.
Book of Mormon: Academically, historically, archaeologically, and literarily, it is considered a 19th-century creation and does not refer to historical events.
Jesus's mention of Noah's story:
Does not add credence to it as a literal story. The historical Jesus lived in a context where people assumed the flood was real, so he would have shared that belief, but this doesn't make it true.
The fact that earlier prophets don't mention the flood story suggests it wasn't known or created yet when they were writing. Jesus's later mention shows how important the story became.
Atlantis story:
Unlike many myths, its origin is known: it was created by Plato as a thought experiment, not a historical event. Searches for a historical Atlantis are wrong. It is not related to flood stories.
Why was the preemptive measure of building an ark documented rather than created?
It's part of the story's purpose: God providing a way out for the favored individual, making it seem more realistic than a magical saving. It also serves to show God's interaction with his prophet.
Interpreting the flood story in modern times:
The earth as an ark, Noah as the first environmentalist: A powerful modern interpretation, emphasizing the sacredness of creation, humanity's role as stewards, and the potential for irreparable damage to the planet. It highlights that humanity is stuck on "this ark" together.
Mystical reading: The floodwaters as a symbol of God cleansing the earth of evil and wickedness, not a literal physical flood. Similar to baptism, where the old dies and the new is reborn symbolically.
Universality of myths:
The idea of universal myths or a collective unconscious (Levy Strauss, Jung) is plausible, suggesting commonly held archetypes transcend individual cultures.
However, they are not totally universal, as counter-types or different cultural takes often exist.
It's important to detach these ideas from a sense of historicity; they don't imply a collective memory of a historical event. Instead, they reflect universal themes like suffering and mortality.
Indigenous peoples of the United States and flood stories:
Yes, flood stories are ubiquitous across the Americas, including among Indigenous peoples of the U.S. and First Nations people in Canada.
Young Earth Creationists and the flood story:
They take the story literally, believing the Earth is only 6,000 years old. They deny scientific reality and create a pseudoscience where the flood is massively important to explain phenomena like fossils on mountains. This view has no scientific basis and is considered impossible.