[hnfong]

> Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Chinese, Indians, etc. all have flood myths that are strikingly similar to the Noah myth.

Not sure about the others, but at least the Chinese "flood myth", the legend of Yu the Great, is qualitatively different from the Noah myth. It involves non-cataclysmic, recurring floods that the "government" wanted to control. There was no saving animals on a big boat and restarting civilization. It basically involved a big engineering project of directing water flow to where it's needed.

The Noah flood myths seem to describe floods of a much scarier kind, the kinds that have the potential to wipe out civilizations, as opposed to ones happening on a "fairly regular basis". Given that sea water levels rose tens of meters during the Younger Dryas (that's what google tells me at least), it seems conceivable that the movement of such massive amounts of water during these periods would have given rise to such stories.

[rmah]

Civilization to early man was not global, it was local. And yes, the Chinese myth you mention doesn't include a guy saving animals on a boat. But the indian Manu and Matsya myth does. As does the Ziusudra myth and the Gilgamesh flood myth of the Sumerian. And the And the Videvdad of ancient Iran, and the Pu Sangkasa-Ya Sangkasi of ancient Thailand (though here it's a giant magical gourd rather that a ship), and many many more.

What is common is that "everything" gets destroyed, a few survive to rebuild.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths