环球英语 — 790：The Great Flood
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Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Mike Procter.
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And I'm Nick Page. This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand - no matter where in the world they live.
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People in every culture of the world have their own special stories. These stories tell about things that happened at the very beginning of their history. These ancient stories have been kept alive because parents have told them to their children for many thousands of years.
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Many traditions have a story about a great flood. Many of these stories tell about a good man who pleased God. When the flood came God saved this good man, his family and some animals.
Other stories talk about parents saving their children and some stories say the flood was caused by the behaviour of the animals.
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In China the story goes like this. The parents of Mahei and Manui cut down a huge tree. They hollowed out the inside of the tree trunk, leaving just a shell. They put the two children inside it with some food and a knife. They covered the ends of the tree trunk with cow skin and fixed some bells to the tree on the outside. The parents told the children not to come out until the flood had gone.
When the flood came, the tree trunk floated on the water with the children safely inside it. After a long time, the children heard the bells ringing. This told them that they were safely on the ground at last. They cut a hole in the cow skin and came out. They were the only people to survive the great flood.
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The people of Peru told their story in a different way. A farmer was looking after his llamas. These animals provide meat, and fur to make warm clothes. One month before the flood came, the llamas seemed very sad. They watched the stars at night and stopped eating. The farmer asked them what was wrong. They said the stars showed that a great flood was coming.
The farmer took his six children, the llamas and all the food he could carry. He went to the top of the highest mountain. As the flood water got higher, the mountain got higher too. When the flood water went down, the mountain returned to its usual size. The farmer and his children were the only human survivors of the great flood.
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What do these stories tell us? Some scientists believe they show that a world wide flood really happened. These scientists point to the discovery of the remains of sea creatures - even at the top of the highest mountains. But most scientists disagree. They say that there are other reasons why those remains are there.
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Some people believe there was a great flood but that it only covered part of the world. They say it probably happened in the Middle East. This is where scientists have discovered evidence of very early human settlements.
Whatever the truth about the size of the flood, a lot of the stories talk about the same things. They say people were very evil at that time and that was what caused the world to be destroyed. They say that people were warned about what was going to happen but only a very few people survived. The present world population came from these few people.
The Christian Bible tells the story this way:
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God created a perfect world. There was no evil anywhere in it. God created a man and a woman to live in the world and to enjoy everything he had made. Most of all he wanted them to enjoy being his friends. He knew that if they obeyed his simple rules, they would always be completely happy.
But the man and the woman rebelled against God. This evil spread from them to their children and from them to every human person who was born after them.
Later, God looked at the perfect world he had made and saw that it was ruined. He said, 'I will destroy all living things on the earth because humans have filled the earth with evil and violence'.
But there was one man who was different. His name was Noah. Noah loved God and worshipped him. He obeyed God's rules. And God chose Noah for a special purpose...
God warned Noah that he would send a flood to destroy every living creature on the earth. But God had a plan to save Noah and his family.
'Build a huge boat and make rooms in it', God said. God told Noah exactly how to build the boat. He told him what size it should be, how many floors, and where to put the door. Noah did everything just as God had said.
When the huge boat was ready, God told Noah to put all kinds of food into it. Then he told Noah to bring a male and a female of every kind of animal and bird into the boat.
At last, Noah went into the boat also with his wife, his three sons and their wives. Then God shut the door. The rain started, and water also came up from the ground. The rain lasted for forty days and forty nights.
The water got higher and higher until it covered all the high hills under the whole heaven. Every living thing that breathed air died in the flood.
Noah and his family floated safely in the boat for many months waiting for the flood water to go down. At last the boat rested on the top of a mountain. But there was still no dry ground. Noah waited. After many more weeks he opened the window and sent out a bird. It came back to him with the green leaf of an olive tree in its mouth. Noah knew that the earth was almost dry but he still waited for God.
At last God said, 'Go out of the boat now. Bring out your family and all the animals. Fill the earth with people again'.
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It was a fresh start in a clean world. But the Bible says that God knew that people would still be trapped by evil. The answer to that problem would come much later - in the work of Jesus Christ. But the flood story finishes with God promising never to flood the whole world again. He said that when it rains he would put a rainbow in the sky. He would see the beautiful colours of the rainbow and remember his promise to the whole human race.
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Flood stories from every continent in the world also tell about this promise of a rainbow. Does this prove that people in every nation remembered the same great flood? Or are the stories about different floods that happened at different times? Or were all the stories just invented to teach people about good and evil. What do you think?
