True, the story of the Garden and the Flood appear in ancient Sumerian texts, many years before the Bible was written. What has always interested me, though, is that these two tales are present in the mythos of nearly every ancient civilization. From the Aztecs to the Iroquois, from the ancient Japanese to the Sumerians, these legends always seem to crop up. Geological records seem to indicate some kind of worldwide natural disaster somewhere around the Cambrian period. Who knows? Perhaps the events portrayed actually happened.

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Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.

- Percy Shelley, "The Masque of Anarchy"