Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1896 — Giants Survived the Flood. [ARTICLE]

Giants Survived the Flood.

Among the many queer stories related in the old Jewish Talmud is one concerning the action taken by the great race of giants at tbe time of the deluge. According to Rabbi Eliezer, when the flood broke upon the earth, the giants exclaimed “If all of the waters of the earth be gathered together they will only reach to our waists, and if the fountains of the great deep be broken up we will stamp them down again.” The same writer, vfio was one of the compilers of the Talmud, says that they actually tried to do this when the flood Anally came. Eliezer says that Og, their leader, “planted his foot tqion the fountain of the deep ami with his hands closed the windows of heaven.” Then, according to this same queer story, “God made the waters hot aud boiled the flesh from the bones of the haughty giauts.” The Targum of Palestine also says that the waters of the flood were hot, aud that the skin of the rhinoceros lies In folds because he was not allowed to enter the ark, but saved himself by hooking his horn under the sides of the vessel and floating with it. But Hie water which was directly under and at the sides of *ne ark was not hot—the rhinoceros loosened his skin swimming from a mountain peak to the side of the vessel. One account says that Og and another giant named Lain! also saved themselves by taking refuge lathe cool water under the edge of the ark’s bull, along with the rhinoceros. One rabIdulc authority quoted by Gould hi his “Patriarchs and Prophets,” says that Og saved himself by climbing upon tbe top of the ark, and that when Xoali discovered aud tried to dislodge lilm. he swore to be a slave (o Noah's family forever, if allowed to remain.