Noah--in a Martyr's self defense

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me;

for the earth is filled with violence through them;

and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Genesis 6:13

Pionius was martyred in 250. His martyrdom, due to local inscriptions, his diary and other writings was well documented. Many of his cellmates relapsed...But what is of interest was his use of Noah in his defense....

"Pionius next reminded the pagans of their hero Deucalion and the Jews of their Noah. Apologists had often compared these two traditions of a flood."
Pagans & Christians by Robin Lane Fox, p.476

Who was Deucalion?
"When Zeus, the king of the gods, resolved to destroy all humanity by a flood, Deucalion constructed

an ark in which, according to one version, he and his wife rode out the flood and landed on Mount Parnassus. According to a story found first in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book I, upon offering a sacrifice and inquiring how to renew the human race, they were ordered to cast behind them the bones of their mother. The couple correctly interpreted this to mean they should throw behind them the stones of the hillside (“mother earth”), and they did so. Those stones thrown by Deucalion became men, while those thrown by Pyrrha became women. In early Greek versions Hermes told the couple directly to cast stones behind them." GreekMythology


Here you can see the Greeks keeping the roots of a true story and then tweaking it over time. But what is of interest here is what Paul described happened as people turned from God. Note that the Greeks tweaking included "mother earth" into the storyline...listen to Paul, as their unbelief led to nature worship--

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator,..

Romans 1:21,23,25