Hey jar, the thread is about whether the story could have been/was exaggerated. There's already a a couple going about the contradictions and stuff -- don't turn this one into a crusade and wreck it before it gets going properly, please?
Just a friendly request.
And yes, there are known to be numerous events that were likely embellished. For example, the Black Sea deluge; while it may not have been as big as originally claimed, it was definitely a large increase in water level over a relatively short period of time.
Plus, who wouldn't build up that kind of story? It's human nature to be competitive: "our flood was bigger than yours! Nahnahnahnahnah.."
And then there's also the propaganda value. "We are the chosen descendants of the only people to survive a flood that killed everything! Our ancestor was the single person selected by God to save all life! Blah blah, self-promotion, exaggeration, etc."
There's also the fact that there really
was a flood that destroyed the entire "world". For a majority of people at the time, the "world" consisted of everything within a few dozen miles of your birthplace.