Jump to content

Genesis flood narrative

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 112.211.214.39 (talk) at 08:06, 31 May 2017 (This is very obviously relevant.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"The Flood" redirects here. For other uses, see Flood (disambiguation).
See also: Sumerian creation myth and Epic of Gilgamesh
The Deluge, by John Martin, 1834. Oil on canvas. Yale University

The Genesis flood narrative (chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis) is the Hebrew version of the universal flood myth.[1]. The story tells of God's decision to return the Earth to its pre-creation state of watery chaos and then remake it in a reversal of creation.[2]

Composition

Landscape with Noah's Thank Offering (painting circa 1803 by Joseph Anton Koch)

Sources

See also: Documentary hypothesis

The flood is part of what scholars call the Primeval history, the first 11 chapters of Genesis.[3] These chapters, fable-like and legendary, form a preface to the patriarchal narratives which follow but show little relationship to them.[4][3][5] For example, the names of its characters and its geography - Adam ("Man") and Eve ("Life"), the Land of Nod ("Wandering"), and so on - are symbolic rather than real, and much of the narratives consist of lists of "firsts" - the first murder, the first wine, the first empire-builder.[6] Most notably, almost none of the persons, places and stories in it are ever mentioned anywhere else in the Bible.[6] This has led scholars to suppose that the History forms a late composition attached to Genesis to serve as an introduction.[7] Just how late is a subject for debate: at one extreme are those who see it as a product of the Hellenistic period, in which case it cannot be earlier than the first decades of the 4th century BCE;[8] on the other hand the Yahwist source has been dated by others, notably John Van Seters, to the exilic pre-Persian period (the 6th century BCE) precisely because the Primeval History contains so much Babylonian influence in the form of myth.[9][Note 1]

The flood narrative is made up of two stories woven together.[10] As a result many details are contradictory, such as how long the flood lasted (40 days according to Genesis 7:17, 150 according to 7:24), how many animals were on board the ark (one pair of each in 6:19, one pair of the unclean animals and seven pairs of the clean in 7:2), and whether Noah released a raven which "went to and fro until the waters were dried up" or a dove which on the third occasion "did not return to him again," or possibly both.[11] Despite this disagreement on details the story forms a unified whole (some scholars see in it a "chiasm", a literary structure in which the first item matches the last, the second the second-last, and so on),[Note 2] and many efforts have been made to explain this unity, including attempts to identify which of the two sources was earlier and therefore influenced the other.[12][Note 3]

Comparative mythology

Main article: Flood myth

The flood myth originated in Mesopotamia[13] The Mesopotamian story has three distinct versions, the Sumerian Epic of Ziasudra, and as episodes in two works in Akkadian (the language of Babylon), the Atrahasis Epic and the Epic of Gilgamesh.[14] The oldest written text is the Ziasudra epic, dating from about 1600 BCE, [14]

Flood narrative: Genesis 6:9-9:17

The Deluge (illustration by Gustave Doré from the 1865 La Sainte Bible)

Summary

Noah was a righteous man and walked with God. Seeing that the earth was corrupt and filled with violence, God instructed Noah to build an ark in which he, his sons, and their wives, together with male and female of all living creatures, would be saved from the waters. Noah entered the ark in his six hundredth year, and on the 17th day of the 2nd month of that year "the fountains of the Great Deep burst apart and the floodgates of heaven broke open" and rain fell for forty days and forty nights until the highest mountains were covered 15 cubits, and all life perished except Noah and those with him in the ark. After 150 days "God remembered Noah ... and the waters subsided" until the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. On the 27th day of the 2nd month of Noah's six hundred and first year the earth was dry. Then Noah built an altar and made a sacrifice, and God made a covenant with Noah that man would be allowed to eat every living thing but not its blood, and that God would never again destroy all life by a flood.

The flood and the creation narrative

The flood is a reversal and renewal of God's creation of the world.[15] In Genesis 1 God separates the "waters above the earth" from those below so that dry land can appear as a home for living things, but in the flood story the "windows of heaven" and "fountains of the deep} are opened so that the world is returned to the watery chaos of the time before creation.[16] Even the sequence of flood events mimics that of creation, the flood first covering the earth to the highest mountains, then destroying, in order, birds, cattle, beasts, "swarming creatures", and finally mankind.[16] (This, incidentally, mirrors the Babylonian flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where at the end of rain "all of mankind had returned to clay," the substance of which they had been made).[17] The ark itself is likewise a microcosm of Solomon's Temple.

Intertextuality: the flood story as the reversal of creation

"Intertextuality" means the way episodes in the biblical books refer to and echo and each other. Such echoes are seldom coincidental - for example, the word used for Noah's ark is the same used for the basket in which Moses is saved, implying a link between the stories of Moses and Noah, both of them divinely chosen saviours in a world threatened by water and chaos.[18] The most significant such echo is with the Genesis creation narrative: the division between the "waters above" and the "waters below" the earth is removed, the flood covers the dry land, all life is destroyed, and only Noah and those with him survive to obey the divine command to "be fruitful and multiply."[19]

Islam

Main article: Noah in Islam

The Quran states that Noah (Nūḥ) was inspired by God, believed in the oneness of God, and preached Islam.[20] God commanded Noah to build an ark. As he was building it, the chieftains passed him and mocked him. Upon its completion, the ark was loaded with the animals in Noah's care as well as his immediate household.[21] The people who denied the message of Noah, including one of his own sons, drowned.[22] The final resting place of the ark was referred to as Mount Judi.[23]

Yazidi

According to the Yazidi Mishefa Reş, two flood events occurred. The first flood involved Noah and his family, whose ark landed at a place called Ain Sifni in the region of Nineveh Plains, 40 kilometres (25 mi) north-east of Mosul. In the second flood, the Yazidi race was preserved in the person of Na'mi (or Na'umi), surnamed Malik Miran, who became the second founder of their race.[24] His ark was pierced by a rock as it floated above Mount Sinjar, but settled in the same location as it is in Islamic tradition, Mount Judi.[citation needed]

Historicity

While some scholars have offered possible explanations for the origins of the flood myth including a legendary retelling of a possible Black Sea deluge, the general mythological exaggeration and implausibility of the story are widely recognized by relevant academic fields. The acknowledgement of this follows closely the development of understanding of the natural history and especially the geology and paleontology of the planet.[25]

Setting

See also: Narrative criticism

The Masoretic Text of the Torah places the Great Deluge 1,656 years after Creation, or 1656 AM (Anno Mundi, "Year of the World"). Many attempts have been made to place this time-span to a specific date in history.[26] At the turn of the link CE, Joseph Scaliger placed Creation at link BCE, Petavius calculated 3982 BCE,[27][28] and according to James Ussher's Ussher chronology, Creation took place in 4004 BCE, dating the Great Deluge to 2348 BCE.[29]

Flood geology

Main articles: Flood geology and Scriptural geologist

The development of scientific geology had a profound impact on attitudes towards the biblical flood narrative. By bringing into question the biblical chronology, which placed the Creation and the Flood in a history which stretched back no more than a few thousand years, the concept of deep geological time undermined the idea of the historicity of the ark itself. In 1823 the English theologian and natural scientist, William Buckland, interpreted geological phenomena as Reliquiae Diluvianae: "relics of the flood" which "attested the action of a universal deluge".[citation needed] His views were supported by others at the time, including the influential geologist Adam Sedgwick, but by 1830 Sedgwick considered that the evidence suggested only local floods. Louis Agassiz subsequently explained such deposits as the results of glaciation.[30]

In 1862 William Thompson (later to become Lord Kelvin) calculated the age of the Earth at between 24 million and 400 million years, and for the remainder of the 19th century, discussion focused not on the viability of this theory of deep time, but on the derivation of a more precise figure for the age of the Earth.[31] Lux Mundi, an 1889 volume of theological essays which is usually held[by whom?] to mark a stage in the acceptance of a more critical approach to scripture, took the stance that readers should rely on the gospels as completely historical, but should not take the earlier chapters of Genesis literally.[32] By a variety of independent means, scientist have determined that the Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old.

The scientific community regards flood geology as pseudoscience because it contradicts the scientific consensus in geology, stratigraphy, geophysics, physics, paleontology, biology, anthropology, and archeology.[33][34][35] Modern geology, its sub-disciplines and other scientific disciplines utilize the scientific method to analyze the geology of the earth. Scientific analysis refutes the key tenets of flood geology, which do not have any standing in the scientific community.[36][37][38][39][40] Modern geology relies on a number of established principles, one of the most important of which is Charles Lyell's principle of uniformitarianism. In relation to geological forces, uniformitarianism holds that the shaping of the Earth has occurred by means of mostly slow-acting forces that can be seen in operation today. In general, there is a lack of any evidence for any of the above effects proposed by flood geologists, and scientists do not take their claims of fossil-layering seriously.[41]

Species distribution

By the 17th century believers in the Genesis account faced the issue of reconciling the exploration of the New World and increased awareness of the global distribution of species with the older scenario whereby all life had sprung from a single point of origin on the slopes of Mount Ararat. The obvious answer involved mankind spreading over the continents following the destruction of the Tower of Babel and taking animals along, yet some of the results seemed peculiar. In 1646 Sir Thomas Browne wondered why the natives of North America had taken rattlesnakes with them, but not horses: "How America abounded with Beasts of prey and noxious Animals, yet contained not in that necessary Creature, a Horse, is very strange".[42]

Browne, among the first to question the notion of spontaneous generation, was a medical doctor and amateur scientist making this observation in passing. However, biblical scholars of the time, such as Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) and Athanasius Kircher (c.1601–80), had also begun to subject the Ark story to rigorous scrutiny as they attempted to harmonize the biblical account with the growing body of natural historical knowledge. The resulting hypotheses provided an important impetus to the study of the geographical distribution of plants and animals, and indirectly spurred the emergence of biogeography in the 18th century. Natural historians began to draw connections between climates and the animals and plants adapted to them. One influential theory held that the biblical Ararat was striped with varying climatic zones, and as climate changed, the associated animals moved as well, eventually spreading to repopulate the globe.[42]

There was also the problem of an ever-expanding number of known species: for Kircher and earlier natural historians, there was little problem finding room for all known animal species in the ark. Less than a century later, discoveries of new species made it increasingly difficult to justify a literal interpretation for the Ark story.[43] By the middle of the 18th century only a few natural historians accepted a literal interpretation of the narrative.[44]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ See John Van Seters, "Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis" (1992), pp.80, 155-56.
  2. ^ The controversial existence of a chiasm is not an argument against the construction of the story from two sources. See the overview in R.E. Friedman (1996), p.91.
  3. ^ The two sources are the Priestly and the Yahwist or "non-priestly". See Bill Arnold, "Genesis" (2009),p.97.

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Leeming 2010, p. 469.
  2. ^ Bandstra 2009, p. 61.
  3. ^ a b Cline 2007, p. 13.
  4. ^ Alter 2008, p. 13-14.
  5. ^ Sailhamer 2010, p. 301 and fn.35.
  6. ^ a b Blenkinsopp 2011, p. 2.
  7. ^ Sailhamer 2010, p. 301.
  8. ^ Gmirkin 2006, p. 240-241.
  9. ^ Gmirkin 2006, p. 6.
  10. ^ Cline 2007, p. 19.
  11. ^ Cline 2007, p. 20— Which was it—40 or 150 days? ... And how many animals ... One pair of each ... Or seven pairs of each ... And did he release a raven ... until the waters were dried up ... or did he release a dove three different times ... ?
  12. ^ Arnold 2009, p. 97.
  13. ^ Chen 2013, p. 1.
  14. ^ a b Finkel 2014, p. 88.
  15. ^ Baden 2012, p. 184.
  16. ^ a b Keiser 2013, p. 133.
  17. ^ Keiser 2013, p. 133 fn.29.
  18. ^ Bodner 2016, p. 95-96.
  19. ^ Levenson 1988, p. 10-11.
  20. ^ Quran 4:163, Quran 26:105–107
  21. ^ Quran 11:35–41
  22. ^ Quran 7:64
  23. ^ Quran 11:44
  24. ^ Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, London Institution, Volume 2. University of London: School of Oriental Studies. 1921.
  25. ^ Montgomery, David R. (2012). The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood. Norton.
  26. ^ Timeline for the Flood. AiG, 9 March 2012. Retrieved 2012-04-24.
  27. ^ Barr 1984–85, 582.
  28. ^ Davis A. Young, Ralph F. Stearley, The Bible, Rocks, and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth, p. 45.[1]
  29. ^ James Barr, 1984–85. "Why the World Was Created in 4004 BC: Archbishop Ussher and Biblical Chronology", Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 67:604 PDF document
  30. ^ Herbert, Sandra (1991). "Charles Darwin as a prospective geological author". British Journal for the History of Science. No. 24. pp. 171–174. Retrieved 24 July 2009.
  31. ^ Dalrymple 1991, pp. 14–17
  32. ^ James Barr (4 March 1987). Biblical Chronology, Fact or Fiction? (PDF). University of London. p. 17. ISBN 978-0718708641. Retrieved 8 August 2010. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  33. ^ Isaak, Mark. The Counter-Creationism Handbook. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
  34. ^ Senter, Phil. "The Defeat of Flood Geology by Flood Geology." Reports of the National Center for Science Education 31:3 (May–June 2011). Printed electronically by California State University, Northridge. Retrieved 7 June 2014.
  35. ^ Montgomery 2012.
  36. ^ Young 1995.
  37. ^ Isaak 2006.
  38. ^ Morton 2001.
  39. ^ Isaak 2007, p. 173.
  40. ^ Stewart 2010, p. 123.
  41. ^ Isaak 1998.
  42. ^ a b Cohn 1999.
  43. ^ Browne 1983, p. 276.
  44. ^ Young 1995, p. History of the Collapse of "Flood Geology" and a Young Earth.

Bibliography

Further reading

Hamilton, Victor P (1990). The book of Genesis: chapters 1–17. Eerdmans.
Kessler, Martin; Deurloo, Karel Adriaan (2004). A commentary on Genesis: the book of beginnings. Paulist Press.
McKeown, James (2008). Genesis. Eerdmans.
Rogerson, John William (1991). Genesis 1–11. T&T Clark.
Sacks, Robert D (1990). A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Edwin Mellen.
Towner, Wayne Sibley (2001). Genesis. Westminster John Knox Press.
Wenham, Gordon (2003). "Genesis". In James D. G. Dunn, John William Rogerson (ed.). Eerdmans Bible Commentary. Eerdmans.
Whybray, R.N (2001). "Genesis". In John Barton (ed.). Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Genesis_flood_narrative&oldid=783124179"