The Two Sources of the Genesis Flood Myth
Biblical scholars have long realized that the flood myth in the Bible is compilation of two older but parallel stories, one from the northern kingdom of Israel (called the E source) and the other from the southern kingdom of Judah (called the J source). These stories were combined by some priestly group (the P source) in Jerusalem after the northern kingdom was destroyed by Assyria in 720 BC. The influx of northern refugees into the south required that a new common history be created by merging the slightly different traditions of their common religion. The editorial P source was very concerned with an orderly history which explains its emphasis on genealogy and the covenant theology which gives a framework in which to understand Israel's history (both is triumphs and defeats). A review of a book that attempts to recreate the J source can be found here. What follows is my attempt at separating the two parallel sources.
Rationale for the Flood
J source
6:5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
P source editorial introduction
9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
E source
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
Comments
In this New International Version of the Bible "LORD" is a translation of the Hebrew word "Yahweh" while God is a translation of the Hebrew word "Elohim". These two different terms for the divinity are the primary characteristics of their respective sources.
Construction Commands
E source
13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark (P editor insert) —you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
J Source
7:1 The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."
5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.
Comments
Verse 15 in Hebrew is: 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high (about 140 meters long, 23 meters wide and 13.5 meters high).
Notice the difference between the sources in the number and type of animals that Noah was to bring onto the ark.
Entering the Ark
E Source
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
J Source
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
P Source adds this editorial summary
13 On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.
The Flood Begins
J Source
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.
E source
18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. 21 Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
The Flood Ends
E source
8:1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. 2 Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4 and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
J Source
6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark 7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. 13 By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
Comments
Notice that the drying of the earth took much longer in the E source (more than 10 months) than in the J source (two months). Apparently the rest of the E source flood ending was deleted since it does not go all the way to the dry land stage.
Out of the Ark
E Source
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it."
18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
J Source
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
22 "As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease."
Final Comment
Notice how well the story line of each source flow together, a flow that is lost in the combined version.
Also notice that this flood myth is not based on a raging river flood analogy. Instead the extra water came from a combination of springs and rain that smoothly rose.
Comments
There are other flood myths from India , Babylonia, Hawaii, Aztec, Greece, Incas, Egypt and North American Indian.
The Apache version is basically :
Many years ago, people lived underground. When they ran out of food they sent a hummingbird up to see what he could find to eat. He found food and the people went up throught the hole and began living above ground.
One day a man looked back down into the hole and saw water rising. The wise ones knew that meant a great flood was coming. They cut down a great tree and hollowed it out to make a conoe, placing a young girl in it. The canoe floated high on the waters until nothing could be seen in any direction. She was told not to leave the vessel until it touched ground.
Finally it did touched ground and when the girl emerged all the world had drowned. She wondered if she would always be alone. She went up to the mountains to rest. As she lay down the sun shown on her , warming water that dripped on her from the rocks. The magic water impregnated her and she gave birth to a daughter who concieved in the same way. All of us are descended from her.
taken from
Parallel Myths
by : J.F. Bierlein
A truly different flood tradition seems to have arisen in China where the flood stories deal with river floods instead of "rising" floods. A fascinating idea is that the Mediterranean flood stories developed because of the Black Sea flooding around 8000 B.C. What is common in both is that the flood represents a second creation. First there was the gods, then they created humans and other mythical creatures, then the flood came leaving only humans and the world as it was known then.
Hopefully later this summer when life slows down I can review books related to these things.
It would be a good book to read. I enjoyed it. You might be right about the New World flood story , I don't know when it began to be told. Some of the parallel myths are older than those of the Old or New Testament.
peace
billie
There's one other story that gives the people of that time little credit, for it figures that since the people of that time didn't really know any other area other than the one they were in, to say that the world was flooded was actually only to say that their region was flooded.
Others have also tried to disprove the flood story by claiming that this area mentioned was used to being flooded, so it was no question that such would be recorded.
But geological evidence knock these down, for partial animal skeletons are found in deep the ground (similar depth) throughout several parts of the world.
Either way though, if we're looking at the stories, then we need to realize that the flood was also recorded in many other cultures...the Greeks, Hindus, Chinese, Mexicans, Babylonians, Sumarians, Algonquins, and the Hawaiians. And though they're not all the same in terms of characters or names, they all do record a great flood where almost all of life was wiped out, somebody made a boat and offers a sacrifice upon exiting. The significance of this is that it knocks out the above theories. In fact, one list of Sumerian kings treat the flood as a historical reference point.
Another interesting point about the Biblical account is that in many of the others, the person saved is either granted immortality (as with the Babylonian story), or exalted in some way. But in the Biblical story, the Bible moves on to Noah's sin. Only a story that seeks to tell the truth would include such.