The chapter first, uninterrupted, from the English Standard Version of the Bible.
1 Then the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.
2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate,
3 and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.
4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground."
5 And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth.
7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground,
9 two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
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11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark,
14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature.
15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.
16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in.
17 The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.
18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.
20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.
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21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind.
22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.
23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.
2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate,
3 and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.
4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground."
5 And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth.
7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground,
9 two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
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11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark,
14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature.
15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.
16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in.
17 The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.
18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.
20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind.
22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.
23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.
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The Bible has a habit of combining multiple versions of the same tale, complete with contradictions and inconsistencies, and putting them side-by-side. It does this most notably in the New Testament, where we get four radically different Synoptic Gospels about Jesus Christ from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In the same way, this chapter is merely a retelling of Genesis 6, and as such there is not a great deal that can be said about the Flood narrative that wasn't already covered here.
There are, however, a few oddities that can be deliberated over. For one, in 7:2, God tells Noah that he must gather up two of every animal, clean and unclean. Firstly, one wonders why God would go to the trouble of making any sort of animal 'unclean' in the first place. Having, at this critical juncture, acknowledged his failure in creating them, it's hard to comprehend why God doesn't simply let them get swept away under the waves if they are so ungodly.
More damning though is the fact that God hasn't bothered to tell anyone what animals are clean or unclean yet. At this particular point in history, God has not fashioned his covenant with the Jews; in fact, the people called the Jews are not yet represented to exist. Abraham, the father of that sect of Semites, had not even been born in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, and so he hadn't yet thought up the brilliant idea of giving his foreskin to God in exchange for special favors. In fact, the two books that mention these dietary restrictions in the Bible, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, are commonly attributed by Biblical scholars to Moses, a man who has not yet been mentioned in our Biblical narrative. Archaeologists, of course, say that these books were written centuries later than even Moses' purported time on Earth.
While it is true that after the Deluge, God grants mankind a provisional "Noahic covenant," (as we will see in the next two chapters, Genesis 8-9), the only dietary restriction given by God at this time is that men should not be eating the flesh of animals if it still has the blood in it. Given this evidence straight from the Bible itself, it is hard to imagine how any explanation other than 'fuck up' could be attributed to the inclusion of dietary laws that had not yet been formulated at this early point in prehistory.
Curiously, though Genesis 6:19 has God telling Noah to gather two of every kind of animal, one male and one female, in Genesis 7:2-3 this seems to have changed, and now there are seven pairs (fourteen representatives each of the 30 million animal species that exist on Earth, all crowded together on a boat the size of 1.5 football fields). So which is it? Did Noah and his sons cram 60 million different animals into their ark, or was it 420 million? It's hard to consider this an insignificant detail, and yet the Bible contradicts itself on the size of Noah's task within a few pages of the original narrative.
We are again reminded that Noah is over 600 years old when the Flood strikes, having apparently been spared from the bizarrely placed commandment from God in Genesis 6:3 that man should never live beyond 120 years. This prohibition on longevity is known to have taken place before the Flood because it is a direct response to the wickedness of mankind. Though we are told that Noah is righteous and virtuous, it might have been helpful had God spelled out that Noah was given a special dispensation to be an incredibly ancient geezer when the rest of mankind had had its lifespan curtailed severely.
We are told in Genesis 7:10 that Noah, his three sons, and their four wives are given only seven days during which they must gather every animal species from the earth, including birds and insects. As mentioned previously, it can likely be inferred that they did a poor job of it, since this is the only explanation offered by the Bible for the extinction of millions of species known to have previously walked the Earth. Noah was obviously cutting corners; he saved the platypus but he could not be bothered to scoop up a pair of pterosaurs, or a velociraptor or seven.
While it is easy to frown and castigate Noah for a poor work ethic, some mathematics is required. Let us assume that there were 30 million species of animals on board the vessel, and let's take Genesis 6's assumption that there were only two of each species loaded onto the ark over a period of seven days before the rains began. There are 86,400 seconds in a single day, which means a week has 604,800 seconds in it. By my calculations, this means that Noah and his sons would have to load almost 500 different animal species (consisting of a breeding pair each) onto the ark every single second, without even pausing for a break.
If it were me, I'd probably have said 'fuck it, just drown me.'
In any case, after this monumental animal rustling, God finally sealed Noah in with all of those sharp-toothed and fecally-abundant beasts, and the rains began to fall. Now, in Genesis 7:17 we are told that the rains themselves lasted for 40 days, but the next chapter makes it clear that Noah was floating on God's temporary ocean for a much longer time, until the water receded to its natural level. It should come as no surprise that the Bible is not at all clear on how long this supposed super-shepherd spent wandering with his flock, but the epic continues with the next post, in Genesis 8.
There are, however, a few oddities that can be deliberated over. For one, in 7:2, God tells Noah that he must gather up two of every animal, clean and unclean. Firstly, one wonders why God would go to the trouble of making any sort of animal 'unclean' in the first place. Having, at this critical juncture, acknowledged his failure in creating them, it's hard to comprehend why God doesn't simply let them get swept away under the waves if they are so ungodly.
More damning though is the fact that God hasn't bothered to tell anyone what animals are clean or unclean yet. At this particular point in history, God has not fashioned his covenant with the Jews; in fact, the people called the Jews are not yet represented to exist. Abraham, the father of that sect of Semites, had not even been born in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, and so he hadn't yet thought up the brilliant idea of giving his foreskin to God in exchange for special favors. In fact, the two books that mention these dietary restrictions in the Bible, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, are commonly attributed by Biblical scholars to Moses, a man who has not yet been mentioned in our Biblical narrative. Archaeologists, of course, say that these books were written centuries later than even Moses' purported time on Earth.
While it is true that after the Deluge, God grants mankind a provisional "Noahic covenant," (as we will see in the next two chapters, Genesis 8-9), the only dietary restriction given by God at this time is that men should not be eating the flesh of animals if it still has the blood in it. Given this evidence straight from the Bible itself, it is hard to imagine how any explanation other than 'fuck up' could be attributed to the inclusion of dietary laws that had not yet been formulated at this early point in prehistory.
Curiously, though Genesis 6:19 has God telling Noah to gather two of every kind of animal, one male and one female, in Genesis 7:2-3 this seems to have changed, and now there are seven pairs (fourteen representatives each of the 30 million animal species that exist on Earth, all crowded together on a boat the size of 1.5 football fields). So which is it? Did Noah and his sons cram 60 million different animals into their ark, or was it 420 million? It's hard to consider this an insignificant detail, and yet the Bible contradicts itself on the size of Noah's task within a few pages of the original narrative.
We are again reminded that Noah is over 600 years old when the Flood strikes, having apparently been spared from the bizarrely placed commandment from God in Genesis 6:3 that man should never live beyond 120 years. This prohibition on longevity is known to have taken place before the Flood because it is a direct response to the wickedness of mankind. Though we are told that Noah is righteous and virtuous, it might have been helpful had God spelled out that Noah was given a special dispensation to be an incredibly ancient geezer when the rest of mankind had had its lifespan curtailed severely.
We are told in Genesis 7:10 that Noah, his three sons, and their four wives are given only seven days during which they must gather every animal species from the earth, including birds and insects. As mentioned previously, it can likely be inferred that they did a poor job of it, since this is the only explanation offered by the Bible for the extinction of millions of species known to have previously walked the Earth. Noah was obviously cutting corners; he saved the platypus but he could not be bothered to scoop up a pair of pterosaurs, or a velociraptor or seven.
While it is easy to frown and castigate Noah for a poor work ethic, some mathematics is required. Let us assume that there were 30 million species of animals on board the vessel, and let's take Genesis 6's assumption that there were only two of each species loaded onto the ark over a period of seven days before the rains began. There are 86,400 seconds in a single day, which means a week has 604,800 seconds in it. By my calculations, this means that Noah and his sons would have to load almost 500 different animal species (consisting of a breeding pair each) onto the ark every single second, without even pausing for a break.
If it were me, I'd probably have said 'fuck it, just drown me.'
In any case, after this monumental animal rustling, God finally sealed Noah in with all of those sharp-toothed and fecally-abundant beasts, and the rains began to fall. Now, in Genesis 7:17 we are told that the rains themselves lasted for 40 days, but the next chapter makes it clear that Noah was floating on God's temporary ocean for a much longer time, until the water receded to its natural level. It should come as no surprise that the Bible is not at all clear on how long this supposed super-shepherd spent wandering with his flock, but the epic continues with the next post, in Genesis 8.
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