Our next selection is Genesis 6-8, which details the Noah and flood story.
Post away. I'll add my comments on this topic a little later.
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Our next selection is Genesis 6-8, which details the Noah and flood story.
Post away. I'll add my comments on this topic a little later.
Two things stand out for me on reading this:
1) There weren't 2 of each species, as I was used to thinking, but 7 pairs of each species in the ark.
2) After they left the ark, some of each of these species Noah burnt as sacrifices.
That surprised me too. There were only two of the unclean species right?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I just don't find the flood story all that interesting, it's not even unique to the Bible, appearing in the older Epic of Gilgamesh as well.
It reminds me of this Isabella Rossellini video though:
http://greenporno.tumblr.com/post/16...it-to-the-next
Yes, that is true. The only reason that there were 7 pair of the clean animals is that they sacrificed them as Yes/No said.Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
I enjoyed the video. And when the sacrificing time comes after the flood waters leave, I'd like to sacrifice the mosquitoes.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
I don't find the flood story interesting either, but what I think is interesting is that the story is supposedly part of J's original text which started the whole thing. But who knows what she originally wrote?
What some consider to be J's text was translated by David Rosenberg as The Book of J. Harold Bloom's commentaries are in there.
So men are sons of God, but women are only daughters of men? And what exactly is uncleaned beasts?
It's debatable whether the flood episode in the Epic of Gilgamesh is older than the Bible's account.
The literary merit of the flood story in the Bible is excellent; whereas the account in the Epic of Gilgamesh is crude and fragmented--the writing I mean. The account in the Bible reads smoothly. Whoever wrote the Bible's accouht of the flood was an accomplished writer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
one pair representing each elohim. there are 7 elohim, which in greek mythology would be the equivalent to the seven original planets: sun, mercury, venus, moon, mars, jupiter, saturn. yeah i know, sun and moon arent planets, but im not classifying, just mentioning.
in hebrew mythology it would be the 7 demiurgs, the archangels that built the world:Mikael, Gabriel, Shatqiel, Baradiel, Shachqiel, Baraqiel (Baradiel), Sidiel (or Pazriel),
and in the christian gnostic mythology it would be: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel (Phanuel), Barachiel, Sealtiel, Jehudiel
the seven elohim are:Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai, Ouraios, Eloi, Astaphaios, Achamoth
well, you get the point
Those dudes were just obsessed with the number seven (the highest of the single numerical primes) and looked for 'seven' in everything. Seven days of the week! It's a miracle! Seven planets! It's a miracle! Seven prophets! It's a miracle! Seven plagues! It's a miracle!
Julian Barnes' History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters has a great account of what it might've been like to be on the Ark, but I'm not going to spoil it for you.
The fact that the myth appears in Gilgamesh is due to it being one of the collected tales of the peoples of the region. (How many peoples? Seven? It's a miracle!)
Or it wasn't a myth at all, and had a profound affect on those who experienced it. I mean a flood's just a seasonal occurence, but when it does actually rain for forty days and you don't know anything about Earth shifting on its axis or pole inversion or can't even be sure where rain comes from...
There had been an Iceage thousands of years before the invention of writing, and there's no mention of it anywhere, not even in cave paintings.
No, I think to a desert dwelling people who were more accustomed to droughts and duststorms, the opposite very wet hardship would have had to made you think 'Why does our God hate us so much?'
I noticed a lot of people mention the 7 animals. But if you read closely right before the seven animals, God commands Noah to bring two pairs of each animal only. Later the narrative again assumes there are only two pairs of animals.
"And of all that lives, of all flesh, you shall take two of each into the ark to keep alive with you; they shall be male and female" (Genesis 6:19, JPS translation)
"Of every clean animal you shall take seven pairs, males and their mates, and of every animal that is not clean, two, a male and its mate" (Genesis 7:2)
"Of the clean animals, of the animals that are not clean, of the birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two of each, male and female, came to Noah into the ark, as God had commanded Noah" (Genesis 7:8)
"They came to Noah into the ark, two each of all flesh in which there was breath of life" (Genesis 7:15)
"Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking of every clean animal and of every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar" (Genesis 8:20)
If read it all as one unified story, the flood myth contains a lot of contradictions.
Of course, I think there are actually two flood stories here that switch back and forth between their narrative in a pattern: Story A, then part of Story B, part of Story A, then part of Story B, etc. The ending of one of the stories occur at the end of Genesis 8, while the end of the other version occurs at the beginning of Genesis 9. Yes, there are even two endings.
This also explains why God repeats a million times, that yes, he plans to destroy the earth with water as if we don't believe the first three or four times he tells Noah. Of course, he probably only tells him twice per a narrative, but since these are two stories spliced together, it sounds like he is repeating himself. Each story has slight variants from each other in other little details.
In one story, the main reason he destroys the earth seems to be that humans are copulating with other divine beings (angels), thus alluding to Genesis 3 and the fear that humanity could become divine by eating from the tree of life. This theme consistently repeats itself throughout Genesis and other parts of the Bible (humans are not meant to be divine like God, and bad things happen to them when they try to surpass their limitations). He does connect this to a more general: therefore, the people were evil and wicked.
In the other version of the story, the main reason seems to be a much more general people are just evil and wicked and the earth has become corrupt, without much of a specific reason.
The presence of two stories suggests that these stories originally circulated orally before they were recorded and two different traditions, if not more were written down. Whoever redacted this narrative must have felt both stories were authoritative for different reasons.
The sacrifice at the end of Genesis 8 almost undoubtably is part of the 7 animal version of the narrative. It says he specifically kills one of each clean animal, which means an animal he is allowed to eat (it's kosher) and sacrifice to God. The seventh animal that is sacrificed represents the sabbath and the end of "new" creation at the end of the flood, while the other six go off to mate and repopulate the earth.
The other ending gives us the origins of rainbows (God's bow in the sky as his symbol of the new covenant with humanity).
I agree with Orphanpip. The narrative seems to have a relationship to the flood narrative in the Epic of Gilgamesh. This idea pretty much has mainstream acceptance in academia in Biblical Studies, Judaic Studies, English courses that cover the Bible as Literature.
There is the obvious major similarity that they are both flood stories in which God or gods destroy the world because of humanity's wickedness and chose to save one survivor.
Both Utnapishtim and Noah release ravens and doves to see if the earth has tried. Utnapishtim releases one additional type of bird, and the order is reversed I think in the two narrative of which bird is released when.
Like the many deities in the Babylonian narrative, we are told God finds the scent of Noah's sacrifice pleasing. The Babylonian narrative has the deities squabbling, while this narrative has God promising never to destroy everyone again.
The Babylonian version takes part of a larger epic. It's almost like a mini-story/side-story that relates only through its theme of life and death and its interactions with the main character to the larger story of the epic. The biblical version seems to stand on its own more as a story in its own right. It functions as part of a larger theological history. It has the feel of a continuous mythological history, like we are progressing linearly through time, while the Babylonian story is a character talking about his past (an event that already happened).
Interestingly, nobody mentioned the beginning of Genesis 6:
"When men began to increase on earth and daughters were born to them, the divine begins saw how beautiful the daughters of men were and took wives from among those that pleased them.--The Lord said, "My breath shall not abide in man forever, since he too is flesh; let the days allowed him be one hundred and twenty years."--It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth--when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown."
What an enigmatic passage! So the children of these divine beings mating with human were called Nephilim, and this mating angered God (probably for the reasons listed above about one of the main running themes of Genesis).
A number possibilities exist to explain this bizarre passage:
1) there really were extra-biblical tales known to the ancient Israelites of the time about the Nephilim, the children of divine beings mating with humans, that have since been lost with the passage of time and were not considered Canonical enough to be included in the Bible, or even might have been forgotten by the time the Bible was being redacted. This would then be a faint cultural memory of lost Israelite mythology.
2)this is a mocking commentary on their neighbors' mythology (Mesopotamian, Greeks, Canaanites), which included human beings who were the offspring of their deities and a focus on great heroes descended from deities. The Israelites in this story present the very idea of such a union as a sin and a heresy that caused the first end of the world by linking it to the Noah flood story.
I had a discussion with JBI a little while back on a thread here in litnet in which he pointed out that Judaism has no tradition of heroes, the one exception possibly being Samson from the Book of Judges (as I argued). Instead we have prophets and messengers of God. So the last line of Genesis 6:4: "They were the heroes of old, the men of renown" is also interesting when we consider this fact.
I think all of this indicates quite explicitly that we should read this as a mocking commentary of their neighbors' beliefs rather than a lost tradition of stories, unless there really is a lost tradition of Israelite hero narratives. This also helps us frame one of their possible aesthetic purposes in the Noah flood myth. If we understand the beginning of Genesis 6 to be an attack on their neighbors' beliefs, what a better way than to follow it up by recasting and rewriting the flood myth of their neighbors in the shape of Israelite monotheistic theology.
What a wonderful idea for a thread! I think I shall join and comment soon. I agree very much with DrkShadow's comments. I think one of the greatest virtues about the Torah/first five books of the Bible is the great irony and uncanniness of Yahweh/God. I cannot think of a single figure in all of literature that is comparable. We have become so familiarized with these stories that we forget the strangeness and striking originality of them. Just take one of my favorite moments in Genesis when Jacob wrestles with an unknown angel until sundown.
Anyway, I'll re-read the Flood story and comment later.
The commentary in The Jewish Study Bible says this about the two stories:Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
And then there was the "Redactor" (Ezra?) who put it all together.Quote:
Critical scholars explain the contradiction by attributing 6.19-20 to the Priestly source (P) but 7.2 to the J. Only the latter reports Noah's sacrifice when he emerges from the ark (8.20-21). If there were only one pair of each animal, this sacrifice would lead to the counterproductive result that the species offered would thereby become extinct.
Based on a Chronology in The Book of J, for what it's worth, J wrote this between 950-900 BCE and P wrote between 550-500 BCE and then the Redactor made the final version around 400 BCE.
I should also like to mention that if it's okay with Comedian, can we go in chronological order? Like maybe have a reading group on Genesis and then Exodus, idk. I was recently planning to re-read anyway. I would love to see a discussion here on the stories of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.
if you wanna look at it as just some kind of amazing repetitive and naive coincidence, you'll be missing out on a lot. but suit yourselfQuote:
Originally Posted by MystyrMystyry
:)
you should take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bib...urces_RevealedQuote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
which i have, i will quote a part of the introduction so that you have a clue as to why i am mentioning it:
"For centuries, scholars from many backgrounds have worked on discovering how the Bible came to be. They were religious and non religious, Christians and Jews. Their task was not to prove whether the Bible's words were divinely revealed to the authors. That is a question of faith, not scholarship. Rather, they were trying to learn the history of those authors: what they wrote, when they wrote, and why they wrote. The solution that has been the most persuasive for over a century is known as the Documentary Hypothesis. The idea of this hypothesis is that the Bible's first books were formed through a long process. Ancient writers produced documents of poetry, prose, and law over many hundreds of years. And then editors used these documents as sources. Those editors fashioned from these sources the Bible that people have read for some two thousand yearrs.
(...)
The basic hypothesis is: These biblical books were assembled from sources.
The process of identifying the biblical sources took centuries. the process of refining our identifications of these sources has been ongoing, and it continues to the present day. Initially, it was a tentative decision based on simple factors: where the name of God appeared in the texts, similar stories appearing twice in the texts, contradictions of fact between one text and another. Accounts of this early identifying and refining may be found in many introductions to this subject and in my "who wrote the bible?" The collection of evidence here is not a review of that history of the subject. It is a tabulation of the evidence that has emerged that establishes the hypothesis. It is grouped here in seven categories, which form the seven main arguments for the hypothesis in my judgement.
1) Linguistic
2) Terminology
3) Consistent Content
4) Continuity of Texts (narrative flow)
5) Connections with other parts of the Bible
6) Relationships among the sources: to each other and to history
7) Convergence
(to finish)
I have seen it claimed that such doublets are a common phenomenon in ancient Near Eastern literature. That is false. No such phenomenon exists. Doublets are not common in Near Eastern prose because there is no Near Eastern prose, in the form of either history-writing or long fiction, prior to these biblical texts. It is not even common in Near Eastern poetry. The poetic text that comes closest to the qualities of the biblical text that we are discussing here is the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Epic of Gilgamesh is a composite of several sources. It is a demonstration of composition by combining sources in the ancient Near east, not a refutation of it.(...)"
anyways, i own this book, and have read it over 10 years ago, but i strongly suggest that if you really want to have a serious overview of this whole conundrum, you should at least take a look at this great work, before formulating all kinds of naive assumptions. i guarantee you will be shocked. and when i say "you" im obviously not putting Drkshadow03 on the spot, i just mean anyone who is reading this thread and is intrigued by the topic.
http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/101.gif
Actually, I'm still not sure why you're mentioning it. I am well aware of Wellhausen's Documentary Hypothesis and know there are variants.Quote:
Originally Posted by weltanschauung
Quoting myself from the now locked thread where The Comedian announced the creation of this group:
Are you disagreeing with me about something? Or are you just mentioning it for the group's knowledge? I'm genuinely confused.Quote:
"Any discussion of the Bible as literature always has in mind the documentary hypothesis (JEPD). Since it recognizes that there is minimally four writers for the Torah, writing probably during different time periods and with slightly different theological and ideological viewpoints, there are going to be some contradictions in material. I agree with JBI; it's the ultimate literary anthology book. If Wordsworth wrote one poem in a poetry collection and then another poem that contradicted his emotions and feelings in the same collection, I don't automatically think that constitutes grounds for dismissing the poetry collection. Just because different writers between books contradict each other doesn't necessarily mean this speaks against its literary merits."
I've always understood this to mean intermarriage between the descendants of the godly Seth and the descendants of Cain. I can't give you definitive proof though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Haunted
Leviticus 11 outlines the laws of clean and unclean beasts. I realize that the Levitical ordinances were given after the flood story, but this could have several explanations. Some people believe that only after the flood did God permit the eating of flesh, so this could be the first instance where God makes a demarcation, through His instructions to Noah. Taking a less inspirational view, this could have been added to the flood account (admittedly a common "myth" in many cultures) by someone zealous for the health laws.
Thanks for the reference to Richard Elliot Friedman's book. I'm looking for someone other than Harold Bloom as a reference.Quote:
Originally Posted by weltanschauung
Harold Bloom does have something interesting to say about Wellhausen's Documentary Hypothesis (as opposed to the Authorial Hypothesis that claims that Moses was the sole author):
So the original 19th century Documentary Hypothesis may have been motivated by an anti-Jewish, pro-Christian bias, but today, I don't think it supports any Christian bias either.Quote:
Unfortunately these grand savants were all Hegelians, and like Hegel, they saw Israelite faith as a primitive preparation for the sublimities of the true religion, high-minded Christianity, a properly Germanic belief purged of gross Jewish vulgarities and superstitions.
As far as forming "naive assumptions", I suspect we can't avoid doing that, but here's trying!
i dont know if im disagreeing, i didnt read what you wrote, just bits. its too long. and i also didnt read some other forum whatever. just mentioning. so i dont get it,what are you guys discussing? just the story itself?Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
but for goths sake, this is not meant to be an insult.
im sorry if i come out as agressive, its just that im like that, but i didnt mean it that way. what i meant to say is that, the number 7 is not just a randomly picked repetitive number. if you actually check out the nature of things, you will see that the number 7 is a tangible part of our reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
there are 7 colors in the spectrum of visible light, 7 notes in the musical scale, 7 days a week (lunar), 7 sins, etc etc, and this is apart from all the mistical references to the same number such as the angels, the demiurgs, the sirens, the seals, and all of that which we are familiar with.
anyway, this is something you might rejoice with if you feel bored or something Theosophist, June, 1880
I didn't think you were insulting me, but I was confused why you were quoting my post.Quote:
Originally Posted by weltanschauung
We are discussing the story (and other Bible stories) as literature, which entails in part focusing on the story itself, at least in part. I think bringing up authorship in such a discussion is certainly relevant though.
hmmm, okay. id have to read the whole thing then.
Everybody likes 7 it seems. I like to think it is because we have 10 fingers and 7 is the largest prime number less than 10.Quote:
Originally Posted by weltanschauung
The burnt sacrifice that Noah makes of the clean animals keeps coming back to mind especially because Yahweh loved the smell. There's something politically incorrect about that, although I'm not sure I can say exactly what it is. I do enjoy the smell of meat on a grill.
And this sacrifice is in J's version not P's version of the event. Harold Bloom does seem to suggest she was the wild one writing "fresh" and the rest of the authors had to tone her down. I am beginning to find some disagreements with Bloom which makes me think I've started to understand what he is saying. Basically, he seems to like J a little too much. I wonder why she bothered writing this at all? There was no Lit-Net competition to enter. What were the motivations? Surely, she wasn't trying to consciously write Genesis.
Since Noah doesn't seem to be inspiring much discussion.
How bout we do the story of Joseph next, Genesis 37-50. It's a longer one, and should provide for more discussion.
It looks like we could expand into Genesis more. Maybe just open a thread on the entire book of Genesis itself, but restricting it to the part about Joseph is OK with me.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
The more I read Bloom's commentary on J, the more I get mixed feelings about J's intent in originally writing these stories. These threads have been a good place to try on ideas.
I'd be game for Joseph.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Great idea, for I wouldn't want to overlook Jacob. . .Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Ya, but Jacob never inspired a so-so Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.Quote:
Originally Posted by DanielBenoit
"I look handsome, I look smart, I am a walking work of art . . . "Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
"Close every door to me. Keep those I love from me. Forget all about me, and leave me to die!"
"Those Canaan days we used to know, where have they gone? Where did they go?"
:D
Huh?Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
:shocked::eek6::yikes:
They're lyrics from the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical Orphanpip was talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by L.M. The Third
You can list here, here, and here.
However, if you'd prefer music to go with our current story, you can click here. :D
Yes, I realized that was what the quotes were from. I was just expressing how strange I found them... Thanks for the links. I'll listen to the videos later, but I'm not too fond of musicals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
Excellent discussion up to this point, very insightful points have been brought up for thoughtful consideration. I too, have heard of the Epic of Gilgamesh flood and how the Bible "copies" it. That link is a bit tenuous as we must remember that "correlation doesn't prove causation." While they appear to be related, it would be a mistake to assume that they necessarily are simply because both stories mention a flood. Ted Cabal and other apologists have also pointed out that the flood is the main story in the Genesis account, while it was more of a side note in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Chapter 6's emphasis on the corruption of mankind brings several interesting points to consider. the "sons of god...daughters of men" reference can be interpreted as angels taking human women for wives, a "corruption" of marriage that was punishable by God. It could also be argued by other sources, that the followers of God began marrying the daughters of Cain. Theological debates on matters like this are excellently covered through The MacArthur study Bible which I have, definitely a ton of great material if one is inclined to shell out the money.
I have to say that Chapter 7 is one of my favorite to read, I just love the account of the flood, as well as the scientific debate about it. I was quite unaware about the flood occurring from above, as well as below. The "fountains of the deep" and "the floodgates of the sky" hypothesis is fascinating to look at, though it far from proven that holding that amount of water in the atmosphere is far from proven. I have also heard of others arguing that the other was covered in a "mist" and that perhaps this was the water from above.
Interestingly enough the Hud from the Koran mentions the flood and also has a line where it is also stated that the water came from above and below. In 11.044, Noah asks Allah to stop the rain from the sky and for the earth to swallow up the water. Also interestingly enough, the Hud contains passages about Noah losing a son who thought he would be safe scaling up a mountain, and that he was unrighteous. Genesis 6 mentions Noah's three sons, but as far as I can gather, not one of them is mentioned to have been crushed in the flood.
I marked the parts in bold that interested me.Quote:
Originally Posted by SFG75
The Hud clearly was written after the Torah and it is likely that Mohammad modified the original version to suit his purposes. It is harder to tell if the flood mentioned in Genesis was based on an earlier story, perhaps something the Hittites were aware of. My suspicion is that it was.
I also wonder where all the water came from. It had to cover all the land. Perhaps the land sank under the weight of the water much like it did with the glaciers. Or perhaps it is just a story. Or a story of an event less global that happened long ago.
Thanks for giving this thread some new life!
Biblical "science" is rather intriguing just from a sociological perspective, in that the shoddy processes of a priori assumption and weak application of intellectual rigour that goes into those studies seems to engender support amongst the same people who resist the rigorously tested and supported theory of evolution. A global flood like that mentioned in the Noah story is an impossibility, and there is no physical evidence of any flood ever having happened. Small scale flash floods do occasionally happen, so it is easy to understand how societies with primitive understandings of the natural world could develop a story of a global flood, or how a story of a regional flood could become exaggerated over several generations.
The fact that Gilgamesh and Noah mention floods isn't what people base the theory that the Noah story takes from the previous. The fact is that the story is found throughout the region, in roughly the same form, and that the Gilgamesh story is older than the Noah one. You can do this with essentially any myth, at least as far back as the beginning of literate culture. That's what the field of comparative religion is largely based on. Religions borrowed from each other like mad in antiquity.
Edit: fyi I'd still be interested in discussing Joshua, which is a story that I think has more literary merit than Noah, if someone wants to start a thread on it.
Thanks for the kind response YesNo. I am a member of several book forums and I have to say that I have to come here if I want a rich discussion, the others serve more of a social function for me. It's great to see a place where some in-depth conversations can be had.
Yes, the covering of all the mountains does necessitate the stretching of credulity, no doubt about that. From what I gather from the MacArthur study Bible, atmospheric conditions were completely different back then. It is alien to us as things are drastically different now. While I understand the concept of a "thermal blanket" of water surrounding the atmosphere, I have a problem swallowing it realistically. It has been proffered that volcanic explosions due to the separating of the earth's crust, could have punctured such an atmospheric phenomenon, unleashing giant floods. The wellsprings from "below" is also an interesting item to look at. To interpret the reading, you can't help but glean from the reading that there was a ton of water under the crust below the waterbed. It is also interesting to note that there are over 270 flood narratives. Christian apologists would argue that this is grounds of proof of the Noahic flood of course.
Well samples from glacial ice would suggest that atmosphere conditions 5000-10,000 years ago were relatively the same. You have to go back a few million to have major differences, although climatic changes have occurred more regionally.Quote:
Originally Posted by SFG75
I've read the idea of an atmospheric blanket of water before, except such a thing would be physically impossible, if there was that much atmospheric water, human beings would be suffocating. If it were somehow held up in the air away from ground levels, how did it not turn to ice? The idea is scientifically untenable.
Sorry that I missed your reply just before mine OP. When people post close in time, that happens, quite annoying when it happens to you.
Perhaps a narrative about a flood is a common thread. I would be able to buy into that rationalization. At the same time, it cannot be definitively proven who borrowed a story from who. The atheist argument fails on that point, perhaps the only point that does.Quote:
The fact is that the story is found throughout the region, in roughly the same form, and that the Gilgamesh story is older than the Noah one. You can do this with essentially any myth, at least as far back as the beginning of literate culture. That's what the field of comparative religion is largely based on. Religions borrowed from each other like mad in antiquity.
On this point, I would definitely have to agree with you. Talkorigins is a great website that contains a TON of information on creationist claims. You can find the relevant points about the water canopy here. To me, the onus is one the believer to establish proof of antediluvian conditions through the fossil and plant life records.Quote:
I've read the idea of an atmospheric blanket of water before, except such a thing would be physically impossible, if there was that much atmospheric water, human beings would be suffocating. If it were somehow held up in the air away from ground levels, how did it not turn to ice? The idea is scientifically untenable.
What I find interesting about the flood story is that cultures all over the world have legends and myths about it. How is this possible, if there is not a grain of truth to it?