genesis 6-7 - the flood (part 1)

In which we discuss the Flood. (Given the length of the Biblical flood myth, I am dividing it into two posts. This one discusses the flood itself; the second post will discuss its denouement.)

First, flood myths are not exclusive to the Bible. They are common throughout the world, and especially in the Middle East. The Biblical flood myth seems to have been adapted from the earlier Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, which describes another, very similar flood story. It is possible this myth was adopted by the Hebrews during the Babylonian exile.

Numerous theories have been postulated to explain the prevalence of similar flood myths throughout the Middle East. One recent theory suggests that they are fragmentary records of a prehistoric deluge that occurred in the Black Sea region, and which forced the former inhabitants of that region to scatter, thereby producing similar myths among different cultures. A more prosaic explanation is simply that most ancient cultures arose near rivers and other bodies of water, water being essential to life. Rivers and such have a tendency to produce flooding, and massive floods would leave a definite impact on the societies that experienced them. It is only natural that such floods would have become part of their mythologies.

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Genesis 6 opens with a strange fragment: an allusion to the “sons of God” and “giants in the earth”. This is provided with absolutely no context. We must look (again) to the Book of Enoch to provide that context.

The Book of Enoch describes the Grigori, or watchers, a semi-divine race possibly analogous to the demigods of other cultures; these were the “sons of God”. These beings descended to Earth and shared their knowledge and technology with humans; this is obviously analogous to the Greek myth of Prometheus. Although this in itself offended God, what really raised his ire was that the Grigori began to lust after human women, and mated with them. This produced a race known as the Nephilim, who were the “giants in the earth”, analogous to the heroes of other mythologies.

The Grigori were punished for their interference. This was later adapted into the “fallen angel” concept that would be used extensively in Christianity to explain the origin of Satan and his minions. By this point, there were no humans with pure lineages; all had been “corrupted” through interbreeding with the Grigori. All except one, that is.

Noah and his family remained of pure human blood. Thus, when God decided to rid Earth of the Grigori corruption, he spared Noah and his family in order to carry on the pure human lineage.

Noah is commanded to build an ark; specific instructions are provided for the shape and size of the ark. Noah and his family will enter the ark, along with a breeding pair of every animal on Earth. They will take along enough food for themselves and the animals. Once sealed, the ark will protect them as God brings a massive deluge to cover the earth and destroy the tainted humans (along with everything else).

Genesis 7 immediately opens with the LORD’s command to take seven breeding pairs of every “clean” animal and bird, and only a single breeding pair of the “unclean” animals. If you’ve been following along, you know that “the LORD” refers to Yahweh, whereas “God” refers to Elohim. Yes, once again we’ve run into two comingled source texts.

In fact, what follows is a rather clumsy and haphazard intertwining of the Priestly and Jahwist sources. This began in Chapter 6, but it was not quite as bad there; here, it results in one false start and stop after another, making the final text very hard to follow. It also introduces obvious contradictions, such as the number of animals taken aboard the ark.

There is also another example of the personal and corporeal nature of Yahweh from the Jahwist source, as he personally shuts the door of the ark. (Genesis 7:16)

One might wonder why the editor of the “final” Bible did not do a better job of correcting these contradictions. My theory is that every word of the source texts was regarded as holy and divinely inspired, and the editor did the best job he could to keep everything in them, even when the result made no sense. He was unwilling to throw anything away, even if doing so would have resulted in a superior product.

Since I’m running long here, I’ll discuss the discrepancy in the number of animals next time. Suffice it to say that Elohim/Yahweh floods the earth, and everything dies except Noah, his family, and billions of animals sealed inside a relatively tiny boat.

A couple of practical questions: First, what did the carnivores eat? Did Noah bring along extra animals to feed them? Second, and I don’t mean to be gross here, but what did they do with all the poop? Feces contains numerous toxic substances; the methane-filled atmosphere inside the sealed ark alone would have quickly become poisonous.

Next time: it just goes on and on like this.