Chapter 12

Biblical Flood Stories

 The Interweaving of the Two Sources
of the Biblical Flood Story
• The prologue explains the reasons for the flood (6:5–8).
• A brief account of the flood by the Priestly (P) writer (6:9–22) starts with an
account of the “generations of Noah,” explaining who has a right to be
considered a member of the family of Noah.
• The account of the Priestly (P) writer is then interspersed throughout the
lengthier narrative of the Yahwist (J) writer. It can be found at 7:6, 11, 13–
16a, 17a, 18–21, 24; 8:1–2a, 3b, 4–5, 7, 13a, 15–19.
• Later, the Priestly (P) writer describes God’s covenant with Noah (9:1–17),
emphasizing how to prepare meals in accordance with God’s plan (9:3–4).
• The Yahwist (J) and the Priestly (P) writers produce versions of the flood
story that feel quite different from each other:
– The Priestly (P) writer emphasizes the religious aspects of the agreement
between God and humans, describing the progress human beings have made in
understanding their relationship with God.
– In contrast, the Yahwist (J) tells a story with characters who feel for and care
about each other. He represents God in a quite anthropomorphic way. In his
version of the story, God is “grieved to his heart” at the wickedness of humans
(Genesis 6:8), and when Noah enters the ark, it is God who shuts him in
(Genesis 7:16).
Two Versions of the Cosmology of
the Biblical Flood Story
• 950 B.C.E. – The Yahwist (J) calls God “Lord.”
– The Israelites who came to Canaan encountered an
independent tradition of a great flood.
– E. A. Speiser points out that the basis of the Biblical
flood may be found in the geological background of
Lower Mesopotamia, and that stories about it may be
based on a geological era when the waters of the
Persian Gulf rose and flooded a large area of its
coastland (Genesis: Anchor Bible, pp. 55–56).
 Two Versions of the Cosmology of
the Biblical Flood Story, 2
• 550 B.C.E. – The Priestly (P) writer calls God “God.”
– The Priestly writer’s story was influenced by the Mesopotamian
view that the earth had been created out of a watery waste or
chaos.
– In accordance with Mesopotamian cosmology, the Priestly writer
explained that before God created the world, there existed only
an expanse of waters (Genesis 1:1). In creation, God fixed into
place the firmament, a giant hemisphere that became a
separating wall between the waters. Then the area under it
became dry land; this is the earth, a disk resting on and
surrounded by water. Above were the waters dislocated from
around the earth.
– In accordance with this cosmology, the Priestly writer describes
the flood not as rain, but as the release of part of the world
structure, the ocean above the firmament.
– For the Priestly writer, the flood was a catastrophe on a
worldwide scale. Its destruction, which lasted a year and ten
days, in comparison with the Yahwist’s 61 days, threatened to
return the earth to primeval chaos.
 The Covenant
• The formal agreement between God and his people that extends
God’s protection, to be reciprocated by the incurring of certain
obligations to God on the part of the humans who enter into the
covenant with him.
• A series of covenants is described in the Old Testament of the Bible
as the precursor of the agreements that God makes with Abraham
(Genesis 17) and Moses (Exodus 31).
• Varies with the writer:
– The Yahwist portrays God simply as declaring that he will never again destroy
every living creature as he did in the flood (Genesis 8:21–22).
– In the Priestly version, God’s promise is presented in a more elaborate and
formal way. He concludes an agreement with Noah that he explicitly calls a
covenant. This agreement completes the creation of human beings by protecting
them from destruction, and God gives humans the right to eat meat. This is in
accordance with their usual violent practices, and represents God’s willingness to
enter into a relationship with them nonetheless.
 J Version: the Animals
• 7:1 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 air
also, male and female, to keep their kind
alive upon the face of all the earth....”
 P Version: the Animals
• 6:18 But I will establish my covenant with you;
and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons,
your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And
of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring
two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive
with you; they shall be male and female. 20 Of
the birds according to their kinds, and of the
animals according to their kinds, of every
creeping thing of the ground according to its
kind, two of every sort shall come in to you, to
keep them alive.
 P Version: the Flood
• 7:11 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.... 21 And
all flesh died that moved upon the earth, birds, cattle,
beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm upon the
earth, and every man; 22 everything on the dry land in
whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 He blotted
out every living thing that was upon the face of the
ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds
of the air; they were blotted out.
 J Version: the Covenant
• 8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and
took of every clean animal and of every clean
bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21
And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor,
the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again
curse the ground because of man, for the
imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth;
neither will I ever again destroy every living
creature as I have done. 22 While the earth
remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night, shall not
cease.”
 P Version: the Covenant
• 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and
said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the
earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you
shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon
every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps
on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into
your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving
thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I
gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
4 Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is,
its blood....
 P Version: the Covenant, 2
• ... 9:11 I establish my covenant with you,
that never again shall all flesh be cut off by
the waters of a flood, and never again
shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the
covenant which I make between me and
you and every living creature that is with
you, for all future generations: 13 I set my
bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of
the covenant between me and the earth.”