Welcome to 929 Chapters I'm your host
David Z. Moster PhD and Rabbi and today
we'll be taking a look at Genesis
chapter 7 the story of the flood of Noah
also known as Noah's Flood today's video
will be broken up into four parts I'll
begin with a summary and outline of the
chapter then I'll move on to my comment
then we'll read some verses in Hebrew
and English and then I'll leave you with
a photo related to the chapter let's
begin with a summary and outline of
Genesis chapter 7 Genesis chapter 7 is
in the middle of the first section of
the book of Genesis the first 11
chapters have to do with creation and
the first years of mankind and our
chapter is just past the midpoint and it
could also be said that our chapter is
the high point or the climax of this
section I broke this chapter up into
three parts in the first four verses
what I call Yahweh's command Yahweh
tells Noah that he and his family should
enter the ark because Noah is righteous
and he is going to be saved
Yahweh tells Noah to bring seven pairs of
every species of pure animals onto the
ark and seven pairs of every species of
bird onto the ark so that they may be
saved but for the impure animals Noah
was only supposed to bring one pair and
Yahweh tells Noah to enter the ark
because there are seven days left until
the flood in the second section verses 5
to 9 Noah does as he is told at the
beginning we're told that the flood is
to begin in the six hundredth year of
Noah's life and then we are told that
Noah comes with his family and all the
animals two-by-two into the ark and then
finally in the third section verses 10
to 24 the flood occurs we are told that
the flood starts in the six hundredth
year of Noah's life and if you're
wondering hey we were just told that
stay tuned for the comment the flood
begins with 40 days of rain and on that
very day Noah and all the animals enter
the ark and once again if you're
wondering wait didn't Noah already enter
the ark stay tuned for the comment
once Noah enters the ark Yahweh closes the
ark for him and then we're told that the
waters grew and grew and that the
mountains were covered and we're told that
all living things died and at the very
end of the chapter we are told that the
waters grew for a hundred and fifty
days that does it for our summary and
outline let's move on to part two the
comment Genesis chapter 7 is one of the
most important chapters in the history
of biblical studies and the reason for
this is that it led to a breakthrough a
watershed moment in our understanding of
not only the flood story but also the
Pentateuch as a whole and even the
entire Bible as a whole so let's take a
look
Genesis chapter 7 and the chapters
around it 6 and 8 have a number of
difficulties they are there are doublets
meaning the same information is told
twice there are contradictions mean the
same information is told in different
ways and finally there are two names for
Yahweh, Yahweh and the more generic
Elohim God so let's take a look at each
of these three individually in regards
to doublets things being told twice we
have for example the year, we're told in
both verses 6 and 11 that the flood
began in the six hundredth year of Noah
in verses 6 and 10 we are told that the
flood begins, there are two beginnings to
the flood, in verses 17 and 18 we're told
that the ark rises with the water and
then in verses 19 and 20 we are told
twice that the mountains were covered by
the water and finally in verses 21 and
22 and then again in 23 we are told that
everyone dies let's take a look at one
of them inside verses 19 and 20 in these
verses we are told that the mountains
were covered twice in verse 19
[Hebrew] and the
water strengthened very very much on the
earth [Hebrew] 
and all the high mountains were covered
[Hebrew]  those that are
underneath the skies and then in the
next verse we are told [Hebrew] the water
grew 15 amot - arms lengths - high [Hebrew]  and the mountains were
covered so here we have the case of the
mountains being covered twice one after
the other
now many biblical texts say the same
thing twice but most of those are poetic
biblical texts what makes Genesis seven
different is that it's prose it's a
narrative and we have the same
information conveyed twice for example
here we have the same story of the
mountain
being covered twice now these are just
some of the doublets in chapter 7 then
there are many other doublets in chapter
6 and 8 as well let's move on to the
contradictions for example in the
previous chapter chapter 6 verses 19 to
20 we were told that Noah was to bring
a pair of every species of animal into
the ark a male and female just two from
every single species but in our chapter
7 verses 2 to 3 we are told that if the
animal is pure Noah was to bring seven
pairs of those animals and seven pairs
of every bird so whereas in Chapter six
it was two for each animal in Chapter
seven it was two or fourteen for each
animal there's a contradiction
concerning when to enter the ark in
verses 1 to 10 of our chapter Yahweh
tells Noah to enter the ark 7 days
before the flood and he does so
however in verse 13 of our chapter Noah
enters the ark on the day the flood
begins itself and then when it concerns
the length of the flood the lengths that
the waters were growing in verses 12 and
17 we are told that the flood is 40 days
long and in verse 24 we are told that
the waters grew for a hundred fifty days
so just like with the doublets let's
take a look at one of these
contradictions in the text itself let's
begin with chapter 6 verse 19
[Hebrew] and from all
living things from all flesh
[Hebrew] you shall bring two
from each to the ark [Hebrew] to
make them live with you [Hebrew] they shall be male and female and
then in our chapter verse 2 we see
[Hebrew]
and from all pure animals [Hebrew]  you
shall take [Hebrew]  seven by seven
[Hebrew]  a man and his wife
meaning male and female
[Hebrew] 
and from the animals which are not pure
[Hebrew] 
two [Hebrew]  a man and his wife
meaning a male and a female so in
chapter 6
Noah was to bring two of each animal
but in Chapter 7 Noah is to either bring
fourteen or two of each animal and
finally what makes this chapter so
interesting is that there are two names
for Yahweh himself in a number of cases
Yahweh simply called Yahweh (יהוה) however in other cases
Yahweh is simply called the generic name
Elohim which means "god" in english now
what's so fascinating about this is that
a number of the contradictions and
doublets that we just mentioned before
actually can be divided between one name
of Yahweh and the other let's take a
look at one example from the previous
chapter about why Noah was chosen to be
saved from the flood in verse 8 we're
told [Hebrew]  and
Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh
in the very next verse we are told [Hebrew]
these are the generations of Noah [Hebrew] Noah
was a righteous and wholesome man in his
generation [Hebrew]
Noah walked with God so in the first
case it was Yahweh finding favor but in
the second case it's Noah walking with
God so these two names of Yahweh
actually occur in a doublet one part of
the doublet mentions the name Yahweh and
the second part of the doublet mentions
the name Elohim God now over the past
hundreds and even thousands of years a
number of biblical exegetes noticed
these problems one example I'd like to
point out is Don Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel
who actually notes most of
these doublets and contradictions in his
commentary on the Pentateuch however
until the 1700s most biblical
commentators answered these problems one
by one by one by one meaning that each
doublet was meant to convey a certain
aspect of knowledge perhaps Noah first
came to the ark but didn't enter and
then finally Noah entered the Ark or for
example in one case the animals came to
Noah but in another case Noah took
the animals himself meaning each case
was meant to convey its own message
however in the 1700s there was a
breakthrough a watershed moment in
biblical studies and it began with Jean
Astruc
a medical doctor known for treating
syphilis who in 1753 published a book in
French called Conjectures on the
original documents that Moses appears to
have used in composing the book of
Genesis Astruc was born Protestant
and he converted to Catholicism and he
was a devout man by the time
of Astruc the idea had been floating
around by philosophers such as Spinoza
and Hobbes that Moses was not the author
of the Pentateuch and what Astruc tried
to do was say yes Moses was the author
of the Pentateuch
however Moses was using different
sources in composing the Pentateuch and
that's why there are sometimes
contradictions he was using different
texts and putting them together when
Astruc published this book he was so
concerned of being taken in a radical
fashion that he published it anonymously
and you can see here on the title page
that he is not mentioned and also he
didn't even publish it in France he
published it in Brussels which you can
see here what we're looking at here on
page 52 and 53 is actually Astruc's
treatment of Genesis chapter 7 and what
we can see here is that Astruc is
cutting each and every verse into a
different source for example at verse 19
which was the first telling of the
mountains being covered Astruc assigns
that as "source A" and then in verse 20
which was the second case of the
mountains being covered Astruc assigns it
to a different source what he calls
"source C" and then finally verse 21 he
assigns to "source B" so what Astruc was
doing was separating the Pentateuch into
different sources different texts that
were combined into the text that we have today Astruc's idea grew and grew in
biblical studies and over the next two
and a half centuries people debated the
exact mechanism of what has come to be
called the Documentary Hypothesis the
idea that the Pentateuch the five books
of Moses were actually composed of a
number of different sources so let's take
look at how this documentary hypothesis
pertains to Genesis chapter 7 our chapter
most people who analyze Genesis chapter
7 break it up into two sources that is
the P source and the J source P stands
for priestly the priestly source
affiliated with the Book of Leviticus
and J stands for the Yahwistic source 
the J in German is actually the yud in
Hebrew and the Y in English so J in
German is actually a yud for Yahweh in
the priestly source Yahweh is simply
called
Elohim God the priestly source is
concerned with very detailed numbers not
just simple numbers so when it says that
the flood began in the six hundredth
year
it even gives a detail that it was the
second month and the 17th day of that
year in P the waters bursts from above
and below there's not a simple rainfall
there are waters above the world and
below the world that were created in the
first chapter of Genesis and these
waters burst open and flooded the world
in P there are only two animals from
each species there are no 7x7 in P when
we get to it
Noah's gonna send out a raven to see if
the land is dry and finally in P  Yahweh is
conceived of as a distant deity acting
from far away not using his hands not
walking about being a distant cosmic
deity now let's look at J in J as
you might have imagined the name Yahweh
is used J is more into general numbers
so the flood begins in the six hundredth
year of Noah not really too fancy the
waters come for forty days nothing too
fancy in J it's simple rain that falls
there are no waters above and waters
below that break in J you actually have
seven pairs of pure animals because in J
there's actually going to be a sacrifice
at the end and if there were only two
animals of each species then Noah's
sacrifice would have meant the
extinction of a few species in J Noah
uses a dove to find dry land instead of a
Raven and in J Yahweh's an
anthropomorphic deity that's a
fancy way of saying that he has
human-like concepts so Yahweh can become
sad Yahweh can think out loud
Yahweh actually closes the ark after
Noah enters it so these are the
differences between P and J all in all
they're minor differences but when you
look closely you can detect some minor
differences between the two next time
you open a commentary on the book of
Genesis you'll open it up and you'll see
something like this where the scholar is
going to show you what passages he or
she considers to be J and what passages
he or she considers to be P and in this
example we can see here in the white
boxes the J source and in the red boxes
we can see the P source and for most
commentaries on the book of Genesis
you'll see a chart that looks something
like this now I'd like to show you two
very interesting resources online for
studying our chapter in light of this
source criticism means studying the text
in light of the two sources the J and
the P
source the first was made for the Public
Broadcasting Service by Richard Elliott
Friedman a scholar in the field and what
we're looking at here at the beginning
is the full text of Genesis chapter 7
the blue section is the J source and the
red section is the P source and what
makes this website so interesting is
that you can click and just look at the
J source alone there you see it in the
blue or you can click and look at the P
source alone so if you want to just read
J throughout or P throughout what you
can do is click here and you'll see the
entire story and you can read it
throughout and it's not only for Genesis
chapter 7 it also applies for Genesis
chapter 6 and Genesis chapter 8 the
second website I'd like to show you is
from a website called TheTorah.com and
they do a very similar thing what they
first show you is the J text in English
and then they show you the J text in
Hebrew something that the previous
website did not have then they show you the
P text in English and then the P text in
Hebrew and then finally what they do is
they show you the combined text both in
English and then finally in Hebrew I'll
have a link to both of these websites in
the description below and you can check
them out on my website 929chapters.com
as well that does it for a comment on
Genesis chapter 7 what we've seen is
that in the flood story there are a
number of doublets things being told
twice there are also a number of
contradictions things that just don't
quite add up and finally we have two
names for Yahweh himself now each of
these doublets and contradictions can be
explained one by one by one
however in 1753 there was a watershed
moment in biblical studies and that is
when Jean Astruc suggested that there
are actually a number of different sources
underlying the pentateuchal text and
that eventually led to our understanding
of Genesis chapter 7 as being comprised
of a J source and a P source okay let's
move on to the next section reading
verses inside and I chose verses 21 to
23 which tell the story of the death of
everyone who wasn't in the ark
parenthetically after our comment you
might be able to notice some doublets in
this section so let's read them inside
verse 21 [Hebrew] 
and all flesh that moved
on the earth died [Hebrew]
the birds the domesticated animals the
wild animals and all creepy things that
crawl on the land and all men
[Hebrew]  everything that had the
breath of life in its nostrils
[Hebrew] everything that was on
the dry land [Hebrew] they died
[Hebrew]  and he
meaning Yahweh destroyed all the
establishment which was on the ground
 [Hebrew]  from man until
animal  [Hebrew] until the creepy
things and until the birds of the sky
[Hebrew] and they were wiped
away from the land  [Hebrew]
and all
that remained was Noah and those who
were with him in the ark that does it
for the reading let's move on to the
final part of our video the photo and
the public domain and easily shareable
photo I picked out for us today is from
verse 19 when the waters had swelled
much more upon the earth all the highest
mountains everywhere under the sky were
covered and what we're looking at is the
water covering the last bit of ground
around okay that does it for Genesis
chapter 7 if you enjoyed this video
please give it a like and subscribe also
be sure to comment about any of your own
ideas of Genesis chapter 7 or if you
have any ideas that you would like to
see made into a video also I would just
like to point out that when we're
dealing with the story of Noah and the
flood there are a number of ancient Near
Eastern parallels to this and you should
check out my video about how to study
the Bible in light of the ancient Near
Eastern texts you can find it here on
YouTube and finally be sure to check out
my website 929 chapters for more
information about this chapter as well
to follow me on Twitter and on Instagram
thanks for watching and I hope to see
you next time for Genesis chapter 8
 
