Contradictions in the flood narrative

[FrDavid96]

On the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch

June 27, 1906 (ASS 39 [1906-07] 377f; EB 174ff; Dz 1997ff)
…

I would say that this is the Catholic equivalent of Amish----wanting to live in the past.

That would be unfair to the Amish.

The Amish do not doubt that electricity exists, they simply choose not to use it.

Your posts are the equivalent of denying that electricity exists.

If you actually read the text you quoted, the Commission was concerned with preserving the idea that Moses himself wrote the Pentateuch.

The very text you quoted leaves open the possibility of the JEPD sources, but only under the condition that Moses himself wrote the final text.

Re-read Question III

What were “Moses sources?” J, E, P, and D.

 

[Arkansan]

The story of Noah began as an oral tradition. It was transmitted orally for a very long time before it was ever committed to writing.

Well obviously, no one claims it was written in Noah’s lifetime. But that has nothing to do with anything. The Iliad was also based off of oral history, that doesn’t mean it actually written by several different authors centuries after the time of Homer, and then erratically spliced together.

Which is more “obviously ridiculous” here?

1 The notion that a story that was told orally for generations before being committed to writing might have 2 slightly different variations as to details.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Yes, oral history may be committed to written form differently by different authors, though no competent editor would splice together works with obvious contradictions (as JEDP scholars claim exist in the Pentateuch).

In any case, this begs the question, that the Pentateuch was actually written by multiple authors is the claim you’re trying to justify. But there’s no good reason to think that there were, certainly not on the basis of the flood story. Have you ever made a general statement and then followed it up by specifications? Well guess what, modern biblical scholarship says that you’re actually several different people.

or

2 The notion that a man built a boat and put 14, or at least 2, of every single species of animal on the face of the earth into that boat, and then waited things out for 40 or more days while the entire earth was covered in a flood? Afterwards, those animals and people started the whole process of re-populating the entire planet.

Really now, which one is more "obviously ridiculous" (to use your own term)?

Father, you’re better than this. Whether or not Genesis is historically accurate has nothing, at all, to do with its textual origins. You know that full well.

The only remotely logical argument I can draw from this is that since I believe the flood story (which you say is ridiculous), I should also be willing to believe the JEDP theory (because it’s less ridiculous?). Well if the JEDP theory were divinely revealed I’d accept it, but it isn’t, so there’s no parity between the two.

That said, there’s nothing unbelievable about the flood story. The flood could well have been merely anthropologically universal, killing every human being besides Noah’s family, but not covering every inch of ground on the Earth. Nor is there any reason to believe that Noah used modern species classifications.

I don’t even know where to start explaining the utter foolishness of the idea the Adam wrote anything at all, much less that he wrote part of the bible.

I’ve never heard that theory and I’m not defending it as such, but what precisely is the issue with it? If as you say, Genesis is actually the product of a redactor, who’s to say that he didn’t use texts written by Adam himself? I mean sure there’s no evidence for it, but there’s no evidence for any of JEDP theory.

 

[FrDavid96]

I’m finished with this thread.

If people choose to pretend that the last 200 years didn’t happen, well, that’s their choice.

As far as I’m concerned, I’ve done what I can. I’ve presented how Catholic scripture scholars approach this topic–at least generally speaking. People are free to accept that or not.

The thread has deteriorated to the absurd. When we’ve reached the point where people are positing that Adam wrote parts of the Bible (yes, Adam) , there’s just nothing more that can be said in a format like this. That kind of foundational education is just beyond the scope of a format like this.

Sometimes I can fix such fundamentalist misconceptions (and downright foolishness) in-person, but online is beyond my ability.

So I won’t be back to this thread. I don’t see any point in going further.

 

[buffalo]

Yes, the truth is true in the past and present. When the idea of JEPD was going down, the PBC answered several questions with authority.

We can see from this that the sources were prior to Moses not after.

 

[Kei]

I’m going to assume that’s a no to my question and that you were taught to so adamantly deny that alternative explanations to the documentary hypothesis exist, despite much more traditional answers to ie why different names of God are used (using specific rules, something that is much more scientific than mythical redactors who vary in number and all sorts of other “details”).

Also it’s a genetic fallacy to claim that one odd claim has tainted the whole thread, especially when it concerns multiple different people.

The hypothesis is like humors, hopefully we’ll drop this hypothesis as well.
The NAB commentary does not constitute church teaching, as it’s especially critical and skeptical. It denies the Magnificat as reliable even when that is part of the LOTH. The Church doesn’t require any level of assent to the hypothesis, as the phrase church teaching may sound like to Catholic ears.

If you mean to say the JEPD theory is a favorite of critical, skeptical scholars, then of course it is. But is it true? I see no standing reason to assume so.

 

[buffalo]

Yet, you will not state a real objection as to why Adam could not have recorded his life.

 

[buffalo]

As we begin to know someone we call them by less formal names.

I may be talking to someone about my father, and then to someone else I may refer to him as my dad.

My own writing style has changed over my lifetime. If someone looked at my earlier writings and compared them they would be sure to say they were not written by the same person.

 

[buffalo]

JEDP reminds me of the twisting and turning evolution proponents do to maintain their theory.

I am really comfortable with Moses being a compiler of tablets and oral traditions he had in his possession. The colophon phrases are the closing of each chapter of the book.

 

[Arkansan]

“You’re stupid/ignorant if you don’t believe this” seems to be the main argument for JEDP.

That the belief is mainly supported by fear of being thought stupid, and not by actual reasons, can be seen clearly in the way Fr. David reacted to the notion that Adam wrote parts of Genesis. There’s no principled reason for an adherent of the documentary hypothesis to reject that out of hand, the only mark it has against it compared with JEDP is that it’s not currently in vogue.

 

[buffalo]

It was very evident.

What bothers me is why modern Catholics and clergy have fallen for this. As in evolution, the science is trumping Revelation.

One must always question the motive.

 

[Gorgias]

If people choose to pretend that the last 200 years didn’t happen, well, that’s their choice.

As far as I’m concerned, I’ve done what I can. I’ve presented how Catholic scripture scholars approach this topic–at least generally speaking.

To be fair, the “JEDP” part of the Documentary Hypothesis has come under fire by some scholars in the past 40 years. These days, competing theories of authorship – “Fragmentary” or “Supplementary” Hypotheses – continue to be discussed in scholarly circles.

Of course, all this means is that different sources have been posited… but the Documentary Hypothesis itself is alive and well.

 

[una_ecclesia]

I only have a Bachelors in Theology and my current graduate studies are in a completely different field, but I remain unconvinced that one can reasonably derive two sources from the narrative of the flood in Genesis 8, and that no other explanation does justice to the text. The two main things, it sounds like, that people point to as contradictions are the numbers of pairs of certain animals, and the duration of the flood, correct?

For the number of pairs, it looks like God gave two distinct commands. The first was to bring a pair of each type of animal. When Noah does this, he demonstrates his obedience to God, which God then notes when he says, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for you have been righteous before me in this generation.” Noah thus gets a special role as a potential priest, in that he will be able to sacrifice, so God commands him to in addition to the usual pair, to bring in the 7 pairs of clean animals.

For the duration, it seems pretty clear that the 40 days refer to the amount of time that actual rain was pouring on the earth, starting on the 17th day of the second month. The 150 days refers to the amount of time it took before the waters abated enough such the ark was perched on Mt. Ararat. These don’t contradict each other. People think they do because they are assuming that the story is going in strict chronological order. But God’s actions are already at work starting from the time of the cessation of the rains (at the end of the 40 days), and in the abating of the waters. As for vss 6 and on, it gives a specific instance of what Noah was doing right after the 40 days were up. So basically, he learned that the waters were beginning to abate before he landed on Ararat.

Now why the non-chronological approach? It becomes clearer when you notice the chiasmic structure of the text, which only makes sense when you include both sources rather than the supposed J and P texts alone. The chiasm arises in the choice to present different parts of the story at different times. It begins with the command to build the ark and the fact that God promises to establish a covenant, and ends with the description of the covenant itself after the sacrifices were made. The climax itself is in the God’s remembrance of Noah. Try this at home. I did it as a sophomore in college. It’s not hard to find the structural unity of the narrative.

Look, even supposing there are two different sources here plastered together by an editor, you are supposed to read these as one combined story, because by your own admission, the interpretation of the account is itself influenced by said editor. Comparisons to differing geneologies in Matthew and Luke, or different versions of some myth, don’t work, because in each of these cases, the authors intended a self contained piece of literature. Yet the supposed editor in Genesis decided to combine J and P, and in such a crappy and unorganized way, such that the details don’t even coincide? You think that these people would waste their valuable time and papyrus (or whatever they used) before making sure that everything worked out?

 

[una_ecclesia]

This is fair insofar as it goes, regarding the allegorical reading of the text, but the problem is that even as a narrative, the things people point to are things within the text in itself. People are claiming that even as a story, the facts are inconsistent. It’s like saying that the J.K. Rowling wrote that an education in Hogwarts lasts seven years, but then later said that it lasts for four years. If there was an actual editing process, such an obvious detail would have been caught by the editor, over the span of an entire book. No one is claiming that Hogwarts is a real school, but an inconsistency of this kind should not be in a well-told story, and this kind of rigor in constructing a story would especially be the case in a culture where narratives form the backbone of a culture like the Israelites.

But here people are claiming alleged inconsistencies in the span of a few hundred words, and that these inconsistencies remained in play the entire time these supposed redactions and edits were happening. They claim that these supposed inconsistencies point to two possible sources put together by an editor who had an agenda, yet if he really were seeking to promote an agenda, don’t you think he would try to make sure the details were consistent? Ancient people, especially ancient scholars, weren’t stupid.

 

[Ron_Conte]

My interpretation: The flood was a catastrophic worldwide historical event. Noah literally built an Ark and escaped the flood, with his family, and many animals. However, some parts of the narrative are figurative, while other parts are literal and historical. The figurative parts are the extent of the flood, it did not cover all land, and the extent of the damage, it did not kill all humans and all animals outside the Ark, and the number of animals on the Ark along with its size. The animals on the Ark did not literally include all species; that is said by way of a figure. The animals and humans on the Ark represent all life on earth. So the Ark need not have been to large as to be nearly impossible to build. And even though the water did not cover all land, the flood was exceedingly extensive and harmful.

I follow W. Bruce Masse’s theory that a comet strike in the deep Indian Ocean caused the great flood event (2807 BC).