Doublet in Genesis

[Floatingaxe]

And the contradictions are as follows.

In one story there are 2 of every animal put on the ark.

In the other story, there are 2 of every unclean animal, and 7 of every clean animal.

In one story Noah sends out a dove, in the other one he sends out a raven.

In one story the flood lasts 40 days and 40 nights.

In the other story the flood lasts 300 days.

Again, if I am wrong, please correct me.

Actually they are all correct statements! Again--no contradiction. There were two of every animal! An additional, more complete instruction was also recorded. Noah sent out both birds, at different times. The rain lasted 40 days and nights, but the flood itself remained about 300 days.

[Leonard]

Ok, Leonard.

So far, everytime I have given you something to answer, you merely tell me that it has "long been refuted". I recall in another thread where you were telling off some athiest about the books he reads because these books are just athiests quoting other athiests. Well it sounds like your doing the same thing. I put up these questions in this hard fashion, not to tick you off, but to encourage you to answer them more fervently.

I cannot really see any "twit" kind of comment here. I laid it all out. Did you read the account like I asked you too? It really does sound like two different stories, and I cannot see how you can see it otherwise. If I'm missing something here, then please tell me. I am very willing to accept defeat, but not an attack on my intellectual honesty or integrity. You are being rude. I am here to find answers and this is one of my questions.

Please, I'm asking you in all honesty and not to be mean or rude, but can you give me an answer other than "it has long been refuted". I can't find these answers. The book that I derived this information from, where it is stated above, was written by a Christian author.

I'm not here to hurt anyone. I just want to ask these questions and see some ideas from people or get links from people to learn more on the subject. I understand that I am not quite as educated as you are, Leonard, but please, if you can find it in you then educate me.

In my new bible called the Harper/Collins Study Bible(NRSV) ((which is called one of the most up to date scholarly bibles by various scholarly circles)) agrees with the above statement, and gives the divine credit to the Combiner of the accounts. It is a Christian bible with Christian motives(and I love it, great notes and introduction ).

Now about the top of your post. I think I see where you are going with this(and correct me if I'm wrong), but the writers were more interested in the specific detail of an individual story rather than focus on the whole story as an entirety. Or do you mean it in a more general way? Such as, they were more worried about the individual stories rather than the entirity of the book? I probably didn't state this very well, and I'm sorry if I did, but maybe you kind of follow me here.

I'm not going to take offense to any of your comments because I think you were merely being honest and will accept alot of what you said. I am 19 and am lacking in the education you now possess(from my understanding you are a professor? Thats what I want to work towards! )

I see how you think I am a liar, but I'm really not. I just want to ask these questions in a strong manner so that others will strongly refute my claims. I'm not stating fact, and I certainly am not so arrogant as to think I'm always right. I hope I'm not, life would turn rather boring if that was the case.

I hope you understand where I am coming from.

And floatingaxe, concerning your post. From what I have read, I have come to understand that Moses' writing of his death, and the different writing styles used rules out the possibility of him being the author. I COULD BE WRONG, I'M NOT STATING FACT. And I wasn't yelling, just clearing that up....

Well, I am clearly much too good a sport! Here I am answering again.

A more careful reading of the Flood Account is in order. Just one item: The account tells us "The rain continued 40 days and 40 nights...." and that "The waters were upon the earth for 300 days." Obviously it rained 40 days, and the water took a long time to dry. This is the obvious intent of what is written, and one must WANT to deny the Bible, to force the odd interpretation you've referenced.

To your question: I not only read the account, I read and studied it most thoroughly above 20 years ago. I have written papers refuting the sort of ersatzengeschichte which makes such ludicrous claims.

I deliberately studied among Theologians more liberal than myself, and mainly studied the very liberal theologians. The great disappointment in my graduate and post graduate work was the inexcusable shallowness of the liberal theologians. They are not scholars; they simply gave opinion with a tremendous paucity of factual data to back up those opinions. All the guesswork and wild-eyed conjecture, presented as great scholarly discoveries began to disgust me early on. The colossal hypocrisy of such pretended 'scholarship, has virtually rendered worthless, the once great Universities of the Western world.

I would have been flunked out of undergrad school for the circular "documentation" and ludicrous overstatements of say a Schillebeeckx, or the presentation of guesswork as fact, by say a Raymond Brown. And the continuation of ideas long-reasonably refuted, just as if they were never subject to serious question or critical review ala Whitehead, et al, simply flies in the face of anything like true scholarship.

In fact, I once wrote a paper in which I followed carefully all the techniques of the Historical-Critical scholars, and without a single fact to back up anything I proposed, I rearranged the Book of Habakkuk, to where it 'made more sense' according Historicalgeschichte. The paper was a complete spoof, and should have been comical. The professor (a well published and highly respected man in the field by the way, and now a friend), thoroughly committed to the method, did not even see the absolute lack of scholarship and gave me an A on the paper, suggesting its publication in learned journals! Fortunately he could see the humor when I let him in on the joke, and we have had many thoughtful conversations subsequently.

By the way, check out my different writing styles when I write to you, and when I am writing to answer someone who has given a prayer request. By the rules offered by the 'Formgeschichte' school; it would be clear they were not written by the same person.

For some unknown reason, you have made it your business to believe the folly of the liberals without seriously having perused their critics. I am moved to make an offer. Why, I can't say, because my main inclination is to make you do your own research if you're truly serious about scholarship. Nonetheless I have a paper or two which you may find germane. If you want to PM me with an address to ship them to, I will send them.

[nebula]

I'm with Leonard on this. These Bible scholars have spent so much time with their noses in books and philosophies they have forgotten to get to know the God of the Bible they study.

It's like the religious leaders and teachers in Jesus' day. They knew the Law and Prophets forwards and backwards, yet the day God walked among them in human form, they couldn't see Him for who He was.

I, too, had my faith severely challenged from Bible classes at a Christian college from Liberal theological prophesors. Yet I was involved in a prayer group at the time which was more interesting in meeting with God in prayer and putting faith into practice. In our times together and ministering, we encountered God and saw Him move. I had a choice - do I believe the sholastic confusion brought on me, or do I believe the "God encounters"?

God encounters won!

The books of the OT were written a long, long time ago. They do not follow our literary rules (if they did, accounts would be written through the eyes of a character, and such as that). As is mentioned in Hebrews, I believe, the accounts written are as examples to us on how to live. And that is the purpose of these writings. They show us how people related to God and how they tried to follow God, how they failed, how they found reconcilation or not, that hopefully we can learn from what they learned or did not learn.

And please keep in mind that scientific observation did not exist until somewhere around the Renaissance period.

'Kay?

[ayin jade]

The book that I derived this information from, where it is stated above, was written by a Christian author.

I did some checking into the author and his book last night. At no point did I see that he was a Christian author. He writes about biblical stuff, but that doesnt make him Christian. I recall seeing that he got his education at Jewish places, not Christian ones. Even so, there are very liberal places out there that dont accept the word of God as His word. In an interview I saw with the author online, the impression was left that if you really wanted to believe in divine inspiration you still could with his theory, but that was only to placate Christians. It didnt sound like he viewed the bible as the word of God.

In my checking into this book and its claims, I couldnt find any reason given for the claim that there were 3 seperate texts used to write the first 5 books of the bible, except for some subjective supposed stylistic differences that he claims to have seen and claims others have seen. At no point did I find anything that gave concrete reasons why they believed that. Personally I dont agree with his claims.

Something for you to consider systemstrike. Biblical scholars often have an underlying bias in their studies unlike any other profession I have seen. This is especially true in biblical archaeology and applies here. There are Christians, Jews, atheists, muslims and others who are in this field. All of whom are seeking to use the bible to prove their contentions. If you want to see how political it can get, I would be more than happy to post examples. For one, look up the debris from the temple mount that muslims are secretly removing and one group of Jews are sifting the dirt when they find the removed dirt piles. It is removed because muslims dont want proof of an early Jewish temple (messes up their claims that Israel doesnt belong to Jews) and Jews want that material to prove the temple of God was there before the mosque. In the same way, many scholars want to diminish the value of His word. You should view the underlying biases and critique all biblical scholarly works.

[systemstrike_7]

And the contradictions are as follows.

In one story there are 2 of every animal put on the ark.

In the other story, there are 2 of every unclean animal, and 7 of every clean animal.

In one story Noah sends out a dove, in the other one he sends out a raven.

In one story the flood lasts 40 days and 40 nights.

In the other story the flood lasts 300 days.

Again, if I am wrong, please correct me.

Actually they are all correct statements! Again--no contradiction. There were two of every animal! An additional, more complete instruction was also recorded. Noah sent out both birds, at different times. The rain lasted 40 days and nights, but the flood itself remained about 300 days.

Thank You!!!! I don't know why I didn't see this before. I guess I saw the raven/dove thing, but decided to throw it in there anyway. I went back and read the account with your post in mind and it is very simple to me now!! Thank you for the explanation and please excuse my folly.

Thank you for this. I really helped.

[systemstrike_7]

Leonard,

Thank you, and I think I see where you are coming from. I see now that I am not very well versed in this matter and will continue my research on it(although, right now I'm preparing a paper over the Shakespearian influence on modern society and literature(I'm currently an english lit major)). I would be very delighted and indebted to you if you could send me those papers. I will PM you after completing this post.

One more question, and you might have already answered this, but if you did I didn't see it.

Do you believe in the J, E, P, and D source to any extent?

(I ask this because my current bible (Harper/Collins Study Bible NRSV) agrees that there are various sources).

Ayin Jade,

I came to this conclusion because of his claim that it wasn't against many Christian views. I guess I gave him too much credit. But after reading much of the book, he comes off as a believer( such as capitalizing God, Word, and Bible).

I understand that they have a bias when researching and writing about Biblical studies. Christan authors have a bias as well, but I cannot fault them for that.

[systemstrike_7]

Ummm, Leonard. I just realized that I am listed as a nonbeliever, therefore I cannot send you a PM. I'll just go ahead and tell you through here. I'm not big on privacy.

sethyirak_7@hotmail.com

[tdrehfal]

And the contradictions are as follows.

In one story there are 2 of every animal put on the ark.

In the other story, there are 2 of every unclean animal, and 7 of every clean animal.

In one story Noah sends out a dove, in the other one he sends out a raven.

In one story the flood lasts 40 days and 40 nights.

In the other story the flood lasts 300 days.

Again, if I am wrong, please correct me.

I've always interpreted this in a logical way that makes sense. I never thought about 'picking at it' like this before, so this is tough for me to answer

and there's probably someone more scholarly than I that could do a better job.

God warns Noah of the flood.

It rains 40 days/40 nights at some point, the whole earth gets flooded with a ton of water from the rain and

probably a lot more water from 'the fountains of the deep' subterraneous water. Once the earth is done

'being flooded' of course, that doesn't mean the water just disappears, so its still there and Noah is sitting

in the ark for 150 days until God decides to start abating the waters with wind, and in another 150 days

the waters were decreased to a large extent. Noah feels the ark settling on a mountain, waits about 40

days, opens the window, sends out a raven which kept flying around until the water had dried up and

he also sent out a dove, which brings back an olive branch (ok, we've got some vegetation here, but

the dove still returns... ) He waits another week, the dove doesn't return. A good sign that the earth

might be ready to receive animals that can survive on their own and feed off of vegetation. Noah

opens the ark and the ground around him is dry, He waits, God commands him to leave the ark

and he does. It makes perfect sense to me (for some reason, even though I see what you're talking about)

Especially when we consider: The ark is resting on a mountainous region. This makes things difficult for establishing water conditions in the surrounding

non-mountainous areas.

Was the window facing a mountainous land-mass, or could Noah look out of the window to see the water levels(?) How big and high up WAS the window?

The water can't just be gone, the earth must be 'dry'. A world-wide flood would make for some pretty mushy soil conditions.

Vegetation needs to be in place so the animals don't just die off and starve.

Well, I took a stab at. I guess if you pick it apart like that it could seem 'double' to you, but when I think about it logically it seems to make sense to me.

I probably did a lousy job compared to what someone who knows the way they would've written things down back then, which is not like the modern

western way of thinking. I hope this helps, though.

Edited January 18, 2007 by tdrehfal

[systemstrike_7]

And the contradictions are as follows.

In one story there are 2 of every animal put on the ark.

In the other story, there are 2 of every unclean animal, and 7 of every clean animal.

In one story Noah sends out a dove, in the other one he sends out a raven.

In one story the flood lasts 40 days and 40 nights.

In the other story the flood lasts 300 days.

Again, if I am wrong, please correct me.

I've always interpreted this in a logical way that makes sense. I never thought about 'picking at it' like this before, so this is tough for me to answer

and there's probably someone more scholarly than I that could do a better job.

God warns Noah of the flood.

It rains 40 days/40 nights at some point, the whole earth gets flooded with a ton of water from the rain and

probably a lot more water from 'the fountains of the deep' subterraneous water. Once the earth is done

'being flooded' of course, that doesn't mean the water just disappears, so its still there and Noah is sitting

in the ark for 150 days until God decides to start abating the waters with wind, and in another 150 days

the waters were decreased to a large extent. Noah feels the ark settling on a mountain, waits about 40

days, opens the window, sends out a raven which kept flying around until the water had dried up and

he also sent out a dove, which brings back an olive branch (ok, we've got some vegetation here, but

the dove still returns... ) He waits another week, the dove doesn't return. A good sign that the earth

might be ready to receive animals that can survive on their own and feed off of vegetation. Noah

opens the ark and the ground around him is dry, He waits, God commands him to leave the ark

and he does. It makes perfect sense to me (for some reason, even though I see what you're talking about)

Especially when we consider: The ark is resting on a mountainous region. This makes things difficult for establishing water conditions in the surrounding

non-mountainous areas.

Was the window facing a mountainous land-mass, or could Noah look out of the window to see the water levels(?) How big and high up WAS the window?

The water can't just be gone, the earth must be 'dry'. A world-wide flood would make for some pretty mushy soil conditions.

Vegetation needs to be in place so the animals don't just die off and starve.

Well, I took a stab at. I guess if you pick it apart like that it could seem 'double' to you, but when I think about it logically it seems to make sense to me.

I probably did a lousy job compared to what someone who knows the way they would've written things down back then, which is not like the modern

western way of thinking. I hope this helps, though.

You did very well. I see now where you are coming from with the contradictions. But when I still read it in the way I posted it above, as two seperate accounts....they each make their own story. And there is more to this scholarship than simply this passage. This is one of many, at least this is what I am told. I have not been keeping up with my studies on this now that class has started up again. From my understanding, the two seperate accounts have different writing styles, but seeing as how I am no literary critic, I could really not verify this myself.

[Leonard]

In about 1972 when I was first studying this JEPD claptrap, I happened to pick up a journal and begin reading an article about lawyers.

The first page of the article was mostly taken up by a picture, so only had about two or three paragraphs of writing. In this writing lawyers were refered to three times, and all three times as 'lawyer' or 'lawyers.'

On page two of the article, I believe 'lawyer' was only used once, whereas 'attorney' occured 7 times. Page three had 'lawyer' twice, 'lawyers' three times, 'attorney' three times, and 'barrister' twice. On page 4 which only had 4 paragraphs, 'lawyer' 'barrister' and 'avocat' each occured once.

Further, throughout the article were interspersed several very negative jokes about lawyers.

Now by the standards of Higher Criticism, it would be absurd for Atlantic Monthly to expect us to believe this article was written by only one person! Why here we clearly have one source which new lawyers ONLY as 'lawyers.' We will call this source "L."

The source which called lawyers 'attorneys' OBVIOUSLY reflects a tradition of higher culture, and probably originated anciently at or near Boston, that hub of all that is truly cultured; and we will call this the "A" School.

The 'Barrister' reference clearly reflects a British document, which we will call "B", whereas the sole reference to 'avocat' proves that an Italian document was anciently in circulation; probably brought to these shores in the first two centuries of our era, by that Thor Whatshisname, on board the Kontiki to prove some esoteric point.

Only NOW that the LABI theory has made our studies of this article SO MUCH MORE CLEAR, can we begin to grasp the REAL meaning of the article.

Further, the negative jokes about attorneys OBVIOUSLY came from a source which seriously QUESTIONED the role of lawyers, so with tongue firmly in cheek, we will call this source Q, and be ever thankful for the great merits and scholarly insights of the Higher Critical method!

WHAT DRIVEL!!!