Noah, the Ark and the Flood, from the Bible Book of Genesis
http://www.humanreligions.info/the_flood.html
By Vexen Crabtree 2013
- The Story of the Flood
- Some Christians Still Believe in The Flood
- Ancient Versions of the Same Story
- Some Features of the Flood Story
- Myths, Absurdities and Contradictions
- Two Parallel Copies of the Flood Story in Genesis
- Moral Issues
- Genesis Chapters 6 to 9 (two translations side by side)
- Links
1. The Story of the Flood
#bible #christianity #genesis #religion #the_flood
The time that God flooded the entire Earth, drowning all living things, animals, humans and plants, is one of the most famous stories in the Old Testament, told in the Book of Genesis chapter 6 through 8. The moral of the story is if you regret your relations with a people, you can murder them all, innocent and guilty alike, and start anew (Genesis 6:7,17 - forcing all species to commit incest for many generations, forever damaging their gene pools). The history of the story is false; there has never been a worldwide flood since animal life began. Theologically, it portrays God not as an infallible, all-knowing being, but one that tries things out and regrets making imperfect decisions (Genesis 6:6). This contradicts most people's idea of a monotheistic God. It is clear that the god, and the story, are both more mythological than factual and it has passed from culture to culture over a 5,000 year history, in a gradually changing form. The global deluge as told in Genesis is primarily a cultural story, for entertainment at best. Given the morals it teaches and the shortcomings of God in the story, it could even be a hindrance to spiritual or religious development.
The story became part of the Bible because the myth of a great flood was common in Mesopotamia, and it became a standard part of creation stories. The most convincing historical evidence is when the Black Sea filled with water from the Mediterranean, perhaps drowning and displacing untold numbers of people from that large area - or, if it was a slow event, just displacing them. Either way, it had a large impact on the mythology of all ancient civilisations across the Near East. The first archaeological evidence of a written story of the Flood dates from 3rd millennium BCE
There is plenty of evidence that no such global flood took place. (1) Clear and voluminous historical and archaeological evidence that the flow of life throughout the world has remain undisrupted by such a flood, (2) geological evidence that no such worldwide flood occurred (i.e., no evidence from fossils), (3) there has not been enough time for humankind to re-populate the Earth since the flood, (4) paleontological evidence that was no mass extinction event and (5) tribes settled in the world's continents before the date of the Flood and yet were not wiped out by it. There is also genetic evidence. We can measure the age of genetic lineages and the timescale of how species have branched off from one another. This has given us more evidence against the idea of a global flood: (6) There is no genetic convergence of all genes down to two ancestors of each species (genetics proves the existence of countless interacting families of species with histories thousands of times older than the flood, and continuing through it) and (6) there is no genetic evidence of a period of mass incest.
2. Some Christians Still Believe in The Flood1
Christians for over a thousand years argued, violently and aggressively, that there had been a global flood. The scientific evidence accumulated decade by decade against this view, from biology, ecology, genetics, the fossil record and many other data sources, but the church fought on, excommunicating advocates of science, punishing them, torturing them, ejecting them from positions of influence wherever possible, and in all ways possible, trying its best to retard the advancement of knowledge2.
Many Christians somehow still believe in an actual worldwide flood, as described in Genesis, which wiped out nearly all life on Earth just a few thousand years ago. This crazy belief is promulgated by the likes of the Jehovah's Witnesses (see "Mankind's Search for God" by The Jehovah's Witnesses (1990)3 pages 46-49, for example) and other Christian fundamentalists in the USA. In 2004 The Washington Times reported rather unbelievably that 64% of Americans believe in Noah's Ark and the Flood4, although it is very hard to believe that the level of education is really that poor in the world's richest nation.
3. Ancient Versions of the Same Story
“Every religious phenomenon has its history and its derivation from natural antecedents.”
"The Varieties of Religious Experience"
William James (1902)5
Elements of folk-lore, or often real events themselves, can become exaggerated through time until they achieve a mythical status at the heart of a major religion. Gottsch (2001)6 provides examples in his technical discussion of the evolution of religious ideas, and proclaims that the Epic of Gilgamesh is the first large-scale story worth examining. The longest and most complete copy of the story we have is the Atrahasis poem.
Link:
3.1. Atrahasis, the Mesopotamian Flood Poem
Atrahasis is the longest of the many Mesopotamian Flood poems and stories. It is named after its hero, Atrahasis, who is instructed by a god to build a waterproof boat in order to survive a global deluge. The story is preserved in the British Museum in cunieform, on a tablet that is 3,700 years old, which is the most complete copy of the story we have.
“The story outlines the structure of the universe according to Babylonian beliefs. Heaven is ruled by the god Anu, the earth by Enlil and the subterranean sweet water by Enki. The text then explains how the minor gods work in the fields but then rebel. As a result, humans are made from clay, saliva and divine blood to act as servants of the gods. [... and then the humans reproduce too much...]
The god gives Atrahasis seven days warning of the flood, and he builds a boat, loads it with his possessions, animals and birds. He is subsequently saved while the rest of humankind is destroyed.”
British Museum piece description (plus photo)
Cuneiform Tablet with Atrahasis Epic.
Dated 17th Century BCE7
After this tablet was made copies of the story were still being produced in various forms and with various adaptations. Babylonia was a scholarly center of the ancient world and the Hebrew scribes who wrote much of the Bible picked up a large number of their stories and myths from Babylonian culture. The flood in the Bible is one of the many adapted and copied versions of the Mesopotamian flood epic. For example Atrahasis was given 7 days' warning of the flood and he makes an offering to the gods at the end, both just like Noah in Genesis 7:11 and 8:20-21.
3.2. The Epic of Gilgamesh - Tablet II
“Tablet II [of the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic] contains the flood myth, which is remarkably similar to the one found in Genesis in the Bible. [...] Utnapishtim and his wife had lived in Shuruppk. Ea had come to him to announce that a flood was about to destroy humanity. He and his family would be spared only if they built a boat, for which the gods provided measurements. When the boat was finished, Utnapishtim filled it with valuables, his own family, and representatives of all the species. Then came the most terrible of storms and a deluge that destroyed the earth. After seven days the storm died down and the ship landed of Mount Nisir. After another week a dove was released to find land, but it returned unsuccessful to the ship. The same thing happened when a swallow was released, but when a released raven did not come back Utnapishtim realized that he had been saved.”
"Jealous Gods & Chosen People: The Mythology of the Middle East" by David Leeming (2004)8
3.3. A Comparison of the Long 5,000 Years of Written Flood Stories
The flood story has been told many times. It has always been popular, and has been re-told in changing ways throughout at least 5 millennia. All the stories are similar: the gods flood the Earth and drown all living things, but, save a selected, favoured, male and his family by giving him warning of the flood by instructing him to build an Ark. The Ark lands on a mountain, and tests are done to find dry ground. Many details of the stories are told in the same order, even including the peculiarities. The columns in this chart are present chronologically; the oldest stories on the left and the newest on the right. This table is sourced from the esteemed historian of antiquity, Jona Lendering (2007)9: I anglicized some of the spellings and edited some of the formatting:
| Story: | Eridu Genesis | Atrahasis | Gilgamesh | Bible | Berossus | Greece | Qur'an |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Story Date: | 2xxx BCE | ~1640 BCE | ~1100 BCE | ~1000-500 BCE | 278 BCE | ~700 BCE? | ~600 CE |
| Revolt of: | ? | Lesser gods | ? | Giants/angels | Monsters? | Giants | - |
| Hero: | Ziusudra | Atrahasis | Ut-napištim | Noah | Xisuthrus | Deucalion | Nuh |
| Country: | Suruppuk | Suruppak | Suruppak | - | Sippar | Thessaly | - |
| Destroyer: | Enlil | Enlil | Enlil | Jehovah | Enlil | Zeus | Allah |
| Warning Given By: | Vision | Dream, 7 days before7 | Indirect order | Direct order, 7 days before | Dream | ? | Direct order |
| Flood Reason: | Noisy? | Humans too noisy | ? | Humans wicked, violent & actions of giants. | ? | Sin, giants | Sin |
| Rain's Source: | Stormflood | Rain | Stormflood | Rain, fountains | - | Rain, waves | "from the valley" |
| Saviour: | Enki | Enki | Enki | Jehovah | Enki | Prometheus | Allah |
| Flood Duration: | 7 days | 7 days | 7 days | 150 or 40 days | "quickly" | 9 days | ? |
| Test Birds: | ? | ? | raven,dove,swallow | doves/raven | "several" | None | - |
| Ark Destination: | ? | - | Nimus | Ararat | Gordyene | Parnassus | Al-Gudi |
| Hero's Fate: | Eternal life | Eternal life | Eternal life | Three sons | Eternal life | Three grandsons | - |
In the original and oldest stories, the god that commands the flood ("destroyer" in the table above) is a different one to the one that gives a favoured man a warning about it. Note that the feature that changes most frequently is the name of the hero: this is surely because when the story is retold, people are very prone to making the hero a local person, with a name common in the speaker's own language. Over time, other features also become localized as the story is received and spread by new communities. Jona Lendering has some additional comments on how some of the apparent differences in the above table look more pronounced than they really are9:
“The similarities are striking: in texts like the Eridu Genesis, the Epic of Atrahasis, and the Epic of Gilgameš, we read how the gods created earth and man, encounter the names of the first people (who are incredibly old), and read about the decision to destroy mankind. One man is ordered to build an Ark, survives the Flood, lands at a mountain called Nisir or Nimuš, leaves out birds from the Ark, sacrifices, and obtains immortality. The same pattern can be found in the Greek texts. Generally speaking, the parallels between the Priestly Text and the texts from Babylonia are closer [...]. ... even when there are differences, they are not what they appear to be. For example, the Biblical Ararat Mountains -plural!- is not at odds with the Mount Nimus/Nisir from the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Hebrew word "Ararat" refers to the country directly north and northeast of Mesopotamia (cf. Jeremiah 51.27), a region that is also known as Urartu or Gordyene (Kurdistan), where we can indeed find a Mount Nisir. The similarities are easy to explain: it was a good story, and people must have told and retold it very often.”
Jona Lendering (2007)
4. Some Features of the Flood Story
4.1. Ancient Concerns About Overpopulation
Overpopulation is not just a modern concern. Aside from the warnings of sociologists, scientists and officials in the modern era of the nation-state, concerns have been found reflected in the etchings of even ancient people as we first moved into towns and settlements with walls and borders.
“In Atrahasis, the longest of the Mesopotamian Flood poems, the gods, like men, are town planners. The lesser deities go on strike, exhausted by the endless labour of digging irrigation canals to make the countryside habitable, so the Mother Goddess creates human beings to perform these menial tasks instead. But they become too numerous and so noisy that Enlil, the storm god, who is kept awake by the din, decides to inundate the world as a brutal method of population control. But Enki wants to save Atrahasis, the "exceedingly wise man" of the city of Shuruppak. The two enjoy a special friendship, so Enki tells Atrahasis to build a boat, instructing him about the technology that would keep it watertight and, because of this divine intervention, Atrahasis, like Noah, is able to save his family and the seeds of all living things.”
"A Short History of Myth: Volume 1-4" by Karen Armstrong (2005)10
The story of this flood is contained in Genesis chapters 6 to 8; and how does the first verse begin?
“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them...”
The concern of there being too many noisy humans changed over time to the problem of wicked humans (Genesis 6:5) who were violent (6:11-12), and Atrahasis became the Jewish Noah, favoured by God.
4.2. A Rebellion as Cause of the Flood
4.2.1. Giants, Lesser Gods or the Elders Sons of God: Falling for Human Women
Related page: "Why Do Women Have to Cover Their Hair in Judaism, Christianity and Islam?" by Vexen Crabtree (2013)
There are some details across the various flood stories that seem confusing, but which are actually telling a very similar part of the story. That is: the rebellion of some minor gods. In the Atrahasis version, the minor gods rebel because they no longer want to toil on the Earth for the supreme god(s)7. The Bible gives a different reason for God's dislike of humankind: Genesis 6:1-2,4 mentions how the "Sons of God" fall for beautiful human daughters, and "took them wives of all which they chose" [KJV]. Verse 4 is actually a repeat of verses 1 and 2, but, only mentions giants and not the mysterious "Sons of God". It was Hebrew tradition to call angels "Sons of God", and, there was another tradition that these angels took hold of lovely women by their hair, hence "the Rabbis ... accordingly warned women to cover their heads in public, so that the angels might not get possession of them"11. Many have noticed St Paul's reference to this myth when he commands that women keep their hair covered (their 'crowning glory') in 1 Corinthians 11:10,15. The Greek versions of the Mesopotamian flood myth also had a race of giants rebelling against the gods at the beginning of the story, followed, again, with a description of human sin (not din, anymore!).
“This story of an insurrection, shortly after the Creation, by Lesser Gods, may be behind the revolt of the giants in the Greco-Roman version (e.g., Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.151ff) and the remarks about the giants in the Bible (Genesis, 6.1-4; more explicit in 1 Enoch, 7). It is true, the Biblical Giants are not explicitly mentioned as rebellious or bad, but knowledge about their acts is taken for granted by the author, who does not explain who were "the mighty men that were of old", and assumes that everyone understands that the giants were evil (6.5). The connection is made very explicit in the apocryphal Book of Watchers (= 1 Enoch, 6-11), which belongs to the Enochitic literature and dates to the late third or early second century BCE.”
Jona Lendering (2007)9
4.2.2. The Book of the Watchers, 1 Enoch, and the Greek Giants
A pre-Maccabaean book, the Book of the Watchers was discovered amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is a section of the apocryphal book 1 Enoch and addresses questions such as the cause of evil in the world.
“The answer provided by the Book of Watchers [...] may have been inspired by concepts that the Jews encountered... in Babylon. [...] Taking a cue from the enigmatic passage in Genesis 6:1-4 concerning the Sons of God who took wives from the daughters of men and gave rise to a breed of giants known as the nephilim, the Book of Watchers identifies these beings as the cause of evil which resulted in God sending the Flood to destroy much of humanity.
We are told that God appointed two hundred angels to watch over his newly created human progeny. As time passed by, the allegiances of these angelic Watchers gradually shifted and they became enamoured of their erstwhile charges. In effect, they had become rebellious or fallen angels. Not only did they take human wives for themselves but they also divulged secret knowledge such as the ability to work metals and other skills. [...] The offspring borne by the human wives of these fallen angels, the gigantic beings known as nephilim, shared many of the attributes of their angelic fathers. Given that this section of 1 Enoch is thought to have been composed during the late third century BCE, it may well be an allegory for the impact of Hellenic culture on traditional Jewish society that began to be felt after Alexander the Great and his successors occupied Palestine.
As the outcry against the irresponsible evil wrought by these Watchers increased, they incurred the wrath of God who was minded to destroy them.”
"Dead Sea Scrolls" by Stephen Hodge (2001) [Book Review]12
4.2.3. Mrs E. G. White, foundess of the Seventh Day Adventists
Christian history has sometimes combined these myths with newer (but just as bizarre) cultural notions. The Seventh Day Adventists had as one of its founders a woman called Mrs E. G. White, who had some odd ideas about the creatures that triggered the Gods' want of the Flood. The offspring of the 'giants' and human women created horrible hybrid species - such as black Africans!
“Mrs E. G. White, the inspired prophetess of the Seventh Day Adventist cult [wrote] in her book Spiritual Gifts, 1864:
"If there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast, which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere. [...] Since the flood, there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men."
[...] Sister White's statement about amalgamation was dropped from later editions of her book, just as Hitler's assertion that non-Aryan races were due to early Aryan-ape mating was omitted from the second edition of Mein Kampf. [...]
Early Adventists frequently referred to certain primitive tribes - such as the African bushmen, Hottentots, and Digger Indians - as examples of degenerate hybrids, and on a few occasions, the entire Negro race. Price does not go quite this far. He thinks the Negro and Mongoloid races are degenerate types produced by amalgamation of the pure races God created at the Tower of Babel. Modern apes, however, are probably hybrid men.”
"Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science" by Martin Gardner (1957)13
Confusion, myth, racism and pseudoscience could all be put to rest if proper notions of human genetics was more widely known, and if the ancient myths of the world were simply recognized as myths, and not as factual sources of correct philosophy!
4.3. Why God No Longer Interferes
Many traditional and world religions have explanations for why god, or the gods, are not apparently acting in the world. The free will theodicy is the idea that all good and evil is now the result of human free will, for example. Some Christians say that as God "rested" on the 7th day, it means for the rest of the life of the world. In the Atrahasis epic, it was because the god(s) were wearied by the results of their intervention in human life.
“In Atrahasis [...] Enlil, the storm god [...] decides to inundate the world as a brutal method of population control [...] but after the waters subside, the gods are horrified by the devastation. In Mesopotamian myth, the Flood marks the beginning of the god's withdrawal from the world.”
"A Short History of Myth: Volume 1-4" by Karen Armstrong (2005)10
Compare with Genesis 8:21 where God says: "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done".
5. Myths, Absurdities and Contradictions
5.1. Internal Contradictions in the Biblical Story
There were giants on the Earth, or angels, who find the daughters of men attractive and take as many of them as they want for wives by grabbing their hair (Genesis 6:1-2,4). See: Why Do Women Have to Cover Their Hair in Judaism, Christianity and Islam?
Genesis 6:13 says that the whole world is full of violence because of the presence of mankind, however, geological violence such as Earthquakes, volcanoes and floods were all designed by God, and predate mankind. Also, biological violence stemming from the way the food chain works, with living beings being required to eat other living beings merely to stay alive, is surely the hallmark of an evil genius who values violence and bloodshed over peaceful vegetarianism. That God then complains that mankind are also violent is a little bit absurd. See:
The Ark Was Far Too Small to contain pairs of all living creatures; Genesis 6:15 says "the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits". Noah nor any of the other people on board, nor the author of Genesis, seemed shocked that the vast animals of the world can fit therein. One reason is that the Hebrew authors were simply unacquainted with the true variety of animal life (proving that the story is mythological, and created by human authors).
How many of each species are brought on to the Ark? Genesis 6:19 says that Noah is to bring two of every living thing, one male and one female, but in 7:2-3 it says that "clean" animals are to be brought in in sevens.
Noah was 600 years old at the time of the flood (Genesis 7:6). See: Why Did Some People in the Bible Live So Long?.
How long was the Earth flooded for? After the 40 days and 40 nights of rain that flooded the whole Earth and lifted the Ark up, Genesis 7:24 and 8:3 says "the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days". But, the ages of Noah at the start of the flood and at the end (7:18 and 8:13) mean it lasted over a year. It doesn't add up.
- When did the flood occur?
“The Septuagint counted fifteen hundred years more from the Creation to Abraham than the Hebrew. In general, however, there was an inclination to the supposition that the Deluge took place about two thousand years after the Creation, and, after another interval of two thousand years, Christ was born. Persons who had given much attention to the subject affirmed that there were not less than one hundred and thirty-two different opinions as to the year in which the Messiah appeared, and hence they declared that it was inexpedient to press for acceptance the Scriptural numbers too closely, since it was plain, from the great differences in different copies, that there had been no providential intervention to perpetuate a correct reading,”
"History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science" by John William Draper (1881)14
5.2. There is Lots of Evidence Against a Global Flood1
Christians for over a thousand years argued, violently and aggressively, that there had been a global flood. The scientific evidence accumulated decade by decade against this view, from biology, ecology, genetics, the fossil record and many other data sources, but the church fought on, excommunicating advocates of science, punishing them, torturing them, ejecting them from positions of influence wherever possible, and in all ways possible, trying its best to retard the advancement of knowledge2. Here are some of the categories that the evidence against the flood fall into it:
Genetics shows that nearly all species have continued in their locales for many thousands of years without a mass disturbance and without a sudden reduction to two lineages per species.
Genetics shows no long global period of mass incest.
Fossil evidence shows no signs of the flood.
There has not been enough time for many species to re-populate since the flood (especially Humanity).
Paleonntological evidence shows no Universe global reduction in animal numbers.
Animals could not have gotten to the ark and back again to their habitats safely.
“Bishop Colenso in his exhaustive work [... in the 19th century] shows geologically and geographically that a flood over the whole face of the earth was a myth. He asks how was it possible to save two of every animal, bird and creeping thing on both continents and get them safely into the ark and back again to their respective localities. How could they make their way from South America up north through the frigid zone and cross over the polar ices to the eastern continent and carry with them the necessary food to which they had been accustomed, they would all have perished with the cold before reaching the Arctic circle. While the animals from the northern latitudes would all perish with heat before reaching the equator. What a long weary journey the animals, birds and fowls would have taken from Japan and China to Mount Ararat.”
"The Woman's Bible" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1898)15
Imagine penguins, elephants and sea creatures all going off to the right islands, land masses and poles, without leaving any dead bodies, fossils or evidence anywhere on their long treks! How did all the freshwater fish survive when all of their habitats were salinated by the oceans? The story in its basic and literal telling is impossible.
Remote island settlements managed to re-populate themselves with precisely the same people (with the same culture, habits, and genetics) after the flood.
A good guess for the number of species that exist is 10 million16. Yes, there must have been 20 million individuals on Noah's Ark. That's a lot of food bowls to wash up after dinnertime! Most life only survives in the correct environment: desert life, jungle life, soil life, parasites, predator and prey. Noah's Ark is a daft story invented by a people who had no idea at all of the true diversity of life on Earth.
There is not enough water to flood the Earth. How were the massive mountains of the Himalayas submerged, and if the entire Earth was covered in thousands and thousands of kilometers of water, where on Earth did it all go? It's certainly not all evaporated in the atmosphere!
6. Two Parallel Copies of the Flood Story in Genesis
There are two parallel copies of the story of the flood, and the details of each story often contradict one other. In one story God is called Jehovah, and in the other one it is called Elohim. The two stories were once separate, but a misguided Hebrew scribe at some point took both stories and wrote them into one bigger one. But he done so unintelligently and rather than rewriting either story, he has simply cut up each story and pasted them together, resulting in duplications and contradictions.
“Ch. vi. 5-8 announces the wickedness of man and the purpose of God to destroy him; throughout these verses the divine Being is called Jehovah.[1] In the next section, vv. 9-13, He is called by a different name--God (Hebrew, Elohim)--and we cannot but notice that this section adds nothing to the last; vv. 9, 10 are an interruption, and vv. 11-13 but a repetition of vv. 5-8. [...]
Corresponding to the change in the divine name is a further change in the vocabulary. [...] Note that here, vv. 19, 20, two animals of every kind are to be taken into the ark, no distinction being drawn between the clean and the unclean. Noah must now be in the ark; for we are told that he had done all that God commanded him, vv. 22, 18. [...]
But, to our surprise, ch. vii. starts the whole story afresh with a divine command to Noah to enter the ark; and this time, significantly enough, a distinction is made between the clean and the unclean-seven pairs of the former to enter and one pair of the latter (vii. 2). It is surely no accident that in this section the name of the divine Being is Jehovah, vv. 1, 5; and its contents follow naturally on vi. 5-8. [...] In other words we have here, not a continuous account, but two parallel accounts, one of which uses the name God, the other Jehovah, for the divine. [...]
Any verse, or group of verses, e.g. involving the distinction between the clean and the unclean, will belong to the Jehovistic source, as it is called (J). [...] It was always particularly hard to reconcile the apparently conflicting estimates of the duration of the Flood; but as soon as the sources are separated, it becomes clear that, according to the Jehovist, it lasted sixty-eight days, according to the other source over a year (vii. 11, viii. 14).”
"Introduction to the Old Testament" by John Edgar McFadyen (1905)17
7. Moral Issues1
7.1. Incest After the Flood
#abraham #adam_and_eve #bible #biblical_morals #christianity #genetics #incest #marriage #old_testament #sex #sexuality #the_bible
After the flood, there remain one single family of humans alive. Unfortunately for them (not that they complained) this meant that incest was necessary and must have happened continually for many generations, a problem that I have already summarized elsewhere:
“There are many incestuous relationships in the Bible. It is best to concentrate on the stories where there is some moral judgement, positive or negative, of those relationships. Some instances are merely described and not commented on. But some of those occasions include some of the most highly revered figures of the Bible, who are said to be righteous and just, like the person of Lot, who fathered children with his own daughters. Others, such as Abraham and his half-sister, are actively rewarded by God for incest (in their case, rewarded with a child). God made incest necessary by creating just two humans to start off with (Adam and Eve), and later, by killing off all humans except Noah and his family (at which time, animal-kingdom incest was just as necessary). Although Noah's family was already a spiderweb of close family marriages: the five generations of parents that preceded both Noah and his wife Emzara all descend from just three individuals18. Inbreeding causes countless genetic problems in families, which get worse per occurrence and leave detectable dents in the genetic makeup of species. Yet, in our genetic record there are no signs of periods of intense incest in Humans resulting from Adam and Eve, nor are there such signs in animals nor humans resulting from inbreeding after Noah's Ark. After creation, and after the flood, incest was rife and necessary, as part of God's plan. So it can't be bad or immoral, and to condemn incest is the same as saying that God's plan is evil. Even if you take the story of Adam and Eve and Noah as myths, their moral teachings imply that incest is ok. Predictably from such a disparate collection of writings, incest is explicitly condemned in quite a few other places in the Bible.”
"Incest in the Bible: Adam and Eve and Their Children, and Noah and His Family"
Vexen Crabtree (2012)
Part of God's Plan & Abraham was Rewarded For It:
(1) Adam and Eve's children were Cain, Abel (Genesis 4), Seth and others (Genesis 5:4). They must have had sex with their parents or with each other, and thus had children of their own. Incest with the very closest relatives is a necessary part of God's plan, according to the story of Adam and Eve. Even if you accept that this story is mythical, then, the moral truth behind it still insists that incest must be ok, being such a fundamental part of God's good plan. (See: "Christian Mythology: Adam and Eve, and the Serpent, in the Garden of Eden" by Vexen Crabtree (2013).)
(2) After The Flood (Genesis 6:6-8,7:1,20-23,9:1,18-19), which was only survived by one single family (Noah's), incest was once again rife and necessary, a situation God itself had caused.
(3) Abraham married his sister. He was one of the most holy men of the Old Testament. God rewarded them for it. "And God said unto Abraham, as for Sara thy wife...I bless her, and give thee a son also of her..." (Genesis 17:15-16, Genesis 20:11-12). There was a lot of this going on in this holy family:
- Abraham's brother Nahor married Milcah, the daughter of Haran, Abraham's other brother.
- Isaac, Abraham's son, married Rebekah, the granddaughter of his father's brother Nahor and niece Milcah (i.e., his first cousin-once-removed). And their children Esau and Jacob continued to marry into their own family.
(4) Lot fathered children with his own daughters after they took turns to seduce him while he was drunk. Lot is considered favourable by god, was saved by God's angels (Genesis 19:11-13, 15-17,19) and is described as just and righteous in 2 Peter 2:6-8.
(5) Joshua gives Caleb's daughter to her cousin as a wife in Joshua 15:16-17 as a battle reward for conquering Kirjath Sepher.
There are many other cases of incest - too many to list here!
Incest is Condemned by God:
"Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of this mother..." (Deuteronomy 27:22).
"None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness" (Leviticus 18:6).
Union your father's wife, or, a father with his daughter in law, both merit punishment by death (Leviticus 20:11-12).
"If a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter...it is a wicked thing" (Leviticus 20:17).
Deuteronomy and Leviticus across various chapters describe many other (but not all) forms of incestuous unions as prohibited.
A Secular Incident:
Absalom was a non-religious figure, featuring in political schemes and power struggles. Yet he had the moral strength to bring justice against King David's son Amnon who raped Absalom's sister (Amnon's half-sister) (2 Samuel 13). His means of going about it were dishonest because he did not think that the holy court of King David would have brought justice, the event being family-on-family.
See:
- "Incest in the Bible: Adam and Eve and Their Children, and Noah and His Family" by Vexen Crabtree (2012)
7.2. The Monstrous Actions of an Immoral God1
“The legend of the animals going into the ark two by two is charming, but the moral of the story of Noah is appalling. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned the lot of them including children and also, for good measure, the rest of the (presumably blameless) animals as well. Of course, irritated theologians will protest that we don't take the book of Genesis literally any more. But that is my whole point! We pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories.”
"The God Delusion" by Prof. Richard Dawkins (2006)19
Genesis 6:7 says "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them". What does this teach us? If our children do not turn out how we wished, then, we can follow the example of the perfectly just Christian God, and destroy them. And anything around them, including animals and other people. We can deliver group punishments in accordance with the worst offenders amongst them, and, the less bad amongst them are simply unlucky to have been around at the wrong time. It seems that when it comes to good parenting, it is not to the Christian God that we should look!
8. Genesis Chapters 6 to 9 (two translations side by side)
Genesis 6:1-22
Genesis 7:1-24
Genesis 8:1-22
| KJV | YLT | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; | And God remembereth Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle which `are' with him in the ark, and God causeth a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subside, | Genesis 8:3 comments in 5.1. Internal Contradictions in the Biblical Story Genesis 8:8-11: The Mystical Number 7: 2. In the Bible (Judaism and Christianity) Genesis 8:13 is discussed on this page in 5.1. Internal Contradictions in the Biblical Story Genesis 8:20-21 comments: Animal Sacrifice and Blood Rituals in Traditional World Religions and Satanism: 6. Appendix A: Animal Sacrifice in the Jewish Scriptures and Christian Old Testament Genesis 8:20-21 is mentioned on this page in 3.1. Atrahasis, the Mesopotamian Flood Poem Genesis 8:21 comments: Animal Sacrifice and Blood Rituals in Traditional World Religions and Satanism: 3.1. Judaism Genesis 8:21 comments in 5. Why God No Longer Interferes |
| 2 | The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; | and closed are the fountains of the deep and the net-work of the heavens, and restrained is the shower from the heavens. | |
| 3 | And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. | And turn back do the waters from off the earth, going on and returning; and the waters are lacking at the end of a hundred and fifty days. | |
| 4 | And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. | And the ark resteth, in the seventh month, in the seventeenth day of the month, on mountains of Ararat; | |
| 5 | And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. | and the waters have been going and becoming lacking till the tenth month; in the tenth `month', on the first of the month, appeared the heads of the mountains. | |
| 6 | And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: | And it cometh to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah openeth the window of the ark which he made, | |
| 7 | And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. | and he sendeth forth the raven, and it goeth out, going out and turning back till the drying of the waters from off the earth. | |
| 8 | Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; | And he sendeth forth the dove from him to see whether the waters have been lightened from off the face of the ground, | |
| 9 | But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. | and the dove hath not found rest for the sole of her foot, and she turneth back unto him, unto the ark, for waters `are' on the face of all the earth, and he putteth out his hand, and taketh her, and bringeth her in unto him, unto the ark. | |
| 10 | And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; | And he stayeth yet other seven days, and addeth to send forth the dove from the ark; | |
| 11 | And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. | and the dove cometh in unto him at even-time, and lo, an olive leaf torn off in her mouth; and Noah knoweth that the waters have been lightened from off the earth. | |
| 12 | And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more. | And he stayeth yet other seven days, and sendeth forth the dove, and it added not to turn back unto him any more. | |
| 13 | And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. | And it cometh to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first `month', in the first of the month, the waters have been dried from off the earth; and Noah turneth aside the covering of the ark, and looketh, and lo, the face of the ground hath been dried. | |
| 14 | And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried. | And in the second month, in the seven and twentieth day of the month, the earth hath become dry. | |
| 15 | And God spake unto Noah, saying, | And God speaketh unto Noah, saying, `Go out from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee; | |
| 16 | Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. | every living thing that `is' with thee, of all flesh, among fowl, and among cattle, and among every creeping thing which is creeping on the earth, bring out with thee; | |
| 17 | Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. | and they have teemed in the earth, and been fruitful, and have multiplied on the earth.' | |
| 18 | And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him: | And Noah goeth out, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him; | |
| 19 | Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark. | every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl; every creeping thing on the earth, after their families, have gone out from the ark. | |
| 20 | And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. | And Noah buildeth an altar to Jehovah, and taketh of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and causeth burnt-offerings to ascend on the altar; | |
| 21 | And the LORD smelled a sweet savor; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. | and Jehovah smelleth the sweet fragrance, and Jehovah saith unto His heart, `I continue not to disesteem any more the ground because of man, though the imagination of the heart of man `is' evil from his youth; and I continue not to smite any more all living, as I have done; | |
| 22 | While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. | during all days of the earth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, do not cease.' |