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In this analysis, I’ve lifted out of
Genesis 6-9 all of the flood-story passages in which the deity is called GOD, skipping over all the passages in which the deity is called LORD, and pasted the "God" passages together to make
one complete flood story; the remaining passages left behind--the ones in which the deity is called LORD--likewise tell a complete
flood story. This, by itself, is
extremely strong evidence, if not proof, that the people who chose the sacred
texts for the Bible took two different strories by two different authors and, not wishing to offend subscribers to either of the stories, then blended the two together to create a single flood story, and ignored the fact that the composite story is self-contradictory.
One of the authors called the deity GOD, and the the other called it LORD.
The fact that each of two stories, one from the "God" tradition, and the other from the "Lord" tradition, each tell a complete flood story is extremely strong evidence that that two different complete, flood stories were woven together to make the "one" flood story found in Genesis. Anyone can do it, and I recommend it as a Sunday school exercise for children over the age of eleven. A worthwhile exercise for any serious student of the Bible would be to go to biblegateway.com (click on this link); there one would find the KJV. Copy Genesis 6:9-8:17 versesonto your word processor screen, then cut and paste at the bottom of the sheet only those verses that are told by the author who calls the deity "God," then do the same thing in a separate place for the verses that came from the author who called the deity "Lord." The result will be two separate--and complete--flood stories. If the two copy-and-paste texts didn't tell complete stories, there would be room for doubt about there being two different stories from two different traditions, but there is no doubt, as you will soon see. The most important thing that will be learned from this is that the two different flood stories contradict each other, which means that at least one of the Bible's flood stories is incorrect.
What will prove (below) beyond reasonable doubt that there were two flood-story authors—not one--is the wealth of unique
correspondences found in disconnected passages. For example, references to Noah’s “sons” are made (eleven times) only by the author
who called the deity “God.” Not once does the author who calls the deity "Lord" ever use the word "sons" in reference to Noah's children. There are
several other correspondences like this, but I’ll not enumerate them here;
perhaps the reader would like to find them on his or her own. Hint:
the correspondences are shown in capital boldface color. A complete listing is given at the end of
this article.
The First
Flood Story
The flood story below was
constructed by lifting from Chapters 6-9 of Genesis only those passages which
refer to GOD, and
leaving behind the remaining passages; it tells a complete story of the
flood, and, as you will see later, so do the passages left behind.
The passages below are not written
in a continuous block because they were not continuous in the original;
wherever there is a break between two passages, that means that a passage was
removed and used for the other flood story.
The highlighted words are present
only in the GOD
passages, not in the LORD
ones.
Genesis 6:9-22
9 This is the
account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his
time, and he walked with GOD.
10 Noah had three SONS: Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was
corrupt in GOD's sight and was full of violence. 12
GOD saw how corrupt the earth had
become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So GOD said to Noah, I am going to put an
end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am
surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of
cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This
is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45
feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the
top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.
17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the
heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. 18 Everything on
earth will perish. But I will establish my COVENANT with you, and you will enter the
ark--you and your SONS and your wife and your SONS' wives with
you. 19 You are to bring into the ark TWO of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive
with you. 20 TWO
of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature
that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to
take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you
and for them. 22 Noah did everything just as GOD commanded him.
Genesis 7:7-9
7 And Noah and his SONS and
his wife and his SONS' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the
flood. 8 PAIRS
of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move
along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as
GOD had commanded Noah.
Genesis 7:12-16b
12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On that very day Noah and
his SONS, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of
his three SONS, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal
according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature
that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to
its kind, everything with wings. 15 PAIRS of all creatures that have the breath of life in
them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16a The animals going in were male and
female of every living thing, as GOD had commanded Noah.
(Readers should not overlook the
repetition in the two passages above:
the GOD
author has Noah and the animals entering the ark twice. This may have been caused by the editor’s
wish to include the words on scrolls from two different GOD authors about Noah entering the
ark.)
Genesis 8:1
8:1 But GOD remembered Noah and all the wild
animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind
over the earth, and the waters receded.
Genesis 8:14-19
14 By the twenty-seventh day of the
second month the earth was completely dry. 15 Then GOD said to Noah, 16 "Come out of
the ark, you and your wife and your SONS and their wives. 17 Bring out
every kind of living creature that is with you--the birds, the animals, and all
the creatures that move along the ground--so they can multiply on the earth and
be fruitful and increase in number upon it." 18 So Noah came out, together
with his SONS and his wife and his SONS' wives. 19 All the
animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the
birds--everything that moves on the earth--came out of the ark, one kind after
another.
Genesis 9:1-17
1 Then GOD blessed Noah and his SONS,
saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2
The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all
the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon
all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that
lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I
now give you everything. 4 "But you must not eat meat that has its
lifeblood still in it. 5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an
accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man,
too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. 6
"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in
the image of GOD has GOD made man. 7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in
number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it." 8 Then GOD said to Noah and to his SONS
with him: 9 "I now establish my COVENANT with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with
every living creature that was with you--the birds, the livestock and all the
wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you--every living
creature on earth. 11 I establish my COVENANT with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the
waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the
earth." 12 And GOD
said, "This is the sign of the COVENANT I am making between me and you and every living
creature with you, a COVENANT for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and
it will be the sign of the COVENANT between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over
the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my COVENANT between me and you and all living
creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy
all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and
remember the everlasting COVENANT between GOD and all
living creatures of every kind on the earth." 17 So GOD said to Noah, "This is the
sign of the COVENANT I have established between me and all life on the earth.
The Second Flood Story
The
flood story above tells a complete story, even after taking out six passages
which were interlaced with the ones above.
The six passages below are the ones which were taken out, and they, too,
tell a complete story of the flood.
This completeness could not exist if there were just one author
telling one story, for the information left out would surely not permit the
remainder to tell a complete story. We
thus have two separate and complete flood stories mixed together by a Bible
editor who took one passage from one tradition, followed it with a passage from
the other tradition, then went back to the first tradition, then to the second,
and so on and so forth about five or six times.
The
passages below are not written in a continuous block because they were not
continuous in the original; wherever there is a break between two passages,
that means that a passage was removed and used for the other flood story. As you read the story below, you will note the absence of those words which the "God" author used often in his story of the flood--words such as GOD (18 times above, zero below), COVENANT (eight times above, zero below), SONS (twelve times above, zero below), PAIRS or TWO (four times above, zero below). Nowhere in the story below will any of these words appear, because evidently the author of that traditional story came from a people who called the deity by a different name ("Lord") and who believed in a "covenant," and who learned a quite different flood story from the one the author of the first creation story told.
Here is the second creation story. In constructing this story, I lifted out of the Bible those groups of verses that contained words that were not found in other groups. Those other groups of verses have already been shown to you, above, in the first creation story. What remains is the second creation story, below.
Genesis 6:5-8
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them. 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD
Genesis 7:1-6
7:1 The LORD then said to Noah, Go into the ark,
you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this
generation. 2 Take with you SEVEN of every kind of clean animal, a male
and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3
and also SEVEN of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their
various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 SEVEN days from now I will
send rain on the earth for forty days and forty
nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have
made. 5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. 6 Noah was SIX HUNDRED years old when the floodwaters came on the
earth.
Genesis 7:10-11
10 And after the SEVEN days the floodwaters came on the
earth. 11 In the SIX HUNDREDTH year of Noah's life, on the SEVENTEENTH day of the
second month--on that day all the SPRINGS OF THE GREAT DEEP burst forth, and the FLOODGATES OF THE
HEAVENS were
opened.
Note the repetition here: we’re told twice that Noah was six hundred
years old when the floodwaters came.
This may have been caused by the editor being in possession of two
different LORD scrolls containing information
about Noah’s age at the time of the coming of the waters.
Genesis 7:16b-24
16b Then the LORD
shut him in. 17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the
waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose
and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the
water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the
entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a
depth of more than twenty feet. 21 Every living thing that moved on the earth
perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the
earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in
its nostrils died. 22 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped
out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds
of the air were wiped from the earth. 23 Only Noah was left, and those with
him in the ark. 24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty
days.
Genesis 8:2-13
2 Now the SPRINGS
OF THE DEEP and the FLOODGATES OF THE
HEAVENS had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the
sky. 3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down,
4 and on the SEVENTEENTH day of the SEVENTH month the ark came to
rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The waters continued to recede until the
tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains
became visible. 6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the
ark 7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water
had dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had
receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to
set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it
returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and
brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited SEVEN more days and
again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening,
there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the
water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited SEVEN more days and sent
the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. 13 By the first day
of the first month of Noah's SIX HUNDRED
and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the
covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry
Genesis 8:20-22
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking
some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on
it. 21 The LORD
smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: Never again will I
curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is
evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I
have done. 22 As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and
heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.
Note that only the GOD author acknowledges that Noah has SONS; he does so
twelve times over five disconnected passages. However, the LORD author never once mentions SONS; he seems only to know that Noah has a
"family," and that there are "others" with him. When the altar is built (Genesis 8:20), the
LORD authors says “Noah built” it; he doesn’t say his sons helped him because
he perhaps doesn’t know if there even were any sons.
The many
references to SONS in the passages authored by the person who called the deity GOD, and only in the passages with the word GOD, is strong evidence that these passages were
written by a different author than the one who wrote the others, and therefore
were originally connected when the story was told in that culture, not disconnected, as they are in the current interwoven story.
The LORD
author seems especially enamored of the number seven; he is the only one of he two authors who
uses SEVEN / SEVENTH / SEVENTEEN, and does so nine times.. This is
the author who says that SEVEN of each kind of animal is to be taken on
board; the GOD author says that TWO, or a PAIR, of each kind are to be put on board. Not
once does the GOD author use the numbers
seven, seventh, seventeen. The many
references to the “sevens” in the passages which refer to LORD, and only in the passages with LORD, is strong evidence
that these passages were written by a different author than the one who wrote
the ones in the other story, and were originally connected, and that
the disconnection exists in Genesis only because some editor wove together
two different flood stories.
The GOD
author is the only author to use the word COVENANT;
he does so eight times;the LORD
author doesn’t mention it even once. The many
references to COVENANT in the same
passages which refer to GOD, and only
in the passages with GOD, is strong
evidence that these passages were written by a different author than the one
who wrote the others, and were originally connected, not disconnected.
Just as in this flood story two authors' accounts were presented, the same is true for the creation story: there are two creation stories--one written by the author who called the deity GOD, and the one who called him LORD. (To see my analysis of the two creation stories, click here.)
The GOD
author in the flood story mentions that man was made in GOD’s "image" (Genesis 9:6), and it was only the GOD author in the creation story (Genesis 1:26-27)
who mentioned the same thing; the LORD
author in the creation story says nothing about God's image, just as he says
nothing about it here, in the flood story.
This is strong evidence that two different authors are at work in the flood and creation stories--one
who called the deity GOD and believed that man was made in GOD’s image, and said so in both the creation
story and the flood stories, and one who called the deity LORD and said nothing about “image” in either
story.
The LORD
author refers to Noah’s SIX HUNDRED year age; the GOD author makes no reference to Noah’s age. This is further evidence that there were two
different authors with two different beliefs about Noah and the flood.
The “single”
flood story tells us three different times that Noah enters the ark: The GOD author has Noah and his animals
enter twice, while the LORD author has him enter once.
The accumulated evidence thus weighs down monstrously heavily on the argument put forth by hopeful fundamentalists that Genesis was written by one man, Moses. To all but those who operate at the idiot-fundamentalist level of total mindless acceptance--faith without understanding, it is no doubt perfectly clear that the Genesis flood story is a compilation of two separate and conflicting traditions, and not a single story whose story-teller was inspired by a god.