Flood Stories
- Exist everywhere (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Babylon, etc... every other nation has a flood story)
- Most of these for sure pre-date Genesis
- Leads some historians to go "well a flood must've for sure happened"
- Either way, just like we look at the previous stories in Genesis so far - these are stories that the author ir retelling that they're used to telling
- of course because everyone is telling them
- Epic of Gilgamesh in Mesopotamia has some of the same names as the Genesis flood account
- Hero: Gilgamesh
- On a journey through the world where he encounters other gods all with similar stories that ultimately leads to the god getting angry and lashing out at either Gilgamesh or humanity
- At one point there's a new character who meets the god of storm and thunder (looks just like story of Noah where a god is going to destroy the world with a deluge)
- The character builds a raft and outsmarts the god when the rains come
- Seems like the bible story is obviously swiping at this story teaching things about Yahweh's position on humanity as opposed to the gods of the other flood narratives' positions on humanity
- Gilgamesh was a story in Chaldea - the land that Abram is from so it makes perfect sense that this is a story the Israelites would retell and contrast with similar stories that they're used to
Problems
- every inclination of man is always evil all the time... very hyperbolic
Chiasm here... found by looking at the numbers 7, 7, 140, 150, 140, 7, 7 center: Genesis 8:1
Genesis 8:1 (LEB)
1And God remembered Noah and all the wild animals, and all the domesticated animals that
were with him in the ark. And God caused a wind to blow over the earth, and the waters
subsided.- Noah as a word means "rest"... center is rest/sabbath again!
creation roadmap is also followed **Noah opens a window in the Ark (light and darkness) **Rain stops (Water above and below) **Dry ground appears **Noah sends a raven out (bird in the air) **Midrash teaching on the son,moon, and stars showing up from creation in the Noah story -Marty skips it **Ark opens and animals and man come out onto the land (day 6 of creation **Sabbath doesn't follow though - the man and animals coming out of the Ark...
Repetition of Covenant
- Genesis 9
- "covenant" shows up 7 times
- "earth" shows up 7 times
- "clouds" shows up 4 times in English, but 5 times in Hebrew
- "bow" 3 times
- odd numbers are a big deal in Eastern thinking because they have a center
- So think of a mini chiasm here?
- Take the 4th "covenant", 4th "earth", 3rd "cloud", and 2nd "bow" to find the center of this mini-chiasm, last part of verse 9:14...
- When I make the clouds appear over the earth the bow shall be seen in the clouds
- This is the center... the bow is the big deal
- Genesis 1,2,3 is all about a God who knows when to stop creating
- This is now about the God who knows when to stop destroying
Covenants
- Suzerain-Vassel Covenants
- two parties
- Suzerain - the powerful party
- Vassel - the lesser
- Usually meant that the lesser would become the "vassel" to the suzerain, and if you don't maintain your posture of submission that the greater party would destroy the lesser
- The vassel was given a sign of the covenant with the Suzerain, in order to prove that the powerful party did in fact make a covenant with you
- God is clearly the Suzerain here
- God though, owns the sign
- God takes the aim of the bow - he will be destroyed by himself if he forgets the covenant, so he bears the sign and he remembers
- Yahweh stands out in the flood story now - because he's different... he's not angry, he's not trying to destroy the world