Thread by @JamesBejon

THREAD: Source Criticism & the Flood.

Classically, source criticism views the flood narrative as an amalgamation of two *independent* flood narratives--one from a Priestly source, the other from a non-Priestly source.

Linked below is a classic schema:

livius.org/articles/misc/…

Other schemas are more intricate (e.g., Friedman’s), but are built around the same basic premise, namely,

the flood narrative was composed by a redactor who wove together two independent narratives,

and these narratives can be recovered/untangled by the identification of telltale literary features: repeated statements of the same incident, discontinuities in narratives, etc.

In my view, such treatments of the flood narrative disappoint in at least two important respects.

First, they do not remove the (perceived) oddities they purport to be able to remove.

Or, to put the point another way, if the flood narrative of Gen. 6-9 has its oddities,

then so do its individual Priestly and non-Priestly sources.

Consider, for instance, the sequence of events recounted in the Priestly narrative:

Noah does everything God commands him to, i.e., builds the ark, gathers up the animals, and (presumably) enters the ark (6.22);

next, the flood comes (7.6), at which point the animals come to Noah a second time (7.8+);

and, after a further 7 days, we have another flood (7.11) and another occasion when Noah and the animals enter the ark (7.13).

As such, P’s narrative exhibits the same ‘oddities/discontinuities’ found in the narrative of Gen. 6-9.

In response, a source critic might tell us we simply need to read P’s narrative more sympathetically, e.g., as a block of summary statements which are later filled out.

And he might be right.

But then why not just read the single flood narrative of Gen. 6-9 in such a manner?

Alternatively, a source critic might dismiss our concern as a minor wrinkle which does not detract from the overall success of the classic source critical approach.

But, in reality, the issue raised above is one of a whole array of similar issues, a few of which are set out below:

* In (non-P) 7.1, YHWH’s mention of ‘the ark’ arrives entirely out of the blue. YHWH tells Noah to ‘enter the ark’ (where ‘ark’ is accompanied by the article: בֹּא אל התבה), yet no ‘ark’ has previously been mentioned in non-P.

* In (non-P) 7.7, Noah is said to enter the ark מפני מי המבול = ‘because of (alt. before the presence of) the floodwaters’, yet the floodwaters have not previously been mentioned in the non-P narrative.

* Meanwhile, (P) 7.10 (per livius.org/articles/misc/…) shows a reliance on the non-P narrative, since 7.10 has the flood come seven days after Noah enters the ark, yet YHWH’s intention to send the flood in seven days time is not mentioned in P (but in non-P 7.4).

Friedman therefore allocates 7.10 to non-P, which alleviates one problem but worsens another, since the non-P narrative then reads, ‘Noah and his sons...went into the ark because of the flood-waters. And after seven days the flood-waters came’.

* In 8.6, the non-Priestly source qualifies its ref. to ‘the ark’ as ‘the ark which Noah had made’, yet Noah is not said to have built the ark in the non-P narrative. (6.22 is P.)

And so the story continues.

In response, a source critic might say our redactor has removed elements of non-P’s narrative in order to make his combined account flow more naturally.

But then why did our redactor not do so elsewhere?

I.e., Why was our redactor careful to avoid repetition in some places and not others?

And, if we say the sources beneath Gen. 6-9 have been substantially adapted, then in what sense are they really identifiable sources?

As such, the classic source criticical treatment of Gen. 6-9 disappoints. The ‘discontinuities’ in the text-to-be-decomposed are still present at the end of the process of decomposition.

My second issue with the classic source criticical treatment of Gen. 6-9 concerns the many questions it leaves unanswered.

* How come the (combined) narrative of Gen. 6-9 has such a neat symmtery?

Further redaction? Collaboration between P and non-P?

Cf. godawa.com/chronicles_of_…

* Why is no-one commanded to build the ark in the non-P narrative?

* Why is no-one said to leave the ark in the non-P narrative? (Ostensibly, Noah builds an altar while he is still on board: 8.20.)

* Why does the *non*-Priestly (rather than the Priestly) narrative raise the distinction between clean and unclean animals (7.2)?

* Why, in P, is a raven--i.e., an unclean bird--the first creature to be released from the ark to enjoy a newly-purged post-flood world (8.7)?

Friedman solves the problem by the allocation of 8.7 to non-P, but the non-Priestly narrative then becomes incoherent.

Non-P only has two of each kind of animal/bird on the ark, so the continued existence of the raven kind would require the first raven to find his mate after she was released from the ark over three months later.

Perhaps, in response, a source critic might say the non-P narrative simply lacks coherence. But then on what basis can one decompose a narrative into individual sources if those sources are potentially incoherent?

And if we cannot allow (alleged) incoherence in Gen. 6-9’s narrative, then on what basis can we allow it in P’s?

Final thoughts:

Obviously, a brief thread can only scratch the surface of an issue.

But, for the reasons stated above, the classic source critical analysis of the flood narrative (as modelled by Von Rad, Vawter, Westermann, etc.) does not strike me as very fruitful.

It clearly harbours some insightful observations (which can usefully be developed in the context of different frameworks),

but, ultimately, it fails to explain what it sets out to explain,

and seems to tell us more about our presuppositions than our object of study...

...insofar as it begins with an (a priori) expectation of how texts should be structured and proceeds from there.

Evidently, ancient authors and readers didn’t expect texts to be structured and read in the way we do,

in which case to decompose what an ancient author/redactor considered to be a coherent unit on the basis of present-day expectations is unlikely to tell us much about it.

The end.

For the kind folk who’ve asked, academia.edu/39893265/