4.1.3 Gen. 6 – 8: The Flood

In the story of the Flood, it is quite tangible that different strands of  tradition were woven together. At first sight it is noticeable that Noah  should take a pair of each kind of animal into the ark (6, 19), but at  another time he should take 7 of each pure animal (7, 2). Once the rain  lasts 40 days (7, 12), once 150 days (8, 3). Strikingly many details are  told twice. Even the conservative theologian Delitzsch assumes two  different sources here. In writing it down, the scribe had started from one  main source, which he had enriched according to his present knowledge  from another source, and this so artfully that one could recognize this  fact only on closer inspection. This can hardly be seriously contradicted.

But this is too little for the theology of the present. It assigns each verse or  half verse to the sources J and P, possibly additionally also to a deuteronomistic editor “DtrT”. Thus a text puzzle is created which is first cut  apart and then put together again. So even the serious old master vRad  does not bring any more the Bible text in his commentary, but prints his  idea of two Flood stories of J and P one after the other. After many  rearrangements two quite readable texts come about. Westermann  (Calwer Bibelkunde) still assumes an additional deuteronomistic redaction  to which also single verses or verse parts are attributed. 

For comparison: The Flood story of the Jahvist reads as follows: 

One can be astonished about the matter-of-factness with which  individual stories and verses or even parts of verses are assigned to  hypothetically assumed sources in theology. In most cases, the Bible is  no longer interpreted, but the theology of the sources is presented, as  one thinks to have found them. Without question, important details come  out more clearly and vividly here – similar to a synoptic comparison in  the NT. However, it must always be clear that these sources are  hypothetical assumptions. With this kind of source distinction with  magnifying glass and tweezers, new questions are again raised: Why is the distinction between clean and unclean animals not attributed to P – that is after all knowledge and interest of the priesthood? Do the sending of the raven  and the dove belong to J (Westermann) or does only the dove belong to J,  but the raven to P (vRad)? etc. 

Conclusion: The source distinction is important as a working hypothesis  for a more exact understanding of the Scriptures. We can be quite  grateful for the fiddling work that has been done. However, it must be  more clearly marked as a working hypothesis. The theological treatment  of assumed sources must in no way replace the interpretation of the  Bible. For this is given to us as a guideline for our faith, and not  constructs of virtual sources. 

After the steady increase and the prevalence of sin, the judgment is now all  the more severe: everything that lives on earth is destroyed except for  what is saved in the ark. Wonderfully anthropomorphically expressed,  Noah retunes God with his sacrifice by the lovely smell in his nose. He  gives a guarantee of the yearly and daily rhythm as long as the earth  stands. Man is not really improved even by the most severe  punishments: here again the unvarnished realism of the Bible expresses  itself. Instead of the catchy euphemisms like: “I am ok, you are ok”! or: “I  am small, my heart is pure” the succinct statement is: “the thinking and  striving of the human heart is evil from youth”. (8,21) This will come true  again at the end of the prehistory with the building of the tower of Babel. 

So also the radical solution of a giant flood was in the end no solution to the problem of the freedom of the human being to sin. It would be  despairing if one could not interpret the Flood with the apostle Peter as a  type for another drowning: the baptism (1.Ptr. 3,21). But first God makes  a covenant with Noah.