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The Genesis Flood Narrative: Crucial Issues in the Current Debate1 Richard M Andntvs Uniwrsig Seminag Stwdies, Vol. 42, No. 1,49-77. Copyright 8 2004 Andrews University Press. THE GENESIS FLOOD NARRATIVE: CRUCIAL ISSUES IN THE CURRENT DEBATE1 RICHARD M. DAVIDSON Andrews University The purpose of this article is to examine major interrelated issues that are present in current discussions about the biblical Flood narrative of Gen 6-9. These include such questions as: the unity and literary genre of these chapters, the nature and extent of the biblical Flood, the relationship between history and theology in the Flood narrative, and the relationship of the biblical Flood narrative to other ANE flood stories. There are three major interpretations of Gen -9: (1) nonhistorical (mythological) interpretations suggest that Gen 6-9 is a theologically motivated account redacted from two hfferent literary sources (J and P) and lmgely borrowed from other ANE mythological flood traditions; (2) limited or local flood theories narrow the scope of the Genesis Flood to a particular geographical location or locations (usually in Mesopotamia); and (3) tradtional views regard Gen 6-9 as a unified, historically rehble narrative describing a worldwide, global Flood, and written as a polernic against other ANE Fkod stories. The major issues with regard to the biblical Flood narrative may be summarized under one of three opposing alternatives: (1) nonhistorical (mythological) vs. hls torical interpretations of the Flood; (2) lunited/local vs. universal/global Flood interpretations; and (3) theories of dependence on ANE traditions vs. theories of theological polernic. In the pages that follow, each of these three opposing alternatives is briefly discussed. Special attention is given to the question of the extent of the Genesis Flood, building upon and advancing beyond my previous study of this issue.' The position set forth in this article is that only the tradtional understandmg of a literal, historical, global Flood does kill justice to the biblical data and that this interpretation is crucial for Flood theology in Genesis and for the theological implications drawn by later biblical writers. Nonhi~torical(2M5thological)us. Histo&al Interpretations ofthe Flood Nonhistorical (Mythological) Flood Interpretations Proponents of a nonhistorical interpretation of the Genesis Flood narrative generally contend that Gen 6-9 is a mythological account 'A version of this paper was presented at the Science and Religion Confetence, Glacier View Ranch, Ward, Colorado, August 2003. Biblical translations are the author's. *RichardM. Davidson, "Biblical Evidence for the Universality of the Genesis Flood," 0rigin.r 22 (1995): 58-73; revised and expanded under the same tide in Cnaton, Catastrophe, and C&g, ed. John T. Baldwin (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000), 79-92. comprised of two different literary sources (Jah~istand Priestly), largely borrowed from earlier ANE mythological traditions and woven together by a redactor for the primary purpose of affaming the theological distinctives of Israel's faith.3 Th&e advancing a nonhistorical interpretation often acknowledge that the final redactor of Genesis intended the Flood narrative of Gen 6-9 to be taken as a literal account, as well as its having theological significance;* but in hght of the "assured results" of modern scientific investigation, they insist that the historical nature of the Flood narrative must be rejected in favor of recognizing its essentially mythological and theological (nonhistoricaI) character. Thus, the early part of Genesis (chaps. 1-11) is often separated &om the rest of the book and is labeled as primeval myth, historicizing myth, tales, sagas, legends, or the like? The crucial question is, Can such partitioning of Genesis into "primeval" (nonhistorical) and patriarchal (h~storicaI)sections be justified within the text of Genesis itself, with the Flood narrative confined to the former (nonhistoricaI) section? To this we now turn our attention. A Historical Interpretation of the Flood Narrative Two important literary-structural elements tie the Flood narrative together with the rest of the book of Genesis and support the internal unity and historicity of Gen 6-9: the use of the word t6l&Bt ("generations, account, history," 13 times in the book) and the symmetrical literary structure of the Flood narrative. 1. T6l&Bt.Each narrative section of the book of Genesis begins (or ends) with the term t~"I&%t.~The term means literally "begettings" or "brinpgs-forth" (from the verb y8d, "to bring forth, beget") and This is the prevailing view of historical-critical scholarship. See, e.g., Gerhard von Rad, GeneJrj:A Commentmy, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 116-134; Walter Brueggemann, GencJiJ, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982), 73-88; and Terence E. Fretheim, "Genesis," NIB (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 388-389. 7ames Ban summarizes: "[Slo far as I know there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any worldclass university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that . Noah's flood was understood to be worldwide, and to have extinguished all human and land animal life except for those in the ark" (cited by Alvin Plantinga, "Evolution, Neutrality, and Antecedent Probability: A Reply to McMullin and Van Till," in Inte&gentDesign Cnmionhm andlt~Crirics: Pbih~opbiuJ TheohgiuJ and S&ajFc P~.ctivez[Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001],217). 'Of course, many critical scholars reject the historicity of all of Genesis, including the patriarchal narratives. So, e.g., von Rad writes: 'The old, naive idea of the historicity of these narratives as being biographically reliable stories from the life of the patriarchs must be abandoned" (Von Rad, GeneJlj, 40). For von Rad and many others, what is stated regarding the nonhistoricality of the patriarchal narratives applies even more to the "primeval history" of Gen 1-11. implies that Genesis is the "history/account of beginnings."' Walter Kaiser has carefully analyzed the literary form of Gen 1-1 1 in light of this td&&t structure and shown that this whole section of Genesis should be taken as "historical narrative prose."* The term tdMt is used as the heading for the Flood account (6:9), thereby connecting it with the rest of the book of Genesis and indicating that the author intended this narrative to be as historically veracious as the rest of Genesis? One cannot logically accept that the author of Genesis intended only some sections of the td~~t,such as the accounts of the patriarchs, to be historical, while rnhothers, such as the Flood account, to be only theological in nature. As Kenneth Mathews aptly states: The recurring formulaic krkdtb device [of the book of Genesis] shows that the composition was arranged to join the historical moorings of Israel with the begimings of the cosmos. In this way the composition forms an Adam-Noah-Abraham continuum that loops the patriarchal promissory blessings with the God of cosmos and all human history. The text does not welcome a different readmg for Genesis 1-11 as myth versus the patriarchal narratives. mf taken as theological story alone the interpreter is at odds with the historical intentionality of Genesis.10' 2. The ~mmetrica/LiterayStmctun Ofthe Fihod Narnative. The chiastic literary structure of Gen 6-9, as recognized by numerous scholars and displayed on page 53," provides weighty evidence for the unity of the Flood narrative. Instead of these chapters being divided into small textual units (J and P) as suggested by the Documentary Hypothesis, the narrative is a single literary unit.I2A close reading of the Flood narrative as a coherent literary whole, with particular attention to the chiastic structure, resolves apparent discrepancies in the Genesis account." In the literary structure of the Flood narrative, the genealogical frame or envelope construction (Gen 532 and 9:28-29) plus the secondary 'J. B. Doukhan, The Geneh Credon Story: I0 Liferag Stmdm, Andrews University Seminary Dissertation Series, 5 (Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 1978), 167-220; see also K. A. Mathews, Geneh 1: 1- 11 :Z6, NAC (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1996), 2641. 'W. C. Kaiser Jr., 'The Literary Form of Genesis 1-1 1," in New Per~ck'vezon the OM Testmnent, ed. J. B. Payne (Waco: Word, 1970), 48-65. moukhan, The Gene.& Creation Story, $67-220. '%athews, 41,111. "Adapted from William H. Shea, "The Structureof the Genesis Flood Narrative and Its Imphcations," On+.r 6 (1979): 22-23. For a similar structural analysis, see Bernard W. Andersen, "From Analysis to Synthesis: The Interpretation of Gen 1-11 ," JBL 97 (1978): 38. This basic palstrophic structure is recognized by numerous recent commentators. 12U.Cassuto,A Commentq ontbe Book ofGene& trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1964), 2:30-34; Shea, 8-29. "G. J. Wenham, meCoherence of the Flood Narrative," VT 28 (1978): 336-348; Shea; G. F. Hasel, Unhztudng the L'ving Word ofGod (Mountain View Pacific Press, l98O), 49-50,150-151. genealogies (Gen 6:9-10; 9: 18-19) actually provide powerful indicators that the account is intended to be factual history.'* The Genesis Flood narrative presents profound theolog. But this theology is always motedin history. Any attempt to separate theology and history in the biblical narratives does so by imposing an external norm, such as Greek dualism, upon the text. Read on its own terms, the biblical narratives, including the Flood narrative, defy attempts to read them as nonhlstorical
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