Genesis 8: The Flood Subsides

(Read Genesis 8 here.)

Noah and his family and the animals have been in the ark for some time. At the end of Chapter 7, it says that the waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days. In Chapter 8, God sends a wind over the earth, and the waters start to recede.

• Where did the waters go? Seems like this would have raised the sea levels or something. 

We are told that the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. We read in the previous chapter that the rain started on the seventeenth day of the second month. So they were all in the ark for about five months. This is consistent with the 150 days that the waters were on the earth.

However, everyone stayed in the ark for a while longer; it says the waters continued to abate until the tenth month, when they first saw the tops of the mountains.

We read that “at the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark…” and let a raven out.

• Was this forty days after the mountaintops appeared?

The raven never returned.

• I guess he was content to live on the mountaintops until the waters receded further.

Next Noah lets out a dove, to see if there was any dry land. The dove comes back, so Noah waits another week and lets it go again. This time she comes back with a freshly plucked olive leaf. Noah waits one more week and lets her go again, and this time she stays gone.

The next section (verse 13) says that the waters were finally gone from the earth on the first day of the first month of the six hundred and first year.

• I assume this is the 601^st year of Noah’s life, since we are told in Chapter 7 that the flood began in the 600^th year of his life.

But apparently it wasn’t dry yet – verse 14 says that “on the twenty-seventh day of the (second) month, the earth had dried out.” It was only then that God told Noah to get out of the ark and let everybody else out too. So it seems that they were all in that boat for a total of one year and ten days.

• Of course, that’s probably not accurate, since they certainly weren’t using the Gregorian calendar.

So Noah, his wife and sons and daughters-in-law, and all the animals went out “by families” from the ark.

It’s tough to believe that at this point there were only eight human beings on the planet. Earlier in Genesis, it seems easier to believe that there were other humans besides Adam and Eve and their sons. But this flood was intended to destroy every living creature on the earth. How would one family repopulate the planet? Wouldn’t that wind up being somewhat incestuous, since Noah’s grandchildren would basically have to marry their cousins? Even if the flood was regional, or contained to the Middle East, it’s not likely that they would have traveled far and wide to find spouses and start families, since traveling was particularly difficult. Perhaps I’m overanalyzing this, and I said I was reading to see what exactly was in the text. I suppose it’s impossible not to wonder about some of this, though…and I’m thinking there will be questions like this for which there are no answers within the actual text.

Genesis 7

(Read Genesis 7 here.)


In Chapter 6, God gave Noah a lot of work to do. He told Noah to build an ark, and to gather all the animals and food that he could. At the end of the chapter, it says Noah did all that God commanded him to do.


This brings us to Chapter 7. God tells Noah to get into the ark he has built. He is to take his entire household (his wife, his three sons, and their wives), and a host of animals: seven pairs of every "clean" animal, and one pair of the animals that are not clean.

• Which animals were considered clean? This is the first mention of such distinctions between animals.

Seven pairs of each type of bird were also to be brought onto the boat. 
Then God says that in seven days, it's going to start raining, and it will rain for forty days and forty nights. So Noah has one week to get everything loaded into the ark.
It says that Noah was 600 years old when the flood came. Interestingly, Verse 11 gives a very specific date for the beginning of the flood: it was the 600th year of Noah's life, and the 17th day of the second month of the year. 

• Why is such a specific date given?

On the very same day, all the humans and animals were in the ark, and it seems that God himself shut the door for them (Verse 16 says "the Lord shut him in").


Next we find out that as the waters rose, the ark floated up, and eventually the waters covered the mountains. Everything that was alive on the earth died.

• What about the fish that were in the seas? I assume they were OK.

The rain continued for 40 days and 40 nights, and when it stopped, the waters stayed high for another 150 days.

Genesis 5-6

(Read Genesis 5 and 6 here.)


Chapter 5 is essentially genealogy. We find that Adam had lived for 130 years when he fathered his third child, Seth. He lived for 800 more years and had other sons and daughters. All of Adam's descendants lived for centuries, but it seems that they all were what we would consider old today when they had their first children (at least, according to this). It could be that they had other children, but the noteworthy ones came when they were  60 years old or older.

• The youngest fathers I can find in this chapter are Mahalalel and Enoch, who were each 65 when they fathered Jared and Methuselah, respectively.

Enoch only lived 365 years, though: it says God "took him." Apparently they had a very good relationship.
Eventually, Noah is born, and at the ripe old age of 500, he has three sons.




Chapter 6 has an interesting beginning: it says "the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive." This is the first mention of these "sons of God," and it seems that they are different from the man that God created. These sons of God took some of the daughters of men as their wives. 

• Did God have children of his own? What kind of beings are/were they? Are they like the Immortals from "The Highlander" or something?

Next, God decides that mankind's days will be 120 years; I assume there won't be any more men living for 900 years like the descendants of Adam in Chapter 5.

• Did God decide this because his sons were taking wives from among the humans he created? 

Something called Nephilim ("giants," according to the footnotes) were on the earth in those days. This is sort of a random statement. I'd like to know more about these giants.


The daughters of men bore the children of the sons of God, and apparently they were special: it says "these were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown." Interestingly, nothing more is said about these "men of renown." I would like to know more about them, too.


Now we find out about Noah. He is a righteous man, but the rest of the earth is corrupt and full of violence. God decides to "make an end of all flesh," and says he will "destroy them with the earth."
He tells Noah to make an ark of gopher wood. 

• What sort of wood is gopher wood? I have never heard of a gopher tree. The footnotes say it is "an unknown kind of tree."

God gives Noah explicit directions on the size of the ark, and how he should build it. Then he tells Noah what he (God) plans to do: he will bring a flood that will kill everything on the earth. But Noah and his entire family (his wife, his sons, and their wives) will be safe and dry aboard this enormous ark. Noah is also instructed to bring one male and one female of every living thing onto the ark, to keep them alive. They are also to take every kind of food that is eaten, to feed the humans and the animals alike.

This is a pretty big task--it's nearly unbelievable. How is he supposed to find two of every living creature on the earth?! There's no way he could get all of them. Maybe animals were a lot more cooperative in those times.

Genesis 3-4

(Read Genesis 3 and 4 here.)


Here we read about the fall of Man. The serpent piques the woman's curiosity, asking if they were really forbidden from eating the fruit of any of the trees in the garden. (Remember, they were allowed to eat from any tree they desired, except for those two.) The woman tells the serpent that God told them they would die if they even touched the fruit of the "tree that is in the midst of the garden." The serpent tells her that God just doesn't want them to eat that fruit because it will open their eyes for them to know good from evil--they will be like God. So she eats the fruit, and gives some to the man, who of course eats it, and suddenly they know that they're naked, so they make loincloths out of fig leaves. 

• I wonder what their mindset was like before their eyes were opened. Were they more like our domesticated animals, only more intelligent? 

Later, God comes walking through the garden, and the man and woman hide from him, and God can't find them. (This doesn't sound like the omniscient God that I usually think of.) When God calls out to the man, the man answers that he was hiding because he was ashamed of his nakedness. I guess this tips off God to the fact that the man has eaten from the tree of knowledge. The man passes the buck to the woman, and she passes the buck on to the serpent. So God says the serpent is cursed from now on. The woman will have painful childbearing, and the man will have to work the ground in order to eat. 


After all this, the man names his wife Eve, which sounds like the Hebrew word for "life-giver." Then God makes clothes of skins for them both. 

• Where did he get the skins? He must have slaughtered some animals to do this.

Then God says that the man has "become like one of us in knowing good and evil." 

• Who is "us?" Does God have some companions that are also gods, or at least higher than humans?

So God decides that the man and woman have to leave the garden before they also eat from the tree of life and live forever.

• I wonder what would have happened if the serpent had suggested that the woman eat from the tree of life, rather than the tree of knowledge.

In Chapter 4, Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain is a farmer, and Abel keeps a flock of sheep. At some point, Cain brings some of his harvest as an offering to God. Abel brings the firstborn of his flock for an offering. 


This next part confuses me: it says that God "had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard." Why was a lamb a better offering than the harvest that Cain produced? This seems very arbitrary to me. If they had been given some guidelines as to what was acceptable for an offering, at least it would be fair. From what we're told, though, this isn't fair at all. Cain was angry, with good reason.


Later on, Cain and Abel are in the field, and Cain kills Abel. We aren't told why. Is it out of jealousy over God's favoring Abel's offering, or did they have some other dispute? 


God asks Cain where his brother is, and Cain pretends not to know. So Cain gets cursed as well: he is to wander the earth as a fugitive. Cain fears that he will be killed while he is wandering, so God puts a mark on him and says that anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance sevenfold. (I'm not sure how that works, but it does sound bad.)


Cain goes off and settles east of Eden, and builds a city that he names after his son Enoch. Then we get the family tree. Interestingly, Cain's great-great-great grandson Lamech takes two wives. Apparently he is the first guy that's either brave or stupid enough to attempt this. Lamech tells his wives that he has killed a young man who struck and wounded him (self-defense, I guess?). He declares that if Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then his own revenge is seventy-sevenfold. 


Finally, Adam and Eve have a third son, Seth. When Seth has a son, Enosh, it says that "at that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord." I wonder why they weren't doing so for the several previous generations.

Genesis 1 & 2

(Read Genesis 1 and 2 here.)

Genesis opens with the creation of the heavens and the earth. Apparently there were waters everywhere. First God creates light, then he creates an expanse called Heaven that separates “waters from waters.” Then he gathers together the waters that are under Heaven, and creates Land. So it seems that we’ve got the dry land and the seas here, then Heaven, then more waters above Heaven. 

I think it’s interesting that the order of creation roughly parallels the “big bang” and evolutionary theory. Basically there’s nothing but waters, and then we’ve got light and Earth. Then plants grow from the earth, and then there are creatures in the water, then birds, then the beasts of the earth, and finally Man.

God tells the birds and the sea creatures to multiply and fill the waters and the earth. He doesn’t tell the beasts of the earth to do this. Then he tells mankind to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth—and to subdue it and have dominion over everything. God also tells man that all the seed- and fruit-yielding plants on the earth are ours to eat. The birds and beasts of the earth get all the green plants for food. He doesn’t say anything about meat. I bet the vegan crowd likes that.

• What are the fish of the sea supposed to eat?

On the seventh day, God rests because he is done working. This makes the seventh day holy.

• Is this where we get the “Sabbath?”

Next we get a more in-depth version of the creation of Man. God makes a man out of the dust of the ground, and breathes life into him. Then God plants a garden, and in the middle of the garden are two special trees: the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Apparently a river flows out of Eden and splits into four rivers, all of which are described as going around or through lands for which we have no frame of reference. I suppose these places will be mentioned later in the book.

God puts the man in the garden and tells him he can eat the fruit of every tree except the tree of knowledge of good and evil—if he does, he will die.

• What about the tree of life? I guess it’s OK to eat from that one.

God observes that the man needs a helper, then he brings all the animals to the man to see what he will call them, and the man gives every living creature a name.

• Was he giving the animals species-type names, or nicknames?

Apparently God was trying to see if any of the animals would make a good helper for the man, but none of them are a good fit. So God puts the man to sleep, takes out one of his ribs, and creates a woman out of it. Lastly, we learn that the man and the woman were both naked, but weren’t ashamed of it.

The ESV uses the name “Adam” only once in Chapter 2; the footnotes say that “Adam” is the generic Hebrew term for mankind.

What's this about?

I grew up reading the King James Bible in a small church in east Alabama that I can best describe as a fundamentalist hybrid of Methodism and Baptist theology. In college, I became a United Methodist (although a relatively conservative one), and have been an active Methodist for the past decade. For a while now, I've been thinking about some of the things we believe as Christians, particularly here in the American South. Even though I was raised with a good foundation of Biblical teaching, I've wondered since reaching adulthood about some of the things that we just take for granted as being in the Bible - particularly some of our cultural mores that I suppose I've always just assumed came from the Bible.


So I decided recently to read the Bible (the English Standard Version) from cover to cover, with one qualification: I'll do my best to put aside everything I think I know about what it says, and see what the text actually does say. I'll post my thoughts, ideas, and questions here for you to consider. Perhaps you'll decide to join me to see what's really in the Bible.