GENESIS: Snoopy's Short & Snappy Review

[Waterfall]

Scholars think the story of Noah and the Flood, were composed by two different sources
called, J and P .
It is possible to separate the text into two continuous stories.
This also occurs in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The Books of Moses.
In the Flood Story,
P text always calls the deity God ( 16X) and J text calls the deity YHWH (10X).
In J the water recedes for 40 days and 40 nights and recedes for 40 days.
In P the whole process adds up to a year.
In J Noah releases a dove, in P he releases a Raven.
P has two pairs of each species of animals a male and a female, J has seven pairs of the pure animals ( animals that may be sacrificed) and only two pairs of unclean animals of each species. This is important because J is the version that Noah makes a sacrifice and he needs more clean animals for sacrifices. P does not.
Read more about it here and scroll down to Explore the Flood Story:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/flood.html

 

[Waterfall]

In other words different sources are mashed together.

 

[Mendalla]

In other words different sources are mashed together.

Who says mashups are a new thing, eh? A lot of the Hebrew scriptures are like that, though. The whole book of Genesis is probably a compilation of multiple stories from various sources. And we know Isaiah is a mashup of at least two sources.

 

[Waterfall]

Who says mashups are a new thing, eh? A lot of the Hebrew scriptures are like that, though. The whole book of Genesis is probably a compilation of multiple stories from various sources. And we know Isaiah is a mashup of at least two sources.

As mentioned in the article, the first five books in the Hebrew scriptures have more than one source.

 

[Mendalla]

The Bible is an anthology to start with, but then so many of its books are themselves comprised of multiple threads and sources. It really puts the lie to the idea of there being a single story by a single Divine author. God's hand might have inspired the writing, but the writers themselves are reflected as much as God is.

 

[paradox3]

Good morning and thanks for all your comments. Here is Genesis 10.

Snoopy's Snappy Review: Noah is the father of us all. Who knew?

Bible Gateway passage: Genesis 10 - New English Translation

The Table of Nations - This is the account of Noah’s sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elishah...

www.biblegateway.com

Oh joy! Snoopy's favorite thing. More genealogy .

Although the chapter is yawn inducing, there are a couple of interesting points. Noah is said to be the father of all humanity and the Table of Nations (his descendants for several generations) is outlined.

Noah's sons and their descendants spread out geographically. In present day terminology:

Ham's line moves into Africa;
Shem's line moves into Asia; and
Japheth's line moves into Europe.

Luke 3 will later show us that both Abraham and Jesus descend from Noah's son Shem.

 

[Mendalla]

That is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.”

So they slipped an explanation of sorts for an expression. Cute.

Ham's line moves into Africa;
Shem's line moves into Asia; and
Japheth's line moves into Europe.

Which kind of illustrates the limits of their world and geographical knowledge, eh. No way to account for indigenous Americans or Australians. Not even East Asians, really (Asia here would refer to what know as the Near and Middle East). Wonder how hard literalists deal with that given what we have here.

 

[Waterfall]

So they slipped an explanation of sorts for an expression. Cute.


Which kind of illustrates the limits of their world and geographical knowledge, eh. No way to account for indigenous Americans or Australians. Not even East Asians, really (Asia here would refer to what know as the Near and Middle East). Wonder how hard literalists deal with that given what we have here.

Perhaps they had language barriers for most of the rest of the world? Was the silk road in existence then or the incense road going closer to Jerusalam? Or the Mexican silk road?

 

[Mendalla]

Or the Mexican silk road?

There was no contact between North America and Europe/Asia during ancient times that we have any evidence for. The earliest contact I think we have evidence for is the arrival of the Vikings in Newfoundland, which was c. early 1000s CE. Tree-ring dating at L'Anse Aux Meadows suggests 1021ish.

The Silk Road to China came later, during the Han Dynasty in China which roughly corresponds to the Roman Empire in the West in terms of dates. There was probably some movement of goods earlier but even during the Silk Road era most of them came via middle men so the West was only dimly aware of China's existence as anything other than a source for things like silk. In the times when these stories were being told, I don't think the Babylonians and other cultures even knew of China beyond maybe "there's something over there".

 

[paradox3]

Genesis 11 will explain tomorrow why we have different languages throughout the world.

Stay tuned for the Tower of Babel story.

 

[Waterfall]

There was no contact between North America and Europe/Asia during ancient times that we have any evidence for. The earliest contact I think we have evidence for is the arrival of the Vikings in Newfoundland, which was c. early 1000s CE. Tree-ring dating at L'Anse Aux Meadows suggests 1021ish.

The Silk Road to China came later, during the Han Dynasty in China which roughly corresponds to the Roman Empire in the West in terms of dates. There was probably some movement of goods earlier but even during the Silk Road era most of them came via middle men so the West was only dimly aware of China's existence as anything other than a source for things like silk. In the times when these stories were being told, I don't think the Babylonians and other cultures even knew of China beyond maybe "there's something over there".

Oh I was reading about the Mexican silk road and the fourth route for silk from China was from Quanzhou to the Philippines to Mexico. Anyway enough of that.

 

[Mendalla]

Oh I was reading about the Mexican silk road and the fourth route for silk from China was from Quanzhou to the Philippines to Mexico. Anyway enough of that.

That would have been during the colonial era, probably supplying silk for the Spanish Empire.

 

[BetteTheRed]

So far, anyone else feel like the first parts of Genesis are like ancient "just so" stories?

 

[Mendalla]

Parts definitely are.

 

[paradox3]

So far, anyone else feel like the first parts of Genesis are like ancient "just so" stories?

Parts definitely are.

Could you explain this further, please?

I had to look up the expression. it comes from Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.

Kipling relates how the camel got its hump, how the leopard got its spots and so on. Some of the content is now considered to be racist.

Is all mythology explaining the natural world a "just so" story?

 

[paradox3]

Good morning! Here is Genesis 11:

Snoopy's Snappy Review: Babbling at Babel.

Bible Gateway passage: Genesis 11 - New English Translation

The Dispersion of the Nations at Babel - The whole earth had a common language and a common vocabulary. When the people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” (They had brick instead of...

www.biblegateway.com

As the story opens, all people share a common language. They move eastward and settle on a plain in Shinar.

They bake bricks and start building a city with a tower reaching to the heavens. They want to make a name for themselves and God is not pleased. Nothing will be beyond these people!

God comes down to earth and confuses the people's language so they won't be able to understand each other. They are scattered across the entire earth and stop building the city.

The genealogy from Shem to Abraham ends the chapter.

 

[paradox3]

Why was God so unhappy with the tower to heaven?

Are the people being punished for the sin of pride or have they threatened God in some way?

This story is in my memory bank from Sunday School days. I seem to remember the people were aspiring to be like God and that was the problem.

 

[Mendalla]

Is all mythology explaining the natural world a "just so" story?

No, but there's a particular format to them where you have a story that then ends with "and this is how it is" kind of statement (or sometimes it begins with "and here is how it happened" statements) and we do see that directly or implied with some of these Genesis stories. It's certainly not all of Genesis, but there are some of them there.

 

[unsafe]

Why was God so unhappy with the tower to heaven?

Are the people being punished for the sin of pride or have they threatened God in some way?

Well for one they disobeyed God's command to go and fill the earth ------

In Genesis 9--we see God saying this ------

​

God’s Covenant with Humankind through Noah​

9 Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Building a city would not be filling the earth with offspring ------it would be filling the city they were building ----not the whole earth ---they were to scatter and multiply the earth --

God’s Covenant with Humankind through Noah​

9 Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Second--- Pride --greed and puffing themselves up comes into play -----they wanted to take the Glory of their achievement instead of giving Glory to God ------as scripture says they wanted to make a name for themselves ----Little did the know that it was God who gave them the ability to build such a city in the first place ---

The scripture doesn't give why the Tower was built towards the Heavens ----but many have speculated as to why ----these are some of what I have read over time -----

God had flooded the earth once and so they wanted protection incase of a second flood ?==

They wanted to reach the presents of God ?----

They wanted to keep people together in one place and not have to scatter to different locations ===as it says here

(Genesis 11:4).

And they said, Come, let us build a city, and tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth

I say
Whatever the reason they disobeyed God's Command to fill the earth -----and God in the end had them scatter by confusing their languages and the building of the city stopped ---

Disobeying God has consequences ----they paid the price for their own disobedience ---

 

[paradox3]

Very good point @unsafe. The people were trying to build upwards instead of spreading themselves throughout the world as God wanted.

God didn't like the city either apparently.