An Egyptian Flood
When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. Genesis 7:11 NLT
In mighty torrents – Well, you won’t find anything like the second half of this verse in the Hebrew. The translation of the timing is pretty accurate, but the second part of the verse describing the source of the waters of the flood has been thoroughly modernized. In Hebrew the phrase reads, “All the fountains of the great deep burst apart, and the floodgates of the sky broke open” (JPS). Why is it important to retain the original description rather than a modern meteorological one? Because when we follow the original we discover that this verse was written for an audience that understood the ancient Egyptian view of the world and that is important because of the implications for undoing creation.
Nahum Sarna comments: “The ‘great deep’ is the cosmic abyssal water discussed in the Comment of 1:2 [you can see the parallel in Genesis 1:2 where the word refers to the Egyptian idea of the primal sea of chaos]. The ‘floodgates of the sky’ are openings in the expanse of the heavens through which water from the celestial part of the cosmic ocean can escape onto the earth. In other words, creation is being undone, and the world returned to chaos.”[1] None of this is evident when the translators turn Egyptian paradigms into contemporary explanations of rain! The New Living Translation is a version written for modern views of the world. It does not help us understand anything about the world of the original audience. This is yet another example of treating the Bible as if it contained timeless truths applicable to any reader at any point in history. In fact, reading the text like this creates the current debate about Genesis as a scientific explanation of the of ancient events, something that seems to be completely unnecessary if we consider the culture of the original audience.
Furthermore, as Sarna points out, by reconfiguring the text so that the mythological Egyptian worldview is removed, we also obscure a crucial implication. Human evil necessitates retributive justice. “Human wickedness inevitably undermines the very foundations of society, so that the pillars upon which rest the permanence of all earthly relationships totter and collapse, bringing ruin and disaster to humankind.”[2] Egyptian mythology is consumed with the struggle of life against chaos. Chaos is the “natural” state of the world and life must battle to maintain its fragile hold on existence. This is the background of the Genesis account. The flood represents the consequences of wickedness insofar as disobedience to the demands of YHVH return the world to its primordial state, the same condition found in Genesis 1:2. In other words, sin destroys the world and all life within it. Sin has cosmic consequences. This is not merely “mighty torrents” of rain. This is upheaval, the return of chaos. This is judgment, and the destruction of the ordered world. A translation that pretends to communicate the biblical worldview from the perspective of a modern weather forecast is abominable.
Topical Index: Genesis 7:11, Egyptian mythology, flood, NLT
[1] Nahum Sarna, Genesis: The JPS Torah Commentary, p. 55.
[2] Ibid.
Today’s word seems to put emphasis on the belief that parts of Genesis are based on Egyptian mythology and secondly, that modern translators have hidden the deeper meaning.
“Genesis 1:2 . . . refers to the Egyptian idea of the primal sea of chaos”
“translators turn Egyptian paradigms into . . . ”
“the mythological Egyptian worldview is removed . . . obscure[ing] a crucial implication.”
I don’t disagree that the modern translations are poor but I don’t agree that Genesis is based on Egyptian mythology. Would we not rather believe that both accounts are based on either oral, or, long lost original written documents?
Even though Moses was raised for forty years in the Egyptian culture, are we conceding that he wrote Genesis based on their myths? Could not have God revealed any of this directly to him?
Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. I did not mean that Genesis is BASED on Egyptian mythology. What I meant is that the metaphors that Genesis uses to explain the creation are found in Egyptian mythology, and would have been understood by people who had been in Egypt for hundreds of years, as referring to Egyptian mythology. Of course, like a lot of other ancient cultural beliefs, YHVH takes these known metaphors and transforms them into ways to speak about HIS creative activity, activity that causes a shift in the paradigm thinking. For example, Egyptian mythology contains stories about the creation of Man from clay. The Hebrew account does not reject the notion that God creates Man from the earth, but instead of clay, it uses “dust” for deeper theological reasons. As another example, the Egyptians believed that primal chaos was at the foundation of the entire cosmos. God does not reject the idea of chaos but He changes it so that it is no longer a threat but is in fact something that He completely controls (see Genesis 1:2). The point is that words have history. Ideas come from somewhere. If I am going to communicate with people who have been involved in a pagan culture for two hundred years or more, I can’t use words that they don’t understand, words that have no relationship to their background, but I can use words that they think they know and then alter the implications and definitions.
So the trick for us is to take the words of our pagan culture and alter the implications and definitions and transform them into something that brings our families and neighbors back to the the ancient (eternal) paths?
Maybe there is no trick here at all. Maybe it’s just reading the text according to the ways an ancient near-eastern post-slavery culture would have read them–and that’s all. When you read the history of Franco-Prussian War, do you try to find universal truths that you can apply to your family and neighbors, or do you just read in order to understand what the people thought when the events happened? Maybe we press the text too much to find these “universal” truths buried in the “sacred” text. By the way, the penchant to find universal truths is a Western idea, not a near-eastern one. Do you remember what we learned about case law in the ancient near-east? The idea of law as a universal principle is foreign to the near-east. In the tribal cultures of the ancient world, law was whatever the next case determined based on prior cases. Universal ethical standards is a concept that comes to us from the Greek world.
“the penchant to find universal truths is a Western idea, not a near-eastern one.”
That’s an important little bit of info.
Laurita is still having problems so I am posting this for her:
“Universal ethical standards comes to us from the Greek world”. I was watching an exchange between two Taiwanese lawyers and they were discussing the Justinian Code established in the mid 500’s, and upon which that Western Universal Code is supposedly built. But it was funny to me that one lawyer had to point out to the other that the law supposed that people were immoral; not moral, and the law was not a moral code, per se, for them to follow, but a standard that is superimposed upon them that FORCES them to behave. Otherwise, if it were a moral code, and people were ‘naturally’ moral, they would have figured out how to follow it between 538 or whatever, and 2015! It was a funny exchange, and got me to thinking.
I wonder how much of that concept of a “universal ethical standard” pervades the ASSUMPTION that those pre-cross folks just thought they had to follow the law perfectly to get themselves ‘saved’ (no one I have talked to seems to question the idea that their current assumption of ‘salvation’ would be the same assumed salvation that those pre-cross people were trying so hard to ‘earn’!) The idea that law is built on “prior cases” opens up a new ball of wax. When Yeshua and Paul caution against “offending” or “causing to stumble”, and you look at that up against the idea that offending assumes what a community understands to be ethical, rather than some vague “universal” ideal, it clears something up for me. Thank you!
If we expect the Law of YHVH to be some universal constant, then we can assume that a person can single-handedly meet that constant. If we, instead, understand that the Law of YHVH is more of a guide for a community to determine how to apply, then “offending’ that community becomes a serious business. If I am just and fair and honest and non-covetous IN MY HEART, but then go out into the community and sling my righteous superiority around offensively, then, according to the Hebrew way of understanding, I still got it wrong? If the Law is built upon EXCHANGES between myself and others, then there is no such thing as “being good in my heart”. Indeed, when I go back to look at that famous summation of the Law that the lawyer repeated to Yeshua, I see that it outlines two types of RELATIONAL exchanges: one between myself and YHVH, and one between my self and my neighbor. Hmm And, according to Hebrew way of thinking, the burden of the interpretation of those exchanges is upon prior case law! Just exactly backwards to the Western mind!
Now I also can appreciate afresh why I can not rest interpretation OR application of the Law of YHVH upon my private understanding. I need to be able to submit to the guidance of BOTH the Spirit of that YHVH and that community to help me determine if I am RELATING correctly, or if I am out of line. There is no standard, at that point, determined by my own private interpretation. Wait, isn’t there a verse saying something like that?
” Universal ethical standards is a concept that comes to us from the Greek world.”
Curious about this statement, it would seem that YHWH’s statement to Abraham concerning the people that occupied the land in his time, i.e. their sin hadn’t reached it’s fullness yet, has a universal aspect. This was later confirmed to Joshua in telling him it was for this very reason (their polluting the land by sinful activities) they were being “wiped out”. Is extending that statement concerning other “peoples and lands” taking it too far? I understand the statement that, “the earth (land) and the fullness thereof……” is a universal statement concerning “all” the earth and it’s inhabitants. While there seems to be varying degrees to which that “universal truth” is applied, it seems to imply universality.
Please help me understand where maybe I’m misapplying these things or have misunderstood this statement.
YHWH bless you and keep you…….
So did the entire earth get covered by a flood to a depth of some 20ft or not? Everest? I am not a proponent of a literal bible, either a 7 day creation, flood, Jonah in a whale’s belly for three days etc. Skip I know you prefer the “poetry of Genesis” as you once said over my alternative and my Greek thinking but I am having difficulty squaring the circle on TWOT. Dan and I come from opposite spectra on the OT so I look forward to your commentary.
Could you be more specific about “squaring the circle”? What is it that you find difficult about the idea that the text reveals the way these people thought about and experienced God?
“Ideas come from somewhere”
I have also found that especially “Torah”people/groups coming out of the Christian deliverance ministries have a big issue with God using pagan ideas/symbols or things for His purpose. I think it originates from the idea that satan/demon/witchcraft defiled things and now God cannot use it anymore( like the color black for instance). And between the two ideas that God does not want to be worshiped like the pagans do and that Jesus made everything new, they absolutely refuse to acknowledge the historical facts that God can actually use anything and everything for His purposes – whether sacrifice, temple services, seraphim, circumcision, pattern of the 10 commandments,to raise up a pillar or cut down a pillar. This actually made me laugh, because people expect God to use them(and us), as defiled as they(we) are!!
This week someone actually asked me if the whole formation of the State of Israel was a sham. The reason being that many of the leaders starting it were free masons. So I suggested she looks at the evidence – is there a State or not? God can and will use anyone(Baleam,Koresh,donkey, raven stone), especially if the righteous is not available or complaining like the prophets.
I agree with Pam & you….the more I learn about their culture & daily lives w/o injecting the insight that we all have, based on our lives in this modern era, the easier it is to understand their actions & reactions. Understanding Egyptian gods & mythology gives deeper meaning to His message of the plagues & how they affected the psyche of pharaoh & his court. My mind began to open when I read a series of novels several years ago by Lynn Austin called “Chronicles of the Kings”…..her amazing research & writing opened the ancient world in Biblical times for me that peaked my interest in understanding a culture that we are far removed from, yet is still practiced in the other parts of the world today. As most of us know, this path that YHVH has set before us, is one of unlearning & relearning….of searching out & embracing HIS amazing truths, accepting each & every pearl while praying for discernment! Thank you, Skip for adding to that insight.
Here are some thoughts I’m still formulating in my mind: This word study is very powerful. In parallel and in harmony with this study, Strong’s Concordance provides a definition I’ve never noticed before. I’m starting to see that sin in my life moves me and others in the community, collectively, toward chaos. As sin progresses without repentance, increased and accumulated chaos is the outcome (… everyone did what was right in his own eyes). At some point, God intervenes in judgment on an individual, a nation, the world (e.g., The Flood), or in the Great Tribulation. Micah 6:8 displays God’s character, “What do I desire…?”. Yeshua’s death provides THE way out of the chaos (“I am the way…,” John 14:6). Skip, thank you for this Hebrew word study.
Squaring the (metaphoric/literal) Circle
Skip, I am trying to learn to think like a Hebrew with the help of Heschel (I like), Sarna (I’m working on), the Etz Hayim Torah and Commentary (as clunky as it is for a Greek to read backwards) and the International Inductive Study Bible NASB (very good). I know this thinking can never happen on a literal basis so I have to do it interpretively and it’s not going to happen fast. The extrapolation of this somewhat metaphorical, interpretive thinking is most relevant re the OT but how can I believe in a 7000 year old earth unless I also believe that God is a “trickster” with what I see, wherever I look. Astrophysics, particle physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, archaeology, tectonics, biology, botany and beyond all point to an old earth unless I can take some aspects of the Bible as allegorical and others literally, but which is which? Or can I not? Us poor Gentile Greeks. We are what we are.
I can appreciate that people could and did think differently 3500 years ago but does thinking and experiencing something a certain way have to equate with absolute reality, especially when you consider the general extent of knowledge at the time? It is not that many years ago that people were tortured to death or expelled or excommunicated for thinking a different way, arguably in the name of God.
I believe in a monotheistic all powerful loving God responsible for an ineffable creation who has a plan and therefore He must communicate his plan to us for ALL time. He chose to do this via the Hebrews (or they were the first to accept his method of communication). On that basis obviously anything can happen, anytime, anywhere, and still does. I call it faith.
But I read Genesis 7 and Noah collects polar bears from Canada, kangaroos from Australia, llamas from South America, gorillas from Africa, pandas from China and yaks from the Himalayas just to mention a few, they migrate to the middle east somehow unspecified and Noah puts them all lovingly on board, seemingly twice but….
Then the flood comes, seemingly twice but…….. and “all the high mountains everywhere (Everest?) were covered” to a depth of some 20 ft. (mentioned twice), for emphasis I guess or Moses seems to forget what he had already written.
Then I read in TWOT that with Noah “creation is being undone, and the world returned to chaos” so I read Genesis 1:2 “the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep”, there is no separation of the sea from the atmospheric clouds, “water from water” and so Noah is adrift in a totally chaotic formless darkness for over a year before returning to solid earth and the animals migrate back to where they came from somehow and start ALL animal life over again. Noah reboots humanity (and the world as he new it) from scratch. I am told by some that this is how we came to have fossils in the Rocky Mountains and petrified trees in the desert and no dinosaurs etc. and that the universe only seems to be expanding but it really isn’t, it just looks that way but…..
You also say, “I can’t use words that they don’t understand…… but I can use words that they think they know and then alter the implications and definitions”. Isn’t that mythology as per Joseph Campbell of whom I have also read much. You continue “the metaphors that Genesis uses to explain the creation are found in Egyptian mythology, and would have been understood by people who had been in Egypt for hundreds of years”. Isn’t that always the purpose of mythology? To understand a greater deeper truth and unify the society? and does the OT Bible use metaphors to explain?
If I understand correctly “the idea that the text reveals the way these people thought about and experienced God” then it doesn’t matter whether God created the world in 7 days or 7 microseconds or 7 billion years, if that is what the Hebrews understood according to the culture of the people that they were enslaved by because, I “can use words that they think they know and then alter the implications and definitions”.
I hope my time trying to think like a Hebrew is not being wasted because I am giving it my best shot but my Greek brain is hurting something awful, but if the Bible uses metaphors or mythology maybe it will recover. Help me with something concrete! What is literal and what is metaphor? And all and all with the advent of the Hebrew Messiah who I believe in and try to live by, does it really matter?
Good luck with answers to all your questions but let me make an attempt.
I don’t know the answer to every detailed question but often we assume the Bible is stating something it not necessarily is.
The Bible does not state the earth or universe is 7,000 years old. Fundamentalist Christians may, and many of them are extremely intelligent, and have their good reasons for believing so but that is all beside the point. I believe that their belief has to be read into the text. But it is true that the genealogies of the Bible date the creation of Adam to between 6,000 and 7,500 years ago depending on whether one uses the Masoretic or LXX texts of the Torah. If you don’t like that, I can’t help you more on this one.
But you can if you like believe that there were “ages” before the current one. Maybe it was in one of those eons when the dinosaurs and Neanderthals existed. Maybe there were several of those eons with different life forms leaving billion year old fossils. Speculate all you want, I don’t think God forbids it.
Regarding the Flood, you assume that the geography of the earth was the same then as it is now. That’s not a bad assumption – if you’re Greek, but we should assume very little. At the time of Noah the world may have had only one big supercontinent, or Pangea as it is now called by scientists. They say it was formed 300 million years ago and then began to break apart. Maybe it was during the Flood that it broke apart and maybe it separated extremely fast causing “the fountains of the abyss” to flood the earth. And maybe only now are the continents grinding to a halt.
Maybe Mount Everest wasn’t 29,000 feet high before or during the flood. Maybe everything was flat. Maybe with the separation of the continents different land masses collided and the mountains were formed during and after the flood. Maybe this is now grinding to a halt. Maybe twenty feet of water over the entire earth was no big deal. The Bible doesn’t detail much of the geography of the antediluvian world. What is your secular explanation for how animals got to Australia or Hawaii? The Bible states that the animals came to Noah. I can’t explain that. I accept that as a miracle along with their repopulation of the earth. If God can create the universe out of nothing, than that is easy for me to believe.
I’m afraid I am completely lost in my attempt to understand what you are asking with regards to the myths and metaphors and the Hebrew mind explaining Genesis. If the account doesn’t mean what it says, I’m all open to a correct explanation. I agree a “day” can refer to several different time periods. I take each one in context. Believe what you want but for me, six literal days of the creation of life and the renewal of the earth makes sense both contextually and logically.
Dan, I like this reply. It makes sense to my still mostly Greek brain but moves my Hebrew agenda forward. It allows for a world older than 7000 years. Much older. God exists outside our constricting time and space dimension therefore time and space are meaningless to Him but as Skip says, “we have to be spoken to in words that can be understood” regardless of when we live(d). That allows for a big-bang start (by God of course) which I confidently predict scientists will never be able to explain but is as real to me as it can be. What do we have, biblically speaking, in this context? What does God say, create, as a result of saying?
Gen 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light. BANG! The universe has begun. It includes something that eventually becomes our solar system in it’s own good time but according to God’s plan.
Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters” and it was so. The earth stabilizes and the atmospheric water separates from the oceanic water. Clouds and the atmosphere develop.
Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens gather into one place and let the dry land appear” and it was so. Pangea is established.
It follows with Gen 1:11-25 with the next four “days” and it was so.
Then God said, Gen 1:26-31 “Let us make man in our image….. etc.” and it was so but there is an interesting mix of the plural “us” and singular “He” in this section which leads to some much later discussion that includes the Trinity. Us. Celestial beings? Angels?
Endless opportunity to develop our Greek and Hebrew minds such as we know them. I like it all. Faith know’s no bounds.
So where is the problem? Time. Days. Why? Because our natural understanding of time is regulated daily by the sun and the bible says “day” seven times in Gen 1. But a “day” doesn’t mean anything to God, only to man. As Skip says, “I can’t use words that they don’t understand,……. but I can use words that they think they know and then alter the implications and definitions.” God speaking, doing, as only God can speak, do. Ineffably? ABSOLUTELY!
But time is not the big problem. The “creation” of man is. This is the ONLY reason why God created the universe. Exactly how and when did man come to be the man we know and understand today. How “old” (that time thing again) was he with biblical creation? What did he look like? How did he think? How did he “speak” to God? In what language? How long did he exist in his singular state? What did his DNA look like? Repeat this scenario with Eve and then some. Was her DNA exactly the same as Adam. It should have been if she was created from his rib. If not why not? How did their DNA react in sexual relationships. Did their children look identical? Are we His only creations? Could there be a cosmic “game” being played by God? Too many questions for this forum. Not appropriate.
Just thinking. Like a modified Greek. W.I.P. – Work in progress.
Very interesting questions that has intrigued many of us, in your last paragraph re DNA.
Simply put- environmental exposure to certain chemicals, ultraviolet radiation, or other external factors can cause DNA to change. These external agents of genetic change are called mutagens.
Mutation is a natural process that changes a DNA sequence.
The whole human family is one species with the same genes. Mutation creates slightly different versions of the same genes, called alleles. These small differences in DNA sequence make every individual unique. They account for the variation we see in human hair color, skin color, height, shape, behavior, and susceptibility to disease. Individuals in other species vary too, in both physical appearance and behavior.
Radiation, chemicals, byproducts of cellular metabolism, free radicals, ultraviolet rays from the sun—these agents damage thousands of nucleotides in each of our cells every day.
Most of the time, mutation is reversed. DNA repair machines are constantly at work in our cells, fixing mismatched nucleotides and splicing broken DNA strands back together. HalleluYAH.Yet some DNA changes remain. If a cell accumulates too many changes—if its DNA is so damaged that repair machinery cannot fix it—it either stops dividing or it self-destructs. If any of these processes go wrong, the cell could become CANCEROUS.
Only when DNA changes are carried in egg and sperm cells are they passed to the next generation.
DNA is under constant attack from reactive chemicals and natural background radiation. Free radicals are the byproducts of normal metabolism in human cells
Radiation affect DNA. For example, ultraviolet light from the sun can cause harmful chemical changes in the DNA of skin. Watching telly at close range, sitting at a computer for many hours, or, working in such conditions, or, constantly on the mobile phone, or, kids on their ipads can cause serious damage to the DNA.
Our environment has definitely been so polluted, it can’t be the same as in ancient times.
Hi Ester, very good reply but now you are speaking to my Greek mind that demands scientific peer review for your statements. Would you please quote the study or studies that support all your claims? Thanks.
My apologies for this late reply.
“you are speaking to my Greek mind that demands scientific peer review for your statements.” Well, pretty good our brains are functioning, (smile) and we haven’t lost our commonsense/wisdom which is so necessary these days, to not accept everything that anyone says.
My two favourite sites are naturalnews.com and naturalhealth365.com which are very informative. Hope this helps. Shalom!
Thanks for those sites, Ester!
Love and blessings, Laurita.
Someone recently explained to us that ” the cock that crowed” ( Peter) was a metaphor for the priest that blew the trumpet when the priestly exchanges between the morning and evening shifts took place. So my mom was all excited to share this revelation with her church friend. To her disappointment her friend replied: I only believe in the 1933 translation and if it says cock, then it was a cock that crowed. Same goes for:”thief in the night”