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THE HEBREW ACCOUNT

The account of the duration of the Deluge in Genesis appears full of
contradictions without any understandable sequence of thought. Only
two statements appear clear, that the Deluge lasted 40 days and that
it lasted 150 days.

Most interpreters try to explain this contradiction by applying the
so-called documentary theory about the composition of the Pentateuch.
The documentary theory is accepted by almost all scholarly
interpreters, although it has been partially modified or restated in
sundry ways. Before giving my own interpretations, I will try to
describe this theory as succinctly and as fairly as I can.

The kingpin of the documentary theory is the contention that the
origin of the institution of an inspired official text, formulated in
written form and given divine authority, began with the publication
and canonization of Deuteronomy (D). This event was related to the
religious reforms introduced by King Josiah in 621 B.C. Once
Deuteronomy had become sacred scripture, the idea was conceived of
giving the same form and authority to the records of the national
history of the Hebrews. This national history had been preserved in
two separate versions, running parallel to each other. One, completed
in the southern kingdom of Judah around 850 B.C., is called Jehovistic
(J) because it refers to the divinity as Yahweh, and the other, which
was composed in the northern kingdom of Israel around 750 B.C., is
called Elohistic because it refers to the divinity as Elohim. Shortly
before or after 621 B.C., these versions were combined into one (J-E).
What became the Pentateuch started as a scripture composed of J-E and
D. After the Exile scholarly writers, known as Priestly (P) because of
their preoccupation with religious law and ritual, wrote a sort of
appendix-commentary to J-E, which reflected the religious institutions
and practices of post-exilic society; the P writers' aim was to make
the narrative of J-E systematic (as for instance by drafting
genealogies), and more relevant (by relating historical events to laws
and the origin of sacred institutions).

Stated roughly, the Priestly editors would have subjected the J and E
versions to a scissors and paste procedure, taking snippets of text
from one and the other and combining them together into a continuous
narrative. Out of respect for the sacredness or authority of the
original documents, the P authors would have altered them as little as
possible. Most of their editing would have consisted of cutting off
parts of the originals and cleverly combining what remained. In so
doing in many cases they left standing different accounts of the same
events. Having done this they added their own text for two purposes:
* to explain away the contradictions that remained, to rationalize
the accounts, and to expand them;
* to introduce their own tenets about religion and ritual.

Finally, around 400 B.C., P was fitted into the text of J-E and D by
an operation called Redaction (R). This would be the way in which our
Pentateuch came into existence. However, minor alterations in the text
of the Pentateuch continued to be introduced up to about 250 B.C.

In order to evaluate the documentary theory, one must realize that it
may be broken down into two separate theories. The first theory is the
composite origin of our text of the Pentateuch: the Pentateuch was put
together with materials of different origin, datable in one time or
another of the monarchical period, and was edited, complemented, or
adapted to fit the ideas, institutions, and practices of the Jews of
the postexilic period. The process of combining different materials
into a received text may have begun during the last period of the
monarchy. The second theory is that this process of redaction took
place according to the steps specified by the documentary theory.

For historical reasons one tends to forget to make a distinction
between these two elements of the documentary theory. The reason is
that those who from the second half of the eighteenth century began to
point out the existence of several layers in the Pentateuch met
stubborn resistance from those who for reasons of religious piety
wanted to insist on the unity of the text, starting with the orthodox
view that the Pentateuch had been written by Moses himself. This
battle was settled, as far as scholarly commentators were concerned,
with the development of the documentary theory. In the period
1876-1884 Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) presented the documentary
theory in such a form and with such arguments that it came to be
accepted by the large majority of scholarly commentators. In the
period that followed commentators came to be divided between committed
fundamentalists and followers of the theory of Wellhausen. Practically
all scholarly commentators followed Wellhausen; the modifications or
qualifications that were offered by several of them to his theory do
not touch its substance.

Only after World War II did it become academically respectable to
question the basic principles of Wellhausen's theory. However, none of
the self-proclaimed new schools of Pentateuchal criticism has been
able to come forward with a definable alternative. The main
contribution of these dissenters has been the stress put on the
importance of oral traditions which, even though inserted into our
text of the Pentateuch at a late date, may be of very early origin. I
most emphatically agree with the importance attached to oral
tradition, since in all ancient civilizations most of the cultural
heritage was transmitted orally; written texts were just the tip of
the iceberg, although of necessity the modern scholar has to start his
investigations with that visible tip of the iceberg, the written
texts. However, the recognition of the role played by oral traditions
should be concerned only with the history of our text of the
Pentateuch and with determining how and when specific passages were
included in that text, independently of the question of the origin of
the notions expressed in these passages.

Today, in spite of the stir created by those who have questioned the
value of the documentary theory, this theory remains the main tool of
scholarly interpreters. The current modifications of the original
theory consist principally in multiplying the number of documents of
the J and E level and in dating at least parts of P before the Exile.
This clinging to the documentary theory, in spite of all objections,
is due to the fact that those who originally formulated it formulated
also a system of principles and techniques, a definite method that can
be followed almost mechanically, independently of subjective attitudes
or preferences.

Following the central methodological principle of the documentary
theory, one can identify the vocabulary and the literary style of the
writers of J, of the writers of E, and of the writers of P. Because of
the historical breaks determined by the troubled last years of the
Kingdom of Judah, the Fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), and the Exile, the
language, the style, and the intellectual outlook of P is completely
different from that of J and E. During the nineteenth century there
was developed a method for the study of texts of all ancient
literatures; this method, known as philological analysis, aims at
establishing the way in which an ancient author composed his work, how
he utilized earlier authors, and how he gathered his information.
According to the guiding principle of the documentary theory, the
tested methods of philological analysis should be applied to the
biblical text, irrespectively of its having been composed as a sacred
text, with the same spirit with which one studied any ancient text.

In trying to wade through the polemics of the last thirty years
between critics and defenders of the documentary theory, I have found
that a great part of the inconclusiveness of these debates is due to a
semantic confusion by both sides on the question of oral tradition.
What has been forgotten is that all ancient literatures could be said
to be oral literatures. Classical scholars know that Greek and Latin
authors were written to be read aloud; there is evidence that the
practice of reading a Latin text silently did not begin before the
fifth century A.D.^(116)

The ancients were able to transmit a text orally for a series of
generations. The text of the Mishnah, which is the central part of the
Talmud, was transmitted orally for several generations, and there were
rabbis whose duty it was to remember the text. The Talmud itself,
although we are inclined to think of it as a very bookish big book,
could be described as a collection of oral traditions.

In dealing with ancient literatures one should not distinguish between
oral tradition and written documents, but between texts that have been
formalized and those that have not. The Hebrew term sepher, which we
translate as "book," could be applied to a text transmitted orally. A
set of rules or a set of mathematical formulas could be called sepher,
even though not put in writing.^(117)

A great emphasis has been put on the role of scribes in the ancient
Near East, but when one considers the organization of scribal schools
in Egypt and Mesopotamia, one realizes that a major function of these
schools was to transmit information orally from one generation of
scribes to the next.

Perhaps the problem of the origin of the Pentateuch could be better
understood if one kept in mind the model provided by the composition
of the Quran. Muhammad referred to Jews and Christians as "people of
the book" and wanted his followers to be "people of the book" too, but
he never intended that the Quran should be written. Muhammad is the
author of Al-Qur'an, "The Reading," although he was illiterate.
According to Muslim tradition the surahs (chapters of the Quran) had
been put in writing individually and circulated separately before the
Prophet's death, but the transmission of the Sacred Text was entrusted
to those who had committed the whole of it to memory. It was only
after most of these were killed in a battle soon after Muhammad's
death, that it was decided to put the Quran into writing as a whole.
However, it was only in the Caliphate of Othman (644-655 A.D.) that
the authoritative text was drafted on the basis of all existing
written copies of individual surahs and the recollections of those who
had committed the Quran to memory. This is the orthodox version of the
events. It is also the orthodox view that the final arrangement of the
surahs is that of the Prophet himself, even though it is evident that
the arrangement of the official text was made on the basis of concepts
of subject matter, without regard for correct chronology, and that
some surahs were composed of passages from different experiences of
revelation, whereas in principle each surah should be the contents of
one prophetic inspiration.

Muslims distinguish between the Quran itself and the sunnahs which are
rules of law and explicatory commentaries based on what Muhammad is
said to have spoken or done when he was not in a prophetic state. The
subject matter of the sunnahs has some similarities with what is
called Priestly material in the Pentateuch. The intent of the Priestly
writers may have been to make more explicit what was implied in the
received text.

Before entering into the analysis of the figures in the account of
Genesis, it is useful to consider in general the intellectual attitude
of the P writers. A concise and clear statement of it is provided by
Robert H. Pfeiffer's Introduction to the Old Testament:

The authors of the Priestly Code were not only priests and lawyers,
but scholars -- the most erudite writers of the Old Testament.

As in any legal documents, the style of P is exact in dates,
measurements, and genealogical relationships; precise and complete
in catalogues of things and persons, punctilious in its definitions
and choice of words. In some places it reads like a municipal
register of vital statistics or like a real estate deed.

Pfeiffer sums up the method and point of view of the P writers not
only effectively but also with sympathetic understanding. But his
benevolence is not shared by many other biblical scholars, who dislike
or even loathe the technical and meticulous approach of the P writers.
Julius Wellhausen in his Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, which has
been one of the most influential works in the history of Old Testament
scholarship, refers to the style of the P writers in these terms:

P has a veritable passion for classifications and schematisms; when
once he has subdivided a genus into several species, every time he
talks of the genus, we must again be told every single species. . .
. What is interesting is skipped over and what is indifferent is
described exactly.

It must be observed that the last sentence of Wellhausen implies a
subjective judgment: it all depends on what one considers interesting
and what one considers indifferent.

The prejudices of Wellhausen echo a general tendency of modern studies
of the ancient world in which the concerns of ancient texts with
precision and technicality is either ignored or explained away through
interpretation. This entire book of mine is intended as a refutation
of this tendency. In the specific area of Old Testament studies, the
prevailing fashion is to exalt the poetic qualities of the J and E
documents and to deprecate how their beautiful accounts were either
cut down or spoiled by the pedantic and philistine P writers. I agree
that J and E were written in poetic style, but I disagree on the
understanding of poetry. Poetry is not erratic wandering of the mind;
good poetry is even more thoughtful than prosaic expression in that it
compresses more ideas into fewer words. Poetry is synthetic, whereas
prose is analytic. The fact that the J and E documents are of poetic
nature does not mean that the interpreter can abandon himself to the
inspiration of his own moods. It takes more time, patience, and
learned information to understand all levels of meaning of Dante's
Divine Comedy than to follow the arguments of Galileo's Dialogue of
the Two World Systems, which is a masterpiece of Italian prose
literature. The P writers performed the task of spelling out what was
implied in the J and E documents; it was not their intention to spoil
or obfuscate the message of their predecessors.

When it comes to the question of the duration of the Deluge, those who
follow the documentary approach, no matter how modified, try to
account for the disparate figures of 40 days and 150 days by ascribing
the first figure to the J version and the second figure to the P
editors.^(118)

This explanation of the contradictions appears in most commentaries to
the Old Testament. However, in this particular case the application of
the documentary theory is of little help in explaining the
discrepancies. Going to the substance of things, it is claimed that
according to the Yahwistic writer the Deluge lasted 40 days, whereas
according to another version it lasted 150 days. What interpreters
have not explained is how those who edited the text allowed this
obvious contradiction to remain. According to most interpreters the
Priestly edition was followed by other editions; but none of the
editors removed the contradictions. It is true that often the P
editors left standing contradictions between the two earlier versions,
but never contradictions so obvious and glaring as the one we are
dealing with. It is also true that at times the P editors restated in
somewhat different terms what they had preserved of either the J or
the E versions. But the P editors were concerned with explaining away
contradictions and with rounding out and making more explicit earlier
accounts. When they introduced what a critical interpreter may
recognize as novelties, they did so in order to further conformity to
their own code of religious practices. It is assumed that the P
editors digested and revised the texts with an aim that in modern
terms one would call a propaganda purpose. In introducing novelties
the P writers did their best to conceal that they were such; this is
one of the reasons why they tried as much as possible to make use of
the very words of the J and E versions. Therefore it is difficult to
understand why the authors of P should have kept the figure of 40 days
of the J version and then have confused matters by adding the figure
of 150 days.

One may subscribe to the assumption that the Old Testament, if not
written by fools, was at least written to be read by fools. This is a
view which is held by many in our present world and of which the
earliest articulate exponent was Spinoza. One generation earlier
Galileo had argued that the Old Testament had been written for the
benefit of simple souls. Modern professional interpreters of the Old
Testament have not applied themselves to resolving the contradiction
between the duration of 40 days and the duration of 150 days because,
although they do not subscribe outwardly to the view just mentioned,
they do not treat the account of the Deluge as one to be taken
seriously, so that it does not make much difference whether the
duration was 40 or 150 days. But it was not the intention of the P
editors or of any other successive editor to present an account that
would create outright disbelief or at the minimum doubt even among the
most pious readers. It is generally believed that the writers of the J
and E document were concerned more with national history than with
religion and that their values were patriotic rather than religious;
but it is universally agreed that the P writers and any other
successive editors were deeply concerned with religious edification.

In general I am inclined to doubt the documentary theory at least as
far as the Book of Genesis is concerned. Having analyzed the material
from my own very particular point of view, I am inclined to agree with
J.D.B. Macdonald and Umberto Cassuto who have argued that the Book of
Genesis is the product of a single unified and organic effort at
literary composition, which made use of "E, J, P and the rest"
according to Macdonald, and of several traditions that had been
transmitted orally, according to Cassuto.

If this view of the composition of Genesis is accepted, it becomes
even more difficult to explain why the authors or the author^(119)
would have presented a text with glaring contradictions which could
easily have been removed by changing a few figures.

In order to solve the problem of the duration of the Deluge we must
retrace our steps back to the point when Galileo and Spinoza argued
that the Old Testament was not intended to convey scientific truths,
that is, to the moment in which science and religion were separated
from each other.

If we assume that the statements that the Deluge lasted 40 days and
that it lasted 150 days are mathematical expressions, then there is no
contradiction between them if it is a matter of presenting the same
information in terms of two different mathematical formulations.

116. St. Jerome

117. A good literal translation of sepher is the English word tale, if
one keeps in mind the etymology of this word.

118. As to the verses of Genesis that concern us here, namely 7:11 to
8:14, they usually ascribe verses 7:12, 16B, 17B, 22, 23 and 8:2B-3A,
6-12, 13B to the original J, except for some occasional verses that
may have been added by other editors later than the P ones. The rest
is either ascribed to the Priestly layer or divided between this and
the Elohistic layer.

119. Macdonald and Cassuto carry their argument to the point of
maintaining that Genesis is the product of one individual literary
genius.
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