An 8,766 hour tour

A Multidisciplinary Contextualized Analysis of Select Passages From Genesis V2.0

[This is an excerpt from an exhaustive personal study of most of the first 9 chapters of the book of Genesis. This is a vastly expanded effort from the original version that can currently be found here downloadable for free. The purpose of this exercise is to compare a non-symbolic literal reading of the text to our current understanding of language, paleontology, and the physical sciences. Constructive discussion on the merits of this study is encouraged!]

In Genesis chapter 7 there is a peculiar set of reiterations where 7:13-17 is seemingly a paraphrase of the 7:7-12 account. This is essentially the boarding of the Ark and the fourty days and nights of continuous rain. A popular hypothesis for this proximal duplication is the Documentary Hypothesis, which suggests that the Pentateuch, including Genesis, is a compilation of multiple sources. Genesis 7:6-12 is often attributed to the Priestly source which tends to focus on ritual, order, and genealogical details, where Genesis 7:13-17 is thought to stem from the Yahwist source which emphasizes storytelling and human elements.

Separate books, like Kings and Chronicles or the four New Testament Gospels, may have such parallel accounts. However, this is an exceedingly rare mechanism within a book, and especially a chapter. I mention this as a curiosity in analysis, and the possibility of this passage being considered support for the theory that Genesis chapter 2 is a flashback elaboration of the 6th day in Genesis 1. It is my assertion that such intra-book source blending, although possible, is not directly apparent or logically consistent in all attributed cases. But as of the writing of this analysis I do not have an alternate hypothesis why these repetitions takes place in Genesis chapters 7 and 8.

That being said, there are multiple absolute time periods listed throughout the journey. Despite the aforementioned reitterations, the cumulative total of days is consistent as well as a bit surprising. Note that the date reference point is the age of Noah himself, implying that there is no formal calendar prescribed to or followed by the people of his time. This means that it is the observation of the moon phases, not a specific day count, which defines the month. It is worth noting that a lunar month is approximately 29.53 days long.

From Genesis 7:6 through 8:14, multiple reference dates are given. Of interest is the date when the flood began and when God declares that it had ended. Those verses are:

Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the sky’s windows opened.

Genesis 8:14-16 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

¹⁵God spoke to Noah, saying, ¹⁶“Go out of the ship, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you.

Additionally, when describing something that is real, there can be no zero quantity. The journey includes day 1 which needs to be included into the talley. This gives us the equation:

(months difference 29.53) +( day difference) + 1 =Flood to debarkation

(12 29.53) +(27-17) + 1 =365.36 days

Of course, days are counted ordinally, so the 0.36 remainder would be rounded. However, it is interesting to note that the scientifically measured time it takes for the Earth to travel around the sun is 365.26 days. The start of the flooding until God ordered Noah to exit the Ark is described as being exactly a solar year.

What makes this peculiar is this account takes place at a time and location such observances were not likely in practice. Traditionally considered to have taken place before 2,100 BC, and hypothesized to be many millenia earlier than that, few if any cultures had a formalized solar calendar at that point. Although there may have been understanding of annual seasons requiring intercalary months every several years or so, solar calendars were only regionally popular after 2,000 BC with no widespread standardization until the Julian calendar around 46 BC.

Although there are arguments to be made for symbolic or pragmatic selection of the various quantities of days, it is the lack of known standardization for the solar year, even at the time of the writing of Genesis, which makes this alignment all the more curious. In any case, that the inhabitants of the Ark waited not only for the water to recede, but for the ground to appear stable enough to safely move about is another example of the somber pragmatism of even the most fantastic Biblical tale. Also, a testament to the endurance of the crew for spending a calendar year indoors with all manner of animals.