The Flood
The Biblical Narration of the Flood and the Criticism
Leveled at It- A Reminder.
The examination of the Old Testament description of
the Flood in the first part of this book led to the
following observations:
There is not just one description of the Flood, but two,
written at different times;
--the Yahvist version which dates from the Ninth
century B.C.
--the Sacerdotal version dating from the Sixth century
B.C., so called because it was the work of priests of the
time.
These two narrations are not juxtaposed, but
interwoven so that part of one is fitted in-between parts
of the other, i.e. paragraphs from one source alternate
with passage from the other.
The commentary to the translation of Genesis by Father
de Vaux, a professor at the Biblical School of Jerusalem,
shows very clearly how the paragraphs are distributed
between the two sources. The narration begins and ends
with a Yahvist passage. There are ten Yahvist paragraphs
altogether and between each one a Sacerdotal passage has
been inserted (there are a total of nine Sacerdotal
paragraphs). This mosaic of texts is only coherent when
read from a point of view which takes the succession of
episodes into account, since there are blatant
contradictions between the two sources. Father de Vaux
describes them as "two accounts of the Flood, in
which the cataclysm is caused by different agents and
lasts different lengths of time, and where Noah receives
into the Ark a different number of animals."
When seen in the light of modern knowledge, the
Biblical description of the Flood as a whole is
unacceptable for the following reasons:
a) The Old Testament ascribes to it the character of a
universal cataclysm.
b) Whereas the paragraphs from the Yahvist text do not
date the Flood, the Sacerdotal text situates it at a
point in time where a cataclysm of this kind could not
have occurred.
The following are arguments supporting this opinion:
The Sacerdotal narration states quite precisely that the
Flood took place when Noah was 600 years old. According
to the genealogies in chapter 5 of Genesis (also taken
from the Sacerdotal text and quoted in the first part of
this book), we know that Noah is said to have been born
1,056 years after Adam. Consequently, the Flood would
have taken place 1,655 years after the creation of Adam.
The genealogical table of Abraham moreover, taken from
the same text and given in Genesis (11, 10-32), allows us
to estimate that Abraham was born 292 years after the
Flood. As we know that (according to the Bible) Abraham
was alive in roughly 1850 B.C., the Flood would therefore
be situated in the Twenty-first or Twenty-second century
B.C. This calculation is in strict keeping with the
information in old editions of the Bible which figures
prominently at the head of the Biblical text.
This was at a time when the lack of human knowledge on
the subject was such that the chronological data
contained in the Bible were accepted without question by
its readers-for want of any arguments to the contrary. [ Now that certain notions concerning the chronology
of ancient times have been established, and the imaginary
dates given by the authors of the Sacerdotal text of the
Old Testament are no longer credible, those dates have
quickly been suppressed in Bibles. In the case of those
genealogies that have been preserved, modern commentators
of books intended for mass publication fail to draw the
readers' attention to the errors they contain.]
How is it possible to conceive today of a universal
cataclysm in the Twenty-first or Twenty-second century
B.C. which destroyed life on all the earth's surface
(except for the people and animals in the Ark)? By this
time, civilizations had flourished in several parts of
the globe, and their vestiges have now come down to
posterity. In Egypt at this time, for example, the
Intermediate Period followed the end of the Old Kingdom
and preceded the beginning of the Middle Kingdom. In view
of our knowledge of the history of this period, it would
be absurd to maintain that the Flood had destroyed all
civilization at this time.
Thus It may be affirmed from a historical point of
view that the narration of the Flood as it is presented
in the Bible is in evident contradiction with modern
knowledge. The formal proof of man's manipulation of the
Scriptures is the existence of the two texts.
The Qur'an gives a general version which is different
from that contained in the Bible and does not give rise
to any criticisms from a historical point of view.
It does not provide a continuous narration of the
Flood. Numerous suras talk of the punishment inflicted
upon Noah's people. The most complete account of this is
in sura 11, verses 25 to 49. Sura 71, which bears Noah's
name, describes above all Noah's preachings, as do verses
105 to 115, sura 26. Before going into the actual course
taken by events, we must consider the Flood as described
in the Qur' an by relating it to the general context of
the punishment God inflicted on communities guilty of
gravely infringing His Commandments.
Whereas the Bible describes a universal Flood intended
to punish ungodly humanity as a whole, the Qur'an, in
contrast, mentions several punishments inflicted on
certain specifically defined communities.
This may be seen in verses 35 to 39, sura 25:
"We gave Moses the Scripture and appointed his
brother Aaron with him as vizier. We said: Go to the
people who have denied Our signs. We destroyed them
completely. When the people of Noah denied the
Messengers, We drowned them and We made of them a sign
for mankind. (We destroyed the tribes) of Âd and Tamud,
the companions of Rass and many generations between them.
We warned each of them by examples and We annihilated
them completely."
Sura 7, verses 59 to 93 contains a reminder of the
punishments brought upon Noah's people, the Âd, the
Tamud, Lot (Sodom) and Madian respectively.
Thus the Qur'an presents the cataclysm of the Flood as
a punishment specifically intended for Noah's people:
this is the first basic difference between the two
narrations.
The second fundamental difference is that the Qur'an,
in contrast to the Bible, does not date the Flood in time
and gives no indication as to the duration of the
cataclysm itself.
The causes of the flooding are roughly the same in
both narrations. The Sacerdotal description in the Bible
(Genesis 7, 11) cites two causes which occurred
simultaneously. "On that day all the fountains of
the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the
heavens were opened." The Qur'an records the
following in verses 11 and 12, sura 54:
"We opened the Gates of Heaven with pouring
water. And We caused the ground to gush forth springs, so
the waters met according to the decree which has been
ordained."
The Qur'an is very precise about the contents of the
Ark. The order God gave to Noah was faithfully executed
and it was to do the following:
--sura 11, verse 40:
"(In the Ark) load a pair of every kind, thy family,
save this one against whom the word has already gone
forth, and those who believe. But only a few had believed
with him."
The person excluded from the family is an outcast son
of Noah. We learn (sura 11, verses 45 and 46) how Noah's
supplications on this person's behalf to God were unable
to make Him alter His decision. Apart from Noah's family
(minus the outcast son), the Qur'an refers to the few
other passengers on board the Ark who had believed in
God.
The Bible does not mention the latter among the
occupants of the Ark. In fact, it provides us with three
different versions of the Ark's contents:
--according to the Yahvist version, a distinction is made
between 'pure' animals and birds, and 'impure' animals
(seven [ Surely 'seven' here indicates 'many', as it often
does in the Semitic languages of the time.] pairs, i.e. seven males
and seven females, of each 'pure' species, was taken into
the Ark and only one pair of each 'impure' species).
-according to a modified Yahvist verse (Genesis 7, 8)
there was only one pair of each species, whether 'pure'
or 'impure'. -according to the Sacerdotal version, there
was Noah, his family (with no exceptions) and a pair
taken from each species.
The narration in the Qur'an of the flooding itself is
contained in sura 11, verses 25 to 49 and in sura 23,
verses 23 to 30. The Biblical narrative does not present
any important differences.
In the Bible, the place where the Ark comes to rest is
in the Ararat Mountains (Genesis 8, 4) and for the Qur'an
it is the Judi (sura 11, verse 44.) This mountain
is said to be the highest of the Ararat range in Armenia,
but nothing proves that the names were not changed by man
to tally with the two narratives. This is confirmed by R.
Blachère: according to him there is a peak in Arabia
named Judi. The agreement of names may well be
artificial.
In conclusion, it is possible to state categorically
what major differences exist here between the Biblical
and Qur'anic narrations. Some of them escape critical
examination because objective data are lacking. When,
however, it is possible to check the statements in the
Scriptures in the light of the established data, the
incompatibility between the Biblical narration-i.e. the
information given on its place in time and geographical
extent-and the discoveries that have contributed to
modern knowledge is all too clear. In contrast to this,
the narration contained in the Qur'an is free from
anything which might give rise to objective criticism.
One might ask if it is possible that, between the time of
the Biblical narration and the one contained in the
Qur'an, man could have acquired knowledge that shed light
on this event. The answer is no, because from the time of
the Old Testament to the Qur'an, the only document man
possessed on this ancient story was the Bible itself. If
human factors are unable to account for the changes in
the narrations which affected their meaning with regard
to modern knowledge, another explanation has to be
accepted, i.e. a Revelation which came after the one
contained in the Bible.
