Read the Noah story—the
whole thing, from the very end of Genesis 5 and not just from the beginning of
the parashah—and you will immediately sense that there is a problem. Why are
there so many repetitions, tensions, and outright contradictions? Why are we
told twice about Noah's offspring (5:32 and 6:10)? Why does the story offer two
explanations for God's decision to destroy all creatures, removing them from
the face of the earth—one explanation relating to the transgression of the
divine/human divide and the wickedness of the human heart (6:1-7), and the
other relating to human violence (6:11-12)? And why, in almost a single breath,
does the Torah contradict its own representation of God's command to bring
animals onto the ark, first requiring two of every species (6:19) and then
requiring seven of each pure species and only two of each impure species
(7:2-3)?
These
are the problems that made the Noah story one of the primary foundations of the
so-called Documentary Hypothesis of biblical origins. In fact, if you divide
the story according to the name of God used in each part (Elohim [E] or Jahweh [J]),
you will find that the division produces two neat and almost complete stories,
each with its distinct version of the Noah tradition. For this reason, many modern
critical readers of the text have concluded that what we have here is two
original documents (E and J) combined to create a larger whole, but
with relative disregard for the issues their combination creates. To be sure,
dividing the story eliminates the problems exemplified in the paragraph above,
but it does nothing to make sense of the Torah's story as we have it, whatever
its origins.
In
the world before the invention of the printing press, a world that was largely
illiterate, the tensions and even contradictions we see today when reading the
Torah's text would mostly not have been a problem. When people experience a
text orally and aurally—read out loud by a reader whose words they hear but do
not see—they tend not to hear tensions or even contradictions, and they
certainly cannot go back to compare what they hear now to what they heard
before. Consequently, they tend to modify their memory or understanding of the
earlier in light of the latter. Repetitions are assumed to be there for
emphasis or simply because orality demands repetition for clarity, and tensions
or contradictions are smoothed over without the listener even being aware that
a problem was there to be solved. In the world where people heard but did not
read the Torah, our Genesis 2 (the "second Creation story") would
have been heard as a specification or filling out of Genesis 1 (our "first
Creation story"), and the Noah story would have been worked out with
similar lack of difficulty.
This
does not mean, however, that the difficulties do not exist, and we as readers should pay attention to them.
I would like to suggest that the Documentary solution provides us with an
important key, but not because separating the stories solves the readers'
problems. When we read the part of the story in which God is referred to by the J name and compare it with the part of
the story in which God is known by the E name,
we find that the two strands offer us two very different pictures of who God is
and the nature of God's relationship with humanity. First separated and then
combined, these two parts offer us, in the end, a very complex theology, one
from which we can all learn.
In
the J story, God wants to
protect God's status vis-à-vis human beings and other creatures. It is in this
story that the "divine beings" sleep with human women, provoking
God's wrath. One expression of God's wrath is to limit the length of human life
to one-hundred-and-twenty years, ensuring a clear distinction between humans
and divine beings who live forever. It is in this story that God requires Noah
to bring onto the ark seven of every pure animal, because it is in this story
that God will demand animal sacrifices of Noah when he emerges from the ark.
The God of the Jstory is appeased
by the sweet smell of the sacrifices, because they are an expression of human
subservience and obedience. All told, this is a God who demands a clearly
superior position with relation to God's creation; the Supreme King to whom all
creatures are radically subjects.
The
God of the E story is portrayed
very differently. The sin that this God sees is human violence; being concerned
for human welfare, this God acts against that violence, but S/he never limits
the length of human life (this God requires no such radical division between
God and humans). This God requires only two of each species—male and female—to
board the ark, because S/he will not demand sacrifices; the animals are needed
only to perpetuate their species. Instead of demanding sacrifices upon Noah's
exit from the ark, the God of the E story
begins by blessing the humans, and then gives them laws. The most important of
these laws is the one that protects human life.
Crucially,
the God of E then goes on at
length to express God's covenantal commitment to humanity, ensuring that flesh
will never again be destroyed by a flood. The fact that this commitment is
covenantal—the word covenant (brit)
appears in this context (9:8-17) seven times!—is significant. A covenant is a
contract, one in which two parties commit to one another by mutual agreement.
The fact that this God can enter a covenant with humanity means that S/he views
humanity as a worthy partner, not necessarily an equal but also not a radically
submissive subject to be commanded and little more.
These
are two very different Gods, one jealous and superior, the other caring and
available for relationship. How could they have been put together? What is the
meaning of the two when represented as one? The answer, I think, lies in our
own need for different Gods or, to be more correct, for one God differently
imagined. My guess is that most of us are more immediately and naturally
attracted to the God of E, the one
who respects us enough to make a covenant with us. But such a God would be only
partial. We also need a God—the God of J—who
is radically superior, one totally unlike us, one to whom we can submit.
Perhaps better expressed, sometimes we need the God as represented in one of
these stories, at other times the God represented in the other. Put together,
as in the Noah story, we have a fuller God, one we can address in all of our
complexity, even if God is, in reality, much simpler (i.e., more singular) than
these stories express.
The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are
made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (z"l) Hassenfeld.
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