Holy Text Dissections: Genesis 8

Resuming the series, today we have Noah leaving the ark after God murders everyone else horribly.

8 God remembered Noah, as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water began to subside. 2 The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky stopped. 3 The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days the water had decreased significantly. 4 The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

So, the water went away. But since there isn't enough water for a worldwide flood in the first place, where the hell did it go? Did it literally go to hell? Did it get hidden by God's mysterious ways? What the fuck happened to it?

5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month; on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible. 6 After 40 days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made, 7 and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see whether the water on the earth's surface had gone down, 9 but the dove found no resting place for her foot. She returned to him in the ark because water covered the surface of the whole earth. He reached out and brought her into the ark to himself.

Does the entire bible consist of boring repetition?

10 So Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove from the ark again. 11 When the dove came to him at evening, there was a plucked olive leaf in her beak. So Noah knew the water on the earth's surface had gone down. 12 After he had waited another seven days, he sent out the dove, but she did not return to him again. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water that had covered the earth was dried up. Then Noah removed the ark's cover and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry.

So, after almost two months straight in an ark completely full of animals, where he somehow got food for himself and them, didn't get diseased from being surrounded by so much dung, didn't go batshit insane from the smell, didn't have his ark sink from a giant world-encompassing storm, and managed to not have a single animal die, Noah got off the ark. Makes perfect sense.

15 Then God spoke to Noah, 16 "Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons' wives with you. 17 Bring out every living thing of all flesh that is with you-birds, livestock, creatures that crawl on the ground-and they will spread over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." 18 So Noah, along with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, came out. 19 All wildlife, all livestock, every bird, and every creature that crawls on the earth came out of the ark by their groups. 20 Then Noah built and altar to the LORD. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said to himself, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, even though man's inclination is evil from his youth. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.

22 As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter,
and day and night
will not cease.

I don't know about God, but I don't like the smell of burnt flesh. Is it really that great, God? Also, weird formatting for Jehovah!