Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Dave,

> But that's not the point of the whole flood story.  The point is the death of 
> everything except those that caught the boat.  If you add up the whole thing, 
> the entire event took a full year.  But once again, that's not the point.  
> Again, I have no ax to grind here except trying to see what the text says I 
> should see.  And it sure appears to say that seasons etc. are something new 
> after this world-destroying event, else in the context of the story there's 
> no real reason to mention it.  Obviously, Your Mileage May Vary.  But the 
> above is reading something into the text that the text itself doesn't 
> discuss.  Noah and his family let all those stinky animals out of the boat, 
> get out and walk around, and realize they're the only living humans left on 
> earth.  There may even have been dead bodies scattered from hither to yon, 
> further smelling the place up.  Is the question of seasons, hot and cold etc. 
> really going to be the first thing on their minds?  I rather doubt it.
>
> All that's assuming the story is literal, of course.  I say that before 
> someone pounces on me, because I really don't care one way or the other.  I'm 
> just looking to deal with the text as it stands, since that's what working 
> with biblical Hebrew is all about ;-)
>  

HH: The fact that I have never understood the text the way you are 
describing it is my first clue your interpretation is far from being 
intuitively obvious. On the other hand, you seem to overlook the real 
implications of Genesis 8:22 by isolating them from their nearest 
context, the Flood. God seems to be making a promise that there will be 
no more major upheavals to the earth such as the Flood, upheavals that 
overthrow mundane realities of seedtime and harvest, hot and cold, 
summer and winter, and day and night. These uniformitarian expectations 
of life will not be disappointed until the end of the earth. There will 
not be anything comparable to the Flood.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard