Noach (parsha) - in Critical Analysis

In Critical Analysis

Some secular scholars who follow the Documentary Hypothesis find evidence of four separate sources in the parshah. Thus some scholars consider the parshah to weave together two flood story accounts composed by the Jahwist (sometimes abbreviated J) who wrote possibly as early as the 10th century BCE and the Priestly source who wrote in the 6th or 5th century BCE. One such scholar, Richard Elliott Friedman, attributes to the Jahwist Genesis 7:1–5, 7, 16b–20, 22–23; 8:2b–3a, 6, 8–12, 13b, and 20–22. And he attributes to the Priestly source Genesis 6:9b–22; 7:8–16, 21, 20; 8:1–2a, 3b-5, 7, 13a, and 14–19. For a similar distribution of verses, see the display of Genesis according to the Documentary Hypothesis at Wikiversity. Friedman also attributes to a late Redactor (sometimes abbreviated R) the introductory clause in Genesis 6:9a and to another source the report of Noah’s age during the flood in Genesis 7:6.

Friedman also attributes to the Jahwist the account of Noah’s drunkenness and the cursing of Canaan in Genesis 9:18–27; the genealogies in Genesis 10:8–19, 21, and 24–30; and the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1–9. He attributes to the Priestly source the account of the covenant of the rainbow in Genesis 9:1–17 and the genealogies in Genesis 10:1b–7, 20, 22–23, 31–32; and 11:27b–31. He attributes to the Redactor introductory clauses in Genesis 10:1a; 11:10a and 27a and the account of Terah in Genesis 11:31b and 32b. And he attributes to another source the genealogy of Shem at Genesis 11:11b–26 and 32a.

Professor Gary Rendsburg, however, notes that the flood story has many similarities with the Epic of Gilgamesh. He argues that several sources would be unlikely to track these plot elements from the Epic of Gilgamesh independently. Thus, Rendsburg argues that the flood story was composed as a unified whole.