In this analysis I’ve lifted out of Genesis 6-9 all of the flood-story passages in which the deity is called GOD, and pasted them together to make one complete flood story; the remaining passages likewise tell a complete flood story. This, by itself, is extremely strong evidence, if not proof, that the people who chose the sacred texts for the Bible took two different--and contradictory--stories about the flood from two different authors; one of the authors called the deity GOD, and the the other called it LORD.
But, what really proves beyond any doubt that there were two authors—not one--is the wealth of unique correspondences found in disconnected passages. For example, references to Noah’s “sons” are made only by the author who called the deity “GOD.” There are several other correspondences like this, but I’ll not enumerate them here; perhaps the reader would like to find them on his or her own. Hint: the correspondences are shown in capital boldface color. A complete listing is given at the end of this article.
The First Flood Story
The flood story below was constructed by lifting from Chapters 6-9 of Genesis only those passages which refer to GOD, and leaving behind the remaining passages; it tells a complete story of the flood, and, as you will see later, so do the passages left behind.
The passages below are not written in a continuous block because they were not continuous in the original; wherever there is a break between two passages, that means that a passage was removed and used for the other flood story.
The highlighted words are present only in the GOD passages, not in the LORD ones.
Genesis 6:9-22
9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with GOD. 10 Noah had three SONS: Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in GOD's sight and was full of violence. 12 GOD saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So GOD said to Noah, I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. 18 Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my COVENANT with you, and you will enter the ark--you and your SONS and your wife and your SONS' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark TWO of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 TWO of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them. 22 Noah did everything just as GOD commanded him.
Genesis 7:7-9
7 And Noah and his SONS and his wife and his SONS' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 PAIRS of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as GOD had commanded Noah.
Genesis 7:12-16b
12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On that very day Noah and his SONS, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three SONS, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15 PAIRS of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16a The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as GOD had commanded Noah.
(Readers should not overlook the repetition in the two passages above: the GOD author has Noah and the animals entering the ark twice. This may have been caused by the editor’s wish to include the words on scrolls from two different GOD authors about Noah entering the ark.)
Genesis 8:1
8:1 But GOD remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
Genesis 8:14-19
14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. 15 Then GOD said to Noah, 16 "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your SONS and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you--the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground--so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it." 18 So Noah came out, together with his SONS and his wife and his SONS' wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds--everything that moves on the earth--came out of the ark, one kind after another.
Genesis 9:1-17
1 Then GOD blessed Noah and his SONS, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. 4 "But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. 5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. 6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of GOD has GOD made man. 7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it." 8 Then GOD said to Noah and to his SONS with him: 9 "I now establish my COVENANT with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you--the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you--every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my COVENANT with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." 12 And GOD said, "This is the sign of the COVENANT I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a COVENANT for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the COVENANT between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my COVENANT between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting COVENANT between GOD and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." 17 So GOD said to Noah, "This is the sign of the COVENANT I have established between me and all life on the earth.
The Second Flood Story
The flood story above tells a complete story, even after taking out six passages which were interlaced with the ones above. The six passages below are the ones which were taken out, and they, too, tell a complete story of the flood. This completeness could not exist if there were just one author telling one story, for the information left out would surely not permit the remainder to tell a complete story. We thus have two separate and complete flood stories mixed together by a Bible editor who took one passage from one tradition, followed it with a passage from the other tradition, then when back to the first tradition, then to the second, and so on and so forth about five or six times.
The passages below are not written in a continuous block because they were not continuous in the original; wherever there is a break between two passages, that means that a passage was removed and used for the other flood story.
Genesis 6:5-8
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them. 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD
Genesis 7:1-6
7:1 The LORD then said to Noah, Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you SEVEN of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also SEVEN of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 SEVEN days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made. 5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. 6 Noah was SIX HUNDRED years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.
Genesis 7:10-11
10 And after the SEVEN days the floodwaters came on the earth. 11 In the SIX HUNDREDTH year of Noah's life, on the SEVENTEENTH day of the second month--on that day all the SPRINGS OF THE GREAT DEEP burst forth, and the FLOODGATES OF THE HEAVENS were opened.
Note the repetition here: we’re told twice that Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came. This may have been caused by the editor being in possession of two different LORD scrolls containing information about Noah’s age at the time of the coming of the waters.
Genesis 7:16b-24
16b Then the LORD shut him in. 17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. 21 Every living thing that moved on the earth perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 22 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. 23 Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
Genesis 8:2-13
2 Now the SPRINGS OF THE DEEP and the FLOODGATES OF THE HEAVENS had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4 and on the SEVENTEENTH day of the SEVENTH month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. 6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark 7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited SEVEN more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited SEVEN more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. 13 By the first day of the first month of Noah's SIX HUNDRED and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry
Genesis 8:20-22
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. 22 As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.
Note that only the GOD author acknowledges that Noah has SONS; he does so twelve times over five disconnected passages. However, the LORD author never once mentions SONS; he seems only to know that Noah has a "family," and that there are "others with him. When the altar is built (Genesis 8:20), the LORD authors says “Noah built” it; he doesn’t say his sons helped him because he evidently doesn’t know if there even were any sons.
The many references to SONS in the passages which refer to GOD, and only in the passages with GOD, is strong evidence that these passages were written by a different author than the one who wrote the others, and therefore were originally connected, not disconnected.
The LORD author seems especially enamored of the number seven; he is the only one who uses SEVEN / SEVENTH / SEVENTEEN, and does so nine times, spread over three disconnected passages. This is the author who says that SEVEN of each kind of animal is to be taken on board; the GOD author says in three disconnected passages that TWO, or a PAIR, of each kind are to be put on board. Not once does the GOD author use the numbers seven, seventh, seventeen. The many references to the “sevens” in the passages which refer to LORD, and only in the passages with LORD, is strong evidence that these passages were written by a different author than the one who wrote the ones in the other story, and were originally connected, and that there disconnection exists in Genesis only because some editor wove together the two different flood stories.
The GOD author is the only author to use the word COVENANT; he does so eight times in one passage, and once in another disconnected one; the LORD author doesn’t mention it even once. The many references to COVENANT in the same passages which refer to GOD, and only in the passages with GOD, is strong evidence that these passages were written by a different author than the one who wrote the others, and were originally connected, not disconnected.
The GOD author in the flood story mentions that man was made in GOD’s image (Genesis 9:6), and it was only the GOD author in the creation story (Genesis 1:26-27) who mentioned the same thing; the LORD author in the creation story says nothing about it there, just as he says nothing about it here, in the flood story. This is strong evidence that two different authors are at work here: one who called the deity GOD and believed that man was made in GOD’s image, and said so in both the creation story and the flood stories, and one who called the deity LORD and said nothing about “image” in either story.
The LORD author refers to Noah’s SIX HUNDRED year age in three disconnected passages; the GOD author makes no reference to Noah’s age. This is further evidence that there were two different authors with two different beliefs about Noah and the flood.
The “single” flood story tells us three different times that Noah enters the ark: The GOD author has Noah and his animals enter twice, while the LORD author has him enter once.
The accumulated evidence thus weighs down monstrously heavily on the argument put forth by hopeful fundamentalists that Genesis was written by one man, Moses. To all but those who operate at the idiot-fundamentalist level of total mindless acceptance, it is no doubt perfectly clear that the Genesis flood story is a compilation of two separate and conflicting traditions, and not a single story whose story-teller was inspired by a GOD.
Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"