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<\/a><\/p>\nGenesis 8 tells the story of the aftermath of the flood. Here we are told that after 150 days the waters subsided and the ark landed on \u2018the mountains of Ararat\u2019.\u00a0 God commands Noah to leave the ark with all those in it, including all the creatures great and small and they are to start reproducing again.\u00a0 Noah builds an altar and made offerings of every clean animal in thanks, and the text adds \u201cAnd the Lord smelled the fragrant odor and the Lord said in his heart \u201cI will not again damn\/curse the soil on humankind\u2019s score. For devising of the human heart are evil from youth. And I will not strike down all living things as I did. As long as all the days of the earth\u2013seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0As Alter notes,\u00a0 Adonai is not ever depicted as eating the sacrifice, unlike the pagan stories, as Adonai has no need of food provided by humans. The word for fragrance nihoah<\/em> puns on the name Noah.\u00a0 Notice the echo of Gen. 6.6- and God was grieved in his heart\u2026 and the reference to human evil here deliberately echoes Gen. 6.5.\u00a0 Human nature is not changed by the flood judgment.\u00a0 The oath of God here about non-destruction is made by God to himself, not to Noah.\u00a0 \u2018Note to self\u2026.\u2019<\/p>\nMoving on to Gen. 9\u2026\u00a0 Noah is told in essence to be a vegetarian, and God goes on to say that anyone who takes a human life\u2013 whether it is an animal or a person, God will require their lifeblood of them, and the reason is because humans are created in God\u2019s image, and God made humankind to multiply and hold sway over the earth.\u00a0 THis is a system of retributive justice as Alter says. Here we also have for the first time a reference to a berith,\u00a0<\/em>a covenant between God and Noah and his clan, and he promises never to destroy the earth again by flood. God said that the sign of this covenant is the rainbow he set in the clouds, and it is said to be a covenant between God and the earth itself (9.13).<\/p>\nAt vss. 20-21 we have the sordid and besotted tale of Noah becoming a vintner, planting grapes and in due course becoming drunk, exposing himself within his own tent, and we are told Ham \u2018saw\u2019 his father\u2019s nakedness, did nothing to hide his father\u2019s shameful behavior, but instead told Shem and Japeth about it who promptly went into the tent backwards and covered their father up.\u00a0 \u00a0Noah awakes, and somehow knows he\u2019s been abused, perhaps sexually abused, by his youngest son.\u00a0 Alter points out that the phrase \u2018to see X\u2019s nakedness\u2019 often connotes to copulate with.\u00a0 Notice that Ham is the father of Canaan, and we are told that Canaan will be a slave to Shem and Japeth as a result.<\/p>\n
Gen. 10 continues with the genealogy of Noah, and here are a few highlights: 1) we learn of Nimrod, who is said to be the first great hunter, indeed \u2018a mighty hunter before the Lord\u2019;\u00a0 2) But to this is added that the start of his kingdom was Babylon in the land of Shinar, which is one ancient name for Babylonia. 3) we are told that Asshur emerged from here and built Nineveh (a city made famous in the book of Jonah). 4) a group called the Caphtorites are said to be the clan from which the Philistines emerged. 5) eventually we are told that later the tribes of the Canaanites spread out, and it included from Sidon (today in Lebanon in the North) all the way to Gerar as far as Gaza until you come to Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboyim. All these places were later famous for being destroyed by judgments of God (see even as late as Hos. 11.8).\u00a0 6) Eber is mentioned as a brother of Japeth, and his name is in fact the origin of the name Hebrew (i.e. \u2018ibrim<\/em>). 7) this is also the chapter that mentions diverse languages in these diverse tribal groups, or perhaps diverse dialects of a language, because the next chapter will deal with the tower of Babel and the confusing or multiplication of languages. 8) earlier in vss. 3-4 we hear about Javan (and ancient name for Greece), and. Tarshish (on the coast of the Mediterranean \u2013cf. Jonah story). While we might find this table of nations and genealogies boring, Alter reminds us that this text is unprecedented in all the ANE literature.\u00a0 He says p. 42: \u201cthe Table of Nations is a serious attempt,unprecedented in the Ancient Near East to sketch a panorama of of all known human cultures \u2014 from Greece and Crete in the west through Asia Minor and Iran down through Mesopotamia and the Arabian peninsula to northwestern Africa.\u201d\u00a0 He adds that this text has been a happy hunting ground for archaeologists because much of what is said here has analogues in ancient inscriptions and tablets from other ANE cultures. Geographic, ethnic and linguistic criteria are used to define clans, or nations.\u00a0 What I would note is once again this listing refers to the then known Mediterranean and ANE world, not the whole world as we know it. Only in the former sense can the table be called universalistic.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Genesis 8 tells the story of the aftermath of the flood. Here we are told that after 150 days the waters subsided and the ark landed on \u2018the mountains of Ararat\u2019.\u00a0 God commands Noah to leave the ark with all those in it, including all the creatures great and small and they are to start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":68563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15112,15115],"class_list":["post-68818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apres-la-deluge","tag-the-table-of-nations"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n