Noah

“7: 11. the fountains of the great deep … and the apertures of the skies were opened. One must have a picture of the structure of the universe that is described in Genesis 1 in order to comprehend the significance of the destruction that is narrated in the flood story. The creation account pictures a clear firmament or space holding back the waters that are above the firmament and those that are below. Now the narrative reports that “all the fountains of the great deep were split open, and the apertures of the skies were opened.” The cosmic waters are able to spill in from above and below, filling the habitable bubble, thus: 7: 12 And there was rain on the earth, forty days and forty nights.”(Friedman Commentary on the Torah)

Friedman reminds us that those who first orally broadcast the story of the flood ordeal (Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth) and the later oral testimonies of ancient storytellers recognized the earth as flat and dome covered; ‘a habitable bubble’.  Their world existed as far as the eye could see and ended at the horizon.  As we learn from 2 Peter “3: 6. Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.”(KJV)  They had no concept of the world as we know it.  They were contained by the world “that then was’.   They could not have imagined a sphere consisting of water with an earth core.  For sure the earth as they knew it was covered with water but they were not talking about the entire planet. This may disturb some creationists but however many fish and mollusk fossils and humanoid bones are uncovered in other parts of the world it is sure they were not deposited by the flood described in Genesis.

But let us begin at the beginning.   Noah is told to build an ark because God is determined He is going to flood the earth.  God tells him precisely the dimensions needed.  The ark is to be 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width and 30 cubits in height (450 × 75 × 45 ft. or 137 × 22.9 × 13.7m).  Clearly, this is an immense vessel but is it large enough to provide for all the animals depicted in the many fantasy films and pictures of the event?  

The best estimates are that there are some 6.5 million species of animal and insects found on the earth (Give or take 1.3 million.) and 2.2 million dwelling in the ocean depths.  Undoubtedly this would be too many land species for Noah’s ark to handle.  In the order of taxonomy, ‘species’ represents the smallest collective.  The bigger the area the larger the number of animals.

By way of comparison consider the vessel below.

The above is a photo of the Polaris 2 a purpose-built livestock carrier capable of carrying 7300 cattle.  At 448.5 feet long, 68 feet wide and 51 feet high it is very close to the dimensions of Noah’s ark.  For such a load it needs to carry over 1500 tonnes of animal fodder and produce up to 600 tonnes of fresh water a day.  This will give us some idea of the problems confronting Noah as he set out on his ordeal.  Fortunately for Noah he wasn’t confronted with as many animals as Polaris 2 can carry.  Dr Marcus Ross, the assistant professor of geology and assistant director for the Centre for Creation Studies at Liberty University has crunched the numbers and makes an interesting comment.  “Given that most animals were brought onto the Ark by twos, while “clean” birds and mammals were brought by sevens, this means that Noah cared for approximately two thousand land-dwelling vertebrate animals.”

Two points should be made here.  Clearly Noah’s ark could easily accommodate two thousand animals.  Also the designated number of representatives (two of unclean and seven pairs of clean) from the world’s entire 6.5 million or more different species would add up to far more than two thousand animals.  Obviously the species Noah and his family cared for were not selected from around the world which is more evidence that the flood was local and not global.  Sorry folks, kangaroos, koalas, duckbilled platypus, giant moas and emperor penguins, among others, were not part of the mix.  The animals the Noah family cared for were not unfamiliar to them. 

Also, there are other theories which point to the Genesis flood being local.  “As to the extent to which the human race was spread over the earth at the time of the Flood, two suppositions are possible. First, that of Hugh Miller (Testimony of the Rocks) that, owing to the shortness of the antediluvian chronology, and the violence and moral corruption of the people, the population had not spread beyond the boundary of western Asia…. Another theory, supported by much evidence, is that, in connection with the enormous physical changes in the earth's surface during the closing scenes of the Glacial epoch, man had perished from off the face of the earth except in the valley of the Euphrates, and that the Noachian Deluge is the final catastrophe in that series of destructive events.” (Various. International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia.)  And again  “The principal setting of the biblical narratives is Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, the band of arable land that extends northward from the Nile Valley along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, curves around the great Syrian desert, and continues southward through Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf.”  (The Oxford History of the Biblical World.)

We might well ask why God should want Noah to build such a large ark for so few animals.  Voyages for livestock carriers such as Polaris 2 last on average between 10 and 30 days at sea and such ships most often sail with a full complement of livestock.  Noah was confined to his ark for 364 days.  Given that the figure of two thousand land-dwelling vertebrate animals is correct Noah would need far in excess of 1500 tonnes of animal fodder as well as 600 tonnes of fresh water each day.  This could account for why such a large ark was needed for so few animals.  Some have suggested that the animals were put to sleep and didn’t need to be fed or watered but there is no evidence for this.  Such a speculative fantasy would surely have been included in the story of the flood had the storytellers been made aware of it.  In any case, the Bible tells us:  “6: 21. And you, take some of every food that will be eaten and gather it to you, and it will be for you and for them [the animals] for food.” (Friedman Commentary on the Torah) We must move on.

7: 11. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day All the fountains of the great deep burst apart, And the floodgates of the sky broke open. 7:12. The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 7:13. That same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, went into the ark, with Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons— (TANAKH)

The rain was part of a devastating hurricane of epic proportions that flattened all the trees and destroyed the shelters and homes of the population. “8: 23. All existence on earth was blotted out— man, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.” (TANAKH)

 “7: 18.  And the waters grew strong and multiplied very much on the earth, and the ark went on the face of the waters. 7: 19. And the waters had grown very, very strong on the earth, so they covered all the high mountains that are under all the skies.  7: 20. Fifteen cubits above, the waters grew stronger, and they covered the mountains. (Friedman Commentary on the Torah)”

Having little knowledge of the geography of the world, ancient Old Testament Hebrew scholars presumed that not all the mountains of the world were covered with water.   They debated among themselves, trying to come to terms with the deluge that precipitated such a flood and how one should understand the enigmas that were thrown up as a result of it.   For example, Ararat at 5,137 m is one of the smaller mountains of the world; a mere dwarf compared to the loftiest peaks of the Himalaya and Cordilleras.    (Keil, C. F.; Delitzsch, Franz. Commentary on the Old Testament). Yet a number of ancient Old Testament scholars believed that Mt Olympus at 2,918 m was taller, not understanding that Ararat is nearly twice as high as Olympus. (Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah)

“8: 3. And the waters went back from on the earth, going back continually, and the water receded at the end of a hundred fifty days.8: 4. And the ark rested in the seventh month, in the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.  8: 5. And the water went on receding until the tenth month. In the tenth month, in the first of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared. 8: 6. And it was at the end of forty days, and Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made. 8: 7. And he let a raven go, and it went back and forth until the water dried up from the earth. 8: 8. And he let a dove go from him to see whether the waters had eased from the face of the earth.  8: 9.  And the dove did not find a resting place for its foot, and it came back to him to the ark, for waters were on the face of the earth, and he put out his hand and took it and brought it to him to the ark. 8: 10. And he waited still another seven days, and he again let a dove go from the ark. 8: 11. And the dove came to him at evening time, and here was an olive leaf torn off in its mouth, and Noah knew that the waters had eased from the earth.  (Friedman Commentary on the Torah)”

The Polaris 2 has a draught of 7.2 m.  I imagine Noah’s ark would be similar so the water need not have receded from the top of Ararat for the ark to become wedged on the mountain.  The real mystery is where the sprig from an olive tree came from.  Only a week had passed from the dove having no place to land to finding an olive tree to alight on and pluck a leaf from its branches.  How is it that this olive tree was not destroyed in the deluge?  Everything was supposed to have been blotted out. Surely it did not grow up in the space of a week.  It was the task of ancient Hebrew scholars to resolve such enigmas so that the truth could emerge but when you have two or more Hebrew scholars trying to unpack a biblical issue you usually end up with two or more contrary resolutions.  The thirteen-century scholar Nachmanides (known as Ramban) was most often the one who casts the deciding vote as to how scripture is to be understood. 

 

 “Rabbi Birei said: The gates of the Garden of Eden were opened up for it, and it brought [the leaf] from there.”  “Rabbi Levi said:  It brought it from the Mount of Olives, for the Land of Israel was not inundated with the waters of the Flood.”  (Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah)  Rabbi Birei indulges in a bit of conjecture in his attempt to answer the question posed by the Sages in Bereishis Rabbah (ancient rabbinical interpretations of Genesis).  Ramban sides with Rabbi Levi for he has supported his argument with a quote from Ezekiel.  God is venting his wrath on Israel for their abominations and reminds them how in the past they were spared the deluge that floated Noah’s ark. “22: 24 Mortal, say to it: You are a land that is not cleansed, not rained upon in the day of indignation.” (Ezekiel 22: 24. NRSV,   The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha).   Ramban concludes:  “Their statement that “The Land of Israel was not inundated with the waters of the Flood” means that the rain of the Flood did not fall on [The Land of Israel] – as it says in the verse cited there as proof, it was not rained upon and the fountains of the great deep were not opened up in the [Land of Israel].” (Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah)   So was the land of Israel left high and dry?  It seems not.   Water is presumed to have spilled over from the floodplains of Mesopotamia that spared the trees but killed the locals and their animals.  Though some may have tried to escape by climbing the trees it is safe to suggest they could not have held out for 364 days.  Where it was that Noah built his ark we are not told but we realize it was nowhere near the Land of Israel.  The best guess is that it was somewhere near the land called Eden.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. 

We may well wonder that, if it is true that Genesis was written by scribes inspired by God’s spirit so that the result was God’s word, why was it so difficult to understand?  Why could not later Hebrew scholars grasp the written word immediately?  We are told that early Hebrew script derived from the Phoenician script and did not emerge as a distinct cultural artifact until the ninth century B.C.E.  Unlike mathematical equations language is inherently ambiguous requiring the meaning of a statement to be determined as much by the context as by the syntax and punctuation.  Hebrew is written without punctuation or vowels.  Consequently, words in Hebrew have far more nuances attached to them than words in English.  Imagine what it would be like if we had to decipher a word such as ‘br’. Is it ‘bar, bare, bore, bier, bure, bur, etc.?  Word choice, how a word is positioned in a statement and its history of use along with its context are some of the concerns Hebrew scholars use to determine the meaning of a phrase.   Of, course, this forced the reader to read aloud or in a low voice in order to grasp if they had made a mistake by choosing the wrong word.  How one scribe chooses to express an idea may well be significantly different for how another scribe chooses to express the same idea.  But the distinction between the works of the two scribes may only involve a seemingly minor alteration.  Ancient Hebrew scholars often passionately scrutinize and debate the use of a word that English speakers may well ignore as irrelevant to the meaning of a phrase.  For example, Nachmanides felt the need to resolve a debate among scholars as to the sex of the dove that Noah freed to determine if the water had receded.   It seems that masculine and feminine endings had been confused.  There is a hint of competition between those ancient scholars who comment on the Torah.    

Also, the scribes who wrote down the bible stories were not merely taking down dictation.  They also had heard the Bible stories from their youth retold to them by the elders of their tribe.   What they wrote was influenced by those passages in the story that most captured their youthful imagination; that left an indelible impression on their innocent memory.   What is truly amazing is how unerring the ancestral line from Adam through Seth, Noah, Abraham, Moses and the House of David to Jesus is maintained.  Today individuals may seek out and record their ancestry but the Jews orally recorded the ancestry of a nation of people from the beginning of prehistory; almost as it happened.

Noah, his family, and the animals are called out of the ark.   Noah makes an altar and offers a sacrifice to God.  God, in turn, makes a covenant with Noah and family and with the animals. 

8: 9. “I now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, 8: 10. and with every living thing that is with you— birds, cattle, and every wild beast as well— all that have come out of the ark, every living thing on earth. 8: 11. I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”(The Torah)

Obviously, the sons of Noah did not disperse right away.  They camped nearby with their wives and children.  Noah must have taken a considerable number of saplings or seeds with him for he soon planted a vineyard.  It takes at least three years for a sapling to grow strong enough to produce grapes and it takes 600 to 800 grapes to make a litre of wine.  It would take between five days and two weeks for the wine to ferment which was Noah’s undoing. 

    “9: 21. And he drank from the wine and was drunk. And he was exposed inside his tent. 9: 22. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 9: 23. And Shem and Yaphet took a garment and put it on both their shoulders and went backwards and covered their father’s nakedness. And they faced backwards and did not see their father’s nakedness. 9: 24. And Noah woke up from his wine, and he knew what his youngest son had done to him.  9: 25. And he said, “Canaan is cursed. He’ll be a servant of servants to his brothers.” (Friedman, Commentary on the Torah)

A strange turn of events.  Ham is at fault for he has embarrassed his father publicly (he told his two brothers outside).  His behaviour was verging on ridicule.  He should have covered his father and kept the whole episode to himself.  “There was no negative judgment attached to getting drunk.” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha)  It was Noah’s nakedness that Ham broadcast to his brothers in front of others.   We may well ask why Noah chose to curse Canaan rather than Ham? 

“9: 25 he said, “Cursed be Canaan; The lowest of slaves Shall he be to his brothers.” 9:26. And he said, “Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem; Let Canaan be a slave to them. 9: 27. May God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be a slave to them.”  (The Torah)

This may well be a bit of contrivance by the authors of this story.  Ham may feel some angst knowing that his son has been cursed but it is Canaan who suffers for the deed of his father.  “Thus, he made Canaan a slave to Shem twice thereby intimating that [Shem] would inherit [Canaan’s] land and all his possessions for whatever a slave acquires automatically belongs to his master.  This section was written to inform us that it was as a result of [Ham’s] sin that Canaan became an eternal slave and Abraham acquired the rights to his land.”  (Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah)

The Torah seems to be writing itself laying out a convenient justification for Abraham long before he arrives on the scene.  God, of course, knows the world’s history.  Did He privately confide in Noah telling him that Abraham, his distant relative, would eventually be residing in a land to which Canaan shares his name?  Hebrew scribes have a reputation for playing with words and knew that Canaan was eventually to be the home of Abraham.  Scribes tend to allow themselves to anticipate upcoming events in their writing.   I think we have to remember that the scribes recording the events of the Bible were not automatic writing or copying machines.  The writing of language is one of the most creative acts a human being can undertake; it is part of the intellectual perception with which God has endowed us and results unequivocally from inspiration.  We have no choice but to describe scripture as inspired by God.  But however inspired these scribes may have been, they had personalities, thoughts, and ideas, biases and quirks that infected the language they used.  Though they were diligent in their tasks they were nevertheless subject to human fickleness.  Some will insist that it was Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible but while Moses may have redacted these books, choosing which part of which oral story was used, it would be unusual for him not to also employ scribes even when the word was directly from God. 

For all the inadequacies of the scribes who sealed God’s word by imprinting it on papyrus scrolls, we have to admire the craft entailed by the book of Genesis.  The attendant genealogies of Noah, Japheth, Ham, and Shem may for some be trying and superfluous but they make a very necessary contribution to the narrative God provides us.  For ancient Hebrew scholars, these genealogies serve to reinforce the truth of “…the Torah’s account of the Creation of the world.   For our father Abraham “commanded his sons and household after him,” and he bore witness to them regarding the existence of Noah and his sons, who saw the Flood with their own eyes and who were in the Ark.  Abraham was born during Noah’s lifetime (Noah died in the year 2006 After Creation, and Abraham was born in 1948) so that although he did not witness the Flood himself, he did hear of it directly from the one who experienced it.  Noah was 595 years old at the time of Lamech’s death [his father] in the year 1651 After Creation.  Lamech was 56 years old at the time of Adam’s death in 930.  Isaac was 110 and Jacob was 50 years old at the time of Shem’s death, in 2158.” (Bereishis/Genesis, The ArtScroll Series, 20100)  The implication here is that Lamech saw and may well have spoken with Adam, the first man.  If it is true that Hebrew did not emerge as a written language until about 900 BCE the oral history of the peoples called Israel was maintained for a little over 3000 years.  As incredible as it sounds the chronological history of Israel’s blessed patriarchs passed from mouth to mouth, throughout the many tribes, seemingly without distortion or revision.  Some of these stories may have been captured in what is called Old Hebrew, a script closely related to Phoenician script, as early as the 10^th century BCE but if they existed they are now lost.  There is evidence of a Canaanite alphabet as far back a 1600 BCE which ancient Hebrew scribes may have been familiar with but it cannot be demonstrated.     Nevertheless, we can’t help but admire the determined discipline of the Israel peoples to orally preserve their history and God’s covenant with them.  

Archaeologists and Palaeontologists have had a difficult time confirming the dates of Genesis.  For Israel peoples and many Christians measuring the age of the earth began on the sixth day of creation when Adam was made.  Each side considers the other as making a fundamental mistake.  I have argued in the first paper of this sequence how, as God is outside of time, the age of the universe and our earth is necessarily relative.  What He created in less than the blink of an eye Palaeontologists describe as millions of years.  Most thoughtful people will accept that our all-powerful God did not labour millions of years to create the universe and our earth.  Nor did he create an old earth to confound our scientists. The fault is not in our stars but in our egos by which we seek to maintain ourselves as the final word on God’s creation.  The Bible is not a sociological treatise.  It is God’s way of showing us Himself; God’s word is about God and not the age of the earth and its many Palaeolithic artifacts. What better way to show us who He is than to tie himself to one group of peoples who will dutifully record His existence while recording their own history and their covenant with Him.  In this way He avoids showing Himself to be a whimsical God, sometimes reliable and sometimes not, undermining the very thing He is trying to achieve; recognition and worship as the One True God; a God who loves and cares for people.  He gave us an intellectual perception and He relies on our ability to reason.  Jews are the chosen people but they are chosen for the sake of humanity.  Let us continue.

“Now, when Noah descended from the mountain after the flood, he

settled in those lands adjacent to Ararat along with his descendants.” (Bereishis/Genesis,).  The sons of Noah prospered and their seed spawned many tribes. “And when they became numerous they migrated from there to this valley of Shinar.” (Bereishis/Genesis,)  We know that Ham begat Canaan and one of Canaan’s offspring was Cush who begat Nimrod, who had a reputation as a mighty hunter.  Nimrod became a very powerful ruler and rose to become the first king of these new peoples.   “10:10.   And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” (KJV)

11: 1. Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words. 11: 2. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. 11:3.  They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them hard.”— Brick served them as stone, and bitumen served them as mortar. —11: 4. And they said, “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world.” 11: 5. The LORD came down to look at the city and tower that man had built, 11: 6.  and the LORD said, “If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach. 11: 7. Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another’s speech.” 11: 8. Thus the LORD scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. 11: 9. That is why it was called Babel, because there the LORD confounded the speech of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. (The Torah)

Although several artists has attempted to depict the tower of Babel they suffer from a lack of historical knowledge.  The tower was built to tempt God to come down and live among them.  A temple was to be at the top of the tower in which God was expected to reside.

Remnants of such towers known as Ziggurats have been uncovered by Archaeologists.  The Torah tells us “the LORD confounded the speech of the whole earth” and “scattered them over the face of the whole earth” but what is being described are those tribes living under the influence of the ruler of Babel (Babylon).  The speech of the ‘whole earth’ was the speech of those peoples living in and around the valley of Shinar before they were dispersed farther afield.  More evidence that when the Torah speaks of the ‘whole earth’ it is not speaking of the ‘whole world’.  Japheth’s descendants found a new home in what is now Turkey and the islands of the Mediterranean.  Ham’s descendants spread into Egypt and Africa and the tribes descended from Shem spread from the Zagros Mountains in the east to the Persian Gulf, and on the west by the northern expanses of the Arabian Desert.

References

Friedman, Richard Elliott. Commentary on the Torah, HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.                                                                        

 Keil, C. F.; Delitzsch, Franz. Commentary on the Old Testament, Kindle Edition.

 Dr Marcus Ross, Center for Creation Studies at Liberty University, Lynchburg, Va.

 Various. International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. E4 Group. Kindle Edition.  

 Inc., Jewish Publication Society. JPS TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (blue): The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text. The Jewish Publication Society. Kindle Edition.  

The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.        

 Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah, Bereishis/Genesis, The ArtScroll Series, 2010, Mesorah Publications Ltd. Brooklyn, NY

Coogan, Michael D.; Brettler, Marc Z.; Perkins, Pheme; Newsom, Carol A. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Inc. Jewish Publication Society. THE TORAH: The Five Books of Moses, the New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text . The Jewish Publication Society. Kindle Edition. 

Coogan, Michael D.; Brettler, Marc Z.; Perkins, Pheme; Newsom, Carol A..: The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha New Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

The Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible (Old and New Testament)   Fair Price Classics. Kindle Edition.

God's Plan

I think there is little doubt that when God created the universe and the earth and sky and then seeded the planet with fish, animals, birds, and humankind He had a plan.  I also think that God in all His wisdom, power and glory would not let His plan go awry.   Consequently, I think we can safely deduce that God succeeded and the End of Days will demonstrate His success to us as it has to Him.  So it is undeniable that what has happened has happened as God willed it to be.

In case you think this argument supports the case for determinism, think again.  God doesn’t will our choices though as a result of His omniscience He knows what choices we have made and will make.  He has provided us with the ability to make the correct choice all the while knowing that some will fail to do so.  He also knows who will fail and who will succeed.  The brutal truth is if you fail to accept God with all your heart and soul you will not be part of His everlasting love and your soul and your memory will cease to exist for all those who have survived.  There will be no ‘now’.   Winners are grinners.

Today most scholars of the Bible recognize that Genesis 1 and 2 were copied down by two different scribes and were pieced together sometime before 1000BC.  Further, they have identified these scribes as having come, one from the north, Israel and one from the south, Judah. (Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? 1987, 2011)

The editor who pieced the works together is unknown but clearly there were two different Genesis stories much as different gospels give us different stories of Christ while depicting the same event.   Prior to the combining of the two Genesis epics the Jewish peoples who could not read learned of the history of their God’s power and accomplishments by word of mouth; stories recited to them around an evening’s flame or in the temple.

                                                                                                                                              

“2:7  the LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth.  He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. 2:8 The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom He had formed. 2:9 And from the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and bad.”(TANAKH 1985)

The tree of knowledge of good and bad seems somewhat precious.  It is certainly not the Christian way.  The Christian concern is with evil not with what is merely naughty.  Friedman has a point to make in this regard. “2: 9 tree of knowledge of good and bad. Not good and “evil,” as this is usually understood and translated. “Evil” suggests that this is strictly moral knowledge. But the Hebrew word (r‘) has a much wider range of meaning than that. This may mean knowledge of what is morally good and bad, or it may mean qualities of good and bad in all realms: morality, aesthetics, utility, pleasure and pain, and so on. It may mean that things are good or bad in themselves and that when one eats from the tree one acquires the ability to see these qualities, or it may mean that when one eats from the tree one acquires the ability to make judgments of good and bad.” (Friedman Commentary on the Torah, 2012)

As Friedman would have it God had planted a tree that provides the opportunity to discover what is tasteful and what is tasteless, what is intrinsically good and what intrinsically bad.  Would that more people ate of such delights.  But we are getting ahead of ourselves for this delightful fruit was not for the consumption of animals and birds.  We learn from Genesis 1:26 a fruit-eating team is to be rostered onto earth.

“1: 26: And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. 1:27: And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”(TANAKH 1985). 

In His image and His likeness.  How are we to understand this phrase?  The 12^th-century scholar Moses Maimonides describes it this way “(Gen. i. 26), the term signifies “the specific form” of man, viz., his intellectual perception, and does not refer to his “figure” or “shape.”” (Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 1904)   So if God were to endow a groundhog with His image and likeness we would marvel at its intellectual perception.  The point is that the humanoid shape is not how we are to understand that we were made in God’s image for God is not corporeal.   John Wesley held a similar view. “That man was made in God's image, and after his likeness; two words to express the same thing. God's image upon man, consists, “1. In his nature, not that of his body, for God has not a body, but that of his soul. The soul is a spirit, an intelligent, immortal spirit, an active spirit, herein resembling God, the Father of spirits, and the soul of the world.”  (Wesley, John. The Torah: Explanatory Notes & Commentary on Genesis) Now it is true that our intellectual perception must be nourished for it to be useful but it is often an unfulfilled capacity that no other earthly creature possesses.

There will be an objection by some Christians that Christ is God and he walked among us as a corporeal being and as God is eternal so must Christ be eternal so we were formed in his ‘figure or shape’.  Surely Maimonides was familiar with the story of Christ but obviously he was not inclined to involve himself in such a ‘chicken or egg’ controversy for there is no way to resolve the issue.  Interestingly John Wesley, a major light in the Christian movement, also does not support this view.

Friedman tells us that the second Genesis creation story by a different author begins with chapter “2: 4 These are the records of the skies and the earth when they were created: In the day that YHWH God made earth and skies” (Friedman, Commentary on the Torah 2012)   In Genesis 1 we learn that God made the animals, birds and fish before he made humankind but in Genesis 2:19 “And YHWH God fashioned from the ground every animal of the field and every bird of the skies and brought it to the human to see what he would call it.” (Friedman, Commentary on the Torah 2012),   God makes man first.    As the authors of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 belonged to different tribes (Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? 1987, 2011) we can understand that they place different emphasises on the various aspects of the creation story.  Distance tends to bring to the fore tribal preferences for how a story is told.

As we have noted above Adam was placed in the garden in Eden and expected to care for it.  I imagine this would include picking up the fruit that had fallen to the ground to prevent it from being eaten by birds and animals.  It would not do to have animals and birds knowing good and bad or having the ability to live forever. 

“2: 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; 2: 17 but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.” (TANAKH 1985).

 In Adam and Eve’s defence, this wording seems to be more a ‘for your information’ type of direction rather than a harsh command.    I don’t think it would be too far-fetched to suspect that Adam and Eve were set up to fail.  I think we can safely assume that Eve was informed of the directive given to Adam by God.   I don’t think it was part of God’s plan that Adam would be a mere groundsman in the garden.     Prior to the eating of the forbidden fruit, they were a somewhat primitive couple.  They had an intellectual capacity but they were innocent; they had little learning and they were without guile.    It leads us to wonder why such a tree as the tree of knowledge of good and bad was in the garden in the first place.  It was the only tree they must not eat from.  Why did God put it there?   It wasn’t there by accident.  They could eat from the tree of life so living forever was not a big deal as long as they were ignorant of good and bad.

Much is made of the serpent as the evil culprit who was either Satan in disguise or was hovering over the serpent to ensure he beguiled Eve.  Friedman tells us something about this.  “3: 14. the snake. Just a snake, not the devil or Satan as later Christian interpretation pictured. As the curse that follows indicates, this story has to do with the fate of snakes, not with the cosmic role of a devil. There is no such concept in the Hebrew Bible.” (Friedman, Commentary on the Torah 2012).   Be that as it may, a knowledge of good and bad would allow someone to deduce that given there is a God who is good there probably is the opposite; a bad entity.  One identifies the other.

It is worth trying to imagine what their lives would have been like had Eve not been swayed by the serpent.  Was it part of God’s plan that they both lived happily in God’s garden, talking with and worshiping Him?  But then he expected them to be fruitful and multiply.  How were they expected to indulge in that activity?  By base animal instincts?  Would the children of their rutting be cast out of the garden when they were old enough to fend for themselves?  No, I think it is pretty clear that God intended that Adam and Eve would have to leave their special garden.  God was not surprised by their disobedience.   He knew they were destined to eat of the forbidden fruit.  Like all the rest of humanity to follow they had a fatal flaw; they were created with a propensity to sin.  When you are created with an inclination to sin you can bet your sweet bippie, that eventually, it will happen.  And history (yours and mine)  has shown it will happen many, many times. 

But more significantly, as a result of having eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, Adam and Eve had a prehension of sin.  They had the knowledge that they were susceptible to desire; the indulging in unspeakable deeds that could not be hidden from God.  This is where their shame comes from.  Knowing they were naked is the awareness that they are unable to hide their unworthiness; their baseness and ‘there, but for the grace of Jesus Christ, go you and I’.   It is their psychological nakedness that causes them to want to hide.  Who among us would be comfortable to have their private urges, desires and activities open to public scrutiny?

As innocents, Adam and Eve had the promise of immortality for the tree of life was planted in the center of the garden and they were not prevented from eating from it.  That is…until they failed to follow God’s command. 

“3: 22 And the LORD God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!” 3: 23 So the LORD God banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken. 3: 24 He drove the man out, and stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.” (TANAKH 1985)  

So there it is, we cannot know good and bad and be immortal at the same time.  It was not part of God’s plan.  There are many who take the Adam and Eve story as just another fiction epic in much the same vein as the Gilgamesh epic.  For Jews, it is a factual record marking the beginning of God’s nurturing of his special people for they can trace the line of the House of David back to Adam and Eve. 

For some Christians, it is the story of the ‘fall of man’ and how we have inherited Adam’s sinful ways.  But humanity is not sinful because of Adam, rather Adam was sinful because he was a member of humanity, a humanity God created.  I’m sure some Christians will protest: “Oh no, Adam and Eve were protected by a shroud of perfection.  God could not create sin!”  I think God would disagree. “Isa. 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness:  I make peace and create evil:  I the Lord do all these things.” (KJV)  I expect that some will point out that the Hebrew word that is translated as ‘evil’ may also be translated as adversity, affliction, calamity, distress or misery.  In any case, take your pick.  But remember there is nothing in this world that was not created by God and that includes sin.

The Genesis Adam and Eve story is a message from God and the message is: ‘Innocence is priceless.   We can never return to innocence once it has been lost.’   The question we must ask is why did God create us with this tragic flaw?  Why were we created with a surety that we will transgress God’s law?   Let us turn the question around.  What would the world be like if we were not created with a propensity to sin?  Would innocence be replaced by ignorance?  Imagine, if you can, a world in which there is no commandment against transgressing God’s law; there is no sin but death is still a lottery that we all must succumb to.  How different would that world be from the world today?  For many there would be no difference for this group chooses to ignore or are determined not to recognize that there is a God whose laws may be transgressed.  Also, many of those who do confess a somewhat superstitious belief in God feel little need to confirm their conviction.   A photograph of the business of living in such a world would be unrecognizable from a photograph of the world today.  So it would seem that a propensity to sin; the inclination to transgress God’s law has not changed the world.  What has changed is what some persons believe about their relationship to God and this is why we were created with a propensity to sin.  Recognition of our sin promotes a relationship with God.  This recognition entails the understanding that our sin must be absolved if we wish to share the joy God offers us.

For Adam and Eve, this was certainly the case for though they were driven from their beautiful garden they recognized they needed to maintain their relationship with God.  Instructed by their parents, both Cain and Able constructed altars to give offerings to God.  It was always God’s plan that He would have a relationship, as love, with his people.  We were created as vessels for God’s spirit.  We are expected to recognize that God is all there is.  As pain reminds us to attend to our physical self, sin reminds us to attend to God’s spirit within us.  We ignore both at our peril.  God has something to give us; the joy of an everlasting life. Not just a prosaic life but a life of constant joy.  God wants us to come to Him through worship knowing we are cracked vessels in need of repair.  As Eugene O’Neil wrote ‘Man is born broken; he lives by mending and the grace of God is glue.’ (O’Neil, E., The Great God Brown)

While unpacking the Adam and Eve story is relatively straight forward, the Cain, Able and Seth adventures tend to be somewhat enigmatic.  Cain is notorious for having killed Able and God serves up his punishment.

“4: 12.  If you till the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a ceaseless wanderer on earth. 4:13. Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is too great to bear!  4: 14 Since You have banished me this day from the soil, and I must avoid Your presence and become a restless wanderer on earth —anyone who meets me may kill me!” (The Torah: The Five Books of Moses, the New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text )

Cain obviously believes his siblings or their offspring will eventually seek revenge for the murder of his brother and perhaps with good reason.  Maimonides speaks about Adam’s other children and holds that 

“With reference to Seth who had been instructed, enlightened and brought to human perfection, it could rightly be said, “he (Adam) begat a son in his likeness, in his form  Those sons of Adam who were born before that time were not human in the true sense of the word, they had not “the form of man.”.”(Maimonides, Moses. Guide for the Perplexed - Enhanced Version).                                                                                                                  

They were wicked and evil and up to no good.  God recognizes the possibility that Cain may be killed for he sets a mark on Cain to warn off those who feel so inclined.  Cain’s plea and God’s response seems to accept that murder, or at the very least, killing will become part of the status quo for this new society.  Jesus Christ understood this.

“That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; from the blood of Able unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation.” (Luke 11:50 – 51 KJV)

Christ was very much aware that ancient Hebrews heard the Adam and Eve/Cain and Able story as a factual account of their heritage.  Those who have concluded it to be a fable fail to recognize that “this ancient culture was far different from our own. They had different values and different ways of thinking about themselves in relation to the world and the people around them.” (Walton, John H.; Hill, Andrew E., Old Testament Today, 2nd Edition) 

We have no information as to how long Cain wandered the earth but we are told he took a wife which we presume to be his sister; a pragmatic                            solution to living in a land with a sparse Stone Age population. 

The daughters of Adam and Eve are not recorded though they must have existed else population growth would have been somewhat stunted.  While Christian writers may object, it does seem that other humans or quasi-humans may have coexisted with Adam and Eve and Cain and Able.  Cain wandered about in a land called Nod which means the ‘Place of Wandering’. (Kaiser Jr., Walter C.; Garrett, Duane. NIV Archaeological Study Bible).  To my mind, the Cormon painting above, which is in the Musée d'Orsay, most successfully captures Cain’s cursed existence. 

Eventually, Cain started to build a city but as a result of God’s curse, he could only work on it for short periods at a time before he was forced to wander again.   He is said to have called his city Enoch after his son.   Some scholars conclude that there were three stories; Cain the murderer, Cain the wanderer and Cain the builder that were pieced together which contributes more confusion. (International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia)  Knowing that doesn’t seem to help much.

The longevity of the characters in this narrative would seem to be necessary to provide for the numbers of offspring needed to people this young world.   Adam’s later son, Seth; created in his father’s likeness was deemed worthy to sow the genes of God’s special people.  The life and generations of Seth are juxtaposed to the life and generations of Cain whose once prolific seed dies out with Tubal-Cain at the beginning of Bronze Age.  Seth’s seed, on the other hand, leads all the way to Noah.  But again I race ahead.  It seems that not all of Adam’s offspring were worthy creatures. Maimonides tells us “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat (va-yoled) a son in his own likeness, in his form” (Gen. v. 3). As regards the words, “the form of Adam, and his likeness,” we have already stated (ch. i.) their meaning. Those sons of Adam who were born before that time were not human in the true sense of the word, they had not “the form of man.” With reference to Seth who had been instructed, enlightened and brought to human perfection, it could rightly be said, “he (Adam) begat a son in his likeness, in his form.” (Maimonides, Moses. Guide for the Perplexed - Enhanced Version).

So we are given to understand there are two classes of humans on earth at this time.  First Adam then Seth and later his son Enosh and his select offspring who made up an elite class and then Adam’s previous offspring and the sons and daughters of the select who were corrupt physically and spiritually and were a lower class.  The former being a minority and the latter being in the majority and referred to as the ‘sons of man’.  The enlightened sought to teach the unenlightened and were called ‘the judges’ or ‘the rulers’ and sometimes ‘the Sons of God’.  As Adam was described as the Son of God so too were his enlightened sons and their select offspring recorded below.

5: 4. After the birth of Seth, Adam lived 800 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 5. All the days that Adam lived came to 930 years; then he died. 5: 6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he begot Enosh. 5: 7. After the birth of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 8. All the days of Seth came to 912 years; then he died. 5: 9. When Enosh had lived 90 years, he begot Kenan. 5: 10. After the birth of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 11. All the days of Enosh came to 905 years; then he died. 5: 12.  When Kenan had lived 70 years, he begot Mahalalel. 5: 13. After the birth of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 14. All the days of Kenan came to 910 years; then he died. 5: 15. When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he begot Jared. 5: 16. After the birth of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 17.  All the days of Mahalalel came to 895 years; then he died. 5: 18. When Jared had lived 162 years, he begot Enoch. 5: 19. After the birth of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 20. All the days of Jared came to 962 years; then he died. 5: 21. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he begot Methuselah. 5: 22. After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years; and he begot sons and daughters. 5: 23. All the days of Enoch came to 365 years. 5: 24. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him. 5: 25. When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he begot Lamech. 5: 26. After the birth of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 27. All the days of Methuselah came to 969 years; then he died. 5: 28. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he begot a son. 5:29. And he named him Noah, saying, “This one will provide us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the very soil which the LORD placed under a curse.” 5: 30. After the birth of Noah, Lamech lived 595 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 30. All the days of Lamech came to 777 years; then he died. 5: 32. When Noah had lived 500 years, Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Ja-pheth. (TANAKH 1985)

A little over one thousand years separate the birth of Seth from the birth of Noah.  In the meantime hundreds perhaps thousands of offspring were born to Cain’s offspring and to the offspring of the elect.  It wasn’t the best of worlds in which to live and the story is interrupted by an unusual digression.

6: 1. When men began to increase on earth and daughters were born to them, 6: 2 the divine beings saw how beautiful the daughters of men were and took wives from among those that pleased them.—6: 3. The LORD said, “My breath shall not abide in man forever, since he too is flesh; let the days allowed him be one hundred and twenty years.”— 6: 4 It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth— when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. (TANAKH 1985)

There is considerable scholarly debate concerning the phrase ‘divine beings’.  Christians tend to translate the phrase into English as the ‘Sons of God’.  Dr. Gleason Archer Jr. provides a clear thought on the issue:  “The term “sons of God” is used in the Old Testament of either angels or men who are true believers, committed to the service of God.  The reasons for understanding Genesis 6: 2 as referring to members of the covenant family, descendants of the line of Seth, are quite compelling. Scripture clearly teaches that angels are spirits, “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Heb. 1. T4, NIV). While they may on occasion appear in bodily form in the semblance of men, they have no physical bodies and are therefore utterly incapable of carnal relations with women. The rabbinic speculation that angels are referred to in Genesis 6: 2 is a curious intrusion of pagan superstition that has no basis at all in the rest of Scripture”. (Archer Jr., Gleason L. New International Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties)

Nevertheless, these divine beings are responsible for incurring God’s wrath.  The 13^th Century scholar Nachmanides clarifies our understanding of the reasons for God’s ire:  “After Scripture mentioned Noah and his sons, and wanted to begin with relating the story of the Flood, it said that as soon as the sons of man began to increase they began to sin.  They persisted in their sins for many days and years, until Noah was four hundred and eighty years old, at which time the Holy One, Blessed is He, decreed upon them that His “spirit would not reside evermore within them.”  Scripture is telling us that it was the judges – whose responsibility it was to administer justice – whose sons were committing injustice publicly and no one could stop them.” (Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah)

It was ‘injustice’ and not sexual immorality that was the issue.  The sons of the judges were abducting women against their will.  Nachmanides continues his reasoning:

“God gave Noah the reason for the destruction of the earth as ‘injustice’, and did not mention the other sin of “corrupting of ways” because injustice is a known and public sin whereas sexual immorality is a private sin.  The reason why this sin sealed their fate over all others is that it is a law that is intuitively understood and the people had no need for a prophet to warn them about it unlike the sin of sexual immorality which people could conceivably rationalize.” (Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah)

Women were taken against their will and raped.  We need not believe in God to recognize that this was an injustice.  All thoughtful persons can recognize just and unjust behaviour.  But this story digresses and creates an enigma that has caused Jewish scholars from many different ages to attempt to resolve the dilemma with divergent rationalizations.

6: 4 It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth— when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. (TANAKH 1985)

This is tricky, the author talks about what is and what will be the case.  If these giants were the product of the sons of the rulers or the rulers themselves (divine beings) how do they re-materialize after the flood?   Does not the flood wipe out everyone but Noah and his family?  We do know they re-materialize for we are told in Numbers: 

13: 32 Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size; 13:33 we saw the Nephilim there— the Anakites are part of the Nephilim— and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” (TANAKH 1985)

It may well be that Moses’ fearful scouts had a penchant for hyperbole and just didn’t want to confront the Anakites but Caleb had no such fear.  The average height of people during this period was five feet three inches(160cm).  Roman soldiers were required to be a minimum height of five feet five inches (165cm) and the average height of a Roman soldier was five feet seven inches (170cm).  The bones of a gladiator who stood a whopping five feet ten inches (178cm) were uncovered by the Yorkshire Museum.  (Andrew Morrison Yorkshire Museum)  Giants may well be just very tall people.  Today it is not unusual to see a very tall basketball player reaching the height of seven feet six inches (230cm).  It is not hard to imagine very tall persons born to much shorter parents.  Such aberrations exist today and no doubt existed among ancient peoples.  But I digress.  Let’s return to the main game, God is going to destroy the earth and everything in it. 

Prominent, professional atheists take great pleasure in pointing out that the God of the Old Testament is undoubtedly a psychopathic mass murderer.  Without hesitation, He wipes out thousands of people merely because they ignored Him.  God is supposed to be love, what kind of God can this one be? 

6: 5 HASHEM saw that the wickedness of Man was great upon the earth, and that every product of the thoughts of his heart was but evil always. 6: 6 And HASHEM reconsidered having made Man on earth, and He had heartfelt sadness.  6: 7 And HASHEM said, “I will blot out Man whom I created from the face of the earth – from man to animal, to creeping things, and to birds of the sky; for I have reconsidered My having made them.” 6: 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of HASHEM. (Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah, The ArtScroll Series)

Wickedness was a way of life for all but Noah who was blameless.  Noah walked with God, meaning that he always followed the path of God.  He was a prophet who received instruction directly from God.  We must remember that Noah was not a Jew and the people who populated the earth were not Jews; there was no social structure, culture or set of beliefs that held them together.  They were a wild ungoverned group and they did nothing to redeem themselves.

6: 11. Now the earth had become corrupt before God, and the earth had become filled with injustice. 6: 12.  And God saw the earth and beheld it was corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.  6: 13. God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with injustice through them; and behold, I am about to destroy them from the earth. (Torah, Nachmanides, Commentary)

Imagine trying to survive in a climate of violence without a civil structure, a ruler or laws; where tribes fought each other and life held no significance, and people didn’t even try to be kind or generous to one another.  The rule was survival of the cruelest, take what you want and kill those who tried to usurp your role.  There was no sense that the future mattered.  Without correction, humankind is the most dangerous and most selfish of animals.  We must ask: Who was ultimately responsible for such a state of affairs?  Though Noah was a prophet he was not able to change the behaviour of the people.  Only he and his family were innocent in the eyes of God.  Noah was the keeper of a story; a story of his God and his ancestors which he passed on to his children.

It is significant that God did not wipe out everybody; He spared Noah and his family.  Not a character trait of a psychopathic mass murderer. More to the point we really cannot imagine God; whatever you imagine is wrong.  God cannot be grasped by analogy for there is nothing like, similar to or encompassing of His vastness; there is no existence; no space and no time outside of God.  He is eternal.  He is the single entity from which the universe and all other things, matter and life forms derive.   Describing God as a psychopathic mass murderer is anthropomorphizing Him; describing Him as if he were human and suggesting He is subject to the inferior logic that governs humanity.  God is logic; He cannot do anything that is not logical.  To love all is the logical consequence of his being.  However articulate and erudite professional atheists may be they tend to suffer from a feeble mindlyness. 

The wicked lived as if there was no tomorrow which in itself provides the grounds for their demise.  A mere 1600 years had passed since the making of Adam; not enough time for God to blink.  The creatures He seeded were selfish, cruel and murderous lacking any sense of love.  They did not recognize Noah as a prophet and they were not interested in what he told them. They were the weeds of humanity corrupting the growth of innocence and goodness and they had to be removed to prevent them from polluting the fertile earth.

                                               # # #

                                       References

Andrew Morrison Yorkshire Museum, Daily Mail (Australia)  Saturday, Mar 18th 2017

Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah, The ArtScroll Series, 2010, Mesorah Publications Ltd. Brooklyn, NY

Archer Jr., Gleason L.. New International Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties (Zondervan's Understand the Bible Reference Series) (Kindle Locations 1891-1896). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

(Inc., Jewish Publication Society. JPS TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (blue): The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text. The Jewish Publication Society. Kindle Edition.)

Wesley, John. The Torah: Explanatory Notes & Commentary on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy (Kindle Locations 892-900). Hargreaves Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Various. International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia E4 Group. Kindle Edition.

Kaiser Jr., Walter C.; Garrett, Duane. NIV Archaeological Study Bible: An Illustrated Walk Through Biblical History and Culture (Kindle Locations 1917-1918). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Walton, John H.; Hill, Andrew E.; Old Testament Today, 2nd Edition: A Journey from Ancient Context to Contemporary Relevance. Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Maimonides, Moses. Guide for the Perplexed - Enhanced Version (p. 1). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 1904 Kindle Edition.

Friedman, Richard Elliott. Commentary on the Torah (Kindle Locations 6634-6636). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition

Friedman, Richard Elliott. Who Wrote the Bible? 1987, 2011 (Kindle Location 6). Kindle Edition. 

Inc. Jewish Publication Society. The Torah: The Five Books of Moses, the New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Kindle Locations 295-296). The Jewish Publication Society. Kindle Edition.