I find myself drawn to the final form of the flood story in Genesis as I begin my first in depth exegetical writing. At first glance the story seems oddly laid out with its change in flow from God to Lord, concrete to abstract, and from God’s personal relationship to Noah to a more distant, omnipotent one. I began to separate the verses based on these observations by notating a “P” for Priestly source or a “J” for Yahwist source. Afterward, I compared my segregated pieces of the story to that of Richard Nysse’ source analysis. I found my analysis to be overwhelmingly similar to Nysse’s.
The change in name from God to Lord can be found throughout the flood story. In some cases the changes had great length from one another while others, like in 7:16, the switch can within the same verse. While I can appreciate the changes as originating from different source traditions, for me the name changes in and of themselves were a moot point. The verses that were framed by the subtle name changes, on the other hand, told a great deal more about their originating sources.…show more content… For me, the Priestly creation homily showed God as having very concrete ideas that fit the entire set of creation elements into tight, perfect boxes of existence. The preciseness of the Priestly flood story mimics that behavior by stating the exact measurements of the Ark, the two by two of animals with no room for excess passengers, and every kind of food needed for consumption of all animals and humans alike, the exact year, month, and day of Noah’s life for each detail of the flood, and the exact 150 days the Ark was floating on the