All that is
idyllic and naive is consistently stripped off the legend as far
as possible. As the duration of the flood is advanced from forty
days (JE) to a whole year, its area also is immeasurably
increased. The Priestly Code states with particular emphasis that
it was quite universal, and went over the tops of the highest
mountains; indeed it is compelled to take this view by its
assumption that the human race was diffused from the first over
the whole earth. Such traits as the missions of the birds and the
broken-off olive-leaf are passed over: poetic legend is smoothed
down into historic prose. But the value and the charm of the story
depend on such little traits as these; they are not mere
incidents, to poetry they are the most important thing of all.
These are the features which are found just in the same way
in the Babylonian story of the flood; and if the Jehovist has a
much greater affinity with the Babylonian story than the Priestly
Code, that shows it to have preserved more faithfully the international
character of those early legends. This appears most plainly in
his accounting for the flood by the confounding of the boundaries
between spirit and flesh, and the intercourse of the sons of God
and the daughters of men: the Jehovist here gives us a piece, but
little adulterated, of mythical heathenism--a thing quite
inconceivable in Q.
Pages:
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701