Is It Over?

A world so mad and dark as to break its Maker's heart. One man swept off his feet in the dance of grace and justice. An ark built big and slow, a warning falling on the world's deaf ears, a zoo zooming to the depths of the storehouse. Drip. Drop. Liquid violence surging from every direction, the earth's features erased and buried, creation crumbling to corruption. Creation is, as it were, undone, unmade. That's where we left Noah, his seven relatives, and his animal wards, adrift upon “the great mass of limitless waters..., only death on all sides.”¹ Day after day the rains fell. The ark was the lone bastion of cosmos in the chaos, surrounded by the open grave of all creation, wrapped up in twilight and gloom, imprisoned with a “turbulent and restless confinement.”²

By day thirty-nine of the downpour, I wonder if Noah was keeping both his count and his grip. I wonder if he doubted the rains would ever stop or that God was still in control. I wonder if he wondered if the ark was just a tomb and he a walking dead man, “like those whom you remember no more, for they were cut off from your hand” (Psalm 88:5). But then, after the fortieth night of rain, “God remembered Noah and all the living things and all the animals that were with him in the ark” (Genesis 8:1). This right here is “the turning point in the narrative,” the hinge on which it all turns.³ It's not that God had ever lost track of Noah. But God's attention now visibly centers on Noah for action, for mercy, for the salvation of this compendium of critters and kin.

Therefore, because God remembered them, “the fountains of the deep and the sluice-gates of the heavens were closed, and the rain from the heavens was restrained” (Genesis 8:2). All the sources of water's input into the world are here cut off by God's command. From inside the ark, Noah no longer hears the hammering overhead. He may not see, but his ears tell him the storm's run its course. He knows God has closed the abyss and sky, and it can only mean he's not forgotten, he's not forsaken, but that God remembers him after all!⁴ What's more, “God made a wind pass over the earth” so that “the waters subsided” (Genesis 8:1), and “the waters receded from the earth, retreating; and the waters decreased at the end of 150 days” (Genesis 8:2-3), “and the waters came to be retreating until the tenth month” (Genesis 8:5). Four verbs for the water ratchet up the tension, each new verb pushing off hope further from the one before it.⁵ If the description seems tedious, well, it's meant to.

The flood rewound the Bible back to its second verse, remember, when “darkness was over the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). But now God remembers Noah, and in order to redeem his world by and from the waters, he flips the switch, “puts the flood process into reverse,” and so creation begins all over again.⁶ In Genesis 1, it began with “the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2), and since in Hebrew 'spirit' equals 'wind,' “God made a wind” – or, his Spirit' – “pass over the earth” (Genesis 8:1). Under the outward appearance of a stiff wind, “the flood was made to subside by the invisible power of the Divine Spirit,”⁷ “God's life-bringer himself,”⁸ taming the great waters. As God separated light from darkness (Genesis 1:4), so now again God restores day and night by clearing away the clouds (Genesis 8:2). As God separated waters below from waters above (Genesis 1:7), so now God shuts up the deep below and the sky above (Genesis 8:2).

The next step in the creation week is where the waters are gathered, withdrawn, to “let the dry land appear” (Genesis 1:9). That's the bit that's taking so long to recapitulate. We're waiting, Noah is waiting, for the land to appear and be dry, because only then can we see plants cover the land, and animal life and human life get out on the land. Noah is waiting patiently as he can for God to remake the world in this story of new creation, this slow-mo preview of Easter morning.⁹ He drifts. He waits. And this day is taking dozens and dozens of days.

Until one day, Noah feels the drifting stop, maybe with a bump. The ark's settled ever-so-gently onto something beneath it. Sloshing has become stability.¹⁰ “The ark rested” (Genesis 8:4). Which is funny, because that's what Noah's name means: 'rest.' The ark has just 'noahed' on the mountains.¹¹ Noah's hunted his namesake all his life, and never found it until now, this rest. It's a day certainly worth celebrating, “in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month” (Genesis 8:4), a time Israel will later celebrate as the Feast of Booths commemorating God's providential care for them in the perilous wilderness (Leviticus 23:34).¹²

In one pagan tradition, the boat landed on Mount Nimush,¹³ an impressive mountain in northeast Iraq so close to the Iranian border,¹⁴ and in biblical times nicely within reach of the Assyrians.¹⁵ But we've also found an ancient Babylonian map of the world, showing known reality surrounded by an ocean beyond which were eight distant mountains, “the furthest outposts of human imagination,” and only in recent years have scholars realized that the map claims the ark is on one of those mountains (not Mt. Nimush!), across the waters from a region it calls 'Urashtu.'¹⁶ That's how Babylonians spelled 'Urartu,' a region in the Armenian highlands bridging eastern Turkey and northwest Iran.¹⁷ And in Hebrew, they pronounced that name as 'Ararat.' Genesis agrees, at least in part, with that old Babylonian map: Noah's “ark rested... on the mountains of Ararat” (Genesis 8:4).

Some Jews later took 'Ararat' as the name of a particular mountain “on the dark mainland of Phrygia.”¹⁸ A different Jewish tradition named the mountain 'Lubar,'¹⁹ from an Akkadian word meaning 'ancient' or 'eastern.'²⁰ And still another tradition – both Jewish and Babylonian – clarified that the ark landed in the Qardu range,²¹ today called Mount Judi, in southeast Turkey just above the Syrian border.²² In the centuries before Jesus was born, we hear claims that there “a portion of the vessel still survives,”²³ that “relics of the timber were for long preserved,”²⁴ that people “carry off portions of the bitumen” to “use as talismans.”²⁵ Anyway, wherever exactly the ark is supposed to have ended up, I don't know. But if the ark started anywhere close to where Atrahasis' boat did in some stories, then the ark has drifted over four hundred miles from the ruins of all Noah called home. But Noah has no way of knowing that yet; he can only hope he's where God wants him to be.²⁶

In the pagan stories, there's a symmetry: the rain lasts seven days, the boat lands, then Atrahasis waits seven days before what comes next.²⁷ Genesis doesn't land the ark immediately, but it does want some symmetry, so after the ark rests, and then – over two more uneventful months later – the other mountaintops poke up into visibility (Genesis 8:4-5), then Noah begins to count down the same number of days that the storm of judgment lasted. But you have to figure Noah and his family were getting pretty antsy. With judgment accomplished, the water doesn't seem to be... doing... anything; what they're enduring, not even moving any more, feels pointless now, unproductive, “anticlimactic and frustrating.”²⁸ And even if Noah's mastered the art of patience in “putting up with confinement in the ark through faith in God,”²⁹ have his sons, his daughters-in-law, his wife? They expect Noah to have all the answers, as the man who heard God's saving message, as their only hotline to heaven. And yet, try as he might, Noah can come up with nothing but a dial-tone. For “from the day when Noah entered the ark, nothing was said to him, nothing was revealed to him, and he saw no ray of grace shining, but he clung only to the promise he had received.”³⁰ And so day by day, as his family complains, as the kids grumble, as the animals moan and groan, as all eyes and ears are on him, Noah has only the reassurance of his own faith and his own hope to offer them. It must feel pretty thin assurance indeed.

In the pagan stories, no sooner have the rains stopped than a god starts yapping, telling Atrahasis to chop an opening in the roof.³¹ So that's just what Atrahasis does: “I heeded the words of Ea, my great lord and advisor: I took a wooden spade and a copper axe, I made a window at the top above me,”³² just like in the Sumerian story “Ziusudra then drilled an opening in the big boat.”³³ In another version, “I opened an air vent, and the sunshine fell on my cheek; I fell to my knees and sat weeping, the tears streaming down my cheek.”³⁴ And much the same, “at the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made” (Genesis 8:6). But the order is opposite. In the pagan story, first Atrahasis opens the vent, then Atrahasis sees other mountains, and only then does Atrahasis' boat land on one of them.³⁵ In Genesis, first Noah's ark rests on one mountain, then mountaintops become visible, and only at the end does Noah open the window. Pagans could credit Atrahasis' crew with steering and rowing for land, but Noah couldn't take credit for reaching land; he couldn't even see it.

But now, with the opening of the window, it's possible for Noah to look out and see the world. What must the stars look like at night through Noah's window, with the clouds cleared away and not an ounce of light pollution on the earth? By them, maybe Noah can calculate how far he's gone now, and where he might be.³⁶ And by day Noah's long haul of faith meets that first glimmer of sight, even from afar, like Moses sighting the promised land from Pisgah (Deuteronomy 34:1-3). I wonder if, like his pagan doppelgänger Atrahasis, Noah knelt and wept at the sight. By one ancient Jewish calculation, Noah opened his window on the tenth day of the eleventh month, “the first day of the week” – a Sunday, fitting for faith becoming sight.³⁷ But where Moses also heard the LORD, Noah hears only wind, disappointingly discerning no divine whisper.³⁸

The prophet needs a prophet of his own, a messenger from the skies. And as he finds no angels astride the ocean, he'll have to scheme something a smidge more scientific.³⁹ He proposes to view vicariously through feathered friends, “extending his sense of the world” to see and know more than he could unaided.⁴⁰ It was common practice in olden days for sailors to use birds to help them “judge the nearness and direction of land.”⁴¹ So it's naturally part of the pagan flood stories, too. In one, Atrahasis explains, “I released a dove, strong of wings. She went forth and came back, exhausted her wings. I did this again and released a crane.”⁴² But there the text breaks off, so we don't fully know what happened next. In another version, though, he says that “when the seventh day arrived, I brought out a dove, releasing it. Off went the dove, and no resting place appeared to it, and it turned back to me. I brought out a swallow, releasing it. Off went the swallow, and no resting place appeared to it, and it turned back to me. I brought out a raven, releasing it. Off went my raven, and noticed the recession of the water. It was gobbling, hopping, jigging; it did not return to me.”⁴³

Like those stories, Genesis tells of Noah sending out birds, but “the details... differ entirely.”⁴⁴ In all the pagan stories, the dove is the consistent opening move, the pawn with no hope of reaching the other side of the board; and in at least the second pagan story, the raven is the ultimate hero, the beloved bird who heralds hope. The Bible puts things the exact other way around. The raven is a ritually unclean bird (Leviticus 11:15), a satisfied denizen of fallen cities (Isaiah 34:11). It's better suited for the first test, not the last.

So at the end of the forty days, Noah “sent forth a raven” (Genesis 8:7). Ravens have an impressive sense of smell, by bird standards, and had a reputation for being gifted in communication.⁴⁵ They're one of the smartest birds out there, full of savvy and spunk.⁴⁶ But they're highly opportunistic scavengers quite happy to eat carrion.⁴⁷ So perhaps “the raven was able to land on a cadaver,”⁴⁸ feasting merrily on the fruits of God's judgment. Because it could adapt so well to the flooded world, “as an intelligence agent for Noah's needs, the raven was limited.”⁴⁹ It “separated itself from the communion of the ark before time,”⁵⁰ “going out and returning until the waters were dried up from the earth” (Genesis 8:7). Forsaking the shelter and its own mate still housed therein, the raven “rejoiced in the open sky and now paid no attention to Noah,”⁵¹ despite owing its very life to Noah's hospitality. He can watch its aerial acrobatics day after day, but since ravens were back then considered “omens of rain” or even “portents of death and disaster,” its obnoxious caw might feel foreboding.⁵²

And so, after watching the raven, Noah made his next move: “He sent forth a dove from him” (Genesis 8:8). Unlike the raven, the dove is a ritually clean bird (Leviticus 1:14), “a tame yet friendly bird characterized by great gentleness.”⁵³ It's a bird beautiful in Israelite eyes (Song of Songs 1:15), very tender and sensitive, famed for its soulful moaning (Nahum 2:7). Jesus uses the dove to illustrate simplicity and purity (Matthew 10:16), so no wonder one early Christian described Noah's dove as “a sign of pure life.”⁵⁴ From here on out, that's Noah's bird, and he sends it out – according to one Jewish retelling – always on a Sunday each time.⁵⁵ In sending the dove, Noah hopes “to see if the waters had lightened from the face of the ground” (Genesis 8:8), “that he might know in his heart whether firm land had yet appeared.”⁵⁶

By this point, the mountain peaks might have been visible, but they probably remained “covered by a muddy slime; hence the dove was neither able to perch anywhere nor successful in finding food to its liking.”⁵⁷ “The dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot” (Genesis 8:9). The Hebrew word for 'resting place' is just one letter tacked on the front of Noah's own name. Out in the floody, muddy world, the dove – unlike the ark – finds no 'manoah.'⁵⁸ And so she flies back up to the man Noah she knows, all the way up “to the ark” (Genesis 8:9).

One late pagan version agrees, with him sending out birds who “found neither food nor a place to rest, and they returned to the ship.”⁵⁹ In response, Noah “sent out his hand, and he took her” (Genesis 8:9). But where Adam and Eve sent out their hands and took one of God's creatures by stealing, Noah sends out his hand and takes one of God's creatures for sanctuary, an act of kindness and protection, with the dove – as one poet put it – “sinking weary and hungry into the holy man's hands.”⁶⁰ It's a tender moment of gentleness and care on Noah's part, cradling the exhausted bird; so “he brought her to himself into the ark” (Genesis 8:9).

After that, what's Noah to do? “He waited another seven days,” counting down before rechecking his results, and then “he again sent forth the dove out of the ark” (Genesis 8:10), “so that he might know if the great waters had ceased.”⁶¹ All day long, Noah wonders what the results of this new experiment will be. Will it be a mere repeat of last week? Will it be another uninspiring Sunday? “The dove came to him in the evening,” same as before. But “behold!” What's that dove got? In one pagan version, the birds here “returned with claws covered with mud,”⁶² but in Genesis the focus is on “an olive leaf... in her mouth!” (Genesis 8:11). It clearly isn't a loose twig she found floating on the water; it was “freshly plucked,” had been photosynthesizing just this morning.⁶³ Where the Bible gives us Noah's point of view, that medieval poet tried following the dove, how “she flew widely until, exulting in freedom, she found a fair resting place and then stepped with her feet on a branch; she rejoiced contented... She shook her feathers, went flying back again with her offering, brought the sailor a single twig of an olive tree, a green shoot.”⁶⁴ Like Joshua and Caleb marching home to Moses after forty days with a branch of grapes from the promised land (Numbers 13:23), so does the dove proudly present Noah with this greenery from the promised world,⁶⁵ “a sign of her great message.”⁶⁶

Unlike the pagan tales where it's the bird who 'sees' and knows the world's situation, here it's Noah who recognizes and interprets the dove's evidence and discerns the hand of God in it all.⁶⁷ Either this leaf came from a tree that grew miraculously during the flood itself, or else this was from the top branch of a tree that survived the flood and was flourishing again.⁶⁸ Olive trees don't really grow at altitudes above four thousand feet, so this living leaf is concrete evidence in Noah's own hand that “the waters had lightened from the earth” (Genesis 8:11), stranding the ark several thousand feet high and dry while life returns to the lower slopes.

Does that mean Noah can go out for his morning jog the next day? Not exactly; it's still quite the mudball. So Noah “waited for another seven days” (Genesis 8:12), to what some Jews calculated as “the first day of the twelfth month, on the first day of the week.”⁶⁹ Once Sunday morning rolled 'round, Noah “sent forth the dove” for the third time (Genesis 8:12). It flew off, silhouetted against the eastern sky. All through the day, Noah waited and wondered in anxious anticipation. If last Sunday the first signs of greenery, what now? Was their ordeal reaching its end? Could Noah be set free from his kids asking impatiently, “Is it over? Is it over?”

Hours went by, and the sun fell low toward the western horizon; I wonder if Noah had an angle that let him see the sunset. As daylight dwindled and died, there were no pecks at the window, no fluttering of feathers. Where was the dove? Elsewhere. Just as the pagan birds sent out the third time “did not return to the ship,”⁷⁰ so in Genesis the dove “did not again return to him any more” (Genesis 8:12). As the poet pictured it, “she found land, green groves; not gladly would she ever again show herself under the dark deck in the planked fortress when she had no need.”⁷¹ The dove had found a world that suited her, one growing soon suitable for all.

And, in time, “the waters were dried from off the earth.” The Bible tells us it was then “the six hundred and first year, at the head, on the first of the month” – in other words, by Noah's calendar, this was New Year's Day.⁷² And on that holiday, by his own reasoned choice, “Noah removed the covering from the ark” (Genesis 8:13). He unveils it, exposes it, opens it up in a new way to the world – a daring risk of vulnerability. A wave of fresh morning air blasts away the staleness, hitting Noah's lungs like electricity to an arrested heart. Sunlight flooded in, blazing through the formerly dim interior. Blinking and adjusting, Noah now has a 360-degree view for the first time. So “he looked, and behold! the face of the ground was dry!” (Genesis 8:13). The ground looks up at Noah, blinking back at him. It's been liberated. “The purification of the whole world had been achieved.”⁷³ This New Year's Day was “the new birthday of the world, reborn out of the waters of chaos.”⁷⁴

What Noah understood was that “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). The rains had their time and their season. And so did the abatement of the waters – a long season, distressingly long. Just because God can create a world lickety-split, doesn't mean he'll redeem us on our schedule. The next time and season in God's plan may seem like it'll never arrive. The wait for salvation can be frustrating, boring, claustrophobia-inducing; it may feel anticlimactic and pointless and wasteful. But “the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness” (2 Peter 3:9). There is – God has promised – a time also for the fountains to seal up, the sluice-gates to slam shut, the relieving breeze to blow, the land to dry off. Salvation does come. God does remember. And the long wait through stagnating waters is not wasteful. “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:6). As one old saint said, “when God lets us endure some trial, he allows it to continue for as long as he knows we can endure it, so that he may grant us reward commensurate with our fortitude and give evidence of his characteristic love.”⁷⁵ “The LORD has remembered us; he will bless us” (Psalm 115:12).

To “fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15), our Lord followed his ancestor Noah to the waters of baptism. “And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open, and the Spirit descending on him like a dove” (Mark 1:10). This is one of the rare details mentioned in all four Gospels (Luke 3:22; Matthew 3:16; John 1:32). All four link the Holy Spirit at Jesus' baptism to the dove returning to rest on Noah with an olive branch in its mouth.⁷⁶ The Holy Spirit begins to rest on Jesus and never budges again: “it remained on him” (John 1:32), all the way to the cross and beyond.

So, from the early days through the Middle Ages, Christians always hunted a deeper meaning in the sequence of Noah's birds, even if we couldn't always agree on the details. For one great bishop of old, the raven symbolized sin, “whatever is cloudy and unclean and heedless,” being chased out of the believer's soul.⁷⁷ The dove first returns quickly because virtue is too pure to be at rest amid “the floods of worldly desires.”⁷⁸ The dove second is sent out to bring the olive branch as “a mark of reform.”⁷⁹ The dove is third sent out for good because a wise person offers his goodness as a gift to the whole world, “a common good.”⁸⁰

To another ancient teacher, the sequence of birds presents a portrait of spiritual growth: while the raven is an unfaithful disciple who meets temptation unsuccessfully and is lost to sin,⁸¹ the dove is a faithful disciple who, sent out first as an immature believer, rushes back to his teacher for “help and assistance,” as from Noah's hand; sent out second as a more mature disciple, he comes back with the fruit of good works to show, like the olive branch; and sent out third in full maturity, he's become so “independent of a teacher” that he no longer needs to return again.⁸² Perhaps such a disciple is ready to be a teacher, to make disciples (cf. Hebrews 5:12).

Others understood the birds as pictures of salvation history. For Martin Luther, the raven is Moses, sent out by God to convict consciences and correct conduct, but unable by his Law (or any morality or reason) to give life.⁸³ The first dove is then the prophets, sent out to announce in advance the hope of the gospel; they're justified by faith, even if they can't yet rest in it.⁸⁴ The second dove is the ministry from the apostles to now, sent out to preach the gospel in the present tense, with mouths full of olive branches of mercy, grace, and peace.⁸⁵ And the third dove is what we're waiting for, the coming flight “into another life” when words yield to truth itself.⁸⁶

For another medieval preacher, the raven is like those who rejected Christ when he came, left behind to wander the world as fleshly people, still “gaping at the carcasses of the old” ways; the first dove shows the apostles after Easter, given the Holy Spirit's power to forgive sins (and in the Christian life, this corresponds to turning through forgiveness from the impurity of ravens to the purity of doves); but whereas before Pentecost the apostles were afraid and sheltering, at Pentecost they're filled with the Spirit, sent out to boldly preach the gospel of peace to all nations and bring back a harvest like the second dove (and in the Christian life, this corresponds to confirmation, when the Spirit distributes spiritual gifts and empowers disciples to live for the gospel); and the third dove then comes at the end, when the Holy Spirit does his third gracious work by raising the dead and wrapping us up in Christ's own glory to reign eternally in a new creation.⁸⁷

And other ancient Christians took the birds as symbols of the life of grace. The raven is a believer who's led astray, either by the attractions of the world⁸⁸ or by the deceptions of false teaching.⁸⁹ But the dove is a believer who isn't led astray by such things. The first sending of the dove, when it can't find a resting place and returns soon, shows that we're purified by faith but have no rest in the present world,⁹⁰ so we spurn worldly delights, cling to the safe haven of the Church, and apply the grace we're given to righteous deeds.⁹¹ The second sending of the dove, when it brings back the olive branch, is a picture of Christians who minister to the world,⁹² preaching the gospel of peace, and with winsome words bringing back heretics and unbelievers “to the unity of communion by the mouth of the dove, as if by the kiss of peace.”⁹³ And the third and last sending of the dove, when it doesn't return, was taken by one old bishop as a picture of the end-times falling away,⁹⁴ but most took it as a picture of holy souls leaving this earthly life “for the free light of the heavenly fatherland,”⁹⁵ or else as the day of Christ's return when the saints as one will go forth for good to claim their rest in the kingdom.⁹⁶

Now, those are a lot of different quests for a deeper meaning. Scripture is a complicated, multifaceted thing; it's a living word with many senses, so that, by winging our way through its fathomless depths and infinite skies, “God... makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens” (Job 35:11). So if any of those pictures inspire you, if any of them fill you with hope, if any move you to be more faithful disciples yourselves, embrace that. “You see the water, you see the wood, you see the dove, and do you doubt the mystery?”⁹⁷

The other week, we saw how the flood was an advance picture of the truer flood, a baptism which drowns sin dead. But from the flood, through the wind of God's Spirit rushing over the waters, a clean world slowly arises. And just so, once we're born again, the Holy Spirit fills us in a new way; and through this power of water and the Spirit, God is working a new creation in us, in each of our lives. And “according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).

To receive it, we, the Church, are to become the beautiful dove of Jesus our Beloved, the dove whose “voice is sweet” to him in praise, the dove whose “face is lovely” to him in holiness (Song of Songs 2:14). When we at last fly forth to him, he'll stretch out his loving hand, and ever so gently will he catch us and pull us to our wide home of freedom, drawing us to the bosom of light unending, calling us “his love, his dove, his perfect one” (Song of Songs 5:2). But in the meantime, each and every Sunday, the spiritual dove of grace and peace flies forth, bringing a harvest of heavenly gifts to those who will but wait on his ark in faith. Thanks be to God! Amen.

1  Sibylline Oracles 1.235-237, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:340.

2  Rupert of Deutz, On the Holy Trinity and Its Works 4.22, in Joy A. Schroeder, The Book of Genesis, The Bible in Medieval Tradition (Eerdmans, 2015), 112.

3  Peter J. Harland, The Value of Human Life: A Study of the Story of the Flood (Genesis 6-9) (Brill, 1996), 127.

4  Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 8:4, in Luther's Works 2:107.

5  Donald E. Gowan, From Eden to Babel: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis 1-11 (Eerdmans, 1988), 98.

6  James McKeown, Genesis, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2008), 59.

7  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 16 §58, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:66.

8  Bede, On Genesis 8:1, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:190.

9  Rupert of Deutz, On the Holy Trinity and Its Works 4.22, in Joy A. Schroeder, The Book of Genesis, The Bible in Medieval Tradition (Eerdmans, 2015), 113.

10  Johnson T.K. Lim, Grace in the Midst of Judgment: Grappling with Genesis 1-11 (De Gruyter, 2002), 172.

11  Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1990), 301; Bill T. Arnold, Genesis, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 104; John Goldingay, Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020), 147; Adam E. Miglio, The Gilgamesh Epic in Genesis 1-11: Peering into the Deep (Routledge, 2023), 112.

12  Michael LeFebvre, The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context (IVP Academic, 2019), 71.

13  Gilgamesh XI.142, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 118.

14  John Day, From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1-11 (Bloomsbury, 2013), 65.

15  Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), 284.

16  Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), 273-276.

17  Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Zondervan Academic, 2001), 141; Joseph E. Coleson, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 233.

18  Sibylline Oracles 1.261-262, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:341.

19  Jubilees 5:28, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:66; 4Q244 fr.8 line 3, in Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (Brill, 1999), 491; cf. Nikolaos of Damascus, Universal History 96, quoted in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.95, in Loeb Classical Library 242:47 (which calls the mountain 'Baris' in Greek, likely equal to 'Lubar').

20  James C. VanderKam, Jubilees 1: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees Chapters 1-21 (Fortress Press, 2018), 295.

21  Berossus the Chaldean, Babyloniaca II, quoted in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.93, in Loeb Classical Library 242:45; Targum Onqelos Genesis 8:4, in Aramaic Bible 6:56; Targum Neofiti Genesis 8:4, in Aramaic Bible 1A:77.

22  Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014), 287-292.

23  Berossus the Chaldean, Babyloniaca II, quoted in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.93, in Loeb Classical Library 242:45.

24  Nikolaos of Damascus, Universal History 96, quoted in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.95, in Loeb Classical Library 242:47.

25  Berossus the Chaldean, Babyloniaca II, quoted in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.93, in Loeb Classical Library 242:45.

26  Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 101.

27  Gilgamesh XI.144-147, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 118.

28  Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 101.

29  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 26.9, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:151.

30  Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 8:1, in Luther's Works 2:103.

31  Atrahasis: I₂ 1-5, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 88-89.

32  Atrahasis: I₂ 7-10, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 89.

33  Eridu Genesis D.7, in The Context of Scripture 1:515; compare to <https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.7.4>.

34  Gilgamesh XI.137-139, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 118.

35  Gilgamesh XI.137-142, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 118.

36  Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1990), 304.

37  4Q252 i.12-14, in Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov, The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader (Brill, 2004), 2:107. But Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 17 §60, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:69, disagrees, placing this nine days earlier.

38  Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosaic Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 102.

39  Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1990), 303.

40  Dru Johnson, Knowledge by Ritual: A Biblical Prolegomenon to Sacramental Theology (Eisenbrauns, 2016), 160.

41  Boria Sax, Avian Illuminations: A Cultural History of Birds (Reaktion Books, 2021), 55.

42  Atrahasis: I₂ 11-14, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 89.

43  Gilgamesh XI.147-156, in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 118.

44  Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2003), 425.

45  Tim Birkhead, Birds and Us: A 12,000-Year History from Cave Art to Conversation (Princeton University Press, 2022), 63.

46  Wenfei Tong, Understanding Bird Behavior: An Illustrated Guide to What Birds Do and Why (Princeton University Press, 2020), 50.

47  Jeremy Mynott, Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words (Oxford University Press, 2018), 173.

48  Augustine of Hippo, Questions on the Heptateuch 1.13, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/14:19.

49  Joseph E. Coleson, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 236.

50  Augustine of Hippo, Letter 108.20, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century II/2:82.

51  Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 8:6-7, in Luther's Works 2:109.

52  Jeremy Mynott, Birds in the Ancient World: Winged Words (Oxford University Press, 2018), 27, 255.

53  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 26.13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:153.

54  Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Genesis 8:7, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 132:180.

55  4Q252 i.12-20, in Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov, The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader (Brill, 2004), 2:107-109.

56  Sibylline Oracles 1.243, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:340.

57  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 26.13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:154.

58  Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11, Christian Standard Commentary (Holman Reference, 2023), 359.

59  Berossus the Chaldean, Babyloniaca fr.4a, in Gerald P. Verbrugghe and John M. Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (University of Michigan Press, 1996), 50.

60  Old English Genesis A 1462-1463, in Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 7:105.

61  Sibylline Oracles 1.249, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:340.

62  Berossus the Chaldean, Babyloniaca fr.4a, in Gerald P. Verbrugghe and John M. Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (University of Michigan Press, 1996), 50.

63  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 58.

64  Old English Genesis A 1465-1474, in Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 7:105-107.

65  Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis as Torah: Reading Narrative as Legal Instruction (Cascade Books, 2018), 68.

66  Sibylline Oracles 1.252, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:340.

67  Amanda Norsker, “Genesis 6.5–9.17: A Rewritten Babylonian Flood Myth,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 29/1 (2015): 61; Dru Johnson, Knowledge by Ritual: A Biblical Prolegomenon to Sacramental Theology (Eisenbrauns, 2016), 160.

68  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 19 §68, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:74.

69  4Q252 i.19-20, in Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov, The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader (Brill, 2004), 2:109.

70  Berossus the Chaldean, Babyloniaca fr.4a, in Gerald P. Verbrugghe and John M. Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt (University of Michigan Press, 1996), 50.

71  Old English Genesis A 1479-1482, in Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 7:107.

72  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 57.

73  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 26.15, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:155.

74  Martin Sicker, Reading Genesis Politically: An Introduction to Mosiac Political Philosophy (Praeger, 2002), 105.

75  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 26.9, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:151.

76  Thomas G. Weinandy, Jesus Becoming Jesus: A Theological Interpretation of the Synoptic Gospels (Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 85.

77  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 17 §62, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:70; cf. Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries 3 §11, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 44:9.

78  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 18 §64, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:71-72.

79  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 19 §67, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:73.

80  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 19 §70, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:75.

81  Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Genesis 8:7, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 132:180.

82  Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Genesis 8:10-12, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 132:181.

83  Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, excursus concerning allegories, in Luther's Works 2:158-160.

84  Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, excursus concerning allegories, in Luther's Works 2:162.

85  Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, excursus concerning allegories, in Luther's Works 2:162-163.

86  Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, excursus concerning allegories, in Luther's Works 2:163-164.

87  Rupert of Deutz, On the Holy Trinity and Its Works 4.22-23, in Joy A. Schroeder, The Book of Genesis, The Bible in Medieval Tradition (Eerdmans, 2015), 114-115.

88  Bede, On Genesis 8:6-7, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:193-194.

89  Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 12.20, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:138; Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 2.1.8, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:98.

90  Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 2.1.8, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:98; Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 12.20, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:138.

91  Bede, On Genesis 8:8-9, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:194-195.

92  Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 2.1.8, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:98.

93  Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 12.20, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:138; cf. Bede, On Genesis 8:10-11, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:195.

94  Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 2.1.8, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:98.

95  Bede, On Genesis 8:11-12, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:196.

96  Augustine of Hippo, Answer to Faustus the Manichean 12.20, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/20:138.

97  Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries 3 §10, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 44:8.