Genesis Annotated: Chapter 8

Chapter 8 overview

God kills everything except for Noah on his magic boat of infinite storage, infinite oxygen supply, infinite food, infinite…. etc. Somehow this doesn’t end up killing the plants, so a dove brings back an olive branch and Noah happily leaves the ark. And then promptly starts sacrificing the animals he kept with him. Now we know why we don’t have unicorns…

Additional thoughts

This flood should have killed off everything on the planet. Aquatic life would die when saline content gets messed up (too much freshwater or too much saltwater), plants would die when their roots are smothered with far too much water (or the water gets too salty/too fresh), animals would die because they can’t swim for 150 days, and Noah should die because there’s no way to store that much food on a tiny boat. All the animals on his boat should be dead due to problems with ventilation and airflow, and even barring that, all the herbivores should be dead from needing to feed Noah’s carnivores. At which point the carnivores would die because they would have to eat themselves or Noah and his family.

The Scientific/logic/sequence mistakes in this chapter

  1. References an outdated model of the world (Genesis 8:2)
  2. References an outdated model of how rain happens (Genesis 8:2)
  3. Inconsistent flood duration (Genesis 7:17, 7:24, 8:2)
  4. A worldwide flood would have nowhere for the water to go (Genesis 8:3)
  5. No evidence of this boat on a mountain has been found (Genesis 8:4)
  6. Noah would need food during this time(Genesis 8:5)
  7. Was this window always closed? Everyone would suffocate (Genesis 8:6)
  8. The raven never returned. By his logic, everything is dried up already (Genesis 8:7)
  9. Sends out multiple birds for some reason (Genesis 8:8)
  10. Had the water dried up, or was it still there? (Genesis 8:7, 8:9, 8:11, 8:13, 8:14)
  11. There should be no life on the planet after such a flood (Genesis 8:11)
  12. We should have no doves on the earth then (Genesis 8:12)
  13. We should have no “clean animals” on earth after the sacrifices (Genesis 8:20)
  14. God kills for being evil, but then decides to not kill due to evil? (Genesis 8:21)

Chapter 8: Drowning in the Flood (Excellent song by Haken)
AKA: Genocide part 2: Aquatic boogaloo.

  1. And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;
  2. The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
  3. And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
  4. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
  5. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
  6. And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:

  7. And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
  8. Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
  9. But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
  10. And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
  11. And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
  12. And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.
  13. And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.
  14. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.
  15. And God spake unto Noah, saying,
  16. Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
  17. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
  18. And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him:
  19. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.
  20. And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
  21. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
  22. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
  1. It would be kind of shocking if god had forgotten about Noah, the only human on the earth at this point. Maybe god isn’t omniscient if he could forget about things?

  2. Referencing an outdated model of the world and how rain happens. Implies it rained for 151 days instead of 40?
  3. Where would this water have gone to? A worldwide flood would have no place for water to go.

  4. No evidence for a large boat on a mountain has ever been found.

  5. This is draining really slowly. How would Noah have had enough food to last this long? I have trouble keeping food around for a few weeks with modern technology.
  6. This window was closed the entire time? What about airflow and ventilation? Everyone should have died of CO2 poisoning.
  7. Implies the water is dried up now


  8. And then promptly sends out another bird to check again?

  9. I thought “the waters were dried up from off the earth”? The tops of mountains were already visible? Did time go back 8.5 months?


  10. Because 7 is a magical number kids.

  11. There is no way an olive tree would have survived 5 months being underwater. Everything, including plants, should be dead.
  12. Now how will the dove find it’s pair to mate with? We should have no doves today

  13. We’re well past 600 years of “history” by this point.




  14. Everything is still dead though


  15. Dead because of this guy
  16. He evicts them from their home… kinda like in chapter 2
  17. They may be able to breed, but if anything happens to the animals, they would go extinct. Did predators eat the unicorn pair that came off the boat? Is that why we don’t have unicorns? Did noah sacrifice the unicorns to god?
  18. I wonder how many dead people they found.
  19. Can’t the author just say “All animals” here?



  20. welp, there goes the ability for these animals to repopulate.


  21. If he likes the smell of burning flesh so much, why not light the entire world on fire instead? Also: Humans are evil so I’ll destroy the planet in Genesis 6:5. Now he says “humans are evil, so I won’t destroy the planet”?
  22. AKA: Life goes on.

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