Proposal
For Creationists the Genesis account is the one place where a narrative text detailing the events of the Flood can be studied. However, if it can be shown that another O.T. Flood narrative exists, hidden as it were 'in plain sight', then fresh insights may come to light revealing details surrounding the Flood, so helping creationists refine their Flood Models. Mainstream Biblical scholarship has recognized a 'hymn' recorded in Amos (4:13; 5:8+9; 8:8; 9:5+6) and a strikingly similar passage in Job 9:5-9, using theophanic metaphor and language reminiscent of the Genesis Flood. I will show that these verses present a powerful new mini-tool kit to help further refine the creationist Flood Model.
An analysis of the hymn's verb tenses show that the Amos passages are narrative and the Job passage is a poetic version. Scholars have suggested Amos used Sumerian City Lament (SCL) as his literary-template, which included passages describing the destruction of Sumer's cities by a great flood. D. Hillers (1964) identified the use of the 'flood covenant-curse', which is used in ANE literature as a metaphor of invasion. Both factors offer literary reasons for Amos' use of verses describing the Flood within his prophecy. A comparison of these verses with the Genesis Flood account present striking similarities in terms of vocabulary and themes, demonstrating they describe the Flood. Careful exegesis of the MT text reveal important details of the mechanisms behind the Flood that offers much scope for refining the Flood-Model. Tentative suggestions will be proposed to explain how these verses may shed new light upon current creationist thinking. Much of the exegesis is based upon my paper: "The 'Hymn' of Amos: an Ancient Flood-Narrative." 2013, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. (Publication pending in 2013).
Leading Biblical scholars have stated that within Amos "Two fragments of a flood narrative do survive in 5:8 and 9:6, where the use of the wāw-consecutive construction requires that the preceding participle be construed as past tense...The same is true of 9:5...". Amos 9:6 "is a miniature flood story," the Hebrew genre is "classical narrative". (Francis I. Andersen, David Noel Freedman, 1989, pp. 453, 845). These verses in Amos and Job do not use the Genesis Flood Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Creationism. Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship technical term מַבּוּל (mabul) (Genesis 6-11; Psalm 29:10), but when compared to the Genesis Flood, Amos and Job speak loudly of a global-scale Flood, due to their use of parallel Genesis Flood imagery and vocabulary.
Keywords
Accelerated Nuclear Decay (AND); Akkadian (Akk); Ancient Near East (ANE); Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (BDB); Catastrophic Plate Tectonics (CPT); Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD); Covenant treaty-curse; Flood; Hapax-Legomenon (HL); Massoretic Text (MT); Old Babylonian (OB); Old Testament (O.T.); Septuagint Text (LXX); seismic-theophany; Sumerian (Sum); Sumerian City Lament (SCL); Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT); Ugaritic (UG); wāw-consecutive
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Recommended Citation
Cox, Gavin
(2013)
"Verses in Amos and Job Provide New Insights Into the Mechanisms Behind Noah's Flood,"
Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism: Vol. 7, Article 24.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol7/iss1/24