WHEN WAS THE EARTH DRY AFTER THE FLOOD? (GENESIS 8:13-14)

The American Humanist Association lists a number of biblical contradictions that lead them to conclude that the Bible is fallible. Here is one of them:

Genesis 8:13 describes the earth as being dry on the first day of the first month. But Genesis 8:14 informs us the earth was not dry until the twenty-seventh day of the second month.

The first reason why we should be immediately suspicious of any such “contradictions” is to ask what sort of clueless author or editor would allow such an obvious contradiction to remain in a document if the two statements made side by side were truly in conflict with one another. When one is confronted with such a situation, the more obvious approach would be to look into it a little more carefully before making any such negative pronouncements. As I have stated elsewhere, I wonder what the American Humanists would have to say regarding Charles Dickens' famous opening to A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”

Well, how should Christians respond to such an allegation? There are several options:

A. Concerning Genesis especially, liberal Bible scholars who subscribe to the Documentary Hypothesis can just take the easy way out and state that they can detect several ancient traditions at conflict with one another in the composition of the book. Thus, Wenham states, “The following analysis of the material is widely accepted.” He refers to the division of 8:13a and 8:14 to the Priestly Source (P) and 8:13b to the Yahwist Source (J). McDowell notes that there are nearly 100 places such as this where source critics divide up individual verses into at least two sources.

But not all source critics agree with this division. For example, David Carr writing in the NRSV Study Bible attributes all of Genesis 8:13-19 to the Priestly Source. Similarly, McDowell cites Heidel who says the same thing regarding 8:13-14. So most evangelical Christians would be wide to look for a more reasonable explanation.

B. Victor Hamilton bases his interpretation on the meaning of the Hebrew words in this passage. “In v. 13 the verb is harab, which means 'to be free of moisture.' In v. 14 it is yabas, which refers here to the complete absence of waters. The verb is related to the noun 'dry land' (yabbasa) used in Gen. 1. Creation, destroyed in the Flood, is now resurfacing. The world of Gen. 1 that had recently been overturned is now righting itself. It is only logical that the action contained in harab precedes that continued in yabas. To reverse them would be unusual.”

Thus, by this reasoning, the use of “dry” in v. 13 refers to the process of the earth “drying up,” rather than the final state given in v. 14. So we see Wenham translating the three key phrases as, respectively, “the waters were drying up,” “the surface of the land was dry,” and “the earth was dried out.” TEV and The Message similarly translate that last phrase as “was completely dried up.”

And Kline states that in v. 13, “From the new vantage point Noah could see that the waters were removed from even the lower areas” while in v. 14, “More time was allowed for the ground to dry and perhaps for plants to grow.”

As additional proof that the two roots hrb and ybs are to be understood differently, Wenham cites the following passages where both appear in parallelism:

    Job 14:11 – “As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up...”

    Isaiah 19:5 – “The waters of the Nile will be dried up, and the river will be parched and dry.”

    Jeremiah 50:38a – “A drought against her waters, that they may be dried up.”

Note that in each case, the first root hrb denotes the process while ybs describes the final condition.

C. Another possible nuance to Genesis 9:13-14 comes from the common Hebrew practice of first introducing a subject in broad terms followed by a more detailed description. Thus, in Genesis 1:1, the concept of “Creation” is introduced; this is followed by the details of the seven days of creation in Genesis 1:2-2:3; and finally a more detailed description of the sixth day in the remainder of Genesis 2.

Thus, as is the case with many other criticisms of the Bible, the critics are speaking out of ignorance of the original languages, including its unique idioms.