The Discovery of Genesis (65 page)

An early pictograph of
flood
is exactly comparable:

Another explicitly shows the four hands of the males united and “riding” above the waters:
. “And the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that
all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered”
(Genesis 7:19). This verse could be interpreted only as a universal, total
deluge.

Still another character depicting the
eight
people
is
meaning variously
to hand down, to continue, to follow a course.
Note several interesting methods of writing the old forms:
, or
. In this last figure, the
eight persons
are seen floating
on
the
water
. It was, of course, from these eight persons that all tradition, history, and knowledge have
continued
from the first world into the second, being “handed down.”

“The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters. … And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days” (Genesis 7:18, 24). At the end of this 150-day period the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4), but it would be many months before the earth had dried sufficiently to permit their leaving the ark. One year and 10 days after the rain had begun to descend, God commanded Noah to leave the ark. “The waters were dried from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry” (Genesis 8:13). But what a bleak and different world met their eyes! The beautiful trees and all vegetation were gone. Before them were rugged, snow-covered mountains; bare hills; and exposed craggy rocks lining dangerous canyons, flowing with rushing, receding, muddy rivers. A cold wind whistled around the ark. The pleasant. verdant, temperate land they had known before had been buried, and in its place was a desolate, strange earth, unrecognizable and ugly.

The first act that Noah performed after he and his family left the ark was to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to God that their lives were preserved. “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar” (Genesis 8:20). Once again the symbolic
sacrifices
were continued, as animals (
flesh
)
were offered
again
to
God
.