Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/270



of 8$6-12$ (J). In MT the total duration is 12 mo. + 10 days; hence the reckoning appears to be by lunar months of c. 29-1/2 days, making up a solar year of 364 days. —(b) The Massoretic scheme, however, produces a discrepancy with the 150 days; for 5 lunar months fall short of that period by two or three days. Either the original reckoning was by solar months (as in G), or (what is more probable) the 150 days belong to an older computation independent of the Calendar. It has been surmised that this points to a 10 months' duration of the Flood (150 days' increase + 150 days' subsidence); and (Ew. Di.) that a trace of this system remains in the 74 days' interval between (2) and (3), which amounts to about one-half of the period of subsidence.—(c) Of the separate data of the Calendar no satisfactory explanation has yet been given. The only date that bears its significance on its face is the disappearance of the waters on the 1st day of the year; and even this is confused by the trivial and irrelevant distinction between the drying up of the waters and the drying of the earth. Why the Flood began and ended in the 2nd month, and on the 17th or 27th day, remains, in spite of all conjectures, a mystery. (d) The question whether the months are counted from the old Heb. New Year in the autumn, or, according to the post-Exilic (Babylonian) calendar, from the spring, has been discussed from the earliest times, and generally decided in favour of the former view (Jub., Jos. Ant. i. 80, T$J$, Ra. and most). The arguments on one side or the other have little weight. If the second autumn month (Marchešwan) is a suitable time for the commencement of the Flood, because it inaugurates the rainy season in Palestine and Babylonia, it is for the same reason eminently unsuitable for its close. P elsewhere follows the Babylonian calendar, and there is no reason to suppose he departs from his usual procedure here (so Tu. Gu. al.).—(e) The only issue of real interest is how much of the chronology is to be attributed to the original Priestly Code. If there be two discordant systems in the record, the 150 days might be the reckoning of P, and the Calendar a later adjustment (Di.); or, again, the 150 days might be traditional, and the Calendar the work of P himself (Gu.). On the former (the more probable) assumption the further question arises whether the additions were made before or after the amalgamation of J and P. The evidence is not decisive; but the divergences of G from MT seem to prove that the chronology was still in process of development after the formation of the Canon.—See Dahse, ZATW, xxviii. 7 ff.