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At the end of the flood in Genesis 8, the raven is described as going "back and forth" until the land is dry, while in the Greek Septuagint translation, it goes out and does not return, perhaps to simplify the story for Greek readers.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 8:7
Hebrew Bible
5 The waters kept on receding until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains became visible. 6 At the end of 40 days, Noah opened the window he had made in the ark 7 and sent out a raven; it kept flying back and forth until the waters had dried up on the earth. 8 Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Genesis 8:7
Septuagint
5 And the water continued to decrease until the tenth month. And in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, the heads of the mountains were seen. 6 And it happened after forty days Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7 And he sent forth the raven to see if the water had ceased; and it went forth and did not return until the water was dried from the earth. 8 And he sent a dove after it to see if the water had ceased from the earth.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Another question is whether the possible Qumran commentary on Genesis 8:7 is clarifying this half verse in the Hebrew Bible, or its parallel in the LXX, since Genesis 8:7 in the Masoretic text and the Septuagint are different. In the Masoretic of Genesis 8:7, Noah sent out the raven and “it went out and returned until the waters dried from upon the earth.” One interpretation could be that it went flying out across the waters and returned again and again, back and forth repeatedly, until the earth was dry. In the LXX, Noah sent out the raven “to see if the water had subsided [not in the Masoretic text], and after it had gone out it did not return until the water had dried up from the earth.” This suggests that in the LXX version the raven took just one return journey, going out and coming back when the earth was dry. As Brooke notes, in 4Q254a the raven returns. But when? Does the Qumran raven return constantly back and forth until the earth is dry (Masoretic Genesis 8:7)? Or just once when the waters had dried from the earth (LXX Genesis 8:7)? Furthermore, does the raven come back to Noah after the earth is dry in the Masoretic/Samaritan Pentateuch, or does it then fly forth as a free bird? ..."
Helen R. Jacobus, “Flood Calendars and Birds of the Ark in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q252 and 4Q254a), Septuagint, and Ancient Near East Texts,” in Opening Heaven’s Floodgates: The Genesis Flood Narrative, Its Context, and Reception, ed. Jason M. Silverman (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2013), 85–112.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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