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Is there a gap between these two verses in Genesis?

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  • Is there a gap between these two verses in Genesis?

    And no, not those verses. Specifically I'm wondering about Genesis 8:3-4 - "The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat."

    So is it saying that the seventeenth day of the seventh month was that 150th day, or is it possible for there to be a gap of a few days between the two? I've been examining the passage but haven't quite been able to tell whether these are supposed to be the same day or not.

  • #2
    Um, I think one is a count and the other a date.
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    • #3
      Right - so the question is, is the "end of the hundred and fifty days" the "seventeenth day of the seventh month"?

      Or are these two separate statements? That first "at the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down", and then some unspecified time afterwards "on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat"?

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Zeta_Metroid View Post
        Right - so the question is, is the "end of the hundred and fifty days" the "seventeenth day of the seventh month"?

        Or are these two separate statements? That first "at the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down", and then some unspecified time afterwards "on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat"?
        I think you're looking at it wrong. If I said 'it happened ten days later on September 23' I would be giving you two separate references, but the combination allows you to extrapolate the date of the event. The beginning of the 150 days is unknown, right? so both can be true of the same day, correct?

        Now, you're reading it as two separate events which seems incorrect to me based only on the English BUT it is quite possible that you are correct and it is referring to two separate events, in which case the English doesn't give us enough to determine if there is a gap or not.


        Before you bang your head, we have a couple scholars who post here - wait for one of them to answer.

        sorry if I wasn't much help.
        "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

        "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

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        • #5
          If I said 'it happened ten days later on September 23' I would be giving you two separate references, but the combination allows you to extrapolate the date of the event
          Here its more like if you had said "The stock market crashed ten days later. And on September 23, Frank's plane landed in New York".

          The beginning of the 150 days is unknown, right?
          Actually it tells us exactly when it began in Genesis 7:11, saying it began "on the seventeenth day of the second month".

          I'm trying to figure out what sort of calendar Genesis is using. Its been my position that the calendar its using had 30-day months, so from the 17th day of the second month to the 17th day of the seventh month would be 150 days. I'd been using Genesis 8:3-4 as evidence for that, but then someone pointed out that there could be a gap of a few days between the end of the 150 days and when the Ark was grounded, so some of those months might have less than 30 days.

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          • #6
            Oh, that's different then.

            Genesis uses a lunar calendar, as I recall. The lunar calendar doesn't correspond to a perfect thirty days.
            "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

            "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

            My Personal Blog

            My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

            Quill Sword

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            • #7
              Genesis uses a lunar calendar
              That's the very question that's under consideration. A lot of ancient Rabbis said that that calendar was established around the time of the Exodus, and historical evidence shows that a lot of calendars in the past were very different. So to figure out what sort of calendar was being used, we have to figure out whether it's saying these two things took place on the same day.

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