Why did God give Noah 2 different sets of instructions in Genesis 6 & 7? 

I think it is the most plausible and it is the scholarly consensus view. Once you see it in the Hebrew text with the grammar, the names, the repetition of stories, the reading in of things that would only make sense from a post-exhilic author or editor, the more you can’t unsee it. I think it is more likely than a single author. I think, if there is a historic Moses, that he may have authored small parts of it and it is stitched into the text, thus giving him the credit, but I don’t think the consensus view is likely to ever shift back to a singular author. I could be wrong, and would welcome that, but it doesn’t seem that is the way scholarship is going.

Normally, yes. But the grammar, something within the narrative and the usage of different names of God make text critical scholars think these are two different authors. I can see this one both ways…

Genesis was written by Moses. None of this stuff was written down in the moment. Because of long life span, history could be passed on accurately by oral tradition.

@@protorhinocerator142 If it was written all at once, why are there two version of The Flood? Wouldn't one story be easier to understand? Or did he never read what he wrote?

I agree with you; I think the original Noah/flood story was influenced by major agricultural floods and other myth traditions. The multiple author approach just seems much more sensible - it wasn’t a single guy “Moses” - of course, I can’t know 100 pct. But I know which way I would bet. I think the presenter Sam here does a fair job. I suspect he has people in his church community that would hold to the traditional Moses and literal Noah history view, and he doesn’t want to alienate them by completely discarding that more conservative view. But I lean to modern scholarship. Maybe I just have a “materialist bias” lol

The Judahites were in Babylon when they wrote these stories. Creation and flood can be linked to Sumerian/Akkadian stories.

@@fordprefect5304 Except that all cultures around the world had an account of the Great Flood, including American Indians. There's no way they could have copied this from Babylon.

@@protorhinocerator142 They wrote it while in Babylon. Do you really believe some Israelite went back in time to record it before Abram was supposed to exist?

@@protorhinocerator142 Enki wasn’t too pleased when he discovered Enlil planned to wipe out the race he’d created. So he took it upon himself to warn Utnapishtim. He told Utnapishtim to construct an Ark, Utnapishtim was commanded to load the Ark up with animals. Together with his wife, he preserved life on earth when the flood was unleashed. After the waters began to recede, he released the animals to repopulate the planet. As Enlil eventually got over his outrage and granted immortality to Utnapishtim and his wife.

Even better question: why were stories like this even written… not just in the Hebrew Bible, but elsewhere as well? What were the purposes of these epics? Were they etiologies? Were they just myths to communicate a story or truth about something? Did something local happen and these stories were passed down and exaggerated over time? I think all these are fair questions to ask absent of historical data. There are still a lot of questions surrounding these origin stories of the Hebrew Bible… even for Jewish people and Christians alike.

@@sam_burke The story of jesus was told about 40 years after his death. After that much time they got it wrong. But I'm glad no one can answer my question.

@@user-sd5go4rr4iI’m sure they got a lot right and maybe some things wrong… but I’m not an apologist, so I’m not looking to try to make everything line up neatly and answer every question. However, the scholarly consensus is that 1 Corinthians was written by the Apostle Paul around 54 CE… in it, he speaks of eyewitnesses of the resurrection. Of those eyewitnesses are the first apostles that he knew personally, who were still alive during the writing of the epistle. That’s around 20 years later. And that is the sole thing that the first Christians hinged everything on.

@@sam_burke Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, the distinguished professor of liturgy at Hebrew Union College, in his article titled “The Bible is Fiction,” did not discuss history or archeology, but argued more broadly that the Books of Moses are fiction because their authors meant it not as science or history but as presentation.

@@fordprefect5304 ASWA authors often bypass the historical and factual for the theological and spiritual… because, to use our vernacular, “that will preach.” the problem is when modern readers do not understand this, and have to try to make everything fit within a historical factual framework and then when they are presented with the data of archaeology and history, then have to go into apologetic mode to shore up their positions.

Why? because all of these stories (hebrew bible, mesopotamian and akkadian, etc...) were all written down for a purpose, borrowed or not. My goal is not to somehow prove, apologetically, that any of this is historical. My whole goal is, for those who want to read these stories, to actually read them well... even from a literature standpoint. There are some who would read these stories literally, and my challenge would be for them to actually read this well, also. There are enough really bad takes out there on this stuff.

@@sam_burke Whilst that sounds admirable enough, I'm not sure how you will achieve it by trying to explain away internal contradictions or troublesome passages. In doing that you lend them undeserved credibility. As I said before, it is no different to explaining away the motivations of any other character from fiction. Interesting and fun perhaps, when offered for Gandalf or Merlin, but with the bible you are dealing with text that many people mistakenly believe to be truth or fact. When it is not.

If not God then not you. If you then God. You can try and deny him for your convenience but ignoring all the evidence doesn't look good.

@@jamesn7711 I haven’t seen any evidence, and neither have you. I’ve heard arguments, but that’s not evidence. And the arguments all have reasonable counters, so really, we don’t even have that. If Adam existed, then HE had evidence. Same for Abram, and Noah, and Moses, and Paul. But WE don’t have evidence, and as for those figures, we only have their CLAIMS. In most cases we don’t even have that; we have OTHERS’ claims that those figures had claims…. Just a long chain of unreliable hearsay. You can deny your utter lack of evidence, but ignoring the rational arguments against his fairy tale doesn’t look good. (See how empty that last bit sounds?)

@@basildraws There are tons of evidence. What you are saying is that you do not find it convincing or you haven't spent time looking. With historical claims, you can find evidence to their veracity or disprove them. Other claims can be supported or not supported but if you want an experiment that pops up, "there is a God", then you will not find that. All I am hearing from most is their presuppositions are stronger than their critical thinking.