Finkelstein and Silberman suggest that the book of Genesis began life as a series of orally transmitted stories which were turned into literary form relatively late in the piece. It is possible that the first eleven chapters, in particular, consist of orginally unconnected material, with the genealogies serving as a literary device to tie them together. If this is true, then it is possible to see that there is not one but four stories of the Fall in Genesis. There is the one we usually associate with it, found in Genesis 2 and 3 . Then there are the stories of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4), the Great Flood (Genesis 6-8) and the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). All four stories feature the same core elements - humans fail to live up to God's standard, God intervenes to punish them or prevent them from doing more harm, and there is a form of redemption at the end. I'll talk about Cain and Abel and Babel later, but first the Flood. Two things surprise me about this story. The
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson