Between text & sermon: Genesis 9:8-17

THE TWO ENDINGS OF THE FLOOD STORY In critical studies of Genesis, it is commonplace to discern in the flood story the interweaving of the version set down perhaps as early as the ninth century B.C.E. by the Yahwist (J) with the late-exilic or post-exilic Priestly source that provided a narrative framework for the entire Pentateuch (c. 550-450 B.C.E.). THE RAINBOW We know that the rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that occurs when light is refracted through water droplets to reveal its bandwidths as a spectrum of colors.\n Traditional societies have always generated legends and etiologies aplenty about the mysterious rainbow. [...] the midrash asserts that when people are pious enough, the bow is not even visible, presumably because there is little likelihood of God being provoked.