The flood’s date in early reading

Says The flood begins “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month” (Gen 7:11; בְּשִׁבְעָה־עָשָׂר יוֹם), and “the waters prevailed upon the earth for 150 days” (7:24).

Swete’s Greek text prints ἑβδόμῃ καὶ εἰκάδι (“on the twenty-seventh”) of the second month. Josephus names the month, “the second month, called by the Macedonians Dius, but by the Hebrews Marhesvan”, with Nisan first only “for their festivals”; he dates the start “on the twenty-seventh [seventeenth]” day, the bracket being Whiston’s. Pseudo-Jonathan has “the month of Marchesvan, for hitherto the months had been numbered from Tishri”. Keil reckons the months “according to the natural or civil year, which commenced in the autumn”. Jubilees has Noah go in “on the new moon of the second month, till the sixteenth”, the Lord closing the ark “on the seventeenth evening”, and the waters prevailing “five months—one hundred and fifty days” (5:23, 27); it later commands a year of “three hundred and sixty-four days” (6:32). 1 Enoch also counts the year “three hundred and sixty-four” days (72:32–33). These are their views; 1 Enoch is reported as reception, not authority.

Uncertain Whether the seventeenth (Hebrew) or the twenty-seventh (Greek, Josephus) is the original day, whether the second month is counted from autumn or from spring, and whether the 150 days follow a schematic count or a calendar such as the 364-day year, are open. No lean is taken, and these readings do not fix the meaning of 7:11 or 7:24.