Noah, the Dove and the Fresh Olive Leaf
Of the twenty one translations posted on biblehub.com, only the Douay-Rheims translation says that the olive leaf was “a bough of an olive tree, with green leaves”, the rest refer to either a leaf or a freshly picked or plucked olive leaf.
While such discrepancies are immaterial, just sayin’.
I’ve blog posted a summary of the timeline of Noah’s Flood at
https://blog.answersinnumbers.org/2015/09/timeline-of-noahs-flood/
shortlink
From;
http://www.hobbyfarms.com/crops-and-gardening/grow-olives-for-olive-oil.aspx
As with climate, however, the ability of olives to tolerate lean soil conditions does not mean they are entirely invincible. The fastest way to kill an olive tree (short, perhaps, of setting it on fire) is to plant it in poorly drained soil. Olives hate wet feet–period. If you have drainage problems, plant something else. A common sight in olive orchards is a swath of dead trees corresponding precisely to a drainage swale.
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Noah was born 1,046 years after Adam. For simplicity I’m calling the date of Adam’s birth, year zero, referencing dates forward from there (AA, After Adam). Don’t want to confuse simpletons like myself with a diminishing year count even though years are progressing forward.
Gen 7:11, flood begins on 17 February, 1646AA.
Gen 8:4
and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. That’d be 17 July, 1646AA.
Gen 8:5
The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. 01 October, 1646AA.
Gen 8:6
After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark, 09 November, 1646AA.
Noah sends out a dove which returns, having found no land.
Gen 8:10
He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark, 16 November, 1646AA.
Gen 8:11
When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.
Gen 8:13
By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. 01 January, 1647AA.
So, some undefined (doesn’t matter) mountain tops become visible on 01 OCT, waters are well receded by 16 NOV, Earth is dry, assumingly dry enough for cultivation.
Forty Seven days elapse between the sighting of mountain tops from the already grounded Ark to the time Earth is ready for cultivation again.
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From;
Gen 7:22
Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died
During the flood, all olive trees and all olive pits/seeds became waterlogged and useless as was the fate of all non-Ark life.
The ONLY way olive trees could or would grow and leaf again following The Flood is if Noah or one of his crew planted them. That was not possible nor viable until after the flood waters dried.
A viable pit could not have been planted and expected to sprout prior to 01 January, 1647AA, a few weeks more were then needed for the seed to germinate and then to sprout.
There is no possible way that a dove brought a fresh olive leaf to Noah in the Ark on 16 November, 1646AA.
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Sorry Bible believers, the tale of The Dove Bringing a Fresh Olive Leaf to Noah is proven false by the tale itself.