Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2013, Side 19

One topic that had been under discussion ever since Philo was the ques-
tion: what became of the raven that Noah released from the ark? Did it die
instead of returning to the ark?13 In the Hebrew text, the question, whether
or not the raven died, does not arise, because Gen 8:7 says explicitly:
mUh KÍ!T N2P1
T T <•••• -
[It flew back and forth until the water covering the earth had dried up.]
The two absolute infinitives here indicate that the raven repeatedly flew
away from the ark and then returned to it. The LXX, however, introduces
a negation in order to make the connection with the later release of the
dove appear more logical:
é|eX0(bv obx 'újtéoTQexpev
[After it flew off, it did not return.]
The VL follows this reading:
Et egressus non rediit ad eum.
[And having departed, it did not return to him.]
Augustine ignores Jerome’s observation in Qu. Hebr. Gen., that the
Hebrew text does not contain the negation and attempts instead to find
a solution that fits the wording of the VL = LXX. Prior to Augustine,
the Latin church fathers, inspired by ancient tales of ravens feeding on
carrion, had taught that the unclean raven — a symbol of the sinner that
was later given an anti-Jewish twist — did not return to the ark because
of its voraciousness; it fed on the cadavers that were floating in the flood
waters.14 Here in Quaestionum in heptateuchum libri VII, Augustine gives
a more moderate version without alluding to any symbolic interpretation.
13 Cf. Nicole Hecquet-Noti, “Le corbeau nécrophage, figure du juif dans le De diluuio mundi d’Avit
de Vienne: á propos de l’interprétation de Gn 8,6-7 dans carm. 4. 544-584” in Revue des Études
Augustiniennes 48 (2002), 297-320.
14 This explanation is likewise hinted at in Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaeum 12,20: The
raven did not return, “aliquo supernatante cadavere illectus”, i.e. having been attracted by a
swimming cadaver.
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