In the reading of comparing the Yahwist and the Priestly Writer’s version of the flood story in the Bible, there are striking differences, which accentuate a belief system that was part of the writings of these. Each of these descriptions makes it a point to say that God was not happy with the proceedings of the humans on the land, and he wanted to make a clean start, so the most fitting human that God saw was Noah and his family. At least, there is that similarity, but there are many more differences. For example, the differing types of animals that were brought onto the ark to keep for repopulating the land. The Yahwist version has seven of each clean beast, while the priestly writers have two of every animal. This certain delineation paints a picture that the Yahwist derive worth from if the animal was clean or not, and the priestly writers see that the animals were not the problem with the Earth it was the people living on it. Which comes to the next point, once the animals and Noah’s family were on board the ark, according to the Yahwist version, the waters were over the land for 40 days, but in the priestly version, the flood was over the land 150 days. This difference might account for how long it took God to decide what was sufficient rain and decide what was the next step for the receding of the flood and repopulating the Earth. And in the end, the Yahwist version has Noah sacrifice one of the clean animals and being satisfied with the smell and promising to never do this again, and the Priestly Writer’s version reestablishes God as the sustainer of Earth and then the same promise. In the ending of the Yahwist, sacrificing is the belief that there are certainly clean and unclean things, but God is in favor of the cleanliness affirming that there are clean things in the world even when some others might not be as clean. Then the Priestly Writer’s hone in on the fact that God is the ruler and that as humans we should all be followers even though that we will never have to go through a catastrophic event such as the flood ever again
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