Durante O Dilúvio Que Coisas Foram Lançadas Ao Ar

What the biblical texts say about what was cast into the air during the flood

A common question that comes up when reading Genesis and other ancient texts is what exactly was thrown into the sky during the great flood. The answer depends on which part of the account you look at, because the texts don't describe a single dramatic event of things flying upward in a cinematic sense. What they describe is more complex than that, and the details are scattered across different passages. The primary source for the flood narrative is Genesis chapters 6 through 9. The Hebrew text uses the phrase "as fontes do grande abismo" (the fountains of the great deep) breaking open, along with the "cataratas dos céus" (windows or floodgates of the heavens) being opened. These are the two mechanisms described for the water coming down. There is no explicit mention in Genesis of objects being literally launched into the air as projectiles.

durante o dilúvio que coisas foram lançadas ao ar

When people ask specifically what things were thrown into the air, they're usually thinking about imagery from later artistic traditions rather than the plain text itself. In the Hebrew Bible, the closest thing to something being cast or poured from the sky is the language of rain and water descending. Psalm 104:6-7 describes waters covering the earth, and Psalm 29:3 speaks of the voice of the Lord over the waters in a dramatic way, but nothing about debris being flung skyward. Some interpreters point to Genesis 7:11, which states that "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened." The Hebrew word used for "burst forth" is baqaa, which means to break open or cleave apart. This suggests underground water sources rupturing rather than anything being thrown upward into the atmosphere. The text frames this as water rising from below and rain coming from above, a two-directional inundation.

In the broader ancient Near Eastern context, flood narratives from Mesopotamia like the Epic of Gilgamesh describe similar events where the gods send storm and flood, but again there is no motif of objects being catapulted into the sky. The god Shamash (Utnapishtim's deity counterpart) sends the flood as rain and storm, not as a projectile event.

What about secondary texts and interpretations?

Some Jewish interpretive traditions, particularly in the Midrashic literature, expanded on the Genesis account with additional details about what happened during the flood. The Midrash Genesis Rabbah discusses various aspects of the flood, including the nature of the waters and the judgment involved. Some passages in these interpretive texts mention hail or fire mixed with the waters, drawing from descriptions in other biblical passages like Exodus 9:23-24 where Moses brings hail and fire upon Egypt. However, these are interpretive expansions, not the base biblical text. The Midrashic tradition sometimes describes the floodwaters as having properties beyond normal water, calling them "water of judgment" that was hotter or more destructive than ordinary water. Again, nothing explicitly says these were thrown into the air as solid objects.

The New Testament references to the flood in Matthew 24:37-39 and 1 Peter 3:20 focus on the suddenness and surprise of the event, comparing it to the days of Noah. Peter also mentions in 2 Peter 2:5 that God "did not spare the ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe as he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly." None of these passages add new detail about airborne objects.

The challenge of reading this text today

When I work with people who bring this question to me, I notice a consistent pattern. They tend to conflate three separate layers of description: the biblical text itself, later artistic and cultural depictions, and personal imagination shaped by movies and popular media. The Bible describes water coming from two directions. Art and culture added dramatic visuals. Imagination filled in the rest. One specific problem I encountered recently involved someone who had read a commentary that claimed certain verses described "volcanic material being thrown into the atmosphere" as part of the flood. When I traced that claim back through the citations, it turned out to be a modern speculative interpretation, not an established reading of the Hebrew text. The original commentator was proposing a hypothesis about what might have causally accompanied the event, not translating or parsing any specific verse that way.

Here is the workaround I usually recommend: read the primary texts in translation first, then check the Hebrew if possible, then look at what scholars actually say rather than what internet summaries say they say. Genesis 7:11 and 8:1 are the key verses. The Hebrew is relatively straightforward. Where interpretation diverges is in understanding the scope and mechanism, not in any claim about objects being launched into the sky.

What the text actually supports versus what it doesn't

The biblical flood account, read on its own terms, describes: - Underground water sources rupturing (maqqorot tehom rabba)

- Atmospheric precipitation increasing dramatically ("windows of the heavens") - Waters covering the highest mountains

- A subsequent period of recession It does not describe, in the biblical text itself:

- Debris or objects being projected into the atmosphere - Explosive or volcanic activity explicitly mentioned as part of the flood mechanism

- Any list of items that were "thrown into the air" Where the silence is, different interpretive traditions have filled it differently. Some modern creationist authors have proposed elaborate mechanisms involving crustal displacement or water vapor canopies to explain how the flood could have happened globally. These are scientific hypotheses built on top of the biblical text, not readings derived directly from it. They're worth engaging with if that is your interest, but they are not what the text says.

Why the question keeps coming up

The reason this question persists is probably because the flood narrative is one of the most visually dramatic stories in the Bible, and human brains naturally want to fill in sensory detail. When you read about waters covering the entire earth, your imagination constructs a scene. The problem is that what your imagination constructs is rarely the same as what the text actually says, and the gap between the two tends to widen with each retelling. If you are studying this for academic or theological purposes, the most honest answer is that the biblical text does not specify any objects being thrown into the air during the flood. The mechanisms described are hydrological: water from below and water from above. Everything else is interpretation, artistic tradition, or modern speculation layered on top of that base text.