Need help reinterpreting Noahs Flood

I can't understand why God had Noah spend all those years building a boat when he could have just moved somewhere where it wouldn't flood?

Why did God send animals to get on the ark when they could have stayed in their natural enviorments which would not flood. Especially birds?

If the flood was just a local event, why did God use a rainbow as a promise to never flood the earth again when it floods everyday in the world?

God told Noah he was going to flood the whole earth so that answers 1 & 2. The flood, at least according to YEC was a whole earth event. God promised never to flood the entire earth again and kill all of mankind.


Cheers

Joe Meert

Of course, why go through the trouble of a Flood if you can just kill everyone outright.

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Bushido216

JM: I don't know. Something about drowning and watching everyone screaming and yelling for help before finally succumbing to the water must have given great personal satisfaction. Frankly, if there was a problem why not simply revoke free will and get everyone to march in lock step to what you want? Unless, of course this whole thing was simply a borrowed myth from another culture.

Cheers

Joe Meert

I am assuming that a metaphorical interpretion of this passage will not suffice, correct?

If it will, then I can offer one...if it won't, then I will save it. Let me know alehm.

If you could provide me with one that'd be nice.

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Bushido216

OK...but let me just say that this is my interpretation of the theology. I don't want to get into another historical/metaphorical tangle here. Lately it seems like we are forgetting what really matters in these discussions (and I include myself at the top of this list).

Start with Adam and Eve: Essentially what they have done is broken their connection with God. They have rejected his authority in favor of their own. They have failed to respect God's boundaries when they disobeyed him. So the fall represents in part a disconnection from God, a rejection of His authority in favour of our own, and a failure to repect boudaries (which leads to a lack of trust). The consequences of this are spiritual decay and chaos (due to sin) and ultimately spiritual destruction.

What happens next? When you are disconnected from God's authority things start to fall apart. Moral decay becomes rampant...people become more and more distant from God...more and more absorbed in their physical selves and less in their spirtual selves.

Noah, on the other hand, is quite unique. He is 'blameless'...and he lives his entire life under God's authority. In short, he was an obedient servant of God. (see the reversal of Adam and Eve and the fall?). 'Everyone' else was corrupt and prone to violence. Why? Because they embraced the ways of the flesh. IOW, they rejected their spiritual nature and completely rejected God's authority (even more than their ancestors).

At this point its worth mentionning that the OT stories all have the same basic themes:
1. disconnection from God leads to moral and spiritual decay.
2. moral and spiritual decay naturally lead to destruction and death (spritually).
3. the only way to escape the inevitability of death is to accept God's authority as a humble and obediant servant and reject your own.

Now the stage is set. Noah and his family have clearly understood that accepting #3 will save them. So they are saved. Everyone else suffers the natural consequences of rejecting Gods authority: destruction and death (spiritually speaking). So the whole world is 'wiped out' (spiritually speaking)...not because God destroyed them...but because they made the wrong choices and they suffered the natural consequences of choosing to reject God's authority and accept their own.

The animals: This is an interesting and important point. God cares about the animals. And they are innocent, like Noah and his family. Like Noah, the animals are under God's authority and God takes care of them.

The moral of this story? We need to reliquish our own authority and submit to God's authority, otherwise we will also face moral decay, chaos and ultimately spiritual death....the same moral is seen in many other stories. It is a fundamental and foundational element in Christian theology.

Why a flood? In those days the economy was most likely agriculturalist-based (farms, etc). People had settled into fertile river vallies. Floods would represent a huge disaster for farmers and townspeople who depend on the crops for food. I believe the flood is a metaphor for fear, economic chaos, and death. God is showing us that all things material (crops and the economy...and even our physical bodies) are meaningless and easily swept away. What counts is connection to God.

What about the Rainbow? The rainbow doesn't mean there will be no more floods literally speaking. It represents a 'new covenant' (or a promise) by God. If the flood is metaphorical then this means that God will not let things get as bad as they were (ie almost all of mankind in a state spritual and moral bankruptcy). He will stay in the game, even though we might still turn our backs. He will help us and intervene when we stray too far, and He will do what He can to help us to see that submitting to His authority in a spirit of humbleness and humility is the way to be saved from spiritual death.

What happens next? Well...we see similar themes again and again. People turn away from God...chaos and/or destruction ensue. However, at the same time God reaches out to people like Abraham and Moses, etc. He says, for example, that through Abraham God will bless all nations. Notice how God's approach has changed? I believe that this is an example of the new covenant at work. God now works through people to help prevent the decay (like salt in meat) from running rampant like it did in Noah's time. And thus God prevents the mass spiritual destruction that was displayed in the flood story.

Let me just say that I am sure that I have missed a few points. I am just giving an overall perspective. Let me also say that even if the flood was literal history (but I don't believe it was) all the same theology could still apply.

I hope that helps.

Thanks Mike.

Originally Posted by alehm

I can't understand why God had Noah spend all those years building a boat when he could have just moved somewhere where it wouldn't flood?

Why did God send animals to get on the ark when they could have stayed in their natural enviorments which would not flood. Especially birds?

If the flood was just a local event, why did God use a rainbow as a promise to never flood the earth again when it floods everyday in the world?

You are trying to fit a literal reading to the facts in God's Creation that the whole world was never flooded. That is, you are still thinking that the details of Genesis 6-8 are accurate when the overall point you want to keep -- a worldwide Flood -- has been falsified. It's a pointless exercise.

1. There are two narratives in Genesis 6-8, not one.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/jepd_gen.htm#flood

2. In sticking with the details you are not even reading it as the theology that it is. What are the theological messages of the Flood narrative? Alehm, one of the first rules of interpretation of documents is to get what the author wanted to say, not what you want him to say. You want a literal world-wide Flood. But that isn't the intent of the story. So, forget the details and figure out what the authors wanted to convey and let go your pride of making the Bible be what you want it to be.

3. The Noah story is a copy of a story in the Enuma Elish about Unt-Napushtim and Marduk warning about a Flood. It has been exaggerated from the Babylonian story. Now, IMO, one of the intents of the authors is to make a favorite Babylonian story be Hebrew so that the Hebrews won't be tempted to leave Judaism for the Babylonian pantheon.

4. If you really want a history of how Christians have read the Flood narrative over the last 400 years, read Davis A. Young's The Biblical Flood: A Case History of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence. The fact is that most of Christianity hasn't read Genesis 6-8 as literal for over 200 years. Why don't you know this?

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"If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437

"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." Rev. James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, 1890

You're assuming the flood actually happened as described in the Bible. I would suggest you look up Gilgamesh and the myths of mesopotamia. It's the same story and it predates Noah... Most likely the flood myth is based upon a local flood in or near the Mediterranean. There is no scientific evidence to support a global flood.

There is no evidence of all animals redistributing themselves from a central location. See Biodiversity. Rainbows are phenomena caused by light diffracting thru water droplets. As long as there's been a sun and rain there have been rainbows... You're seeking answers to a myth. Perhaps these questions would be better asked in apologetics?