Question about Noah

[The Liturgist]

I would not worry about it too much. Noah and the flood is an ancient folk tale, not actual history.

I think that's a wrong way of looking at it. The ancient church had two ways of Old Testament exegesis, Antiochene literal historical, and Alexandrian typological-prophetic and metaphorical/parabolic. We see a strong Antiochene literalist in Theodore of Mopsuestia and a strong Alexandrian allegorist in Origen, but I think the most important Patristic theologians like St Basil or St Augustine or St John Chrysostom used both.

 

[Original Happy Camper]

I would not worry about it too much. Noah and the flood is an ancient folk tale, not actual history.

Matthew 24 King James Version

24 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

So Jesus spoke the words above and according to you he was speaking "folk tale" so in your theology why would Jesus do that?

 

[The Liturgist]

Matthew 24 King James Version

24 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

So Jesus spoke the words above and accoeding to you he was speaking "folk tale" so in your theology why would Jesus do that?

I think some confusion exists among some people regarding the importance of Noah in God’s plan for our salvation, what traditional theologians call “the economy of salvation.” It is assumed, because similar flood narratives exist in other cultures from the region spanning Mesopotamia and the Near East, and because there is no geological evidence of a worldwide flood, that Noah himself must be mythological, and that it is a simplistic Bible story for young children.

But this I think is a profound error, for as you point out, our Lord declares that Noah existed. Furthermore, the story is a direct analogue for our salvation now, a typological prophecy of how God is saving us: the Ark is the Church, in which we and everything of life must contain ourselves to avoid being lost in the deluge, only the deluge in this case is not God flooding the world, for God loves us so much not only did he consecrate the rainbow as a sacramental testament not to drown humanity or wipe us out in that sense, but rather, the deluge of sin, the dangerous floodwaters of the passions. And of course, the Dove is the Holy Spirit, guiding the way for the Church, the Ark of Salvation, the wood of which is the cross on which Christ was crucified, to the new virgin Earth which is the World to Come in the Parousia.

So I believe Noah literally existed as a prophet, that there was a flood event imprinted deeply in the Middle Eastern cultural consciousness which records reality, and that the Noah story not only describes what happened then, but what is happening now.

 

[jd01]

Matthew 24 King James Version

24 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

So Jesus spoke the words above and accoeding to you he was speaking "folk tale" so in your theology why would Jesus do that?

Hi Happy Camper, thank you for your reply. Good point. I have two issues though:
1. Matthew is copying and embellishing from Mark's chapter 13 here. Matthew has inserted the reference to Noah, which is not in the original version from Peter.
2. Jesus did not say most of Mark's chapter 13, about 2/3s I reckon were added by Mark himself. (I go over my reasoning in my book).

So there is no quote from Jesus mentioning Noah.

 

[Original Happy Camper]

Hi Happy Camper, thank you for your reply. Good point. I have two issues though:
1. Matthew is copying and embellishing from Mark's chapter 13 here. Matthew has inserted the reference to Noah, which is not in the original version from Peter.
2. Jesus did not say most of Mark's chapter 13, about 2/3s I reckon were added by Mark himself. (I go over my reasoning in my book).

So there is no quote from Jesus mentioning Noah.

Let me get this right, your book is supperior to the King James Bible? I will not be reading your book.

You appear to be adding and/or subtracting from the word of GOD IMHO

 

[jd01]

Well the Gospels at least can't be the word of God due to the various errors they contain, whether the KJ or the NIV.