A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

[AntoineSuarez]

@Bill_II

Now once you get to the core of the story, when Jesus says “all sinners” in reference to the story he is just referring to the sinners in that region, not the entire world.

When Jesus says “all sinners” in reference to the Flood event, he is just referring to both, “the sinners in that region” and “in the entire world”.

The reason is that (according to my explanation) at the beginning of the Flood outside Noah’s region all creatures with human body (an in this sense image bearing) were not yet accountable for their deeds, and therefore no sinners. They became endowed with sense of law and accountability at the End of the Flood, at the time T referred to in Genesis 9:6.

@Bill_II

The death of the innocents is just another example of natural evil which can be addressed in the usual fashion.

We agree!

@Bill_II

What you are left with is Noah and his family survive a regional flood. How we aren’t told. Perhaps they were told to seek higher ground.

This would be a possibility if there was such a real regional flood capable of destroying hundreds of thousands of people. Nonetheless, the evidence available to date for flooding in ANE does not support such a hypothesis.

Thus, for the time being, the best explanation seems to be that Noah, his family, and the destroyed sinners experienced a real miraculous Flood that left no trace in the ordinary world other than the lack of several hundred thousand people.

According to this explanation the account of Noah and his family ant the end of the Flood about their miraculous experience would be the origin for both: The monotheistic tradition kept by Abraham and Israel till the Genesis version written in Babylonian Exile, and the polytheistic Mesopotamian flood myths.

As Jay very well comments in another thread:

@Jay313

Genesis 1-11 […] was meant to inoculate Israel against the temptation to syncretism and assimilation into the Babylonian/Assyrian/Neo-Babylonian empire(s). This theme runs from the Pentateuch to the prophets. (Edit: Actually, all the way to Revelation.) The temptation to adopt their neighbors’ gods and customs was always the greatest threat to Israel. Indeed, unfaithfulness to the covenant was the nation’s undoing, according to the prophetic interpretation of the Exile.

The strong faithfulness to the “covenant” prevailing in Israel all over History could not be explained if God’s covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:1-17) were not a real historic fact.

@Bill_II

I should have said “an overly embellished story of a possibly real event.” Once you start peeling off the layers of embellishment it gets hard to determine when you have actually reached the historic truth in the story, if it in fact actually has one.

I think we can agree in that two explanations are possible:

1. Your explanation as “an overly embellished story of a possibly real event”, as far as such a real event could be coherently documented.

2. My explanation as a miraculous event, which dissolved all sinners on earth (what means the same as all sinners in Noah’s region) and didn’t leave other traces in the ordinary world.

Explanation 2 would obviously be preferred if one thinks that Jesus’ and Peter’s teaching refer to a real historic Flood, the same way as one interprets that “Adam was a real Person in History” (as @Kathryn_Applegate and myself do).

@Bill_II

I don’t think the ANE writers were actually concerned with recording what we would call historic truth (facts, figures, names, places, dates, etc). They would be quite comfortable with a totally fabricated story, or myth if you will, as long as it expressed the meaning that they saw in history.

This is a very good point.

According to my explanation Adam (around 3500 BC) and all his genetic descendants till Noah (3200 BC give or take) are themselves representatives of ANE with writing capability.

Here I would like to quote your comment in another thread:

@Bill_II

Is there any archaeological evidence that the population in Sumer was suddenly replaced by a different population about 3500 years ago? Given the replacements came from outside Sumer I would assume there would be cultural differences that should be apparent in the archaeological evidence.

If the Flood was a miracle then one should not expect “any archaeological evidence” for “population replacement” in Sumer. The episodes of the sons of God (Genesis 6:2-4) proves that creatures with human body outside Sumer adapted well and immediately to the population in Sumer, as soon as they became accountable.

By contrast if one accepts that at the end of the Flood millions of creatures with human body all over the world became endowed by God with sense of law and awareness of accountability (as referred to in Genesis 9:5-6) one should expect emergence of writing and sudden explosion of civilization in the whole planet after this time. Magnificent evidence of this is the British Museum in London. By the way, it is also in this museum where we have to search for “Adam and Eve”, and not in the Natural History museums!