This is fairly close to what I think too – it was just a local flood, but became a story about salvation which later foreshadowed baptism as was mentioned in the book of James. It felt universal to the people who wrote it down because they had a very different understanding of “the world” than we do now.
It can be used for that purpose – but it doesn’t have to be that way. I think this is also part of why I landed at BioLogos and keep wrestling with all this, because it almost did destroy my faith and I feel like I need to really thoroughly debunk my old beliefs. But sometimes it’s really more a case of me having to go through and re-wire my own thinking on what “foundational” even means – I don’t necessarily have to change my approach to the story all that much, just what was added to it by certain modern apologists.
Are you referring to the Nephilim? (And where are they referred to in the New Testament?) I find that story interesting, but it’s so vague that I don’t think there’s any way to really know anything for sure. Is it possible for fallen angels to have children with humans? I don’t see how that could be verified one way or another. As you said, hyperbole is a possibility – people encountered strong, powerful, psychopathic bullies and viewed them as demigods to help make sense of what they were encountering. It’s not unlike other encounters between different cultures where a power/technology imbalance causes one side to view the other as divine. But all we can really do is guess.
My linkage to the NT here is obscure and really comes from Michael Heiser. He relates the discussion of sinning angels in 2 Peter and Jude to the beings who created the Nephilim. Angels who left their normal dwelling place. Could be a stretch.
Link below.
What do you think about the Moses, plaques, Exodus….similar to Noah?
Interesting… it sounds like a lot of ideas that might be interconnected or might not be. Either way, it’s hard to know what to think of them. Probably I’ve just done a lot more thinking about the flood because of the way it was used by YEC apologists, but Nephilim and sinning angels don’t tend to play into YEC as much.
As for Moses, I am okay with believing most of that story – I acknowledge numbers may have been inflated or incorrectly guessed, and the events were viewed through a more “universal” lens than we would see it as now, same as the flood, but otherwise I try to view it as a story about who God is, less a story about the Israelites and the Egyptians.
Genesis 6 When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.
It is just an explanation of who the sons of Adam married – not this incestuous idea of creationists that they married their own sisters but that they married the daughters of all those other people in the world (also spoken of in Genesis 4).
The only problem is when you try to force the creationist worldview on the text. That forces you to invent all kinds of weird fantasies. But then they want to keep it all magical and disconnected from reality so that they can be the sole authority on this made up magical history.
The Bible never speaks of or describes the earth as a globe but frankly what can only makes sense as a very small portion of that globe. Thus there is no basis whatsoever for understanding a flood described in the Bible as happening over the whole earth as a global flood.
Compared to most here I take a rather historical (but not literal) view of the text in Genesis. All real people and real events but since even the Bible treats some of these things as symbolic then I see no reason to believe in golems animated by magic, magic fruit, or talking animals. Chapters 2-6 tell the story of how self-destructive habits began among a chosen people to whom God had spoken and how they quickly expanded until “all the thoughts of mankind were only evil continually.” But there is nothing to suggest this had expanded to something global and the context of the whole story as it continues suggests this about a first human civilization which was destroyed. In chapter 11 we see an effort of people after the flood seeking to rally mankind in a united civilization and God objects to this causing them to spread out over the earth and to divide into many nations, cultures, and languages.
Others here see the Bible as religious text of made up stories written after the Babylonian captivity to teach and preserve the religious ideas of the Jewish people. It is a safe approach with regards to scientific discovery giving science free reign for discovery of what happened. I am not hostile to this way of thinking, but I don’t see how we gain anything by simply dismissing the stories in this way. If we would learn what these stories have to teach then I think we do better to take them more seriously. And more importantly I would rather defend the fact that science does not preclude the historicity of these stories even if we must not take them as a purely literal account of events. My policy is to maximize the meaning we get from the Bible and I don’t see either of the extremes as doing this very well. We lose meaning when the story becomes magical and contrary to reality and science. And we lose meaning when they become nothing more than vague metaphor. Besides, we can adjust our understanding of the stories as science discovers more. I have done so before and will do so again as needed.
When I say god of the gaps here I simply mean that God was blamed for a catastrophic event when it was just a natural event. Maybe I used it out of context but thanks for moving me towards the top of the list.
But it is not a god of the gaps. Believers attribute things to God even when they have no idea of gaps in the scientific explanation for them. This is not even inconsistent with science because science never gives explanations for everything. It explains how things happen only in the most general terms and not so much reasons why particular things happen. Science perceives the patterns and describes them with mathematical equations and natural laws. It does not seek meaning in the shapes of clouds or coincidental events.
Although Woolley may well have been one of the first archaeologists to propose that the flood described in Genesis was local, that would be a matter of being one of the first archaeologists to work in Mesopotamia; regional floods had been suggested based on the biblical account for centuries and geology ruled out a global flood by about 1840. By the mid-1700’s, it was clear that most geologic layers were not the product of a single brief flood. Mischaracterization of historical views is commonplace. The “catastrophist” geologists of the late 1700’s and first half of the 1800’s did not attribute many geologic layers to the flood, but until the glacial origin of Ice Age features was demonstrated, many thought that the account of Noah reflected the most recent of many catastrophes that punctuated the otherwise relatively gradual accumulation of sedimentary layers. Likewise, Neptunism of the 1700’s thought that the earth started out covered by water, with various layers precipitating out of the water in turn. That’s not the same as Noah’s flood.
Four regions that have been proposed for Noah’s flood:
The Mediterranean basin. The initial deep sea drilling project showed that extensive evaporite deposits underlie the Mediterranean. Northwards movement of Africa led to closing off the basin at both ends, and the sea largely dried up. Eventually, the Atlantic broke through at Gibraltar. However, this flooding was at the Miocene-Pliocene boundary; the only hominids we know of were on the south side of the Sahara region and had brains no bigger than those of chimps. 5 million is also a rather long time to stretch the genealogies, and this assumes that the technologies mentioned in Gen. 4 were lost and rediscovered.
Black Sea: During glacial low sea level, the Bosporus is shallow enough to become land and the Black Sea becomes an enclosed lake like the Caspian. As sea level rises again, the Black Sea region eventually gets reflooded. However, there is no evidence that the flooding was be any more rapid than “hmm, maybe we need to move the tent inland sometime”. It’s also not particularly associated with the geographic features mentioned in Genesis 2.
Persian Gulf: Potentially subject to similar drying and flooding as the Black Sea. There are ancient Mesopotamian traditions associating this region with the flood. Data on the regional geological evidence is a bit sketchy, however. The regional political tensions make geological exploration challenging in some areas. Also, rather than bothering to investigate the potentially academically interesting Quaternary sequence of sea level, those who do investigate regional geology are most likely to be investigating the oil-rich deeper layers and selling the data to an energy company, not publicly releasing it.
Mesopotamia: The general Tigris-Euphrates floodplain region is extremely flat and largely surrounded by mountains. An extreme weather event where a stalled front trapped moist air off the Indian Ocean could produce major flooding, with winds blowing from the south and landing any boat along the northern side of the region.
Appreciate your question and I would only want to point you to what God has said on the flood.
Genesis 5-10 give the account of Noah and the global flood. Genesis 6:5-7 reveals the reason for this global judgement upon man…“the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually”. God as Creator and Judge executed His righteous judgement on that ancient generation. Genesis 7:23 is absolutely clear that every living thing on land was blotted out…it was a global flood…and only Noah and those in the ark were saved from the flood.
And I would encourage you and all readers here that the flood account is not some vague or controversial subject. Our Lord and Savior Himself confirms the flood in Mark 24 & Luke 17 comparing His second coming to the days of Noah in that it will apply to everyone on the face of the earth. Further, God confirms the flood account through Peter’s inspired writings in 1 Peter 3 and 2 Peter 2 where again, it is confirmed that eight people survived the global flood. And finally, the author of the book of Hebrews in chapter 11, the “hall of faith” chapter, summarizes Noah’s faith to build an ark at the command and warning of God.
God’s word is completely clear on this catastrophic and global event. It reveals the righteousness & justice of God as well as the patience & grace of God in waiting 120 years and allowing Noah to be a preacher of the coming catastrophe. We now have the visible rainbow as a symbol that God will never again destroy all flesh through a global flood (Genesis 9:14-17). But sadly, man’s sin and rebellion will again bring global judgement as described as the “Day of the Lord” throughout the scripture and which Peter wrote of in 2 Peter chapter 3.
As believers, our hope and righteousness is in Christ alone and He is the “ark” that can save a lost sinner from their impending judgement that will come regardless of whether they die a “peaceful” death at an old age or die via a catastrophic event. This historic event should not destroy people’s faith but point them to faith in Christ. Just as there was a door in the ark Noah built that one could enter and be saved from that coming flood of judgement, Christ calls us to enter by the narrow gate representing faith in Him alone…His life, death and resurrection…to be saved from the coming judgement of God.
Why does the ark have to be true for this statement to be true? Do you expect all the characters in the parables to be real? Just because Jesus (et al) refer to Noah, it does not necessarily confirm it as anything more than a story with meaning. (the same logic can be applied to Adam & Eve)
I do believe what God has revealed in His word. Searching on words “hell”, “outer darkness”, “eternal fire”, “weeping and gnashing of teeth” will produce numerous verses that reveal the understanding of eternal judgement. Most of these verses are the words of Jesus Himself…primarily in the book of Matthew and also in 2 Thessalonians and Revelation. Matthew 25:31-46 is very clear ending with Jesus stating “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” I believe this understanding is also revealed in the old testament as the term being “cut off” is a clear and repeated theme to those who would reject God and His word.
There’s no doubt this doctrine is the most offensive to man’s sensibilities because it conveys a complete hopelessness and finality in one being consigned to an eternal, never ending, punishment. But it reveals the holiness of God in a way that it reveals the heinousness of our sin and offense towards our holy Creator. I for one know I am worthy of this punishment having lived a life of rebellion and disobedience towards my Creator. But by the grace and mercy of God, He has made a way of salvation through Jesus Christ who’s sin-bearing on the cross received the wrath of God that the offense of sin requires and satisfied the righteous judgement of God. By faith in Christ we can receive forgiveness of sins and be given the righteousness of Christ…both of which we desperately need and can never achieve on our own. John 3:16 is one verse that conveys this saving love towards lost sinners…whoever believes in Jesus for salvation will receive eternal life and not perish.
But that does not give you the right to condemn anyone else. Not by their actions nor by your theology…
Christ talks about eternal damnation but we have only our own concepts to understand it. Any idea that Eternal punishment is cruel is to judge God by human standards (and understanding). Perhaps we do not understand it the way God does?
As a passing thought. If God is outside of time then eternity has no meaning. Eternity would be an instance, no more and no less. An instant joy or an instant horror, but there is no suffering of time to meditate on either. .
The illustration of Christ and the ark is illustrating that they are both a means of salvation…the ark Noah built saved him and his family from the flood of judgement…Christ saves from the righteous judgement of God on sin.
As far as the parallel passages in Matthew 24 and Luke 17, Jesus is speaking of His second coming and makes the illustration that the days of His second coming will be like the days preceding the flood…people will be living their lives with disregard or disinterest in the fact that judgement is coming. Jesus then warns in Matthew 24:42 & 44 to “be on the alert”, “be ready” because no man knows the day or hour of their death nor the day or hour of Christ’s return. Jesus also uses Lot and Sodom as an illustration of this in the Luke passage. There’s nothing in these passages to suggest Jesus was referring to these individuals in any other way than as historical figures and historical events. Further, trying to interpret these passages as being a parable and not historical figures then forces one to have to do the same with the passages in Hebrews 11:7, 1 Peter 3:20 and 2 Peter 2:5 which makes no sense in their context. The plain reading of these passages is clearly indicating that Noah is a historical person and the flood was a historical event. Especially in Hebrews 11, Noah is listed in what many refer to as the “hall of faith”…these are historical people and events.
Yes, there are parables in the Bible and Jesus used many parables to communicate spiritual truth. However, in the Matthew 24 and Luke 17 passages where Noah and the flood are mentioned, there no logical reason to interpret that as a parable nor is it supported from the rest of Scripture.
I interpret your statement “that does not give you the right to condemn anyone” as simply a statement of fact. Of course I do not condemn anyone nor do I have any power or authority to condemn and I myself was under condemnation. And in communicating to someone that God is holy and righteous and will judge sin is in no way personally condemning them but is warning them that they are under condemnation from the one who does have all power and authority…God their Creator & Judge…and that they desperately need a Savior to save them from the coming judgement of their sin…and God in His grace, love and mercy has sent Jesus, God the Son, to receive the punishment for sin in our place and through faith in Him we can be forgiven and reconciled to God…there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ…Romans 8:1.
As far as the thought that eternity is an instant in time…that sounds much like a belief in annihilation. Scripture speaks of a great hope in Christ, eternal life in Christ, a paradise with Christ, worship and praise to God in His kingdom. Jesus in John 14 comforts His followers saying that He will prepare a place for them in His Father’s house…the eternal kingdom where we will worship and enjoy our Creator & Savior forever. If all of that was just an instant of time it is certainly not described that way in God’s word.