Did Jesus Erroneously teach The Flood Was Literal?

Faith & Science Conversation
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@bluebird1 , thanks for the reply. I would understand the examples of the Nathaniel under the tree without Nathaniel being aware of Him and the woman at the well would be examples of the Spirit revealing things to Him supernaturally and not indicative of Him tapping into His divine nature.

The interaction with Nicodemus is of a different sort to me, I think Jesus believed that the OT revealed enough about the nature of humanity that the religious leaders should have known that the salvation God was going to provide was not in military or political strength, but in the transformation of the heart and the need for access back to the ‘tree of life’ and true relationship with and imaging of the Father.

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As David Montgomery points out in The Rocks Don’t Lie, it is extremely unlikely that the flood didn’t happen at all. Big floods happen, and are well-remembered as noteworthy events. Global flood views are, of course, neither well-rooted in the text nor compatible with the physical evidence (both geological and the numerous basic laws of physics violated by them).

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The Genesis is flood is absolutely universal. That is what the text says. It’s completely incorrect to interpret it otherwise.

And of course big floods happen and can give rise to fiction like we find in Genesis 6-9 and the world over. That doesn’t justify the claim that the Genesis flood happened anymore than it does the version we find in the Gilgamesh Eric or Atrahasis. Even if a specific flood gave rise to stories that gave rise to other stories and developed into legends and myths of a primordial deluge, the Biblical version is fiction. It is not an accurate account when evangelicals scholars try to reinterpret it as a localized event.

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If a person rejects the literality of the flood, what does that person do with the literality of Noah and his sons?

Chuck them in the bin, and Conservative, Orthodox, and Ultra-Orthodox Jews may protest the loss of the Noahide Laws, in which case–it would seem to me–one would be taking an ax to Judaism’s Message for Non-Jews [See Fact #13.]

    1. Judaism’s Message for Non-Jews
      Judaism does not believe in proselytizing to non-Jews or encouraging others to become Jewish. Each and every human being (indeed, every single creature) has a part in the grand chorus of life. However, Judaism does have a message to all people: to live a moral, just and G‑dly life as outlined in the 7 Noahide Laws: (1) to acknowledge G‑d and not to worship idols; (2) not to murder; (3) not to commit adultery; (4) not to eat the limb of a living animal (or otherwise torture G‑d’s creatures); (5) not to blaspheme; (6) not to steal; and (7) to respect the rule of law. Any non-Jew who follows these guidelines is rewarded in the World to Come.

For the bold, dismissing the Noahide Laws, is sort of like dismissing the Torah upon rejecting the story of the Exodus. Chucking both in the bin raises the question: What’s left?

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The laws would have been historicized or written into the flood. The majority of the Biblical works are not about history as much as they are the present.

John Barton and John Muddiman write in The Pentateuch (p 64) : “ In 7:2–3 a distinction is made between clean and unclean animals. This refers to the lists of clean and unclean animals in Lev 11:3–31 and Deut 14:4– 20: it is an example of a tendency to carry back the origin of fundamental institutions (in this case, Mosaic laws) to primeval times. The main reason for the command to take seven rather than two pairs of the clean species into the ark was that some of the clean animals were to be reserved to be used, for the first time, as animal sacrifices (8:20).” We see the same thing in verse 9:4 which regulates how Noah is to eat animals and recalls the kosher law in Lev 7:26–7. Clearly this flood account has its final redaction after the law was given.

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But that IS what it was…they just thought, in those days, that it had covered the whole world.

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thanks for the question…later though…still mostly a holiday

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I cannot tell from Index of /works …whether this is a matter of dispute or not…outside your commentator
OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

In Book 3, chapter 5, there is a discussion of why scripture must sometimes be understood allegorically, and how the Jewish prophecy works.

In Book 3, ch 24, there is a reference to the lost De spe fidelium . This is followed by a description of a heavenly city seen in the clouds in the East early every morning for 40 days, even by pagans.

In Book 4, the Psalms are quoted by number. Tertullian refers to the 3rd and 4th book of Kings (21:4-5).

In Book 4, ch 19, v.10, the biblical census under Quirinius (Luke 2,2) is ascribed instead to Saturninus: "there is historical proof that at this very time a census had been taken in Judaea by Sentius Saturninus, which might have satisfied their inquiry respecting the family and descent of Christ. "

In Book 4, ch 22, v. 4-5, he refers to the New Prophecy as requiring ecstasy. In 22: 7 he refers to the New Testament. In 23:3, he refers to Aesop’s fables. 24:10 contains a possible reference to the long ending of Mark (or else to Acts). In 29:9 he relates the parable of the unjust steward to those who have authority in the church. In 34:6 he refers to the ‘Gospel of Matthew’ by title; in 35:9 to the ‘Gospel of John’. In 36:8 he indicates that the census returns of Augustus for the census at the time of Jesus are not now extant. In 36:14 he quotes a proverb: “the blind man leads the blind down into the ditch.” In 39:5 he rejects the idea that Christ’s prophecy of ‘wars’ in the end times referred to the upcoming Jewish revolt. In 40:4 Jesus is described as “casting light, as He always did, upon the ancient prophecies” of the OT.

In Book 5, 11:12, and 17:1, he refers to Marcion as calling Ephesians, ‘Laodiceans’. In ch 12,7-8, there is a reference to the lost work De paradiso . Marcion’s ‘principle belief’ is identified as coming from the school of Epicurus in 19:7, the impassible and indifferent deity. In 20:2 he states, “the majority of persons everywhere now-a-days are of our way of thinking, rather than on the heretical side.”

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