So this would be a case where if someone sat down and wrote a history of the world, everybody at the time would be saying, wait a minute, what about the flood? Where does that fit in? How can you list all these generations and not mention the flood? Not much of a history, then, is it?
But at the same time, I doubt that they were considering questions about Mount Everest or Australia when they were writing ‘the whole land under the sky.’
Hopefully, no one defines “conservative” as starting with an English translation?
I don’t see where Moses “thought” the flood was global. Where are you seeing that? I’m saying the phrases themselves can mean global or local. They are not confined to the global definition.
If I said that it rained and that water “covered the face of the earth” it could mean the whole planet or it could mean locally. There is no built-in single meaning to that phrase.
So for those who understand it to mean a global flood, what do they say about Gen. 4:20, which is talking about descendants of Cain and how Jabal was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock, and Jubal was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and the pipe?
This certainly looks to me as though their descendants are still living and still distinct groups, which would be tricky to square with everyone but Noah’s family getting wiped out.
True, although as Christy has pointed out, a word’s meaning in a passage is determined not just by its overall semantic range but by its usage in context. And in the context of the Genesis 6-8 story, I would argue that the Flood is portrayed as universal in extent. Here’s my evidence:
This is a really, really interesting point. I actually realized this strange detail for the first time when reading a chapter in the book Reading Genesis After Darwin. Walter Moberly, in his chapter on interpreting Gen. 1-11, argues that this inconsistency is indicative of multiple narrative traditions coalescing in the same final text. Also, he suggests that the chronology of events, as well as their scope, is moved and changed to fit the needs of the narrator in making his points. So the Flood is transposed into primeval history and universalized, but the Nephilim traditions remain before and after the Flood story. (Apparently, some Jewish interpreters throughout history have tried to resolve the problem by having the Nephilim ride on the roof of the Ark. The absurdity of this interpretation is very telling).
It’s a very similar issue to the question of who Cain marries, and who exactly he is afraid of, and how he builds a city so fast. Were Adam and Eve the first and only humans throughout the Gen. 2-5 narrative? I would say yes, and no, depending on the needs of the narrator in each episode. In some episodes of the story, the narrator portrays them as the only humans on earth (Gen. 2-4 portrays this pretty clearly), but then in chapter 5, it’s not so clear. Again, I think the narrator is taking a story later in human history (note the interesting links between the story of Adam and Israel) and transposing it into the primeval era, which leaves the footprints of its original setting.
The reason I find these questions so interesting and important is that it forces us to confront the insufficiency of many “conservative” approaches to biblical authority and interpretation, which, in my opinion, is an essential step towards a more harmonious relationship between Scripture and modern science.
Excellent points. I find myself hanging on to the possibility of some of the more “conservative” approaches, but as you say, it makes it difficult to reconcile not only with science but with other biblical accounts that are in conflict unless you take a more literary rather than literal approach.
Hm. Bear with me while I quibble technically with a word meaning here, if I may.
I don’t think the whole planet is actually that reasonable a meaning. If I talk about the face of the moon, I’m talking about the hemisphere we can see. The moon therefore has at least two faces, because we can’t see all of it at once.
I checked the definition of ‘face’ to be sure: “the surface of a thing, especially one that is presented to the view or has a particular function, in particular.”
So the best way to interpret this phrase is as the visible surface of the earth. You could argue that this should mean an entire hemisphere of the planet, but I think the better argument is that it referred to the entire surface of the earth visible to Noah and those around him.
To argue that it means the whole planet involves not just picturing the globe from some imaginary viewpoint in space, but picturing it from all sides simultaneously, a viewpoint surrounding it 360°. Talk about mental gymnastics! I won’t rule that meaning out, but I think it’s a significantly less likely one.
Since @nobodyyouknow relies on the English, I won’t attempt to backtrace the etymology through time, although if someone else wants to I’ll be curious!
People in the ancient Near East thought the earth was flat, with a dome covering it. So, in Noah’s perspective, the face of the earth and the whole earth are the same thing. http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/the-firmament-of-genesis-1-is-solid-but-that’s-not-the-point
Yes, yes, good point, of course. I wonder if they pictured the floodwaters reaching the edges of the earth where the dome touched down and filling up there like water filling a tub? If they did, perhaps when the waters abated, it could have drained through windows in the firmament, near the bottom; that or drained away through the earth to the waters below.
Did they consider it possible to know how far away the firmament walls were, how big the face of the earth was? Or was that a question that there was no point even trying to answer?
………I’m sorry for not listening to what you’re trying to tell me. You are probably right and I am engaging in too many acrobatics. I’m just not ready to settle down and stop exploring them quite yet, is all! Thanks for all your responses. 
Lynn, I wonder if we in the present see reality in much a different light than ancient people. It is hard for us not to think of creation in other than a material fashion, with edges and walls and hard domes. For the original audience, I wonder if they really worried about what the edges looked like, and what a star would look like up close and so forth, or if they had a bit more metaphysical concept of reality.
It is sort of ironic how fundamentalist type interpretations are more material and “science-y” and how the more science-y folks have a more metaphysical or “spiritual” interpretation of those verses.
I put together a “guided tour” of BioLogos materials on this topic a while back: BioLogos Guided Tours #1: Ancient Cosmology and the Bible - Article - BioLogos.
True. But part of the problem is represented by Walton himself in his book, The Lost World of Scripture. He spends much time describing speech-act theory – locution (what is said), illocution (the author/speaker’s purpose in communicating), and perlocution (the intended reaction of the listener/reader) – and how it impacts biblical interpretation. He goes on to say that in the biblical narratives “the perlocution focuses on a response to God rather than to the events themselves or to the people engaged in the events…” This makes perfect sense. Of course the biblical author is not writing about creation or the flood merely to satisfy our curiosity about the past. According to Walton, the biblical author’s intent (illocution) was to present theological truth about God that would cause his readers to respond properly to God in worship (perlocution). All of this seems obvious and fairly straightforward.
But in the midst of this analysis, Walton throws in this zinger at the end of the previous quote: “the perlocution focuses on a response to God rather than to the events themselves or to the people engaged in the events (at the same time realizing that they must therefore be considered real events and real people in a real past). In that sense theology takes the primary position, but the theology loses its force if the events did not happen.” (Emphasis added)
The problem is that Walton in no way shows that his “must therefore” is either a “therefore” or a “must”. Statements like “the theology loses its force if the events did not happen” are not only unsubstantiated, they are wrong. Nevertheless, a great deal of conservative approaches to inspiration and authority take this tack. To me, it shows a lack of understanding of the power of literature as a truth-telling vehicle.
Yes! This is what I was trying to get at. We are so accustomed to knowing the limits of our world, the dimensions and size of it: even if we can’t quote the numbers off the top of our head, we know the shape of it and what is and is not feasible to fit within its boundaries. Do we take that knowledge for granted, when trying to imagine how an ancient mind would tell a story? If you’ve got no clue how big the world is, do you automatically categorize into universal vs. local perspectives?
(It was quite deliberate that I used the perspective of a child’s memory, many years old, for my little thought-experiment in comment 19.)
But metaphysics takes time to sit and think, and modern life provides us many luxuries, but that one isn’t necessarily encouraged by all the material wealth and knowledge around us! We’ve got to make time to seek it for ourselves.
One more example, bringing it into a modern context, because it’s too good to pass up sharing.
Question: True or false: The universe is filled with Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.
Answer: What do we flippin’ know about it?
The part of the universe we know about is filled with the CMB. The universe extends a long way as far as we can see, and is filled with the same kinds of matter and galaxies that we have in our part of it, so it’s a reasonable extrapolation it all has the CMB as far as we can see, too.
But how far does the universe go? How far is it still filled with galaxies for, and how far does the CMB extend? Indefinitely? We don’t know. We know a lot about a lot of it, but what kind of fraction is the known universe to the unknown universe? We have absolutely no idea!
And yet how easy it is for us to say, the universe is filled with this or that! Because that which is unknown to us might as well not exist in our speech.
It’s not just the ancient Hebrews being weird. It’s human nature.
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