April 16, 2018 - Day 8 - Genesis 8
Genesis 8:
Chapter 8 begins with God remembering Noah was out there, so God sends a wind that lowers the flood waters. As the water was receding, then Jon Snow - I mean - Noah sends a raven to fly around. Next, a dove heads out to check the water levels, but its still too high. So the dove comes back, chills out for a week, and then heads back into the world and finds an olive leaf. I thought God killed everything? A week later, the dove went out and never came back. Makes sense.
We are told the water dries up and Noah is 601 years old. Did the oceans dry up to? The flood myth is not unique to Christianity. There are actually many different flood myths across various cultures. Remember the Sumerian King List I mentioned before? A great flood happened there too.
For what its worth, an ancient flood isn't compatible with our modern understanding of geology and paleontology. If you need to believe the flood happened in order to be a decent person, I'm not trying to take that from you. By all means.
The ark comes to rest somewhere in present-day Turkey and we are told that the earth is completely dry. I assume this means the oceans have dried up as well? At this point, its probably worth mentioning that ancient people had almost no idea of places on earth outside of their minimal radius what was accessible to them. The "earth" to them was likely only a few hundred mile radius. Look up early world maps; they are fascinating.
God tells Noah and his squad to come out and enjoy themselves. So the only humans left in the world are Noah, his wife, his 3 sons and their wives. In order to keep human civilization going, we are gonna need some serious family fun for awhile; Game of Thrones style. Nothing says traditional biblical marriage like a myriad of incest.
As ancient primitive people tend to do, Noah made an altar of clean animals for God. God smelled the holy barbecue and got real excited. Because the barbecue smelled so good, God decided not to kill all of the life on earth anymore, even though every human inclination is evil from childhood. Makes sense.
I don't find this story compelling. It sounds like an ancient flood story about an ancient god who is pleased at the idea of sacrifices. Its not interesting. It doesn't really tell us anything about god, but it tells us a lot about what type of civilization these ancient people were living in - a superstitious one.
What is the point? The author wants us to know that his god is capable of killing everyone. As did the author of other great flood stories, courtesy of their favorite deity.
What do you think this story means?
Chapter 8 begins with God remembering Noah was out there, so God sends a wind that lowers the flood waters. As the water was receding, then Jon Snow - I mean - Noah sends a raven to fly around. Next, a dove heads out to check the water levels, but its still too high. So the dove comes back, chills out for a week, and then heads back into the world and finds an olive leaf. I thought God killed everything? A week later, the dove went out and never came back. Makes sense.
We are told the water dries up and Noah is 601 years old. Did the oceans dry up to? The flood myth is not unique to Christianity. There are actually many different flood myths across various cultures. Remember the Sumerian King List I mentioned before? A great flood happened there too.
For what its worth, an ancient flood isn't compatible with our modern understanding of geology and paleontology. If you need to believe the flood happened in order to be a decent person, I'm not trying to take that from you. By all means.
The ark comes to rest somewhere in present-day Turkey and we are told that the earth is completely dry. I assume this means the oceans have dried up as well? At this point, its probably worth mentioning that ancient people had almost no idea of places on earth outside of their minimal radius what was accessible to them. The "earth" to them was likely only a few hundred mile radius. Look up early world maps; they are fascinating.
God tells Noah and his squad to come out and enjoy themselves. So the only humans left in the world are Noah, his wife, his 3 sons and their wives. In order to keep human civilization going, we are gonna need some serious family fun for awhile; Game of Thrones style. Nothing says traditional biblical marriage like a myriad of incest.
As ancient primitive people tend to do, Noah made an altar of clean animals for God. God smelled the holy barbecue and got real excited. Because the barbecue smelled so good, God decided not to kill all of the life on earth anymore, even though every human inclination is evil from childhood. Makes sense.
I don't find this story compelling. It sounds like an ancient flood story about an ancient god who is pleased at the idea of sacrifices. Its not interesting. It doesn't really tell us anything about god, but it tells us a lot about what type of civilization these ancient people were living in - a superstitious one.
What is the point? The author wants us to know that his god is capable of killing everyone. As did the author of other great flood stories, courtesy of their favorite deity.
What do you think this story means?
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