Tag: flood

Noah’s Family

Posted on by jovial_cynic

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Genesis 6:8 (NIV)

But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.
Genesis 6:18 (NIV)

Genesis 6 clearly states that the world was entirely wicked, full of violence, every thought and intent was evil… except for Noah.

But God also saves Noah’s entire family: his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives, despite them falling into the “entirely wicked” category.

What does this tell us?

Angels, Giants, and Men

Posted on by jovial_cynic

When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
Genesis 6:1-2 (NIV)

There are 2 schools of thought on the “sons of God” in Genesis 6. This phrase “benei ha-elohim” can either be:

1. Angels who impregnated women
2. Men of Seth’s “godly” lineage who mixed w/ Cain’s line.

In interpretation 1, the Nephilim are monsters and giants. In interpretation 2, they are evil humans.

Either way, whether you believe the “sons of God” refers to angels or men in Seth’s line, neither position requires you to believe that the events actually happened.

The goal is to try to understand what the text intends to teach us, and the lesson may be the same either way.

That said, I strongly believe that Genesis 6 is meant to tell us a story about angels who took human form and impregnated women. Not that I think it literally happened, but I think that’s what the story is saying. And this is primarily because “daughters of Adam” cannot just mean “daughters of Cain.”

Besides, Jude and Peter aren’t going to quote from the Book of Enoch if they don’t think their audience is familiar with the book of Enoch and understand what says. And what it says is that angels impregnated women and those women gave birth to monsters. Later, war. And then the flood.

Comfort from Noah

Posted on by jovial_cynic

And [Lamech] named him Noah, saying, “This one will give us comfort from our work and from the hard labor of our hands caused by the ground which the Lord has cursed.
Genesis 5:29 (NASB)

The last generation listed before Noah is born is through Lamech, who says this perplexing thing about comfort from the toil from the cursed ground.

If you follow the timing of the births and deaths of the line from Adam until Lamech, you’ll see that Adam has only recently died, so perhaps the whole world sees that the consequenced laid out in Genesis 2 and 3 has come to fruition. Maybe the world weeps. Death is reality.

So Lamech names his son “Noah,” which means comfort, and it points to a future where God provides a way out of death, symbolized by a certain boat that rises above the all-consuming flood.

Was Enoch “Raptured?”

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Genesis 5:24 (NIV)

Some believe in the “Rapture,” a future event where God will simply whoosh Christian believers away into heaven before the “Great Tribulation,” where God’s judgement is poured out like liquid from a bowl that floods the world in God’s wrath.

They look at Enoch as an example, who is also taken up.

This does make some of us wonder why Noah, who was called “righteous in his generation” was not taken into heaven like Enoch.

The Vault

Posted on by jovial_cynic
I just had this epiphany today. I’ve always wondered about day #2 of creation in Genesis 1, because it’s the only day God doesn’t say is “good.”

I think I have an answer. The focus isn’t the separation of the waters (chaos above, chaos below)… but about the “vault.”

Some bibles say “firmament,” and some say “vault,” but the image is this space created between the waters that separates the waters above from the waters below. And it’s inside this separation where God separates water from land. Inside this special place.

I often think about working against the curses of Genesis 3 & 4, and how we’re meant to shine as lights in the darkness. A part of our Christian prayer is “on earth, as it is in heaven.” And it’s a prayer to create a protected space in this life where God can be seen clearly…

This protected space is like a vault that holds back the waters of chaos & darkness. It’s space where water is gathered away from land, which represents humanity. And life flourishes on that land.

When we pray “on earth, as it is in heaven,” we’re praying for the firmament.

So why does God not say “it is good?”

Perhaps it’s because it isn’t good *yet.* It represents the good we MUST DO later, after the curse of sin. It WILL be good.

Firmament

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Separations:

Light/Darkness: Good/Evil.
Water below/above: ???
Land/Water: Humanity; God’s work of removing wickedness & chaos from us.

I’m wrestling with the firmament: a vault God put in the water to shove half the sea into the sky. This is what the Hebrews understood. Why?

The ancient people believed that earth had a dome over it, where an uncrossable sky-sea existed, beyond which was God’s realm. The flood waters involved the dome opening and allowing water to fall.

That’s the mythology.

But what is the symbolism? And why is it not “good?”

The dividing of the sea into the “waters below” and “waters above” is on day 2 of the creation story, and it’s the only day where God does not say that He “saw that it was good.”

Is it not good? Is it bad? Does it point to the grief of the Flood story? I don’t know.