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I’ll start by saying I’m really enjoying this mix of people and questions.
The study material is really wonderful, and the questions really lead to
great conversations.
Here’s the points I want to discuss:
€Grieving God’s Heart
€Seeing the twists and turns of the narrative
€The timing of the flood
Grieving God
Frankly, it surprises me that God’s heart can be grieved. It seems to me that a God who knows the future and has great love would ever regret what’s happening. Maybe it’s because our grief is wracked with sin. We get prideful, selfish, mopey...etc. Maybe it’s not the grief that’s sinful (obviously it’s not if God grieves)...but how our broken selves deal with it. We can take away the reminder that sin is not a joke. God is seriously affected by it (so much so that Jesus incarnated and died on the cross to deal with it). But that’s a different point. I guess I’m talking again about the Openness of God. How much is God influenced by humanity? How do prayers, humanity’s sin, the movements of history affect God’s plans?
I’m not claiming to agree with it (because you can’t deny the sovereignty of God), but here’s more details about the openness of God. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism
Notice that I am not answering these questions!
Noah’s name means comfort. The Hebrew root (the Nun and Het if you must know) are part of the word for comfort. It’s a play on words (ah...the lovely play of the Hebrew language)...There’s a glimmer of hope. God never does destroy all of the creation; he always saves someone. Think of Abraham lobbying for Lot, Moses for the Israelites, the prophets for the people...
That’s what we can take out of this story. Even when things are at their worst, God makes a way. He is a God of grace. It’s all over the Old Testament, people!
Another thought: What was the nature of Noah’s relationship with God? How did he learn about God? This is pre-established religion.
The Twisting Narrative
Aaron brought up an excellent point; he’s more reluctant to see the little cool things that’s happening in the Biblical narrative than in a novel. We’re really skeptical to see play on words, random connections, and cool unexpected things in the Bible. I’m not expressing it well. I just think about all the time I’ve spent dissecting novels and get all excited about the tiny details. Think of how much time I’ve spent analyzing the cool little parts of the Matrix. Why do I think it can’t be possible there are cool little details in the Bible?Timing?
Did you know there’s a date for the flood? Genesis states “In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month”. When is the second month? It’s either in the spring or in the fall. Why does that matter? Well...if it’s in the fall, it’s close to the time of Atonement (Did you know the Hebrew word for atonement and pitch (Like what they smeared on the ark) is the same?). Surely the story talks about it. But if it’s in the spring, the timing for all of this places is smack in the middle of Passover, and the time of Resurrection. Interesting.We also talked extensively about end time stuff, but I’m tired and will blog about that later.
