1. What point is the author attempting to make?
2. Can I find a way to reconcile my perspective with what they’re trying to say?

My points above relate to the first question. Am I confused by God destroying 99% of humanity with some good purpose in mind? Yes, I wrestle with it often. That’s question two However, in comparing Genesis 1-11 with other ANE stories, looking through Biblical scholarship, reading the stories more and more, etc., the (question 1) consensus is that Genesis’ authors/editors DEFINITELY think that God is just, loving, forgiving, purposeful, in total control, etc.

Now, of course, personally, I have all kinds of questions as to why we would stone a guy for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. That I still wrestle with, and it relates to question two. Finding the answer I’m sure will include understanding cultural differences, questioning the inerrancy of the Bible, having conversations on blogs like this, etc.

But I do think it’s important to tell the difference between those two questions. The second question I’m on the same page with you on. The first question is much easier to answer: Genesis authors/editors do indeed see a ton of purpose in the flood story, even though it’s not historical.

I think the standard Nephilim (and related Rephalim) story is that, following the flood, the same fallen angel-human interbreeding which had occurred prior to the flood, happened again, resulting in those 9′ tall giants in the land. This would then also serve as the justification for the complete annihilation of the descendants of Anak, and other Canaanite tribes which are supposed to have been tainted by this unholy union.

I have also puzzled about how an antediluvian Tigris and Euphrates rivers could have had any identity in a post-flood world which, according to Flood Geology, underwent such major upheaval during the flood and it recession. I do not know how Flood Geologist address this question. Anyone?

The requirements of the law haven’t been changed or abolished, sin still requires a sacrifice. However, as the author of Hebrews tells us, “the blood of bulls and goats” never accomplished this. The system was always a shadow of Christ, and he is was the only sacrifice that could satisfy “God’s wrath” against sin.

I know you no longer buy into any Christian theology, so I expect that my answer will not satisfy you. But that is way I would answer your question.

I’m not an ANE scholar, but those that have studied ANE cultures come to the conclusion that the idea of “revelation” — god telling man what the requirements are for worship — was unique to Hebrew monotheism. I assume this is true only because I accept the consensus of the ANE scholars, not becasue I have done any original research on the matter.

God was pleased by heart-felt obedience. Obedience was how he “asserted control” over the “out-of-control” train so speak. In order to bring the sacrifical system down, the system had to focus on Christ — who was the light at the end of the tunnel, and this was the intent of the ritual.

The ritual had no power in and of itself to please God — which is the point of the passage I cited eariler in Hebrews — otherwise we would still have to do it. But if somebody ignored God’s requirements and offered “strange fire” instead, they were basically saying that they know better than God, which of course, doesn’t please God.

Sine you like my analogies, here is another one: When I was going through officer training (in the U.S. Navy), everything in my locker had to line up a certain way. It took hours to arrange everything in accordance with the rediculously detailed requirements that were imposed upon me by the drill instructors — and believe me, not doing it was NO option! But these silly rules had no power in and of themselves. They accomplished nothing, except that they kept me focused and instilled in me a sense of discipline that might “save my life” someday in an unfortunate situation.

Bottom line: the security of our nation doesn’t depend on whether my pants hang 1/2 inch or 3/4 inch apart in my closet. But it does depend on the ability of our men and women in uniform to follow orders. That was the point of the “law”.

Again, I’m expecting that you will buy any of this, I’m just trying to give the best answer I can from the Christian perspective.

Great points on the flood story. It’s truly fascinating to know the context of these OT stories.

Some more theological comparisons between the Hebrew version of the story compared to the several other (older!) ANE versions.

1. in other ANE flood stories, the purpose of the flood was to completely destroy humanity. The multitude of gods were sick of mankind’s “noisiness” and wanted to get rid of them. It was a minor god who intervened to save his “favourite”. The head god was very surprised at the end of it all that the “complete wipeout” didn’t work. The Hebrew story is one of God caring for Noah & his family, and carefully planning their salvation throughout. Much different that the whim & fate of the ANE version.
2. In the ANE version, the flood was so large it almost wiped out the gods themselves and they were themselves terrified. Not so with Yahweh; he was always in control.

Imagine how primitive man lived in constant fear of nature. Whether they survived to live another day was often determined by a storm, wild animals, an earthquake, etc.. Whether they had food next year was determined by rain or drought, or if a flood washed away everything they have, or insects ate it all, etc…

Primitive superstitions equated nature with diety. If it rained, then the gods were pleased. If it rained too much, they were pissed. If it didn’t rain enough, they were pissed about something else. Ancient man assumed that his survival depended on whether or not the gods were pleased, but they had no objective way to know if they were pleasing the gods, or why they weren’t pleased. So they were a sacrificing bunch of fools — hoping to please the gods, but since the gods gave them no requirements, there was no objective way to determine if their worship was pleasing to them. They were out of control.

No imagine an out-of-control train full of passengers. You can’t stop it suddenly without hurting everybody on board or losing control of it. So you jump onto it while it is moving, ride it until you can establish control of it, then slowly and safely bring the speed down to a stop so people can get off.

One way to look at the evolution of religion from the ANE to the post-christian world is to see where the trajectory is taking us. The sacrificial system given by God was an improvement from aimless sacrifice becasue there was an objective standard. The priest could sit down, or rest, after the deed was done — which is something that pagan priest could never do since they never knew if they did it right. This would be like God jumping on the train. He didn’t slam on the breaks ritght away, but merely started to regain control by slow incremental steps, so that every would be on board for the next phase, which was to have this bloody and brutal system of sacrifice eventually slow down to a halt.

Of course, God accomplishes this by submitting himself to the system as a once-and-for-all sacrifice so man is free from having to please God through ritual, even though ritual was at first better than never knowing what you were doing. Same with the rediculously detailed moral and civil OT law that was patterned after ANE legal codes, but with greater protection for the helpless (widows, orphins, the wonderer, etc…) Even the Hebrew laws of slavery, concubines, and midwives — while grossly uncivilized according to modern standards — were lightyears ahead of Isereal’s neighbors in terms of compassion and protection of the weaker and more vulnerable members of society.

Yet, all of the things were merely shadows pointing to Christ — the fullfillment of these stop-gap measures. The problem with the 1st century jews is that they didn’t want to let go of their religion, their ritual. “Love you neighbor” leaves too much to indiviual concience. They wanted to bind the concious of man with a detailed law and appoint themselves as the moral police. The spirit of Christ was completely contrary to this. True morality requires good judgment, thinking through each situation separately, not merely applying inflexible rules. It’s the Occam’s razor of morality — solve every situation with the rational application of few simple principles, get rid of the dumb and detailed list of rules.

So we should think of the flood story as a Hebrew polemic against the popular pagan flood stories. Understand where there are similarities and where there are differences. These help us to see the point God was trying to make. If a material detail is repeated verbatim, like sending out a bird to find a branch, then that obviously was an non-essential detail. But where the stories differ, like the motivation for the gods sending the devastiation, we need to focus on that — becasue therin lies the point the writers were trying to make by changing the story.

I’m quite confused at the establishment of the Law and a system of sacrifice which mandates God to also sacrifice himself to abolish the law, but that’s probably the topic of several threads. If you can point me to other sources to describe this, I’d appreciate it.

I’m still perplexed about this story (and do not know of the other ANE flood stories of which you speak to give a contextual comparison). Is it another case of “My God’s bigger than your gods?”, a threat to follow the Law — and that it takes patience and diligence to follow the Law, but if you do all is good?

Given that the story had a place in Hebrew tradition, what are we to do with the story today?

There was no “global” flood. Heck, there was no “globe” until the 5th century B.C. - and this idea didn’t really catch on in Christian circles until after the Roman Empire fell.

The literal details of the story make it physically impossible to reconcile with even a cusory review of the current state of geological, paleontological, and biogeographical affairs. So obviously, giving the Hebrews an accurrate historical record of an actual meteorological events was not its purpose.

So what was its purpose? When you examine the pagan flood stories that were universally believed by all ANE cultures, including the Egyptians whose flood legend was actually part of an ongoing cycle of creation, destruction, and recreation — patterned after the annual flooding the Nile that initiated the following growing season, it becomes clear that these pagan stories played a significant role in the ANE cultural landscape.

In those days, history, theology, and science were not separate categories of thought as they are to us. For instance, the purpose of history was not really to chronicle actual events, but to INTERPRET events that may or may not have happened in such a way that gave meaning and identity to the culture. Just look at Judges vs. Chronicles (how the two kingdome interpreted the same historical events) and this becomes obvious.

Likewise, the purpose of science (or cosmogony) was not to figure out how the cosmos was organized and how it worked, but to identify the role of diety and the relationship between man, nature and deity.

In monotheistic cultures, deity and nature were almost the same thing. The Hebrew stories are almost exact copies of the popular pagan stories, but the narratives are altered to paint more theologically-correct state of affairs. For instance, the Hebrew creation narrative separates deity from nature, and rolls up all the essential functions of the cosmos under one God.

The Hebrew flood story retains most of the details of the various pagan versions, except the motivations of God and Noah are changed to paint a more theologically-correct state of affairs.

Of course, judged against modern standards of what is morally and socially acceptible, these stories — as you have pointed out — seem like horrible nightmares of death and destruction. But that is not how the Hebrews would have understood them.

These stories were simply part the earliest stages of the overall trajectory of Yahewism from polytheistic superstitions, to monotheistic superstitions, to the Law (which gave man a standard by which to worship God and directed his superstitions towards something that pointed to the end of the system — ie: Christ), to the promise of Christ (who would eventually come to end the Law — ie: the system of sacrifice that God institued to distract his people from sacrificing to pagan gods), to the incarnation of Christ who offered himself as the sacrifice to end the entire practice of sacrifice, and the overall abolishment of religion (as defined by man’s attempt to commune with God through rules and ritual), and the summary of an impossibly detailed and convoluted moral code (orginally accommodate to ANE moral code) with a single elegant rule that we can all agree is pretty good, and actually requires you to think situationally (which is something atheists are better at than Christians who still want everything to be black and white like the good ol’ days) — do unto others…

So to not have the flood story would have left the Hebrews with only the pagan versions, which were incompatible with Hebrew monotheism. That’s pretty much what it’s doing there. To turn it into a scientific model is absurd — as you would agree.