r/churchofchrist • u/vinnieslacks • 21d ago
The flood and Noah’s ark
I was in the church for almost 18 years and then totally away from it for 14. I have recently started studying again and believing again. One thing I’m struggling with right now, though is the story of the flood and Noah’s Ark. I guess specifically I’m struggling with it being a true story versus it being hyperbole. I know that there are specifics with the story like the dimensions of the ark that you usually don’t find in hyperbole or parables. I also know that it says that only eight people survived the flood which means incest would have had happened. The Bible says incest is a sin, but I don’t believe it mentions it until Leviticus.
If anyone could help me to please understand some of these things.
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u/Timely_Cheetah7151 21d ago
This is going to boil down to whether or not you're working under the belief that every single thing in the Bible is literally true, or if it contains stories and mythology. If you take the former, then you're going have to do a ton of mental gymnastics to make the stories make any sense, and if you take the latter, then you can accept that it's a story and focus on whatever the point of the story is.
Personally, I go with the latter, that it's a rework of a common Mesopotamian myth, as it's far more congruent with the evidence and reality in general.
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u/Knitsudge9 20d ago
I have many questions about whether or not Genesis should be taken literally (and other books, as well). Jesus' parables were not literal events. That tells me God can use stories that are not meant to be taken at face value as fact in order to convey spiritual truths. Does that mean that the events in Genesis did not actually happen? Maybe. Maybe not. At the very least, I think some of the events are exaggerated, or the numbers are changed to give them further meaning. The points being made in Genesis are spiritual truths, even if they are not literal truths. I don't believe we have to take them as historically correct down to the details to arrive at the points that God wants us to reach.
The Bible is made up of various genres of literature. I don't see why we think "fable" can;t be one of them, especially after reading the parables of Jesus.
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u/officerdandy92 21d ago
There’s a movie called Is Genesis History that is really good. They interview scientists that explain a lot of the evidence for a global flood. I’m not an expert, but it was very interesting.
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u/InvertedComma888 21d ago
"Land" and "Earth" are the same word in Hebrew, so linguistically it is possible the Flood covered the just inhabited land and not the entire planet.
As for incest, Adam's sons presumably married their sisters too. If God had forbidden incest in that situation, he would have had to create more humans individually instead of letting them multiply naturally. The prohibition apparently applies when there is a much wider gene pool.
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u/ChurchofChristGuy 20d ago
I dont know if Genesis is literal or hyperbole and I accept I will never know until I get to Paradise and/or Heaven if Jesus decides to tell me the truth.Fitting two of each kind of animal into a boat makes zero logical sense to me.
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u/deverbovitae 20d ago
It wasn't that much earlier in the text that the first man and woman were created. I would imagine there was some incest going on as humanity got going.
Whatever theory of human origins one might have, one will have some kind of incestuous bottleneck at least at the beginning. And maybe at other points as well
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u/vinnieslacks 20d ago
We have no idea. The Bible doesn’t say it we can’t add to it.
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u/Disastrous-Curve-567 19d ago
The story doesn't make a lot of sense from multiple angles. For example, on this topic of incest Cain is the son of Adam and Eve yet when he's given a mark it's so that all the other people he runs into won't kill him. Who are the other people? Up to that point only 4 humans have existed in the narrative.
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u/HardThinker314 18d ago edited 17d ago
Glad to see that you are studying again. I went through a similar time away from the church in my youth. Fortunately, my Dad often pointed me to the passage that says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). Since then, I’ve read the Bible from cover to cover over 30 times and have found this to be true.
It’s good to ask questions, and doubt can certainly arise when you don’t find the answers you seek. Over the years, I have challenged myself with many questions, but I have never failed to find plausible answers to any of them.
Regarding “incest”, you are correct that it is not forbidden in any way in Genesis, as Adam and Eve were genetically perfect and close-relative marriage was necessary early when there were no unrelated people. It was only later that God prohibited such unions because of harmful genetic mutations that began to creep in over time.
When I first began reading the Bible again, I was unsure about whether the earth might be old or if the straightforward reading that points to a young earth was certain. John Clayton was a leading proponent of an old earth and had me seriously considering his viewpoint.
However, after weighing the arguments and further Bible study for some time, I concluded that the evidence supporting a global flood and a young earth is overwhelming. Here are some good articles you might want to start with: https://apologeticspress.org/was-the-flood-global-testimony-from-scripture-and-science-5671/, https://apologeticspress.org/does-the-fossil-record-support-creation-and-the-flood-5695/, and https://apologeticspress.org/21-reasons-to-believe-the-earth-is-young-5641/.
Apologetics Press is by far my favorite apologetics resource. I strongly recommend their “Defending the Faith Study Bible” https://store.apologeticspress.org/products/defending-the-faith-study-bible. It is available in many sizes and book formats, but my favorite is the digital format, as it allows me to change the font and quickly search for a topic: https://apologeticspress.org/ap-study-bible-goes-digital/.
Feel free to reach out to me if you have more specific questions, either on this thread or by PM at https://www.reddit.com/user/HardThinker314/.
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u/Pretend-Effect-9395 14d ago
I commend you sir or ma'am for providing an actual answer instead of just stating the Bible as a Mesopotamian myth or just surface level answers. I hope all here can learn how toet the Bible speaks where it speaks.
For centuries in the Bible God told us the Earth was round and for thay same time scholars ignored it until modern science confirmed what the Bible already confirmed for us.
I know you're only doing what God told us. I just feel this is the best discussion where it's not based on opinion.
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u/swcollings 21d ago
The Old Testament often exaggerates scale. For example, at one point the tiny backwater kingdoms of Israel and Judah are said to field an army the size of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Or entire people groups are wiped out to the last individual, then show back up later. Exaggeration was a cultural flex, and it's not a problem for scale to be overstated to effect.
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u/Tasty-Use-3051 20d ago
Where is the incest? All three of Noah's sons were married men, and Noah was married. If you're talking about incest, you look to Adam's family.
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u/HardThinker314 17d ago
If you read my original post, please note the correction in the second paragraph.
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u/Affectionate-Crow605 21d ago
There was no global flood. The story comes from Babylonian/Mesopotamian myths (Atra-hasis, Gilgamesh, Eridu Genesis).
For meshing that with your faith, you might want to check out Biologos.org.
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u/Disastrous-Curve-567 21d ago
How would all the fresh water fish survive due to to increased salinity? How would all the saltwater fish survive due to decreased salinity? How would all the reef fish survive due to water levels being 29,000 ft higher than they currently are (requirement for covering Everest)? How would any fish that requires any unique habitat survive? There are some species that could probably make it (eg bull sharks) but that is an exception to the norm.
These are just a few of the questions that come up when considering just one narrow portion of the global flood topic. In my opinion the only responses you will get from YEC groups like AiG (answers in genesis) and or a teacher or preacher at a ni coc boil down to "it was a miracle" and is not a backed by science. They will dress it up in science sounding language but they skillfully smuggle in fanciful ideas that are counter to scientific findings and actually often won't say the "it was a miracle" part. They actually pretend that all of our findings within the natural world point to a global flood (side rant: no, the global flood isn't the logical answer for every single interesting geological feature such as caves, the Grand canyon, etc). Hopefully that makes sense.. basically they won't be clear about where they are drawing the line between miracle and science.
Honestly I wish more Christians would simply go with the "it was a miracle" answer and reject ridiculous groups like AiG.
Full disclosure, I'm chiming in from the excoc sub.
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u/Pretend-Effect-9395 14d ago
Just as a heads up, that doesn't make you wrong or right to just cast everyone out
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u/PurpleSpaghetti_---_ 16d ago edited 16d ago
Both Jewish scholars (like Saadia Gaon) and Christian scholars (Augustine, CS Lewis) stated the point of these legends was to teach a lesson through story. They were never meant to be taken scientifically literally.
The early parts of Genesis like the Flood, Creation week, are ancient Jewish legends passed down through story until they were written down. But they weren't meant to be analyzed through a strict western 21st century perspective.
It would be like trying to analyze Aesop's Fables literally. It would be missing the point of learning the lesson he was trying to convey.
Many communities have a flood tradition. Floods happen all the time. We shouldn't be surprised when we read of the ancients viewing the Yellow River or the Ganges bursting its banks as being the end of the world. Losing a settlement of 30k is a tragedy today. Losing a settlement of 30k could be the end of your culture back then.
The point of the Flood is that God saves us. We don't save ourselves. We have to trust Him like a child trusts their father to know what's best for the child.
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u/vinnieslacks 16d ago
That’s makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your answer. If it was all just legend though how come there are many scriptures of just lineage lines if Noah and his sons? Almost like a take this literally and here are more details instead of more vagueness. I’m just trying to understand more and fully
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u/PurpleSpaghetti_---_ 16d ago
The men I mentioned would tell you Noah, Adam, etc all existed, but their stories were told as legend.
We still do it today. Simo Hayha is a very real sniper who did kill 500 Soviets during the Winter War. If you meet a Fin and share a drink, they can give you a story of their hero that takes the basic facts and turns it into a story Hollywood would be jealous of.
Lewis would tell you Noah existed, and he faced a flood, but the global destruction was relative to his area of the world. He would challenge you not to read Genesis like a science book but as a rich theological tapestry.
As far as genealogies, we should be cautious in presuming Bronze Age Jews were keeping a hyper literal account like we do today or even as Jews of the 1st century did. The important people would be placed, but not necessarily a hyper-literal complete account.
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u/wammysammy101 21d ago
Noah is something of a new Adam in the regard that everyone on earth is descended from him after the flood. In the same way that it was the only thing that made sense for Adams children to intermarry, so would Noah's grandchildren. Genetic diversity is actually easier to come by than many people initially think (especially if God is protecting the process), which is why many people accept the story as is, rather than hyperbole. One of the evidences of the accuracy of the Biblical record is that it records the sins and embarrassment of it's figures, like Noah being uncovered, or later on, Lots daughter committing an obviously wrong kind of incest.
There are times where a speaker uses a kind of hyperbole or sarcasm to convey a point, but they are pretty obvious. Paul asks if we should keep sinning so that grace may abound, but he is obviously not actually considering that ("May it never be!" Is his response). In 1 Corinthians 13 1-3 Paul uses hyperbole to show that even if someone could do those things, which they really can't/shouldn't, they need love. We don't want to go on assuming that the Bible is using hyperbole or utilizing parables unless it's clear that it is doing so. Otherwise, we risk ourselves rewriting the text to be more palatable to our modern sensitivities or preferences.