So Like, Why Was this Story Told Again?

We're about halfway through this series, "WTF (Why the Flood?)". So I thought we'd do a quick summary of where we've travelled so far in terms of a different approach to the story of Noah's Ark.

Dec 14, 2022

LEARNING TO READ THE BIBLE DIFFERENTLY

In part seven of WTF (Why the Flood?) I ended by saying we were going to get to the Nephilim. However, I want to push that one more week and instead attempt a kind of summary of where we’re at so far.

In the previous article I tried to explain how the Bible preserves the evolving nature of the ancient Israelite’s understanding of who God is and how they (as Hebrew people) might uniquely be a tribe who reveals the nature and character of God to the rest of the world.

Many of us grew up with the assumption that the Bible (specifically the Old Testament) is first and foremost a perfect account of things that actually happened on this planet. One effect of this assumption is that wherever we read “God said” or “God did” something, we are expected to believe that such a thing truly was spoken by or performed by the Creator.

But this approach to Scripture, this way of thinking about and reading and interpreting the Bible, is not the only way to go about it.

In fact, it’s a relatively new approach (with regards to the history of Christianity). And it was mine up until about a decade ago. Whereas I used to read Genesis 6-9 as a literal account of a global flood, a guy named Noah, and a boat big enough to hold two of every animal, I now approach stories like this as a kind of ancient myth designed to articulate distinct beliefs Israelites had about Yahweh.

Rather than intended to be a scientific record of an historical reality, the story of Noah’s Ark is a theological statement about an event believed to have occurred many generations prior.

WHY WAS THE STORY OF NOAH TOLD?

Some of the most advanced archaeological evidence (as well as some underwater evidence) points to multiple floods from antiquity dating between 3500-2500 BC. These flood events are regionally bound—there is no reason to believe that enough rain could occur simultaneously around the planet in such a way as to flood the whole earth. Turns out ancient Mesopotamia was a hotbed for flooding. As a result, many cultures developed their own myths around the what, the why, and the who of such floods. (Re-read part two to be reminded of some of these other ancient flood stories.)

My best guess is that the story of Noah’s Ark, in Genesis 6-9, is similar to other ancient flood myths insofar as they were created by a particular culture in order to try and say something about that culture’s beliefs on their history as a people, as well as their theological ideas about their gods.

Also in this series we talked about how, in the ancient world, there was a direct cause/effect connection between events of the natural world with the will of the gods. For any event—especially that of something like a massive, destructive flood—all ancient cultures would’ve not only ascribed such an event to their gods, but they would’ve also done their best to try and understand why their gods did such a thing.

Israel was no different. They (like the Assyrians and Babylonians around them) grew up in a world that took for granted the occurrence(s) of a Great Flood(s), the likes of which wiped out everything. Or at least, “everything” to them. Satellites did not exist, nor Twitter, nor any other way to determine what was happening in any other part of the world beyond what you could see with your own eyes. So when ancient people spoke about a flood that “covered the earth” we must appreciate how a local flood that covered their earth would’ve essentially been described as one that covered the whole earth.

A NEW WAY TO THINK ABOUT NOAH AND THE ARK

By way of recap then, the situation as I understand it was as follows:

During a time when the Hebrew people were coming into a national identity separate from the Egyptians (from whom they’d recently been liberated via Moses), in addition to formalizing their rituals, rites, and codes of ethic (see: Leviticus), they also set about to articulate a larger story encapsulating who they were, where they came from, and what they were called to be.

As mentioned at the beginning of this series, the first eleven chapters of Genesis are intended to be a kind of theo-historical account of Israel, which included myths such as:

Creation (where everything came from),
genealogy (how their ancestors came to be),
the Tower of Babel (why the world is full of different kinds of people), and
the Flood.

When it came to the myth of the Flood—a quasi-historical event preserved in the imaginations of and the storytelling of most of the civilizations at that time—the ancient Hebrews wanted (needed?) to have an explanation for how such an event fit within their conception of the Divine.

In part four of this series I hinted at the idea that part of what the storyteller was doing was illustrating a belief that God is a compassionate and caring god—which I understand is a bit of a stretch for us modern readers.

How can wiping out 99% of living creatures be considered “compassionate” or “caring?”

That’s a great question.

One I’ll try and respond to next week.