Vernon,
Reading 'erets as land throughout the Flood account still makes sense of
it.
On Thu, 14 Oct 2004, Vernon Jenkins wrote:
> I pointed out that _before the ark was built_ God had already decided who
> were to be its sole occupants! (Gen.6:18-20). Can I take it then that you
> concede this point? viz that to deal with the exigenses of a _local_ flood
> there can be no satisfactory reason for requiring the building of an ark?
We are called to witness even when God knows that there will be no
converts. This was apparently the case with Noah. I have heard it said
that it was also true of Jeremiah. Maybe some other prophets had no
converts, but God still called them.
> 8) Yet, strangely, these do not fall within the aegis of the Noahic
> Covenant! - for that was specifically established with Noah, with his
> descendants in perpetuity, and with every living creature from the ark, and
> their descendants (Gen.9:8-10). So where does each of us stand today? Are we
> included in this covenant? - or are we not? Clearly, in a _local_ flood
> scenario we cannot know!
Although the covenant was made specifically with the inhabitants of the
ark, its benefits extend to all creatures, which is perhaps acknowledged
in 9:12. It is interesting that in 9:9,10 Noah's descendants are mentioned
but not the descendants of the animals.
> But you will agree that it is _kosmos_ rather than _ge_ that these writers
> use. I read in Strong's Lexicon that this word (2889) can mean 'the world,
> including its inhabitants' - but never 'land' or 'country'.
That is my point. They don't use the word for the physical earth but
rather the one for the world as in John 3:16.
> I observe that the Hebrew word 'ruach' (7307) can also mean 'Spirit' (as in
> Genesis 1:2, for example), and is frequently translated as such. The
> implication, for me, is that this period of earth history was accompanied by
> a complete reshaping of the earth's surface - with the building of mountain
> ranges and the excavation of deep ocean trenches (which, in accomodating the
> flood waters, caused the sea level to fall).
Ambrose interpreted ruach as Spirit, but he didn't agree with the rest of
your paragraph. The meaning 'wind' is natural here because it is part of
an account of what was going on physically. The first readers would have
been familiar with what wind could do in a small-scale version of the
Flood. Wind could lower the water level in a landlocked body of water not
receiving any inflow. The wind is the only reason that Genesis gives for
the receding of the water, and you say that that wasn't the reason but
that it was something else. A straightforward reading of Genesis 2 shows
that your scenario of the Flood reshaping the earth's surface is false.
The supposed visions of Ellen White have no credibility to me, especially
when they are inconsistent with Scripture.
> '...the face of the whole earth' sounds very much like a _global_ event,
> wouldn't you agree? Clearly, the tops of the mountains (newly created?) were
> beginning to break through. What land surface there was would probably have
> been coated with a layer of mud ('...the dove found no rest for the sole of
> her foot...').
Mud does not qualify as water. Would you want to replace water with mud
anywhere else in the Flood account? The sight of mountains had given Noah
hope that the ark was no longer sitting in water.
Gordon Brown
Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0395
Received on Mon Oct 18 19:29:47 2004
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