Re: [asa] Noah's local flood?

Hi Vernon,

the OT often uses language that sounds universal but wasn't meant to be literally universal by the original author.  Note this passage:

Gen.41:57,  And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world.

Did the Mayans in Central America and the Incas in South America go to Egypt to buy grain?  How did they find out that Egypt had grain, all the way down in their kingdoms in Central and South America?  How did they get the news in time to travel across the ocean, buy grain, and bring enough shiploads back to America in time before the famine was over?  How about the Polynesians, the Australians, the Eskimos (who don't even eat bread), the Chinese?  Did any of these far away countries literally go to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph?  But it says "all the countries" and "all the world."  What it meant was "all the countries in the region" and "all the world [lands] around Egypt."  There are many examples like this in the OT.  If you do a comprehensive survey of the "universal-like" language in the OT, you'll never again believe that the type of language describing the flood was really meant to tell us that it was global.

If you are willing to accept that universal-sounding language isnt' always universal, then it is easy to see how Gen.9 is promising the availability of God's grace to all humans and yet was dealing with only a local flood and was using symbols (Noah as a Christ-figure, the ark being a picture of salvation).  If you are unwilling, you can parse the passage a hundred ways to "prove" a local flood is impossible and nobody will be able to convince you otherwise.  Thus, it has to be left as an exercise for the reader to work it out for himself.  :)

God bless!

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: Vernon Jenkins <vernon.jenkins@virgin.net>
To: asa@calvin.edu; philtill@aol.com
Sent: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 2:01 am
Subject: Re: [asa] Noah's local flood?

Hi Phil,

Clearly, to believe the Mabbul to have been a _local_ flood is essential to evolutionary assumptions.  Hence the symbolic explanations you offer.  But how, then, do you suggest we read Gen 9: 9-17?  God's covenant was, and is, with _all_ flesh; local flooding, and death by flooding, are facts of life.  Can this covenant have any meaning unless Noah's flood was indeed _global_?

Vernon

----- Original Message -----

From: philtill@aol.com

To: asa@calvin.edu

Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 10:40 PM

Subject: Re: [asa] Noah's local flood?

1.  Why animals and birds?

"Noah" means "rest" in Hebrew, and he was the messiah-character who was promised to bring rest to God's people.  Noah didn't need to take any animals at all, much less birds, but they symbolized how God invites all peoples to be a part of his family.  The diversity of the animals implies God's inclusiveness in the offer of salvation.  Noah took _all_ the animals into God's salvation, the ark.  It was also intended to be ironic that the animals got on board but the people didn't.  This implies that the people _could_ have gotten on board if they were willing, and thus it justifies the flood by showing that the people were doomed by their own choice.  So I don't see any problem in taking the account literally that Noah took birds, etc., even though it was a local flood.  The actions were symbolic, not practical in any sense.

2.  Why build an ark instead of simply walk away from the region?

I think we fail to see how important that region of the world was.  It was the first and greatest civilization, so a flood there would be as symbolic as the terrorists had intended on September 11 at the World Trade Center.  God wouldn't have told Noah to simply walk away because His purpose was not merely to save Noah but to make a symbolic statement about the judgement of that glorious and abusive culture.

It was a really big deal when Abraham was told to leave southern Mesopotamia, the center of the world, and to move to a land that God hadn't even shown him, yet.  Civilization had developed there over a perod of some 5000 years, and Abraham left only about 4000 or 4500 years ago.  That puts Mesopotamia into perspective.  The brevity of the first 11 chapters in the Bible make it seem like a short period of time and hence unimportant.  But to the people who lived at the tail-end of that period, the sense of grandeur and the depth of time that they felt for their world was surely no different than what we feel for the depth of recorded history ever since.  Imagine how big a deal it would be if the Pope believed God told the Catholic church to leave Rome, or if the Jews believed God told them to abandon Jerusalem, or if the Muslims took the Ka'bah stone away from Mecca.  Flooding Sumer, or leaving it to go to Palestine, were both really, really big deals.

With that in mind, I think that when God told Noah that he would never send another flood, he was only talking about the center of the world, Mesopotamia.  Then, that promise was fulfilled when God sent Abraham away from its godlessness rather than flooding it again.  I think that the prophecy to never send another flood was intentionally looking forward to Abraham in order to explain why he left.  Rather than send another flood, God sent his godly man out of the region because He had promised not to flood it again.  So Abraham, who could be considered a second "Noah", did in fact simply walk away.  The first Noah stayed and demonstrated Christ's salvation symbolically.  It was the second Noah who simply walked.. 

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:35 pm
Subject: RE: [asa] Noah's local flood?

William Hamilton said:
“Or as Bernie said, why didn't he just tell Noah to walk out of the path of the flood (he had time -- all the time he and his sons were building the ark)“

And doesn’t it seem silly to load-up birds, which should be able to easily fly away?

As for flying over a lake and seeing endless water- I know that feeling.  I’ve seen Lake Erie (sp?) many times, and it looks like an ocean from the shore- and even when flying over it.  But I guess when it comes to a local flood hypothesis, there are lots of variations (which animals on board or not, short or long duration, wiping out all humans or not, etc.).

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists..calvin.edu] On Behalf Of William Hamilton
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 7:26 AM
To: philtill@aol.com
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Noah's local flood?

I like Phil's summary. The part about the ark being washed into the Persian Gulf and being blown eastward makes a lot of sense. One minor sticking point of course is that if God knew that the flood was going to be local, why did He have Noah load all the animals onboard the ark? Or as Bernie said, why didn't he just tell Noah to walk out of the path of the flood (he had time -- all the time he and his sons were building the ark)

-- 
William E (Bill) Hamilton Jr.
Rochester, MI/Austin, TX
248 821 8156
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