A Question About Noah

I occasionally comment on videos on YouTube that touch on elements of faith.   As a result, others will comment on my comments and I may get the privilege of having ongoing conversations with both believers and non-believers alike.  On one such occasion, a really kind and respectful gentleman asked about Noah's Ark and Noah's flood.  Of course, there was the recent movie "Noah" staring  Russell Crowe.  I like the way the the Wikipedia entry introduces the movie by saying it is "based loosely on the story of Noah's Ark from the Book of Genesis...".  Thus, I want to make a few general comments on Noah.

My first point is that Noah existed.  Please forget the wall paper, children's stories, and picture books.  Noah, like many people from the ancient world, cannot easily be documented outside of singular ancient narratives. With Noah, it is the Jewish ancient text. But this is true regarding many ancient people from other ancient cultures, not just the Jews.  One of the most famous would be an ancient Mesopotamian king named Gilgamesh. Outside of some very mystical and very ancient collection of stories entitled, "The Epic of Gilgamesh", there is simply no evidence for the existence of this man.  However, it doesn't mean he didn't exists. Thus, my first main point is this:  Noah was a historic person.  He existed in time and space.

Secondly, there was some kind of flood.  In addition, the Epic of Gilgamesh, along with many other very old stories from different cultures around the glob, include a flood narrative.  All of these narratives are mutually exclusive - that is, the stories conflict with one another at many points.  There are not only ancient Mesopotamian stories, but Hindu, Greek, and even Mesoamareican flood stories. If humanity came from the descendants of the survivors of a cataclysmic "natural" disaster such as a regional or even world wide flood, then  - like the telephone game - the story would exist everywhere but be different between people groups, and sometimes radically different.  Yet, the intersections of such stores does imply that something happened.  I choose to accept the biblical narrative for many reasons which I don't have time to discuss here.

Now, two easy questions that I was asked about Noah are:  (1) What did the carnivores eat on Noah’s Ark and (2) how long were they aboard the wooden ship?  These questions are answered by the biblical narrative.  First, Noah was told by God to take 7 pairs not just a single pair, of every clean animal.  As the text says, "Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate" (Genesis 7:2).  So, they ate the clean animals.  Secondly, how long was Noah on the Ark?  A little over a year - 360 or 370 days.  It is written, "Noah entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth..." (Genesis 7:10-11).  He left the ark about a year later.  As it is written, "By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.  (Genesis 8:14-15)

Finally, a question that many of my atheist and non-believing friends have is - was it really a global flood.  To this, I say "maybe".  First, the biblical narrative, both the Hebrew and Christian writings, use language much like we do - there are hyperbolic exaggerations to make a point (eg. "If I speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal...., 1 Cor 13:1) The main message is the universality of the wickedness of mankind at that time, not the universality of the flood. Since mankind's (human beings, not other hominids that may or may not have been in existence and not already extinct) population would have been local, all of mankind could have been destroyed in a relatively local flood event.  Both believing and non-believing geologist agree that canyons, mountains, valleys, etc. formed throughout Earth’s 4.5 billion year history via both catastrophic events (such floods) and more gradual processes - and I agree with science AND truth - honest science that is, science without an agenda aside from understanding what is and what was.

Even so, there is evidence of sea creature fossils on mountain tops.  Geological strata in odd locations do contained marine fossils.  The fact that most of the earth is covered with water also gives credence to the possibility of a global flood.  The flood in Genesis has water coming from the sky and from spings in the ground, so having a water covered planet would be needed to create such a world wide flood.  The fact that many cultures have a flood myth (yes, I did say myth) can also imply a common real event. Thus, I take the narrative as written and strive to fully understand the genre of each type of text.  Genesis is judicial, theological and historical from an ancient worlds perspective.  I strive to read it that way in light of our modern world.

Finally, I must admit that my faith in God and my trust in the biblical narratives do require a certain spiritual framework which actually comes from God.  As it is written, we should think of our selves with sober judgement "in accordance with the faith God has distributed ..." (Romans 12:3).  Thus, faith comes from God and many cannot accept certain spiritual truths because it makes no sense to them.  As it is written, "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).  Even though this is true, it does not invalidate the facts of history or honest science.  Any believer who refuses to explore the evidence is just as spiritually blind as the nonbeliever who cannot see it.  But the non-believer is actually in a better position before God!

Theology, Convictions and Evil

This is an in-house entry…. To the “faithful” I write…

Throughout history, there have been plenty of evil done in the name of God by those who supposedly call on the name of Christ.  Why is that?  One answer that jumps out of the pages of the Bible is clear:  human beings are naturally evil.  As one text says, our natural behavior is obvious and includes things like idolatry, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy. There is also a number of sexual behavior that we naturally desire but is not healthy nor good and as Christians we should not practice including sex outside of marriage, using or producing pornography, orgies, and even lustful thoughts (See Galatians 5:19-21).  

One translation calls our tendency to desire and give into such desire for these things our “sinful nature” but the actual biblical writers simply call it our flesh - the Greek word is “sarx” - and it includes (a) the physical body; (b) the body’s natural desires, appetites and cravings that go against God’s design; and (c) the tendency to give into these desires.  There is a word strictly used for the “physical body” and it is not “sarx” but “soma”. This word primarily means the physical body alone.

Why the mini theology lesson?  Because Christians (if they happen to stumble onto my blog) need to be aware that the internal battles and fights we have over supposed theological issues such as the role of women, leadership in the church, what is heretical, eternal condemnation, and the like – when we have deep convictions about such things and our emotions flare up or our heels dig in, it is likely that the flesh is peeking it’s ugly head.  The Bible makes it clear what is of first importance – Christ Jesus and Him Crucified.  This does NOT mean such things (women’s roles, leaderships, heresy, etc) are not important – it just means we should not and must not destroy the church or worse, literally kill people over such things!  In fact, we should not kill people ever and we should never resort to coercive force, violence, hatred, fits of rage, yelling and screaming, and other such things. There is no Christian theological foundation for such behavior NONE – note even against those who reject or are antagonistic against our faith.

As it is written, we preach Christ and Him crucified; and he was raised to life.  This alone is the core of the gospel, the “crux of the matter”.  Get it? “crux”… out of the cross!   We preach Christ and him crucified, a stumbling block for those who consider themselves good religious people and foolishness to those who are nontheistic and/or secular humanist in their view of the world.  Out of this core comes love – love for God and love for others.  The core message implies a view of the universe that is ultimately supernatural – a sinless man rose from the dead!  It implies that we are inherently evil which NOBODY likes to accept.  But this message gives us the ONE way out of these natural desires and tendencies that go against God’s design:  forgiveness through the blood of Christ.  Ugly, illogical from a human perspective, yet this is the message.

If Christians who FIGHT over the role of women or contemporary Christian music verses traditional hymns, or other such things would step back and examine their own selves, they would see that they may NOT be representing the absolute truth of scripture but instead, defending something that may be important, but is not essential.  It may even be the traditions of men verses the will of God (Matt 15:3).  I struggle with the more "weightier matters of the law" in my life, specifically true conviction and faithfulness, resisting sin to the point of death. (Matt 23:23, Heb 12:4) Where is our commitment?  Are we 100% engaged and involved in serving the risen savior by practicing the two fundamental commands Jesus gave us:  love God with everything and love our neighbor?  Do we fully practice the fruit of the spirit to show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?  And by the way, these things should be practiced Monday through Saturday, not just Sunday in a one or two hour worship service.

I encourage you, if you happened to find this article and you call yourself a Christian, I encourage you to examine what I have written carefully and the implication for Christian unity and solidarity implied by this.  The core message is essential.  The one biblical idea we don’t like – that we ourselves are sinful – is very real, and we know it to be true.  Certain values that spring from the teachings of Christ and the apostles PRIMARILY impact the bulk of our lives – Monday through Saturday, not the 1 or 2 hours on Sunday.  Come on people, what’s the real deal?  Will you stand before Jesus and defend your bold adherence to theological purity about issues that cannot be clearly explained in the biblical text and that only impact ONE HOUR a week? Please hear me.... I am not saying we shouldn’t have standards or define healthy, biblical practices for our churches, but I am saying, let’s keep the main thing the main thing and not let theology we can’t fully and clearly prove and our blind convictions about such theology dictate the practices of our faith or the things that ultimately cause division due to our sinful nature.

Honest Faith

Right now I am in the mountains southern Pennsylvania.  It’s absolutely beautiful.  I’m at a camp run by the Church of the Brethren called “Camp Eder” and the facilities are excellent.  They take very good care of this camp and I am truly impressed with the immaculate care and detail they obviously put into keeping this place up-to-date.

I also get to relax and read – I love to do this.  In reading a book I have stopped and started multiple times, I ran across a thought that triggered another thought, which triggered another thought. (This trait of mine… to drift fluidly between thoughts that seem unconnected drives my wife crazy!).  I recentely learned of a book written by Peter Boghossian entiled, “A Manual for Creating Atheist” or something like that.  I do plan to buy and read it although I am a theist – open minded, yes, but currently convinced that the metaphysical framework I accept as true is indeed true.

I had not known the name Peter Boghossian until I recently ran across this title.  He has a number of Youtube videos (I love the 21^st century where we can instantly learn about people and things).  There was one I viewed entitled something like “The Best of Peter Boghossian, which caused me to somewhat respect what I think to be his message. Of course, I have a long way to go to really get to “know” this man and what he is really all about, but he seems to promote certain principles that I also hold: seeking truth, looking for evidence, respecting others, using your mind, being reasonable, and a few others ideas.  Now, I am certain the semantics we pour into such principals are slightly skewed from each other – me being a theist and he trying to convert me - yet I am also certain that we would agree to the fundamental or primary meanings applied to such concepts.

With that said, even though I enjoyed Boghossian’s video clips, I am strongly opposed to how he defined faith in his “manual”.  He writes that faith is “pretending to know things that you don’t know”.  For the sake of argument, let’s “pretend” (pun intended) there are no religions on the earth.  Let’s pretend that all people on the entire planet are pure naturalist and base everything on empirical data, evidence, and repeatable and verifiable proof.  If this was the way the world was today, would the word “faith” exist in the lexicon of at least our shared language – American English?  If it did exist, how would it be defined?  If I said, in such a world, when verbally making a business deal, “I have faith that you will honor your agreement”, what would I mean?  If I said, in such a world, “I have faith that my wife is faithful and I will remain faithful to her”, I ask, what would I mean?  Language is not that complicated, nor is t dogmatically ridged, nor sterile.  With or without the supernatural, the fundamental meaning of faith still holds – a type of belief mixed with trust.  It has to do with confidence to act on what one anticipates will occur based on another person’s integrity, reputation, or proven track-record.  When applied to religion, the difference is only in the acceptance that a supernatural being (or realm) actually exists and can be trusted based on what another person, an ancient text, or trusted cleric has said.

My his definition of faith, Mr. Boghossian betrays a prejudice. We all have biases and we all have agendas – that I can easily accept.  Yet, to abuse language like this by making up a definition that is illogical, unfounded, and disingenuous is terrible.  I don’t know this man, but from the little I have gathered, he values and promotes honesty and facts.  Minimally, he should replace the ideas implied in his definition, the idea of “pretending”, with something like “accepting as true what you cannot prove empirically.”  Instead, he creates unnecessarily an antagonistic relationship with more than 90% of the human race.  His definition is intentionally provocative.  I must conclude then, based on reason that he is being is disingenuous by devising and using such a definition to convince theist to become non-theist or atheist.  Such rhetoric amongst those who are trying to persuade me or convince me that my theistic world-view is built on mythology, falsehoods, and made-up superstition is not a good place to start.  As I said, I am open minded, but those that approach me must be honest, reasonable, and  - like me – open to change themselves.

I can easily admit that there are many aspects of my view of reality, built on a theistic foundation, can not be proven empirically.  I can confidently embrace that various foundational components of my “faith system” require the somewhat blind acceptance of what I cannot prove.  However, I am not pretending anything.  Mr. Boghossian, just like the rest of us, lives his life without being able to prove many, many things but he is not pretending.  Does he “pretend” to care for his family, even though a child, a relative, or even one’s own spouse could turn on you and even take your life!  This happens all the time, just as Adam Lanza killed his own mother before shooting a bunch of children.  Granted, mental illness was involved, but I’m pretty confident this mother didn’t “pretend” to trust her son.  She may have been unwise and even self-deceived, but she was not pretending.  Mr. Boghossian should be more honest IF he really wants to convince those of us with religious faith to give it up for a greater truth!