[This Article Is Part Of The Old Testament God Series]
Few things cause as much issue for Christians and skeptics alike as the story of Noah and the flood in Genesis 6-9. For starters, geologists have long argued that not only do we have no geological evidence for a global flood, the evidence that we do have seems to suggest that it never happened at all (although recent discoveries in underwater archaeology have challenged this view). Then, even if it did happen, we have to wrestle with the character implications of a God who would choose to drown His entire creation. This goes well beyond genocide, it goes to world annihilation. So, it seems that we Christians are stuck in a pickle: either the Bible is not true, or God is a really scary, scary guy.
Thankfully, there is a third option. Ancient Israel often made use of a particular genre in conveying truths about the God of Israel. The genre, known as a polemic, would often take surrounding cultural stories and retell them with key changes, so that in the contrast we come to understand the uniqueness of the God that the Hebrews worshipped. The creation narrative in Genesis 1 was such a polemic. The flood narrative is another.
In the surrounding culture of the Ancient Near East we stumble upon two very similar stories that long predate the penning of the Genesis flood. The first was the Epic of Gilgamesh; the second was the Atrahasis Epic. Both tell the same story, a tale of Mesopotamian gods in which the lead figure, Enlil, unleashed the flood waters upon a humanity that had irritated him long enough. In the midst of this, Atrahasis (Ut-Napishtim in the Gilgamesh epic) discovers the coming watery apocalypse and builds a wooden cube to function as a ship that will house himself, his family, and a sampling of every animal on the earth. As the waters receded, he releases a dove, a swallow, and a raven, whose return (or lack of returning) signified dry land.
While the similarities are staggering, even more notable are the differences. It is these differences which Israel uses to teach about the uniqueness of Yahweh. It is in these differences that we find an often overlooked depth to Jewish and Christian theology.
5 Overlooked Lessons From The Flood
- God is Peerless. In an ancient worldview, gods and men were differentiated by degree, not by category. Gods and men were distinguished only by virtue that the gods have more of the divine “stuff”, much in the same way that Star Wars distinguishes Jedis from everyday individuals simply by virtue that they had more midichlorians in their blood (a gleefully nerdy analogy I stole from Old Testament scholar Dr. Brian Russell). Thus, the gods in the two epics were remarkably human – they hungered, they thirsted, they needed their sleep, they could get petty and cranky. By contrast, the God of Israel was categorically different. Unlike the pagan view of gods, Yahweh is entirely outside the created order, and not subject to the realities of creation. Yahweh is without peer.
- God is Personal. In the Gilgamesh and Atrahasis epics, Enlil decides to annihilate humanity and Enki decides to warn Atrahasis. However, Enki cannot communicate directly to Atrahasis, so he uses indirect means to bear his message. By contrast, the God of Israel sought Noah directly. He spoke with Noah intentionally. He encountered Noah relationally. He still speaks to His people today.
- God is Protective. The central offense that incited Enlil’s genocidal rage was the growth of the human population to a point where we simply became too noisy. Night after night Enlil lay his godlike head down to sleep, only to be awoken by those darn kids and their parties. It was his irritation that led to his murderous wrath. By contrast, the God of Israel looked across His creation, a creation that He had made and labeled “very good,” and saw widespread corruption and evil threatening to destroy the last remnant of anything good. So, to protect His creative intent, he scoops up the last vestige of righteousness and unleashes the forces of chaos to initiate a global reboot. This was not the knee jerk reaction of a cranky, sleep deprived aggravation; this was a drastic measure to rescue a good creation headed for self destruction. It should also be noted that while Atrahasis discovered Enlil’s intentions through a rebellious lesser god and thereby set out to save himself, Noah’s salvation was accomplished by God Himself.
- God is Powerful. When the heavens burst open and the flood waters released, Enlil and the rest of the gods fled before it, terrified, and hid in the upper sky where they are described as “cowering like dogs outside the wall.” Yahweh, however, did not flee. He did not fear the flood. He controlled the flood, and was present and able to communicate with Noah during the flood. Yahweh embodies power.
- God is Purposeful. Perhaps the most impactful of all, especially for us, is just what the waters themselves represent. In an ancient context, water depicted chaos. It was fickle. The sea was just as likely to swallow you up as it was to give you fish. Water was unpredictable and uncontrollable. The creation narrative begins with the Spirit of God hovering over the waters of a world that was “without form and void.” Creation was seen as order overcoming chaos. The flood, then, was the means by which God released chaos back upon the earth and then re-created. This is important for one simple fact: it means that even the chaos serves the purposes of God. This idea plays out in all Scripture. God chooses to work with and through sinful humanity, rather than in spite of it. He encounters us in our brokenness, and even the chaos of our own lives ultimately works for the glory of God and the redemption of His creation.
In short, the flood narrative of Genesis should not be seen as a historical record of a cataclysmic event. Rather, it is a theological polemic that tells us about the God of Israel, the God we serve, the God who is at work even within the chaos of our own lives.
The flood waters are much deeper than we ever imagined, and there is plenty of space for our faith to swim.
Featured Image Courtesy Of Sister72
TimothyH. February 26, 2013 at 1:05 pm
That’s a very interesting view of the creation account. I thinkthat it still fails to answer some of the objections raised by biblical literalists that point to the mention of Adam and this the necessity of his existence, a view thatis perhaps somewhat limited by this polemical argument.
Though it certainly would go a long way to bridging this literalist – science divide. At the very least this interpretation leads to a much deeper and more nuanced view of scripture, reflective of some of the opinions if the church fathers such as Augustine.
definedfaith February 26, 2013 at 6:26 pm
Oh my goodness I’m so sorry. It kept giving me an error. I probably flooded your inbox.
T. E. Hanna February 26, 2013 at 6:37 pm
Haha, Nope. Only two messages, but they were the same so I only published one
T. E. Hanna February 26, 2013 at 6:39 pm
There’s a really good book by Pete Enns entitled “the evolution of Adam” that deals with the Adam issue from a polemic understanding of Genesis
Cliff February 26, 2013 at 7:42 pm
That’s a very refreshing explanation. I wish more Christians could see it that way, instead of thinking they have to defend the literal story of a total flood of the world and Noah having to bring all those animals onto his boat.
Jayson March 4, 2013 at 1:11 pm
To come to this understanding you would have to have knowledge of the Hebrew scripture, their penchant for polemic, and understanding if the Epic of Giglamesh, as well as the Atrahasis Epic.
What percentage of humanity has had the resources or available knowledge to understand this story in this context? It seems a very ineffectual way to convey something that is supposed to be so important.
All of that to convey the 5 points you mention, which are already accepted by Christians anyway…you weave a nice tale, but I think you suffer from a fault suffered by many apologists. You have a conclusions you are trying to understand or resell the Christian myth in a way that supports your conclusion. At the end of an honest approach to this story, even if the other mythologies are understood, you have to understand the Christian god as a terrible monster. Another step further and you simply have to accept that there are no gods controlling flood waters.
T. E. Hanna March 4, 2013 at 2:21 pm
“To come to this understanding you would have to have knowledge of the Hebrew scripture, their penchant for polemic, and understanding if the Epic of Giglamesh, as well as the Atrahasis Epic.”
This is exactly what I am suggesting, you are correct. The question you are raising, however, is a hermeneutical one. I contend, along with the majority of Biblical scholars, that Scripture is to be understood through the lens of the writer and the original intended audience. The ancient Israelits would have been very familiar with the Hebrew scripture, their penchant for polemic, and an understanding of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis epics. The epics were pervasive in ANE culture, so we can readily assume their familiarity, as was the use of polemic.
And I can only assume the shared fault to which you refer is a reliance on modern scholarship and exegetical methods to interpret Scripture? The use of polemic is nothing new, and its application to various Biblical stories is general consensus among Old Testament scholars. The reason we have scholarship is achieve a better understanding of scripture, the reason we have scholarly writers is to make that scholarship available to the laity.
I can appreciate that there are a great many difficulties in the Old Testament that push against our modern sensibilities, but I tend to think that most of those are the result of our contemporary biases combined with a siginificant distance from ANE culture that paints a much broader picture that we can access at a surface level. Again, this is why scholarship is integrally important.
Cindy Welch March 4, 2013 at 10:19 pm
I enjoyed this article a lot. The violence of God in the O.T. is something I have been struggling through for awhile now. So I sent the post to my husband to read. This was his (very compelling, I think) response:
“This sounds reasonable, yet i don’t know what to do with the genealogy. Noah and his family are real/historical and the flood is not??? Why would one mix a real person and a fake story?”
How would you answer this question?
T. E. Hanna March 5, 2013 at 9:38 am
Great question, Cindy! This is my take on it, though I may certainly be wrong…
In the Ancient Near East, genealogies did not serve the same purpose as they do today, in terms of documenting a family tree. Rather, they establish continuity from one era to another, and often were used to establish the authority and legitimacy of kings and dynasties. Because of this, genealogies could often skip generations in order to emphasize key figures. We see this, for example, in the two genealogies of Jesus.
In Genesis, however, we see a different picture. The genealogies are meant to characterize the continuance of God’s blessing. The Atrahasis epic had a similar depiction surrounding the flood story, with descriptions of humanity’s numerical increase both before and after the flood. In Atrahasis, the first numerical growth resulted in the overpopulation and noise that led Enlil to flood the earth. The growth post-flood coincided with the introduction of human mortality in order to keep the population under control. The Genesis account mirrors this in the genealogies before and after the flood, and immediately after the flood we also see a sudden decline in the age to which humans lived. These are some very important parallels.
However, unlike the Atrahasis epic, the increase of human population was not an irritant to the gods, but rather was the result of God’s blessing. It was God who blessed humanity and told them to “be fruitful and multiply.” In fact, the series of curses in Genesis 3-11 (the exile from the garden, the flood, Babel) are all coupled with a promise for blessing.
A number of scholars actually read the entire collection of Genesis 1-11 in light of the Mesopotamian epics, and begin the actual history of Israel with God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12. These first 11 chapters, in this view, are then designed to shape a back story that teaches us about who God is, who we are, and what the central problem is with the world. Genesis 12 then begins salvation history with the Abrahamic covenant, which essentially initiates the story of God’s response to the presence of evil which is then continued throughout the rest of Scripture.
T. E. Hanna March 5, 2013 at 9:52 am
As a side note, Cindy, if you’re struggling with God’s behavior in the Old Testament, did you see my other articles on these topics? Here are a few:
Abraham Sacrificing Isaac
Creation In Light Of The Ancient Near East (This one is actually a research paper)
Understanding The Issue Of Blood Sacrifice
Tools For Wrestling With Old Testament Difficulties
The Problem Of Hell
Understanding The Work-In-Progress God
A Response To Some Ethical Issues With God
Hope those help! Also, if you have any particular areas you’d like addressed, drop me a topic request under the ‘About’ tab up top.
Bob March 7, 2013 at 7:15 am
The story of Noah, his faith, the building of the ark and flood are validated in the New Testament in I Peter 3:20, II Peter 2:5, and Hebrews 11:7. While science today has not concluded that the earth was flooded, we must remember that science is an ever evolving quest for knowledge and changes over time. At one time, science taught mankind the earth was flat. There is room in God’s family for differences of opinion and I appreciate you sharing yours.