Okay, someone has to post this:
P-Man:
Most Orthodox Jews do believe the Noah story (and all of Genesis) was meant literally, although there are some who have attempted to read some wiggle room for allegorical interpretation into classical Rabbinic sources, namely Rabbi Natan Slifkin. Unsurprisingly, he has come under fire from most Orthodox Rabbinic groups for this. Far from being blindly dogmatic, there have been written some very learned and cogent rebuttals of this idea.
That said, the idea that G-d hoped that people would repent and that Noah tried to convince them to but was rebuffed (i.e., the people were too stubborn) comes from a Midrash. But their having refused to repent, G-d certainly brought the flood deliberately to destroy them.
Ah, so the OP “alternate take” is partly reversed from a longer-held noncanonical version, where first Noah fights a losing battle to get people straightened out, and *then * the Big Guy says OK, that’ll be enough of this.
I can’t agree. Surely you don’t think Donald Trump ascendency is a coincidence.
God never said it would permanently rid the world of evil. It’s more like deciding that nothing in your weed-choked garden is worth saving so you spray the whole thing down with Round-Up. Sure, weeds will grow next season but you made a clean sweep of it for now.
Mormon here - they told us that the neighbors scoffed while he was building it, and by the time the waters were rising enough to inspire them to change their minds about the boat the door was already shut and couldn’t be re-opened.
Most pictures of the Ark I’ve seen have their entry be a giant opening right in the side of the boat, extending quite low on its side, which on reflection seems like a pretty stupid way to make a boat. So one can imagine that there would be a point when the ‘door’ was shut and couldn’t be opened - they’d have to build it shut, finishing the boat side and caulking and tarring and otherwise sealing it all so that water wouldn’t just pour in the giant hole and sink it instantly.
Of course this didn’t explain why Noah didn’t just toss a rope over the side and let them climb up. Perhaps he was too tired after that last-moment fix of the boat’s terrible design.
I’ve heard this version of it, I think it’s from a movie or perhaps a TV show, that Noah tried to help others who laughed at him. Finally as Noah was on the ark and the population realized that Noah was right as the waters were rising, Noah shut the window on them and ignored there shots for mercy.
With that said we have this:
If Noah was preaching righteousness it is reasonable that he may have invited others on his ark once he knew what was going to happen. However:
This would seem to indicate that Noah perhaps did not offer a free world cruise to anyone but his immediate family.
Interestingly it appears that Noah is being somehow blamed for condemning the world. Or at least hinting there had to be a man of faith remaining for this flood to happen.
Yes it does not say that, but it does say that "By his faith he (Noah) condemned the world " which could mean people were pleading. (Heb 11:7)
Yes, sort of hard to biblically justify that one considering:
and
And other places. Either you didn’t get the correct story or it seems to wildly contradict scripture to make a point one wishes to be true.
The version in Atra-Hasis mentions him talking to “elders”, “his people”, “his family”. It doesn’t say he went to other cities to try to pick up as many people as possible, but it doesn’t say he ditched any locals, either.
I was taught that God’s actions were deliberate to rid the world of the evil humans. We were led to believe that that Yahweh was making the world a better place for the future. As an adult, I learned the following:
? Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Not Christian, Jewish, but I might remind Skald who wrote the damn book. I never learned anything but that God did it. However, in Hebrew school the flood was not taught as history, which started with Abram.
As for people making fun of Noah, that must have come from the Book of Cosby.
Right!
[aside] I just want to add how much I enjoy the gymnastics Young Earth Creationists subject their bodies to when reconciling the limited space on the Ark and their conviction that evolution does not exist. [/aside]
The idea that Noah tried to get others on board had so permeated popular culture that, in the movie Evan Almighty (sequel to Bruce Almighty), the Noah parallel story had Evan save everyone in the town from a flood. He was ridiculed by the locals for building his arc, but he was repudiated in the end when the rains came and he had enough space for everyone.
I never saw the more recent Noah movie, but I seem to remember that at least some of the complaints were that Noah was insistent that no one else be allowed aboard. It was considered important for “accuracy” for the righteous Noah to be offering to let them onboard until the end.
I’m confused here. How does evolution enable, or preclude, animals being put aboard the Ark?
It is not about animals getting put aboard the ark. It is that, considering the diversity of life today, evolution would have happened at double warp speed to turn the limited number of animals on the ark to all the animals we see today.
Creationists will justify this by being “microevolution” which they are forced to acknowledge, but can’t explain how it happened so fast.
To be fair that’s how science works too. We have observed something find it provable and then have to do mental gymnastics to figure out how it might fit in. As such we have ‘cosmic inflation’ in science where things for a very short time get to go much faster then the current speed of light, which helps 'plains things along.
The one I love is that the story of Noah was really a rescue by aliens and the arc was a spaceship used to transport Noah and terreform and starseed a different planet (our earth). This is also why life span was shortened, conditions of this planet or just the period of revolution of the earth around the sun is different) In some tellings Noah just thought he built a boat, others have Noah knowing it was a spaceship, and in a highly advanced civilization (but very corrupt), but the story was intentionally set for primitive society. Again the animals were what was needed for evolution to present day, and a animal kind was a set variety of animals that would help diversify things nicely.
Both. I was taught that he tried to save them and then killed them because they didn’t listen to Noah’s outlandish claims of rain and flood and boats. But ultimately that god killed everyone by means a flood and that “evil” people were basically anyone not listening to Noah.
Creationists use baraminology.