Flood of Questions
In my search for understanding the bible, my faith and truth, I come to the Flood.
Here is a story that doesn’t make sense. (Please don’t quote me 1 Cor 1:25 ) According to the Bible, God creates everything and it is good. He says so himself. He creates man and it is very good. Then man ‘falls’ and God decides to wipe everything out except for Noah and sons and family. And some fortunate creatures. So in addition to wiping out evil mankind, he goes a step beyond and annihilates 99.99999% of life on earth.
God opens the floodgates and floods the earth and that is that. Noah and those on the ark make it through and begin anew…soon, messing it all up again.
Are we to believe that Noah managed to round up enough folks to build this ark for him?
Are we to believe that they could physically do something like this?
Are we to believe that every species that creeps or flies made it into the ark?
Are we to believe that all the highest mountains everywhere under the sky were covered?
Are we to believe that all flesh that stirred on earth perished and only eight people lived?
Are we to believe that there was water over all the earth?
Do we have to?
This story has always been presented to me very straight forward. There it is. It is in the Bible, thus, it happened.
Does it have to be true? Can it be just a story and still depict truth or truths?
How does it affect your faith to think of Noah and the Flood, not as a true story, but one of symbolism?
The narrative includes the wicked people all about. Noah and his family surrounded by it. Surrounded like an island. The ark, or God carries them through. When the rain wont stop and the deluge never seems to end, something is carrying them through it all. Is it grace? Is it hope? It is more than an ark. It is more than a story.
Do I have to spend a great deal of time building something up to get me through all of it? Through the floods of my life?
Maybe it did really happen like that. For me, I doubt it.
By doing so, it becomes more believable.
Do we have to make things more believable? As people, typically yes. We tend to compartmentalize and limit God because things don’t make sense. I’m not saying that as a cop out, but it’s true. I tend to think that to the person who wrote it, it felt like the whole world was flooded. Was the whole world even populated? Did the whole place even need to be flooded? In that thinking, not every animal had to be on the ark. Otherwise, penguins and polar bears might not live on opposing poles.
In a way it’s like this process of going through the Bible with questions and doubts is the story of Noah and the flood… in the sense that God stripped the world he created down to the bare minimum, to the kernel of good he rested the hope of the world upon. Or something like that. I completely get the idea of how doubting can strengthen faith.
hannahverde - Yeah, you are right. It is hard to allow things to remain mysterious.
reader - How real is this story to you? Is there any doubt there for you?
I think there is doubt for everyone. Of course I doubt the true validity of the flood. But I do not doubt the validity to the writer of Genesis. It’s like Chicken Little… the sky really was falling. So now that I’ve mocked my entire faith…