Saturday, June 2, 2007

The Flood: Water, Water Everywhere


Is the “whole earth” the “whole earth?”

Godandscience.org
has an interesting take on the language around the Genesis flood. The Hebrew phrase kol (whole) erets (earth, land, area) when judged against its other uses in the Bible makes us question the scope of the flood area. The flood text itself, when read closely, supports a local flood. Here is another interesting article by Darrick Dean. Logic and the geological record also support a local flood. Dr. Hugh Ross has much to say on the flood.

Is this a literal vs. metaphorical, allegorical reading? No, it is a “what is the Bible literally saying” discussion. Why waste time supporting something the Bible is not saying.

Why is there a flood tradition in each part of the Globe? The Bible says all people were still in one place at flood time, why would we not believe survivors carried the account with them when they dispersed?

Does a more limited flood damage or water down the Noah message? I don’t see it. Nothing changes but geography and accuracy. God wants us to view it a the entire earth for prophetic reasons. Maybe it was.

I wonder if there exists a group rigorously supporting plucking out their offensive eyes. Now we are talking metaphor. Mat 5:29 And if your right eye offends you, pluck it out and throw it from you … Is that same group cutting off their offensive hands? Mat 5:30 And if your right hand offends you, cut it off and throw it from you … Of course they can no longer see to read nor do they have hands to turn a page. We probably won’t hear much from them. We do have snake handlers, do we have eye pluckers?

Knowing human nature they wish to pluck out your eyes and cut off your hands, their eyes and hands are just fine, thank you very much. I am straying too far from the ark.

I don’t get bent out of shape if you want to believe in a wider flood; any more than I care if Catholics want to believe their priests have “special powers.” I only wonder why you find it necessary to believe it. No Big Huge Thing to me.

by BigHugeThing

No comments: