The Flood account (a symbolic interpretation)?

strobe

Hi, I know that some Christians here believe that the Genesis account of Adam and Eve ect (aswell as other bible stories), shouldn't be read literally and taken as a symbolic story to suggest something about the nature of man and sin ect. So I was just wondering if people view the account of the flood, noah and the ark, in the same way and what the story is viewed as a metaphor (if that's the right word) for? I can see how the idea of the tower of Babel might be viewed as being a warning against commiting yourself to pointless endevours(?) but what about the rest of the account? Is there a general consensus on what this might be? Do you have any personal view of what the point being made is? Thanks.

wolfsbane

strobe wrote: »

Hi, I know that some Christians here believe that the Genesis account of Adam and Eve ect (aswell as other bible stories), shouldn't be read literally and taken as a symbolic story to suggest something about the nature of man and sin ect. So I was just wondering if people view the account of the flood, noah and the ark, in the same way and what the story is viewed as a metaphor (if that's the right word) for? I can see how the idea of the tower of Babel might be viewed as being a warning against commiting yourself to pointless endevours(?) but what about the rest of the account? Is there a general consensus on what this might be? Do you have any personal view of what the point being made is? Thanks.

I hold to the historical narrative view of the Creation and Flood, so can't help you with the metaphor idea. I too am keen to hear these parts of Scripture exegeted fully by our brethren who deny YEC.

PDN

wolfsbane wrote: »

I hold to the historical narrative view of the Creation and Flood, so can't help you with the metaphor idea. I too am keen to hear these parts of Scripture exegeted fully by our brethren who deny YEC.

I don't see that the Flood is connected with YEC at all. Two separate issues.

wolfsbane

PDN wrote: »

I don't see that the Flood is connected with YEC at all. Two separate issues.

Yes, they could be unconnected.

But the same hermeneutic that gets a YEC gets a global Flood; and the one that allows evolution has to go for a local Flood or make it a metaphor.

janeeen

Jesus sometimes spoke in metaphor's but, i do believe when Jesus spoke
about Bible accounts he believed them too....
Remember Jesus spoke about Adam and Eve and Noah and the ark as facts witch happened in the past.

Luke 26“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.27People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

As for Adam and Eve, if they were just a metaphor then Jesus would not
have had to die for Adams sin.

strobe

janeeen wrote: »

Jesus sometimes spoke in metaphor's but, i do believe when Jesus spoke
about Bible accounts he believed them too....
Remember Jesus spoke about Adam and Eve and Noah and the ark as facts witch happened in the past.

Luke 26“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.27People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

As for Adam and Eve, if they were just a metaphor then Jesus would not
have had to die for Adams sin.

Thanks Janeen, could you quote the passages where he spoke about Adam and Eve aswell?

janeeen

strobe wrote: »

Thanks Janeen, could you quote the passages where he spoke about Adam and Eve aswell?

Your right strobe my mistake, Jesus never mentioned Adam or Eves name
but, in John 8:44 Jesus speaks of Satan calling him a murderer from the beginning, the Jewish people would of known Jesus was
talking about the account in Genesis.

Also in Matthew 19:4 Jesus says Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female.

John 8:44 "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies".

Seaneh

YEC's are, imho, strange, strange people.

santing

janeeen wrote: »

Your right strobe my mistake, Jesus never mentioned Adam or Eves name...
Also in Matthew 19:4 Jesus says Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female.

The quote from Matthew 19 is quite explicit as the Lord Jesus includes a quote from Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24:

He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."
(Mat 19:4-6 ESV)

Xluna

If you look at other religious literture of around the same period and location,i.e. the Epic of Gilgamesh, you'll find that a large flood is a common theme. Though I believe there is at least a hundred years between Gilgamesh and Genesis. That said,it does not seem unreasonable to assume that all these religions were reporting a large flood which actually happened in their region at some point in their early history.

strobe

Thanks for the responses. So would it be fair to say that all,like 99.99%, of Christians view the flood account as literal? Just to clarify the question of weather the flood itself was to be taken literal of symbolically (metaphorically) wasn't what I was wondering about, I can't see any reason a Christian would doubt the idea of a big flood to be literal. I was more interested if there are Christians here that view the part about Noah building the ark and collecting two of every animal and then restarting humanity as literal, and if not than how is it supposed to be taken? Do you view it as a metaphor for something or..?

PDN

strobe wrote: »

Thanks for the responses. So would it be fair to say that all,like 99.99%, of Christians view the flood account as literal? Just to clarify the question of weather the flood itself was to be taken literal of symbolically (metaphorically) wasn't what I was wondering about, I can't see any reason a Christian would doubt the idea of a big flood to be literal. I was more interested if there are Christians here that view the part about Noah building the ark and collecting two of every animal and then restarting humanity as literal, and if not than how is it supposed to be taken? Do you view it as a metaphor for something or..?

Not a metaphor, no.

My own position would be that Noah built a literal ark to avoid a literal flood and filled it with literal animals.

Having said that, I don't believe that the Flood necessarily covered the entire planet earth. If it covered the area inhabited by man at that time then the language used would be entirely appropriate (just as the New Testament describes the apostles' teaching as having "filled the whole world" when it had spread through the Jewish diaspora). I find it entirely possible that, having attained to animal husbandry, Noah rescued a large quantity of those animals from a huge flood and kept some breeding stock. However, even if a Flood covered a massive area in the Ancient Near East, I don't see any need for stocking a boat with koala bears or penguins.

herbiemcc

Genesis
17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.
6:19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

That seems pretty clear to me. Either it is literal or wrong.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Not a metaphor, no.

My own position would be that Noah built a literal ark to avoid a literal flood and filled it with literal animals.

Having said that, I don't believe that the Flood necessarily covered the entire planet earth. If it covered the area inhabited by man at that time then the language used would be entirely appropriate (just as the New Testament describes the apostles' teaching as having "filled the whole world" when it had spread through the Jewish diaspora). I find it entirely possible that, having attained to animal husbandry, Noah rescued a large quantity of those animals from a huge flood and kept some breeding stock. However, even if a Flood covered a massive area in the Ancient Near East, I don't see any need for stocking a boat with koala bears or penguins.

Do you believe that all humans, apart from Noah and his family, were killed in the flood and that all humans on Earth are descended from Noah and his family?

And I suppose a follow on from that, how vital to your faith is it that this actually happened (if you say yes to the question above). If it was demonstrated to you that it didn't happen (something I'm not going to bother trying to do so don't worry about going down a rabbit hole ) would that call you to question the doctrine of your faith or would it just be a "Meh, not that relevant to Jesus and salvation"

I suppose I'm trying to get an idea about how vital it is that these events of Genesis, the Flood, Babel etc, actually historically happened to Christian faith?

liamw

Surely the integrity of the entire Bible must come into question when several components are shown to be false or incorrect.

PDN

herbiemcc wrote: »

Genesis
17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.
6:19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

That seems pretty clear to me. Either it is literal or wrong.

No, only if you're trying to force a strictness of language onto the Bible that you don't apply elsewhere.

The Bible uses phenomenonal language and figures of speech that were common in the time that it was written. If everything on the part of the earth where mankind dwelt was destroyed then the language in Genesis would be entirely justified. If you want to make Genesis a scientific text book then you can argue that "everything on earth" must include Australia and Antarctica - but in that case you've jumped the shark by trying to treat a religious text as if it were a science text book. We've discussed this numerous times in various threads without hijacking this one.

PDN

liamw wrote: »

Surely the integrity of the entire Bible must come into question when several components are shown to be false or incorrect.

Not if the 'falseness' or 'incorrectness' is a figment of your imagination produced by trying to force a totally artificial interpretation onto the Bible.

We had a discussion, for example, in the A&A forum once that descended into absolute idiocy by people insisting that distances and measurements in the Bible must be scientifically accurate to a very precise degree instead of understanding that figures in most historical or religious texts are rounded up or down to the nearest unit.

The Bible uses figures of speech, approximate figures etc. Only the very dogmatic and unthinking fundamentalists (both of the Christian and anti-Christian variety) try to ignore that fact. We happily accept such usage of language in other areas of life, heck the BBC weatherman even speaks about the sun 'rising' - so it is silly to object when the Bible uses language in similar ways.

janeeen

Ive always found it a little hard to believe that Noah could fit all the
animals on th ark but, when i read parts of the Bible where Jesus talked about Noah it would put my mind at rest.

I suppose if you think about it God made all the animals travel to Noah
so he did not have to go out and gather them.
Also the animals were probably not mature and not fully grown making it easy to fit on, perhaps they even slept for most of the journey under Gods will.

The Ark was supposedly 450`long 75`wide and 45`high with 3 decks.
I'm not sure how big in scale that would be if you stood back and looked
but, i do know my house is fairly big by slandered at about 45`long and half that wide.
You could easily drop my house on one of the 3 decks and it you would only take up a fraction of the room.
Also we know that God closed up the huge door on the ark himself when the floods came preventing other people from entering so ,miracles did occur.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Not if the 'falseness' or 'incorrectness' is a figment of your imagination produced by trying to force a totally artificial interpretation onto the Bible.

Do you believe those who wrote Genesis meant to imply that this was not a world wide flood, that not all humans died in the flood, and not all animals died in the flood?

Or do you think they were describing what they understood at the time (a time when the "whole world" would have been to them much smaller than it actually is and what they understood to be all animals would have been much less than it actually was)?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Do you believe that all humans, apart from Noah and his family, were killed in the flood and that all humans on Earth are descended from Noah and his family?

Unlike some other posters (both Christian and atheist) I don't feel the need to argue dogmatically that anyone interpretation of the biblical text has to be correct.

I don't know if all members of homo sapiens that were alive at the time of the Flood were killed. I do believe that those who descended from Adam and Eve, with the exception of the 8 in the ark, were killed (for example, I'm open to the possibility that Adam and Eve were simply the first humans in whom God implanted a spirit - making them 'in his image').

I do believe that all humans today are descended from a common female (mitochondrial Eve) and also from a common male from a considerably later date (Y-chromosomal Adam). I understand that there is evidence suggesting that all human beings alive today share a common ancestor dating back as recently as 5000 years ago (Rohde, DL; Olson, S; Chang, JT Nature - September 2004, "Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans").

And I suppose a follow on from that, how vital to your faith is it that this actually happened (if you say yes to the question above). If it was demonstrated to you that it didn't happen (something I'm not going to bother trying to do so don't worry about going down a rabbit hole ) would that call you to question the doctrine of your faith or would it just be a "Meh, not that relevant to Jesus and salvation"

I suppose I'm trying to get an idea about how vital it is that these events of Genesis, the Flood, Babel etc, actually historically happened to Christian faith?

If I've interpreted Genesis wrong then that would shake my faith in my own intellectual abilities and infallibility - but that has been shaken by many things over my lifetime. It would have little or no impact on my faith in God since it would not undo the great good He has done in my life, or the way I see Him touch the lives of others.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Do you believe those who wrote Genesis meant to imply that this was not a world wide flood, that not all humans died in the flood, and not all animals died in the flood?

Or do you think they were describing what they understood at the time (a time when the "whole world" would have been to them much smaller than it actually is and what they understood to be all animals would have been much less than it actually was)?

I don't think they meant to imply anything at all about Australia or Antarctica, since they hadn't a clue those places existed. They simply affirmed that all the world, as they knew it, was flooded.

liamw

PDN wrote: »

Not if the 'falseness' or 'incorrectness' is a figment of your imagination produced by trying to force a totally artificial interpretation onto the Bible.

The Noah's Ark story is quite clear. I could argue that your being intellectually dishonest by interpereting pieces of the Bible symbolically and literally willy nilly as you please, until it fits snugly with the current scientific facts about the world.

We had a discussion, for example, in the A&A forum once that descended into absolute idiocy by people insisting that distances and measurements in the Bible must be scientifically accurate to a very precise degree instead of understanding that figures in most historical or religious texts are rounded up or down to the nearest unit.

Ah yes, the PI discussion. I think the point was that if this book was inspired by God, shouldn't it at least be accurate? If you accept as any non-christian does that it's just written by primitive mankind and hence the error, then you might as well just leave God out of the equation altogether.

I've said before, I've never seen any reason to see the Bible as inspired by the divine any more so than the Koran or any other ancient book.

The Bible uses figures of speech, approximate figures etc. Only the very dogmatic and unthinking fundamentalists (both of the Christian and anti-Christian variety) try to ignore that fact. We happily accept such usage of language in other areas of life, heck the BBC weatherman even speaks about the sun 'rising' - so it is silly to object when the Bible uses language in similar ways.

I accept that we are allowed to use figures of speech.. but there's figures of speech and then there's entire stories. Noah's Ark isn't just a 'figure of speech'.

The pertinent point here is that I don't see any good reason to believe the Bible is anything more than a bunch of stories and myths written by humans. Just like I see nothing to suggest there's an afterlife... it doesn't make sense to believe something until there's some positive evidence to back it up.

PDN

liamw wrote: »

The Noah's Ark story is quite clear. I could argue that your being intellectually dishonest by interpereting pieces of the Bible symbolically and literally willy nilly as you please, until it fits snugly with the current scientific facts about the world.

You could argue that, but you would be wrong and untruthful to do so. As a Christian who believes that the Bible reveals truth, it is in my interest to find the interpretation of the Bible that is correct, not that suits my agenda. Therefore I have spent years studying at postgraduate level to understand how language was used in the Ancient Near East.

You are entitled to disagree with my views, even if it is not on the basis of any knowledge of the subject at hand, but you have no business accusing me of intellectual dishonesty.

Ah yes, the PI discussion. I think the point was that if this book was inspired by God, shouldn't it at least be accurate? If you accept as any non-christian does that it's just written by primitive mankind and hence the error, then you might as well just leave God out of the equation altogether.

Approximation of measurements is not error. If wanted to describe our church building to you I might say it measures 50 meters by 10 meters. If my purpose was to describe it you and help you get a mental picture of it, then my statement is true, even if the actual measurement is 52.76543876 meters by 9.90008762134 meters. Even if God were inspiring my description to preserve it from error, it would be unreasonable to expect Him to make it precise to twenty decimal points purely on the off-chance that some atheist buffoon centuries later might demand artificial levels of accuracy to correspond with a scientific blueprint.

Let's not go down that route here. It did your fellow travellers no credit at all the last two times they tried the pi nonsense - and I'm not in a mood to tolerate such silliness here.

I accept that we are allowed to use figures of speech.. but there's figures of speech and then there's entire stories. Noah's Ark isn't just a 'figure of speech'.

Nobody's saying it is. I'm suggesting, quite reasonably, that the phrase "all the earth" may be a figure of speech.

The pertinent point here is that I don't see any good reason to believe the Bible is anything more than a bunch of stories and myths written by humans. Just like I see nothing to suggest there's an afterlife... it doesn't make sense to believe something until there's some positive evidence to back it up.

And you're entitled to believe that if you wish. In fact boards.ie, in their graciousness, have provided an Atheism and Agnosticism forum where you can proclaim your views as much as you want. However, this is the Christianity forum.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Unlike some other posters (both Christian and atheist) I don't feel the need to argue dogmatically that anyone interpretation of the biblical text has to be correct.

You have though argued many times that certain interpretations of the Bible are incorrect.

I assume though you require that some certain elements be considered facts on some level. For example original sin, Jesus, the resurrection as an actual event etc.

PDN wrote: »

I do believe that those who descended from Adam and Eve, with the exception of the 8 in the ark, were killed (for example, I'm open to the possibility that Adam and Eve were simply the first humans in whom God implanted a spirit - making them 'in his image').

If that turned out to not be true would it effect your faith?

PDN wrote: »

If I've interpreted Genesis wrong then that would shake my faith in my own intellectual abilities and infallibility - but that has been shaken by many things over my lifetime. It would have little or no impact on my faith in God since it would not undo the great good He has done in my life, or the way I see Him touch the lives of others.

Would it call into question though that you are worship the correct god (ie the God of the Bible)?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

You have though argued many times that certain interpretations of the Bible are incorrect.

I assume though you require that some certain elements be considered facts on some level. For example original sin, Jesus, the resurrection as an actual event etc.

As in any field of knowledge, there are some things that are more evident than others.

Our knowledge of contemporary forms of literature of the First Century AD far exceeds that of the time when Genesis was being written. Therefore we can be pretty certain that the resurrection accounts were intended by their original authors to be understood as referring to an actual event.

However, the further back we go the harder it is to sustain such certainty, therefore, when we reach the oldest accounts of all such as the early Chapters of Genesis, there is good reason not to be overly dogmatic about how to interpret the text.

If that turned out to not be true would it effect your faith?

No, I've already said that it would only affect my faith in my own intellectual capabilities which, while I humbly consider them to be stunning and worthy of worldwide adulation, are not infallible.

Would it call into question though that you are worship the correct god (ie the God of the Bible)?

No. My understanding of who God is remains based on unambiguous teaching in the New Testament which is supported by personal experience. The fact that I might have misinterpreted something in Genesis may cause me to feel a bit sheepish, but it doesn't affect the big issues of salvation at all.

strobe

So PDN is your understanding of it that God warned Noah there was going to be a big flood and told him to build a big boat, so Noah built the boat and brought say, two goats, two cows and two sheep (for example) on board, then the flood hit and Noah, his relatives and the few animals he brought survived? Localised flood not a global one, a few animals not all the animals, and they were the ones that survived in the locality as far as he knew? Then afterwards others exagerated the story. Instead of saying most people and animals were killed in the flood they said all were. Instead of saying Noah saved the animals to hand, he saved all the animals?

PDN

strobe wrote: »

So PDN is your understanding of it that God warned Noah there was going to be a big flood and told him to build a big boat, so Noah built the boat and brought say, two goats, two cows and two sheep (for example) on board, then the flood hit and Noah, his relatives and the few animals he brought survived? Localised flood not a global one, a few animals not all the animals, and they were the ones that survived in the locality as far as he knew? Then afterwards others exagerated the story. Instead of saying most people and animals were killed in the flood they said all were. Instead of saying Noah saved the animals to hand, he saved all the animals?

No, not quite.

I would suggest that the Flood was localised, but still extremely large. It was sufficient to wipe out the human race because, that early on, they had not spread to many parts of the world yet. The animals would be 2 (or 7 in some cases) of all the animals that dwelt in that part of the world.

The report of the story was not an exaggeration, because the region around them was their entire world. The concept of 'global' did not even exist.

allisbleak

PDN wrote: »

Not if the 'falseness' or 'incorrectness' is a figment of your imagination produced by trying to force a totally artificial interpretation onto the Bible.

PDN with all due respect, you have no IDEA who wrote the New Testement.

PDN wrote: »

We had a discussion, for example, in the A&A forum once that descended into absolute idiocy by people insisting that distances and measurements in the Bible must be scientifically accurate to a very precise degree instead of understanding that figures in most historical or religious texts are rounded up or down to the nearest unit.

Its only idiocy to you. When you are asked for proof you constantly offer up the word of a 1900 year old text as a basis of facts, then you interpret it to suit any situation.

[/QUOTE]

PDN wrote: »

I don't know if all members of homo sapiens that were alive at the time of the Flood were killed.

DNA blows this away. There is an excellent article in Time magazine.

PDN wrote: »

I understand that there is evidence suggesting that all human beings alive today share a common ancestor dating back as recently as 5000 years ago (Rohde, DL; Olson, S; Chang, JT Nature - September 2004, "Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans").

Completely incorrect.

PDN wrote: »

If I've interpreted Genesis wrong

There is your problem. If religion was real it would not need to be interpreted.

liamw wrote: »

The pertinent point here is that I don't see any good reason to believe the Bible is anything more than a bunch of stories and myths written by humans. Just like I see nothing to suggest there's an afterlife... it doesn't make sense to believe something until there's some positive evidence to back it up.

I completely agree.

Surely the fact that over 5 billion other people on the planet do not believe what you do is a sign.

.Moosejam

wolfsbane wrote: »

I hold to the historical narrative view of the Creation and Flood, so can't help you with the metaphor idea. I too am keen to hear these parts of Scripture exegeted fully by our brethren who deny YEC.

And you hold yourself high as an object of ridicule, to sit at a computer and type that, the science which created it long long ago relegated your ideas to the backwash of delusional insanity , it's simply an abject insult to the thousands who spent their lifes work devoted to the improvement of mankind, if you hold those beliefs then you can not use your PC.

It is simply not possible to hold those views and sit using a computer, absolutely not possible, and I hold you as being two faced in the extreme, on the one hand holding those views and on the other using the technology which has exposed your views as false,

And yet here you are using the tools.

Can you spell two faced ?

JimiTime

.Moosejam wrote: »

And you hold yourself high as an object of ridicule, to sit at a computer and type that, the science which created it long long ago relegated your ideas to the backwash of delusional insanity , it's simply an abject insult to the thousands who spent their lifes work devoted to the improvement of mankind, if you hold those beliefs then you can not use your PC.

It is simply not possible to hold those views and sit using a computer, absolutely not possible, and I hold you as being two faced in the extreme, on the one hand holding those views and on the other using the technology which has exposed your views as false,

And yet here you are using the tools.

Can you spell two faced ?

What a load of tosh! I've seen this nonsense put forward by people before, and unfortunately so many half-wits lap it up and regurgitate it! Disagree and postulate reasons why you think YEC's are insane all you want, but the above is the biggest steaming pile!

strobe

PDN wrote: »

No, not quite.

I would suggest that the Flood was localised, but still extremely large. It was sufficient to wipe out the human race because, that early on, they had not spread to many parts of the world yet. The animals would be 2 (or 7 in some cases) of all the animals that dwelt in that part of the world.

The report of the story was not an exaggeration, because the region around them was their entire world. The concept of 'global' did not even exist.

Why 7 in some cases?