The Real Meaning of God's Covenant with Noah

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Following the flood, the Bible tells of a covenant between God and Noah, which goes as follows:

Quote:

11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
-Genesis 9

I have always assumed this means that God would never extinguish humans as a species due to the acceptance of sin as something inevitable that must be forgiven and not taken as reason to destroy sinners.

Is there another interpretation possible, though, which is simply that by learning to use an ark or other floating boat to survive a flood, humans would never again be vulnerable to flooding? In short, could this just be a statement about human technological evolution beyond flooding as a specific threat?

In that sense, the story of Noah could just a precursor for other stories in which humans develop various technologies for protecting themselves against various natural and artificial threats/disasters.

So, a contemporary parallel might be that CO2 levels are rising and fossil-fuels depleting and in order to overcome the threat of that, humans develop sustainable technologies and lifestyles that ensure a future of permanent sustainability, and as such the covenant of God with Noah is re-affirmed.

If not, at least we have Jesus to forgive us and save our souls as the rapture takes the world down in a great orgy of social-economic and environmental destruction. People usually assume that the rapture is (or rather it will be) a fast-occurring event, but what if it actually occurs over the course of several generations or even millennia?

Could it be the gradually-changing climate due to slow progress of industrial-consumerism and spiritually/morally impoverished materialism and secularism is the rapture that will eventually leave future generations without a future and thus send all the souls of Earth off to God for whatever comes next?

Maybe the flood of Noah was just a simplified disaster to forewarn us of the kind of multigenerational disaster we can cause if we fail to realize the unsustainability of our ingenuity and industrialism before it's too late.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a Luddite but I do think that all forms of power must be tempered by wisdom and self-discipline for them to be used responsibly and thus without harmful side-effects in either the short term or long term. Mostly we have become short-sighted because we are lost in the complexities of our mediated distractions, and as a result we have difficulties seeing how short-term gains aren't ultimately worth the long-term detriment they contribute to.

In this way, we may be in a long-term process of flooding ourselves with unsustainabilities that will gradually add up to large-scale destruction; and the rapture may occur as some kind of deus ex machina that saves us from the ensuing malaise, either spiritually or physically (or both) in some way.

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@livinglava,

How do "Reformed" Evangelicals separate their beliefs from the more denialist views of the Funamentalists??

Reading about Christian belief clusters is like watching "The Life of Brian"

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

How do "Reformed" Evangelicals separate their beliefs from the more denialist views of the Funamentalists??

Reading about Christian belief clusters is like watching "The Life of Brian"

It's just a discussion of how a certain text can be interpreted.

There's no claiming of 'belief clusters,' denominations, or any other collective authority here.

I was just reading this passage from the Bible and thinking about various possible meanings that could be derived from it.

I posted it for discussion so others could also read and think about it, along with my interpretation of it as I've posted here.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Im not posting AT you. I was merely asking the question winc Iv lived among the AnaBaptists for 35 years and m amused at how the Amish and Mennonites are doctrinally separated by practices of foot hygiene . Theres about 300000 Amish and maybe tic that Mennonites in North an Central America alone.

Also we cant forget that there are "precisionit" cults of Christianity that believe the world is under 6000 yers old n they try to argue the laws of physics and chemistry tht supply them with the inventions and discoveries through which they communicate their beliefs.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Im not posting AT you. I was merely asking the question winc Iv lived among the AnaBaptists for 35 years and m amused at how the Amish and Mennonites are doctrinally separated by practices of foot hygiene . Theres about 300000 Amish and maybe tic that Mennonites in North an Central America alone.

Also we cant forget that there are "precisionit" cults of Christianity that believe the world is under 6000 yers old n they try to argue the laws of physics and chemistry tht supply them with the inventions and discoveries through which they communicate their beliefs.

Look, I'm sorry to be rude; but your biases against religion make you prone to hijacking this thread to talk about all sorts of aspects of religion but not the thread topic.

If you can't respect the religious paradigm and the specific topic of the thread, don't post in it.

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Ah yes. They Bible.

Wasn't it written down by man after years of the story being told from on generation to the next and so on down the line?

Hasn't it been translated hundreds of times?

How does anybody know if the words read now are even close to accurate or similarity to the original words of God?

Why doesn't God send forth any new words to be transcribed?

Wasn't The Epic of Gilgamesh the original version of today's Bible?

1 Reply

@Sturgis,

Sturgis wrote:

Ah yes. They Bible.

Wasn't it written down by man after years of the story being told from on generation to the next and so on down the line?

Hasn't it been translated hundreds of times?

How does anybody know if the words read now are even close to accurate or similarity to the original words of God?

Why doesn't God send forth any new words to be transcribed?

Truth is true because of God. Humans can't control truth. The most powerful king/authority can push lies with the threat of violence and/or other power, and people will agree with the king/authority to avoid the negative consequences of disagreeing/challenging, and they will even believe the lie with their own minds wholeheartedly; but none of that can make a lie true.

So when you read the Bible or any other text and you can't find any true meaning in it, that just means you haven't discovered what is true about it yet. Many people look for meanings in the Bible and other texts that enable them to reject the meanings as false, but that is just a waste of time because any text can be interpreted in ways that allow you to reject it.

Quote:

Wasn't The Epic of Gilgamesh the original version of today's Bible?

Idk, maybe or maybe not but it's not the point of this thread. If you want to participate in this thread, stick to the OP topic please.

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@livinglava,

I will participate as I choose, not according to your desires or demands. You don't own the thread.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

Idk, maybe or maybe not but it's not the point of this thread. If you want to participate in this thread, stick to the OP topic please.

Says poster who went off on a tangent on this thread.

0 Replies

@Sturgis,

Sturgis wrote:

I will participate as I choose, not according to your desires or demands. You don't own the thread.

I guess for you any thread on any religious topic is a place for you to say whatever you feel like about religion.

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@livinglava,

thats the way it is.You host it , we roast it.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Quote:

Look, I'm sorry to be rude; but your biases against religion make you prone to hijacking this thread to talk about all sorts of aspects of religion but not the thread topic

Id just answered your comment asking about bases for religions and how they vary. They often vary ovr what appar to be miniscul differences and silly canonical dichotomies, hence my continuous "life of Brian" observation. Its factual, true, and even priests make fun of thir own doctrinal differences 'tween, say, Catholics and Anglicans.

To totally dismiss these differences as" Im right and everything else is wrong,"
is just naive .
We laugh at the snake handler Baptist of the West Virginia Highlands, but they too, feel that they were what God means and the rest of you are all wet.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

thats the way it is.You host it , we roast it.

You boast that your contribution is toast?

0 Replies

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Quote:
Look, I'm sorry to be rude; but your biases against religion make you prone to hijacking this thread to talk about all sorts of aspects of religion but not the thread topic

Id just answered your comment asking about bases for religions and how they vary. They often vary ovr what appar to be miniscul differences and silly canonical dichotomies, hence my continuous "life of Brian" observation. Its factual, true, and even priests make fun of thir own doctrinal differences 'tween, say, Catholics and Anglicans.

To totally dismiss these differences as" Im right and everything else is wrong,"
is just naive .
We laugh at the snake handler Baptist of the West Virginia Highlands, but they too, feel that they were what God means and the rest of you are all wet.

You're off in tangential religious factional analysis.

This thread is just literary analysis of the text.

The story of Noah is not complex. You should be able to participate in this thread without too much difficulty if you honor the OP.

2 Replies

@livinglava,

To continue, You are speaking about a"covenant" based upon an event in nature which never left any evidence that it even occurred. (worldwide Flood). EVidence of floods and droughts are all over the geologic record, but none of such a wide range and so disastrous to life that, in order to mak up this story of a "covenant" between a religious Patriarch (who may have never lived) an a god (who also has no credibility behind its existence).
Ryan an Pittman published results of a study of the Post Mindel Periglacial regional Flood that inundated the shorelines of the Caspian sea. Also , "Doggerland" the area between the British Chalk and the Low Countries of the European Continent also were gradually inundated about 5K years ago but are still unnderwater.
The Gilgamesh Story occured before the Hebrew account of a Noadic Flood, so much of the story that they copped for their "Bible" , comes pretty un molested from Gilgamesh.
So a god comes along and picks out some dude with whom He says that "Ill never destroy the Earth by Flood ever again". just be good and follow my laws ".

Your OP has hardly any truth behind it I feel, so all the accountabilities and derived laws of behavior, while nice as an archeological event probably leans on Gilgamesh(Who did exist as an Akkadian king (Utnipushtin--) on the floods of the Tigris, or else are derived from the Caspian Sea marginal inundation . So what are you talking about on "Differences of accounts"? Surely you realize that many here dont even buy the flood story. So why must they handle this a some kind of truthful account when it probably belongs more as a discussion oof Desert Folk Tales sort of like Creation Account of the Canaanites versus those of Paleo Native Americans?

2 Replies

@farmerman,

I love all these folk tales and I LOVE to discuss them as points in our social and civilizations evolution, rather than the discussion of the essence of the tales as religious accounts .
So pardon me if I dont accept your original premise but I do like to mull over the basis "in fact"from which these various religious "notes" were derived.
Like SCylla and Charibdis , or the origin of Gehenna..

Im sorry I disappoint you but Im just more a myth buster than a group thinker within religious testimonials.

0 Replies

@livinglava,

Did Noah (in some versions he was listed as Noe) even exist? Supposedly he lived until age 950 (Genesis chapter 5 of maybe 6)

I wonder if he ever had occasion to enjoy blueberry muffins...

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

To continue, You are speaking about a"covenant" based upon an event in nature which never left any evidence that it even occurred. (worldwide Flood). EVidence of floods and droughts are all over the geologic record, but none of such a wide range and so disastrous to life that, in order to mak up this story of a "covenant" between a religious Patriarch (who may have never lived) an a god (who also has no credibility behind its existence).
Ryan an Pittman published results of a study of the Post Mindel Periglacial regional Flood that inundated the shorelines of the Caspian sea. Also , "Doggerland" the area between the British Chalk and the Low Countries of the European Continent also were gradually inundated about 5K years ago but are still unnderwater.
The Gilgamesh Story occured before the Hebrew account of a Noadic Flood, so much of the story that they copped for their "Bible" , comes pretty un molested from Gilgamesh.
So a god comes along and picks out some dude with whom He says that "Ill never destroy the Earth by Flood ever again". just be good and follow my laws ".

Your OP has hardly any truth behind it I feel, so all the accountabilities and derived laws of behavior, while nice as an archeological event probably leans on Gilgamesh(Who did exist as an Akkadian king (Utnipushtin--) on the floods of the Tigris, or else are derived from the Caspian Sea marginal inundation . So what are you talking about on "Differences of accounts"? Surely you realize that many here dont even buy the flood story. So why must they handle this a some kind of truthful account when it probably belongs more as a discussion oof Desert Folk Tales sort of like Creation Account of the Canaanites versus those of Paleo Native Americans?

I'll try to make this simple for you. You know the Star Wars Saga? It's popular but obviously not based on any specific historical event, right? Yet various aspects of the story may resemble any number of actual historical events and/or personal life events experienced by people. Good fiction works by connecting with people's memories, feelings, and minds in ways that are relevant and true to real life without the narrative being specifically representational of a definite historical event.

Now Star Wars has been described as a modern 'myth' that resonates with many people in a way that religious mythology no longer does. But what does it mean to call something a 'myth,' to say that it is 'mythological?' Does it mean that it's false and not true? No, it means that it is a story that connects with people on a general level without being referential to any specific historical event. It's not that it's false, only that it's general and not about one specific historical event involving specific people.

Now to consider this story of Noah, you have to just accept the narrative as having a general meaning. The general meaning is that humans are inherently sinful (that part you should have no problem with understanding), and that as a result their creator decided to remove them from the creation (you obviously have trouble with personifying nature and natural events/disasters as acts of God, but you have to do that to analyze the story). Then comes the special part of the story, which is that a guy called Noah gained awareness of the flood before hand and built an ark to survive it along with his family and animals.

Noah may have been an actual person who dealt with an actual flood, or he may be a general/composite character based on many stories of many floods and people who survived them by building boats. There may be some stories where farmers saved their animals from flooding by building the boat big enough to put the animals in as well. The bigger a boat someone builds and the bigger the flood the survive, the better the story; so it is logical that out of all those true stories a grand mythology would evolve/emerge in which a person built a boat/ark so big that he saved not only his family but also all the animals of the Earth from a flood that was so huge it covered all the land. Whether it is a true story or not, it is the ultimate story to describe the relevant aspect of all the other true flood-boat stories, which is that someone worked hard to build a boat, saved their family and animals with it, and thus survived a great flood that would have otherwise killed them and destroyed their farm.

Now, hopefully, you can go back and read the OP and understand why I am raising discussion of Noah's flood and God's covenant with Noah in the light of contemporary struggle with human industrialism causing climate change. The point is not to debate the existence of God, the validity of religion generally, etc. but to discuss the idea of the story and Noah's covenant with God and how to think about in reference to contemporary climate science/prophecy.

2 Replies

@Sturgis,

Sturgis wrote:

Did Noah (in some versions he was listed as Noe) even exist? Supposedly he lived until age 950 (Genesis chapter 5 of maybe 6)

I wonder if he ever had occasion to enjoy blueberry muffins...

I wonder if he ever had occasion to deal with red herring posts out of disrespect for religious threads.

0 Replies

@livinglava,

Myths , mot often are jut so stories "made up". I gree that the entire Biblical base is probably a mythological (made up) story of the Abrahamic tradition.
The precise word you want me to buy is that its ALLEGORICAL. I dont believe that you are pushing that either because an allegory is like SCylla and Charybdis. (There is an area where ocean currents make the rocky coast a problem to ancient shipping.)the legend is based somewhat on fact. Id like to accept that most of the Bible Followers would accept the allegorical nature of the stories of genesis.
Ryan and Pittman were 2 geophysicists who discovered old villages underwater at coastal Caspian Sea and drew some parallels that ere within the Gilgamesh legend and, by extension, were tricked out even more for Genesis and then the Quran.

You seem to trying awfully hard to straddle a middle path so Im just being quietly amused. When people get pissed at me they always try the insolence of "youre just a loow life dummy and Im waay smarter than you, so Ill explain thi really slowly so even you get it" (I call it the oralloy argument, so Im used to listening to your processes rather than facts and evidence).

Look, you dont have to respond to anything I say. Im just commenting on the process also. I just dont buy your argument at all, and Im sharing some reasons why not.

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The Real Meaning of God's Covenant with Noah

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