Noah, Jesus and a Vengeful God

Transcribed from the sermon preached March 1, 2009

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Genesis 7:1- 9:17

To some degree the Western Christian worldview set us up to view creation as incidental, a mere backdrop in the human life drama and our relationship with God.  Bob Traer is speaking with us in our environmental ethics course of the need for inherent value in nature itself, apart from its usefulness or threat to human beings.  The flood story shows us an angry, punitive God lashing out at all life because he is upset with humanity.  It might seem that such an act would be like dropping a nuclear bomb on Iraq to get rid of terrorists there.  Is that the kind of God we want to worship?  We would like to think not. And it can hardly be logical or good to blame God for the suffering that happens from natural disaster when it so clear, as Jesus says, rain falls equally on the just and the unjust.  Our faith is in the God who dies on a cross, says Traer, not in a God of vengeance who causes death and devastation on earth.

So what are we to do with this story of Noah and the flood?  Some Christian environmentalist point out that this story shows a God who changes and improves, and who makes a universal covenant, not just with Israel or Abraham, not just humanity but with all Creation.  Even though humanity can’t help but be evil, he will no longer lose his cool and wipe out all life.  And that is true, the covenant of the bow goes beyond the circumcised of Israel or even humanity to include all life. 

Before we get into the ancient Middle East context, which help us understand the intention of the authors, it may help to see that creation myths with cosmic destruction are not limited to Christianity or the Middle East.  The creation myth of the Hopi, hardly accused of being bad for the environment, moves through four worlds.  For the same reasons as the biblical creator, human failure to sing praise and serve the Creator, turning to maliciousness and violence, the Hopi creator burns their first world, while only a chosen faithful few are protected and survive.  Then the second world gets corrupt with greed and materialism of trade; once again the faithful hide with the ant people in the womb of the mother, and the gods holding the earth’s axis let it go and water sloshes across the land; the planet is flooded and then frozen to ice.  Once again in the third world, people turn to evil, this time to sexual sin and making flying war machines. This time the Creator sees where things are going and so this time doesn’t wait so long.  He instructs the Spider woman to create boats with hollow reeds for the faithful, before the rain and floodwaters again cover the land. The people kept floating for what seemed like forever and then came to rest on the highest mountain.  In search for more land, the faithful sent out birds, but day after day they came back tired.  Finally they got back in their boats and kept traveling.  They came to a beautiful and plentiful place but the Creator thought is was too nice and the people would once again forget how to live simple, peaceful lives praising the Creator.  We know that the Hopi, in this, their fourth world, live in the Southwest United States were there is little rain.  The difficulty of life there means they have to pay attention to the order of things and are less likely to get out of hand.  Anyway, The Hopi religion is the most environmentally friendly religion I have studied and yet, their Creator wiped out masses of human and living creatures not once, but three times.   (Waters, Frank. Book of the Hopi. Penguin. 1972) Similarities so great might make one think early Christian missionary information was put to use. If not, given the great historical distance between the cultures of Israel and the Hopi, we are led to conclude there is something true and meaningful about this story: the Jungian collective unconsciousness.

It will help us further to take a look at the historical and literary context in which the biblical story comes; then we will ask again if there is a message from God in the story for us.

Most scholars think that our flood story as currently found comes to us from two editors, the J or Yahwist and P for Priestly writers.  In turn, both of these writers would have had knowledge and been influenced by the Babylonian version of the flood found in the Atrahasis and the ancient epic of Gilgamesh.

There is much evidence showing multiple authors or editors to our bible.  As language is used and references are made to places and theological or political concerns known by corroborating sources to exist in particular time, scholars are able to discern which sections of scripture came from which era.

We believe the first edition of the bible came to us from the reign of King David, the first person to solidify the tribes of Israel and Judah into one Kingdom, during the 10^th Century BCE.  His scribes collect old writings and oral traditions and rework them into a story, which serves to promote David as unifying King. Yahweh or Jehovah translated “the Lord” in English is the term used for God by David, so scholars call this version J after Jehovah.  As David needed support from Levite priests, he drew on the traditional stories and laws attributed to Moses who was known as being from the Levite clan. 

          But the united kingdom lasted only for one generation with Solomon, until Jeroboam led the people of Israel to break away from Judah.  Jeroboam’s scribes kept David’s scripture but made additions, called E, though they made no changes to our story for today.

          The next edition is called P, for Priestly writers who had been exiled by Babylon and then reestablished by Persia at the end of the sixth century.  Priestly writers were concerned with making their Persian support seem ok, with consolidating sacrifices to Jerusalem, and with laws controlling blood and purity. They like the numbers that make up ten or are multiples of 10.

          So, you may want to open to our text.  In Genesis ch. 6, verses 1-8 we see the word Lord over and over.  Then in verse 9] the story seems to start again: “These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. 

          Then describing bringing animals into the ark verse 19] And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female… 22] Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

Then in ch. 7 right away it switches back to the Lord of David’s J version and asks for seven pairs of clean animals and one of unclean:  [1] Then the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.
[2] Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate.

Then in ch. 8 verse 3 and following P continues “At the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters had abated;
[4] and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat.
[5] And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

But then in [6] we jump back to day forty, “At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.”  He sends a dove out but it comes back empty.  Seven days later it comes back with a branch.  Then seven more days later, a total of 54 days after the start of the rain, the bird doesn’t come back.  This is clearly short of the 150 days in verse 3.

So it is clear there are two different stories woven together.  Why?  What message do the authors send? 

For J, the initial problem was the mating of men of renown, or giants with human women.  In 6 verse [4] The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.
[5] The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

This is a reference to urban elite and warriors, who, in the Babylonian society represent the gods.  In the Babylonian Creation and flood stories, humans are created to slave after the gods so the gods can rest.  (Coote, Robert and David Ord.  In the Beginning: Creation and Priestly History. Fortress. 1991).  Since the ruling elite represented the gods, they were justified by their Creation myths to rest, while the poor slaved after them.  Also, the large urban centers were fed by digging aqueducts from the great rivers.  Of course the elite controlled the land around the rivers and used slave labor to dig trenches and farm the land.           

For J, the story of Noah is the first rain of creation and it initiates rain agriculture.  Recognizing the need for a limit to rains, so that he will not wipe out all creation again, the Lord institutes the seasons. (Coote, Robert. David Ord.  The Bible’s First History. Fortress. 1989. p.88) 

See Ch. 8 verse [20] Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
[21] And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
[22] While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."  And then in ch. 9 [20] Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard.

So in J’s version of the story, the Lord is angry with the powerful urban elite who oppress the people and rape the women, so he wipes them out and in the process, initiates rain and seasons, which liberates people from dependence on river, based agriculture of the type found in Egypt and Babylon.

David is showing that though he wants to rule, and wants the families of Israel to follow him, his governing structure will, contrary to the alternative in Egypt, offer relative freedom and independence.

Now we might think it would be P who would be offering sacrifices with one of the four pair of animals, but according to the Priestly version of our story, sacrifice is not officially consecrated until the third covenant at Mt. Sinai. 

And P changes things to be less nationalistic and more cosmic.  For J it just rains.  But for P there is a “great flood.”  All the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of heaven were opened.  P is more concerned with pollution, the improper spilling of blood, and beginning with Cain killing Abel. (Coote. In the Beginning. P. 45)  The earth was filled with violence and polluted with blood. The flood was a cosmic cleansing.

          Before the flood, all life is to eat plants, to be vegetarian.  It isn’t until after the flood that God institutes the covenant of the bow, as in bow and arrow, allowing the killing and eating of meat for the first time since Creation.  The only stipulation is not to eat it while it is alive with blood still in it.

[1] And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
[2] The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered.
[3] Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
[4] Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
[5] For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning; of every beast I will require it and of man; of every man's brother I will require the life of man.

It is later at Sinai with Moses and Aaron that the Priestly writers have God determine what is clean and unclean.  The law of Leviticus belongs to P, and it is there that women, the handicapped and blind, and homosexuals are excluded as impure.  It is the Levitical priesthood version of the Creation story, from ch 1:1 – 2:4b that has been abused to give us domination over. 1:28-29 "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."
[29] And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.”

But the priestly writers aren’t all bad. It is the Levitical Priesthood which tells us that God created each thing and called it good, that God created humankind in God’s image, male and female.  And while it is the Priestly writers who change the rain from a deluge to a cosmic flood, the covenant with all creation is also theirs. 

I would like to think that in the context of the ancient Middle East, as Abraham’s almost sacrifice of Isaac is the human sacrifice to end human sacrifice, so God’s total destruction in the flood story is the end of such destruction by God. 

Still, Jesus isn’t entirely thrilled with P. It is the priestly purity and Sabbath laws that Jesus breaks in order to be inclusive and loving, for instance when he says neither the blind man nor his parents sinned, and when he is touched by the hemorrhaging woman, and instead of him being polluted, she is healed.

But we also use the priestly ideas of atonement in the New Testament.  In some sense, Jesus is the new covenant, the new Israel, the new human being who, in order to allow God to keep his promise made after the flood, is taken as the lamb for sacrifice.  But here is the twist, Jesus, while like the giants before the flood, both human and god, while equal to God he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but humbled himself, taking the form of a servant.  Jesus is killed because he will not kill, powerful because he doesn’t clamor for power, pure because love is the basis for all the law.  While Jesus, in his integrity foresees and walks standing tall with life to his death in Jerusalem, his blood is spilt by humanity, not God.  In baptism our corrupted life dies in the waters, and we are born again in Christ.  So God’s promise stands strong, we are forgiven and Christ challenges us to stand with him.

So we take the promise of God at the flood, sealed in Christ, and extend it to all creation.  If the one who would be first must be servant of all, then we as followers of Christ know we are expected to serve creation, to treat all humans and all life with balance, honor, respect and love.  This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.