I think
there is little doubt that when God created the universe and the earth and sky
and then seeded the planet with fish, animals, birds, and humankind He had a plan.
I also think that God in all His wisdom, power and glory would not let His
plan go awry. Consequently, I think we can safely deduce that God succeeded and
the End of Days will demonstrate His success to us as it has to Him. So it is undeniable that what has happened
has happened as God willed it to be.
In case you think this argument supports the
case for determinism, think again. God
doesn’t will our choices though as a result of His omniscience He knows what choices we have made and will
make. He has provided us with the
ability to make the correct choice all the while knowing that some will fail to
do so. He also knows who will fail and
who will succeed. The brutal truth is if
you fail to accept God with all your heart and soul you will not be part of His
everlasting love and your soul and your memory will cease to exist for all
those who have survived. There will be
no ‘now’. Winners are grinners.
Today most scholars of the Bible recognize that
Genesis 1 and 2 were copied down by two different scribes and were pieced
together sometime before 1000BC. Further,
they have identified these scribes as having come, one from the north, Israel
and one from the south, Judah. (Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?
1987, 2011)
The
editor who pieced the works together is unknown but clearly there were two different Genesis stories much as different
gospels give us different stories of Christ while depicting the same event. Prior to the combining of the two Genesis
epics the Jewish peoples who could not read learned of the history of their
God’s power and accomplishments by word of mouth; stories recited to them
around an evening’s flame or in the temple.
“2:7 the LORD God formed man from the dust of the
earth. He blew into his nostrils the
breath of life, and man became a living being. 2:8 The LORD God planted a
garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom He had formed. 2:9
And from the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to
the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and
the tree of knowledge of good and bad.”(TANAKH 1985)
The tree
of knowledge of good and bad seems somewhat precious. It is certainly not the Christian way. The Christian concern is with evil not with
what is merely naughty. Friedman has a
point to make in this regard. “2: 9 tree of knowledge of good and bad. Not good
and “evil,” as this is usually understood and translated. “Evil” suggests that
this is strictly moral knowledge. But the Hebrew word (r‘) has a much wider
range of meaning than that. This may mean knowledge of what is morally good and
bad, or it may mean qualities of good and bad in all
realms: morality, aesthetics, utility, pleasure and pain, and
so on. It may mean that things are good or bad in themselves and that when one
eats from the tree one acquires the ability to see these qualities, or it may mean that when one eats
from the tree one acquires the ability to make judgments of good and bad.” (Friedman
Commentary on the Torah, 2012)
As
Friedman would have it God had planted a tree that provides the opportunity to
discover what is tasteful and what is tasteless, what is intrinsically good and
what intrinsically bad. Would that more
people ate of such delights. But we are
getting ahead of ourselves for this delightful fruit was not for the
consumption of animals and birds. We
learn from Genesis 1:26 a fruit-eating
team is to be rostered onto earth.
“1: 26: And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness. 1:27: And God created man in His image, in the image of God He
created him; male and female He created them.”(TANAKH 1985).
In His
image and His likeness. How are we to
understand this phrase? The 12th-century scholar Moses Maimonides
describes it this way “(Gen. i. 26), the term signifies “the specific form” of
man, viz., his intellectual perception, and does not refer to his “figure” or
“shape.”” (Maimonides, Guide for
the Perplexed 1904) So if
God were to endow a groundhog with His image and likeness we would marvel at its
intellectual perception. The point is
that the humanoid shape is not how we are to understand that we were made in
God’s image for God is not corporeal. John
Wesley
held
a similar view. “That man was made in God's image, and after his likeness; two
words to express the same thing. God's image upon man, consists, “1. In his
nature, not that of his body, for God has not a body, but that of his soul. The soul
is a spirit, an intelligent, immortal spirit, an active
spirit, herein resembling God, the Father of spirits, and the soul of the
world.”
(Wesley, John. The Torah: Explanatory Notes
& Commentary on Genesis) Now it is true that our intellectual
perception must be nourished for it to be useful but it is often an unfulfilled
capacity that no other earthly creature possesses.
There
will be an objection by some Christians that Christ is God and he walked among
us as a corporeal being and as God is eternal so must Christ be eternal so we
were formed in his ‘figure or shape’. Surely
Maimonides was familiar with the story of Christ but obviously he was not inclined to involve himself in such a ‘chicken
or egg’ controversy for there is no way to resolve the issue. Interestingly John Wesley, a major light in
the Christian movement, also does not support this view.
Friedman
tells us that the second Genesis creation story by a different author begins
with chapter “2: 4 These are the records of the skies and the earth when
they were created: In the day that YHWH God made earth and skies” (Friedman,
Commentary on the Torah 2012) In Genesis 1 we learn that God made the
animals, birds and fish before he made
humankind but in Genesis 2:19 “And YHWH God fashioned from the
ground every animal of the field and every bird of the skies and brought it to
the human to see what he would call it.” (Friedman, Commentary on the Torah 2012), God
makes man first. As the authors of
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 belonged to different tribes (Friedman,
Who Wrote the Bible? 1987, 2011) we can understand that
they place different emphasises on the
various aspects of the creation story.
Distance tends to bring to the fore tribal preferences for how a story
is told.
As we
have noted above Adam was placed in the garden in Eden and expected to care for
it. I imagine this would include picking
up the fruit that had fallen to the ground to prevent it from being eaten by
birds and animals. It would not do to
have animals and birds knowing good and bad or having the ability to live
forever.
“2: 16 And the LORD God
commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; 2:
17 but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it;
for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.” (TANAKH 1985).
In Adam and Eve’s defence, this wording seems to be more a ‘for your information’
type of direction rather than a harsh command. I don’t think it would be too far-fetched to suspect that
Adam and Eve were set up to fail. I
think we can safely assume that Eve was informed of the directive given to Adam
by God. I don’t think it was part of
God’s plan that Adam would be a mere groundsman in the garden. Prior to the eating of the forbidden fruit,
they were a somewhat primitive couple. They had an intellectual capacity but they
were innocent; they had little learning and they were without guile. It leads us to wonder why such a tree as
the tree of knowledge of good and bad was in the garden in
the first place. It was the only tree
they must not eat from. Why did God put
it there? It wasn’t there by
accident. They could
eat from the tree of life so living forever was not a big deal as
long as they were ignorant of good and bad.
Much is
made of the serpent as the evil culprit who was either Satan in disguise or was
hovering over the serpent to ensure he beguiled Eve. Friedman tells us something about this. “3: 14. the
snake. Just a snake, not the devil or Satan as later Christian
interpretation pictured. As the curse that follows indicates, this story has to
do with the fate of snakes, not with the cosmic role of a devil. There is no
such concept in the Hebrew Bible.” (Friedman, Commentary on the Torah
2012). Be that as it may, a knowledge
of good and bad would allow someone to deduce that given there is a God who is
good there probably is the opposite; a bad entity. One identifies the other.
It is worth trying to imagine what
their lives would have been like had Eve not been swayed by the serpent. Was it part of God’s plan that they both
lived happily in God’s garden, talking with and worshiping Him? But then he expected them to be fruitful and
multiply. How were they expected to indulge
in that activity? By base animal
instincts? Would the children of their
rutting be cast out of the garden when they were old enough to fend for
themselves? No, I think it is pretty
clear that God intended that Adam and Eve would have to leave their special garden. God
was not surprised by their disobedience. He knew they were destined to eat of the
forbidden fruit. Like all the rest of humanity to follow they had a
fatal flaw; they were created with a propensity to sin. When you are created with an inclination to
sin you can bet your sweet bippie, that eventually, it will happen. And history (yours and mine) has shown it will happen many, many times.
But more significantly, as a
result of having eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, Adam and
Eve had a prehension of sin. They had the
knowledge that they were susceptible to desire; the indulging in unspeakable
deeds that could not be hidden from God.
This is where their shame comes from.
Knowing they were naked is the awareness that they are unable to hide
their unworthiness; their baseness and ‘there, but for the grace of Jesus
Christ, go you and I’. It is their psychological
nakedness that causes them to want to hide.
Who among us would be comfortable to have their private urges, desires and
activities open to public scrutiny?
As innocents, Adam and Eve had the
promise of immortality for the tree of life was planted in the center of the
garden and they were not prevented from eating from it. That is…until they failed to follow God’s
command.
“3: 22 And the
LORD God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and
bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life
and eat, and live forever!” 3: 23 So the LORD God banished him from the garden
of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken. 3: 24 He drove the man out,
and stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery
ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.” (TANAKH
1985)
So there
it is, we cannot know good and bad and be immortal at the same time. It was not part of God’s plan. There are many who take the Adam and Eve
story as just another fiction epic in much the same vein as the Gilgamesh epic. For Jews,
it is a factual record marking the beginning of God’s nurturing of his special
people for they can trace the line of the House of David back to Adam and
Eve.
For some
Christians, it is the story of the ‘fall
of man’ and how we have inherited Adam’s sinful ways. But humanity is not sinful because of Adam,
rather Adam was sinful because he was a member of humanity, a humanity God
created. I’m sure some Christians will
protest: “Oh no, Adam and Eve were protected by a shroud of perfection. God could not create sin!” I think God would disagree. “Isa. 45:7 I form
the light, and create darkness: I make
peace and create evil: I the Lord do all
these things.” (KJV) I expect that some will point out that the
Hebrew word that is translated as ‘evil’ may also be translated as adversity,
affliction, calamity, distress or misery.
In any case, take your pick. But
remember there is nothing in this world that was not created by God and that includes sin.
The
Genesis
Adam
and Eve story is a message from God and the message is: ‘Innocence
is priceless. We can never return to
innocence once it has been lost.’ The question we must ask is why did God create
us with this tragic flaw? Why were we
created with a surety that we will transgress God’s law? Let us turn the question around. What would the world be like if we were not
created with a propensity to sin? Would
innocence be replaced by ignorance? Imagine,
if you can, a world in which there is no commandment against transgressing
God’s law; there is no sin but death is still a lottery that we all must
succumb to. How different would that world be from the world today? For many there would be no difference for this group chooses to ignore or
are determined not to recognize that there is a God whose laws may be
transgressed. Also, many of those who do
confess a somewhat superstitious belief in God feel little need to confirm
their conviction. A photograph of the
business of living in such a world would be unrecognizable from a photograph of
the world today. So it would seem that a
propensity to sin; the inclination to transgress God’s law has not changed the
world. What has changed is what some
persons believe about their relationship
to God and this is why we were created
with a
propensity
to sin. Recognition of our sin promotes
a relationship with God. This
recognition entails the understanding that our sin must be absolved if we wish
to share the joy God offers us.
For Adam
and Eve, this was certainly the case for
though they were driven from their beautiful garden they recognized they needed
to
maintain
their relationship with God. Instructed
by their parents, both Cain and Able constructed altars to give offerings to
God. It was always God’s plan that He
would have a relationship, as love, with his people. We were created as vessels for God’s
spirit. We are expected to recognize
that God is all there is. As pain
reminds us to attend to our physical self, sin reminds us to attend to God’s
spirit within us. We ignore both at our
peril. God has something to give us; the
joy of an everlasting life. Not just a prosaic life but a life of constant
joy. God wants us to come to Him through
worship knowing we are cracked vessels in need of repair. As Eugene O’Neil wrote ‘Man is born broken; he
lives by mending and the grace of God is glue.’ (O’Neil,
E., The Great God Brown)
While
unpacking the Adam and Eve story is relatively straight
forward, the Cain, Able and Seth adventures tend to be somewhat enigmatic. Cain is notorious for having killed Able and
God serves up his punishment.
“4: 12. If you till
the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a
ceaseless wanderer on earth. 4:13. Cain
said to the LORD, “My punishment is too great to bear! 4: 14 Since You have banished me this day
from the soil, and I must avoid Your presence and become a restless wanderer on
earth —anyone who meets me may kill me!” (The Torah: The Five Books of Moses, the New Translation of
the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text )
Cain
obviously believes his siblings or their offspring will eventually seek revenge
for the murder of his brother and perhaps with good reason. Maimonides speaks about Adam’s other children
and holds that
“With reference
to Seth who had been instructed, enlightened and brought to human perfection,
it could rightly be said, “he (Adam) begat a son in his likeness, in his form Those sons of Adam who were born before that
time were not human in the true sense of the word, they had not “the form of
man.”.”(Maimonides,
Moses. Guide for the Perplexed - Enhanced Version).
They
were wicked and evil and up to no good. God
recognizes the possibility that Cain may be killed for he sets a mark on Cain
to warn off those who feel so inclined.
Cain’s plea and God’s response seems to accept that murder, or at the
very least, killing will become part of
the status quo for this new society. Jesus
Christ understood this.
“That
the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world,
may be required of this generation; from the blood of Able unto the blood of
Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto
you, it shall be required of this generation.” (Luke 11:50 – 51 KJV)
Christ
was very much aware that ancient Hebrews heard the Adam and Eve/Cain and Able
story as a factual account of their heritage.
Those who have concluded it to be a fable fail to recognize that “this ancient
culture was far different from our own. They had different values and different
ways of thinking about themselves in relation to the world and the people
around them.” (Walton, John H.; Hill, Andrew E., Old Testament Today, 2nd
Edition)
We have
no information as to how long Cain wandered the earth but we are told he took a
wife which we presume to be his sister; a pragmatic solution
to living in a land with a sparse Stone Age population.
The
daughters of Adam and Eve are not recorded though they must have existed else
population growth would have been somewhat stunted. While Christian writers may object, it does
seem that other humans or quasi-humans
may have coexisted with Adam and Eve and Cain and Able. Cain wandered about in a land called Nod
which means the ‘Place of Wandering’. (Kaiser Jr., Walter C.;
Garrett, Duane. NIV Archaeological Study Bible). To my mind, the Cormon painting above, which is in the Musée d'Orsay, most successfully captures
Cain’s cursed existence.
Eventually, Cain started to build a city but as a
result of God’s curse, he could only work
on it for short periods at a time before he was forced to wander again. He is said to have called his city Enoch
after his son. Some scholars conclude
that there were three stories; Cain the murderer, Cain the wanderer and Cain
the builder that were pieced together which contributes more confusion. (International
Standard Bible Encyclopaedia) Knowing
that doesn’t seem to help much.
The
longevity of the characters in this narrative would seem to be necessary to provide
for the numbers of offspring needed to people this young world. Adam’s
later son, Seth; created in his father’s likeness was deemed worthy to sow the
genes of God’s special people. The life
and generations of Seth are juxtaposed to the life and generations of Cain
whose once prolific seed dies out with Tubal-Cain at the beginning of Bronze
Age. Seth’s seed, on the other hand,
leads all the way to Noah. But again I race
ahead. It seems that not all of Adam’s
offspring were worthy creatures. Maimonides tells us “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat (va-yoled)
a son in his own likeness, in his form” (Gen. v. 3). As regards the words, “the
form of Adam, and his likeness,” we have already stated (ch. i.) their meaning.
Those sons of Adam who were born before that time were not human in the true sense
of the word, they had not “the form of man.” With reference to Seth who had
been instructed, enlightened and brought to human perfection, it could rightly
be said, “he (Adam) begat a son in his likeness, in his form.” (Maimonides,
Moses. Guide for the Perplexed - Enhanced Version).
So we
are given to understand there are two classes of humans on earth at this
time. First Adam then Seth and later his
son Enosh and his select offspring who made up an elite class and then Adam’s
previous offspring and the sons and daughters of the select who were corrupt physically and spiritually and were a lower
class. The former being a minority and
the latter being in the majority and referred to as the ‘sons of man’. The enlightened sought to teach the unenlightened
and were called ‘the judges’ or ‘the rulers’ and sometimes ‘the Sons of
God’. As Adam was described as the Son
of God so too were his enlightened sons and their select offspring recorded
below.
5: 4. After the birth of Seth, Adam lived 800 years and begot
sons and daughters. 5: 5. All the days that Adam lived came to 930 years; then
he died. 5: 6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he begot Enosh. 5: 7. After the birth of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and
begot sons and daughters. 5: 8. All the days of Seth came to 912 years; then he
died. 5: 9. When Enosh had lived 90 years, he begot Kenan. 5: 10. After the birth of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and
begot sons and daughters. 5: 11. All the days of Enosh came to 905 years; then
he died. 5: 12. When Kenan had lived 70
years, he begot Mahalalel. 5: 13. After
the birth of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 14.
All the days of Kenan came to 910 years; then he died. 5: 15. When Mahalalel
had lived 65 years, he begot Jared. 5:
16. After the birth of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and begot sons and
daughters. 5: 17. All the days of
Mahalalel came to 895 years; then he died. 5: 18. When Jared had lived 162
years, he begot Enoch. 5: 19. After
the birth of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 20. All
the days of Jared came to 962 years; then he died. 5: 21. When Enoch had lived
65 years, he begot Methuselah. 5: 22.
After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years; and he begot
sons and daughters. 5: 23. All the days of Enoch came to 365 years. 5: 24. Enoch
walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him. 5: 25. When Methuselah
had lived 187 years, he begot Lamech.
5: 26. After the birth of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and begot sons and
daughters. 5: 27. All the days of Methuselah came to 969 years; then he died. 5:
28. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he begot a son. 5:29. And he named him Noah, saying, “This one will provide us
relief from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the very soil which
the LORD placed under a curse.” 5: 30. After the birth of Noah, Lamech lived
595 years and begot sons and daughters. 5: 30. All the days of Lamech came to
777 years; then he died. 5: 32. When Noah had lived 500 years, Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Ja-pheth. (TANAKH 1985)
A little
over one thousand years separate the
birth of Seth from the birth of Noah. In
the meantime hundreds perhaps thousands of offspring were born to Cain’s
offspring and to the offspring of the elect.
It wasn’t the best of worlds in which to live and the story is interrupted
by an unusual digression.
6: 1. When men began to increase on earth and daughters were
born to them, 6: 2 the divine beings saw how beautiful the daughters of men
were and took wives from among those that pleased them.—6: 3. The LORD said,
“My breath shall not abide in man forever,
since he too is flesh; let the days allowed him be
one hundred and twenty years.”— 6: 4 It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim
appeared on earth— when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men,
who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. (TANAKH 1985)
There is
considerable scholarly debate concerning the phrase ‘divine beings’. Christians tend to translate the phrase into English as the ‘Sons of God’. Dr.
Gleason Archer Jr. provides a clear thought on the issue: “The term “sons of God” is used in the Old
Testament of either angels or men who are true believers, committed to the
service of God. The reasons for
understanding Genesis 6: 2 as referring to members of the covenant family,
descendants of the line of Seth, are quite compelling. Scripture clearly
teaches that angels are spirits, “ministering spirits sent to serve those who
will inherit salvation” (Heb. 1. T4, NIV). While they may on
occasion appear in bodily form in the semblance of men, they have no physical bodies and are therefore utterly incapable of
carnal relations with women. The rabbinic speculation that angels are referred
to in Genesis 6: 2 is a curious intrusion of pagan superstition that has no
basis at all in the rest of Scripture”. (Archer Jr., Gleason L. New International Encyclopaedia of
Bible Difficulties)
Nevertheless, these divine beings are responsible for
incurring God’s wrath. The 13th
Century scholar Nachmanides clarifies our understanding of the reasons for
God’s ire: “After
Scripture mentioned Noah and his sons, and wanted to begin with relating the
story of the Flood, it said that as soon as the sons of man began to increase
they began to sin. They persisted in
their sins for many days and years, until Noah was four hundred and eighty
years old, at which time the Holy One, Blessed is He, decreed upon them that
His “spirit would not reside evermore
within them.” Scripture is telling us
that it was the judges – whose responsibility it was to administer justice –
whose sons were committing injustice publicly and no one could stop them.” (Nachmanides, Commentary on the Torah)
It was
‘injustice’ and not sexual immorality that was the issue. The sons of the judges were abducting women
against their will. Nachmanides
continues his reasoning:
“God
gave Noah the reason for the destruction of the earth as ‘injustice’, and did
not mention the other sin of “corrupting of ways”
because injustice is a known and public sin whereas sexual immorality is a
private sin. The reason why this sin
sealed their fate over all others is that it
is a law that is intuitively understood and the people had no need for a
prophet to warn them about it unlike the sin of sexual immorality which people
could conceivably rationalize.” (Nachmanides,
Commentary on the Torah)
Women
were taken against their will and raped.
We need not believe in God to recognize that this was an injustice. All thoughtful persons can recognize just and
unjust behaviour. But this story digresses and creates an
enigma that has caused Jewish scholars from many different ages to attempt to
resolve the dilemma with divergent rationalizations.
6: 4 It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared
on earth— when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore
them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. (TANAKH 1985)
This is
tricky, the author talks about what is and what will be the case. If these giants were the product of the sons
of the rulers or the rulers themselves (divine beings) how do they re-materialize
after the flood? Does not the flood
wipe out everyone but Noah and his family?
We do know they re-materialize for we are told in Numbers:
13: 32 Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about
the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted
is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of
great size; 13:33 we saw the Nephilim there— the Anakites are part of the
Nephilim— and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have
looked to them.”
(TANAKH
1985)
It may
well be that Moses’ fearful scouts had a penchant for hyperbole and just didn’t
want to confront the Anakites but Caleb had no such fear. The average height of people during this
period was five feet three inches(160cm).
Roman soldiers were required to be a minimum height of five feet five
inches (165cm) and the average height of a Roman soldier was five feet seven
inches (170cm). The bones of a gladiator
who
stood a whopping five feet ten inches (178cm) were uncovered by the Yorkshire
Museum. (Andrew Morrison Yorkshire Museum) Giants may well be just very
tall people. Today it is not unusual to
see a very tall basketball player reaching the height of seven feet six inches
(230cm). It is not hard to imagine very
tall persons born to much shorter parents.
Such aberrations exist today and no doubt existed among ancient peoples. But I
digress. Let’s return to the main game,
God is going to destroy the earth and everything in it.
Prominent,
professional atheists take great pleasure in pointing out that the God of the
Old Testament is undoubtedly a psychopathic mass
murderer. Without hesitation, He wipes
out thousands of people merely because they ignored Him. God is supposed to be love, what kind of God
can this one be?
6: 5 HASHEM saw that the
wickedness of Man was great upon the earth,
and that every product of the thoughts of his heart was but evil always. 6: 6
And HASHEM reconsidered having made
Man on earth, and He had heartfelt sadness.
6: 7 And HASHEM said, “I will blot out
Man whom I created from the face of the earth – from man to animal, to creeping
things, and to birds of the sky; for I have reconsidered My having made them.”
6: 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of HASHEM. (Nachmanides,
Commentary on the Torah, The ArtScroll Series)
Wickedness
was a way of life for all but Noah who was blameless. Noah walked with God, meaning that he always
followed the path of God. He was a
prophet who received instruction directly
from God. We must remember that Noah was
not a Jew and the people who populated the earth were not Jews; there was no
social structure, culture or set of beliefs that held them together. They were a wild ungoverned group and they
did nothing to redeem themselves.
6: 11. Now the earth had
become corrupt before God, and the earth
had become filled with injustice. 6: 12. And God saw the earth and beheld it was
corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its
way upon the earth. 6: 13. God said to
Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with
injustice through them; and behold, I am about to destroy them from the earth. (Torah, Nachmanides, Commentary)
Imagine
trying to survive in a climate of violence without a civil structure, a ruler
or laws; where tribes fought each other and life held no significance, and
people didn’t even try to be kind or generous to one another. The rule was survival of the cruelest, take what you want and kill those who
tried to usurp your role. There was no sense
that the future mattered. Without correction, humankind is the most dangerous and
most selfish of animals. We must ask: Who
was ultimately responsible for such a state of affairs? Though Noah was a prophet he was not able to
change the behaviour of the people. Only he and his family were innocent in the
eyes of God. Noah was the keeper of a
story; a story of his God and his ancestors which he passed on to his children.
It is
significant that God did not wipe out everybody; He spared Noah and his
family. Not a character trait of a psychopathic mass murderer. More to the point we really cannot imagine
God; whatever you imagine is wrong. God
cannot be grasped by analogy for there is nothing like, similar to or
encompassing of His vastness; there is no existence; no space and no time
outside of God. He is
eternal. He is the single entity from which the universe and all other things,
matter and life forms derive. Describing God as a psychopathic mass
murderer is anthropomorphizing Him; describing Him as if he were human and
suggesting He is subject to the inferior logic that governs humanity. God is logic; He cannot do anything that is
not logical. To love all is the logical
consequence of his being. However
articulate and erudite professional atheists may be they tend to suffer from a
feeble mindlyness.
The wicked lived as if there was no tomorrow which in itself provides
the grounds for their demise. A mere
1600 years had passed since the making of Adam; not enough time for God to
blink. The creatures He seeded were selfish, cruel and murderous lacking any
sense of love. They did not recognize
Noah as a prophet and they were not interested in what he told them. They were
the weeds of humanity corrupting the growth of innocence and goodness and they
had to be removed to prevent them from polluting the fertile earth.
#
# #
References
Andrew Morrison Yorkshire Museum, Daily
Mail (Australia) Saturday, Mar 18th
2017
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