Reading the Bible-Day 3

OK, it's still the same day as the last one, but you know what I mean.

Genesis 8-11

Kretzmann

Chapter 8 opens with God "remembering" Noah and the beasts and livestock with him. As if He could forget them! Of course, God's remembering is different from ours. We remember something we've forgotten. God never forgets us. It's His way of dealing kindly with us for our good.

Several years ago I listened to a recording of a program that Bill Moyers did on Genesis. He discussed Genesis with people of different faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's been so long ago that I don't remember the details of most of it (something else to put on hold at the library) but I do remember the significance the story of the flood had for survivors of the Holocaust, or at least those touched by it more directly than myself.

Even though in my last post I referenced how we tend to hear the story of Noah as children. It's like a nice little fable, on par with Androcles and the lion. We think of cute animals all paired up, a beautiful rainbow in the background, and a dove flying around Noah's head. And of course the ground is green and dry. It looks like a second Eden, the top of that mountain.

However, that's not the sight that awaited Noah. What awaited him was the aftermath of the most devastating flood in Earth's history. While the world's population may not have been large by our standards today, it was still a staggering number of people killed in such a short, destructive period of time. In verse 7 Noah sent out a raven and it flew to and fro. Remember the type of bird this raven is. It's a scavenger. As the note in the TLSB says: "The failure of the scavenger bird to return tells Noah that there is more than a blank waste of water outside the ark. to and fro. Perhaps from carcass to carcass. until the waters were dried up. The raven stayed in the area of the ark, until conditions improved."

Can you imagine? Even after the waters receded to the point that they could leave the ark, the bodies were still there, rotting and decomposing. NOT the picture you'd put in a children's Bible. Is it any wonder that the Jewish members of Moyers' panel had such a hard time with the story? Where have we seen pictures of such bodies?

After Noah's sacrifice to God, He says: I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."

From the Formula of Concord: "There is a distinction between man's nature and original sin. This applied not only when he was originally created by God pure and holy and without sin (Genesis 1:31), but it also applies to the way we have that nature now after the fall". Chemnitz: "There were not in the world at that time any other humans than righteous Noah and his family,and yet even of them he says [this word about evil]...He is speaking not only of the thoughts, but of the make-up or imagination of the human heart."

While I can't say I like my heart being described as evil, I find great relief in that statement as well. In spite of our failings, our sinful, evil nature, God still doesn't want to destroy us. He still remembers us. He still sent His Son to die for us so that we wouldn't have to die for our sins and give us the just desserts of our lives.

"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image."

I have trouble with capital punishment. I can't help but put myself in the place of someone getting ready to be stuck with a needle or tied to a chair. It makes my skin crawl. However how do you argue with God? You don't. Over the years I've decided that it's not so much capital punishment I have a problem with, though I'm still no fan. It's the state of the justice system, any justice system, that I have the biggest problem with.

If humans were as infallible as we think we are, there would never be a mistake. We'd never execute the wrong person. No one would lie in the witness stand and no one would ever be on trial for the color of their skin or their religious beliefs (or lack thereof), or anything other than the actual crime of murder. But we're fallen creatures. If we were so perfect there would be no murder and no need of this punishment. Even God tried to prevent our fallen natures from executing innocent people by requiring 2 eyewitnesses to the crime.

Today, with our legal system, we still can put innocent (or at least, not guilty) persons in prison and on death row. How many people have been set free due to DNA evidence showing they were not the one who committed the crime?

So I suppose I could say I have less of a problem with capital punishment than I have with capital punishment used on the wrong person. I still hate capital punishment but I hate the fact that we need it even more.

It's certainly appropriate that Ham is pointed out as being the father of Canaan. He acted in an immoral way and the Canaanites, inhabitants of the land the Israelites would later inhabit, were known for their immorality. However, whether it's DNA or because of the curse placed on Canaan by Noah, who knows? As the youngest son of the youngest son, Canaan's place in the family was hardly something to brag about anyway, but after this curse he's even worse off. Before he may have just been considered unimportant. Now he's the black sheep of the family.

The tower of Babel has connections to the Fall. Just as Adam and Eve's rebellion caused division, Cain's murder of Abel caused more, and it multiplied until the Flood, the rebellion of the people in building the tower provided more division. Now people were divided from family members due to no longer having a common language. Could this be the beginning of our prejudice against people of different languages and cultures?