From: Vernon Jenkins (vernon.jenkins@virgin.net)
Date: Wed Nov 05 2003 - 18:02:57 EST
To the Forum
In response to those who have written to me under this subject heading I append my latest thoughts on the nature of the Flood and related matters.
Some notes re the Mabbul and Noahic Covenant
[Note: I use the abbreviations U and L to refer to 'universal' and 'local', respectively]
I believe the Flood was universal because
- The narrative (Gen.6-8) demands it. Consider 6:5 - "And God 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." What a statement! It leaves one in little doubt as to the depth of the problem. But do these words of condemnation encompass the whole of planet earth's population, or only part? The answer depends on one's interpretation of the Hebrew word eretz, which can mean earth, land or country. Many take refuge in this ambiguity - using it to support their view that the Flood, though large, was local (L). God is sorry that he made man on the earth (6:6), and vows to blot him out from the face of the earth, together with the birds and land animals (6:7). [Here, observe that the inclusion of highly mobile creatures like birds makes it difficult to hold to L]. Noah (and his family) alone found grace (undeserved favour) in the eyes of the Lord (6:8).
6:11,12 reiterate the desperate state of the earth (the reason for the Flood). God says "The end of all flesh is come before me." (6:13 - here observe no reference to earth!). The vow is then repeated, but with the additional "I will destroy them with the earth." Then follows the command to build the ark (6:14-16) and another reiteration of the vow (6:17). The first covenant with Noah and his family is established (6:18), the selected animals and birds enter the ark, followed by Noah et al (6:19 - 7:16).
Following the Flood, the Lord decides he will not "curse the ground or destroy all living things in this way again." Why? Because man just can't help being wicked! - "for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." "While the earth remains", he says, "seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease". [Here, again, to believe that this promise affects only L is to ignore its global extent].
- The Lord's words in Mt.24:37-39 and Lk.17:26-27 speak, incidentally, of the complete and sudden destruction of all but those who had boarded the ark. [Observe: while this is not conclusive evidence for U, it is strongly supportive of the narrative excerpts quoted above].
And what of Abraham's concluding words in the Lord's parable of 'Dives and Lazarus' (Lk.16:19-31), viz ".If they (the brothers of Dives) hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Clearly, the Lord had a high view of the Torah!
- A completely new natural regime existed following the Flood. In a very real sense it represented both the end of an era and a new beginning - a re-creation, in fact. The earth had been cleansed of gross corruption; God signals a new start. [Observe that L loses all sense of this universal cleansing idea].
- The covenant with Noah and with all his descendants - with the whole earth, in fact. Since the covenant extends to all generations subsequent to Noah, then it must be important that we understand from the biblical text what its terms are. [Observe: for evolutionists, there were other survivors of the Flood; they and their descendants were _outsiders_ as far as this covenant is concerned; thus, they remain under the threat of total destruction by water! It follows that people living today must be in some doubt as to where they stand with respect to this promise! - an odd situation, indeed!] But the situation becomes odder still if we believe L. Those not confined to the 'land' that would later be inundated clearly were not subject to the Lord's wrath; they must therefore have been much better behaved than those in the 'land' - for they escaped the Lord's ultimate punishment. Yet, strangely, these do not participate in the covenant!, which is made only with Noah, his descendants, and the descendants of those animals confined with him in the ark! Clearly, the Lord must be supremely competent to keep tabs on this situation!! And where does any particular individual stand? Is he able to know the assurance that the covenant was surely meant to provide? Clearly not. So why bother to include a meaningless promise in the divinely inspired text?!
- Another point: 6:8 says, "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." What of those outside the 'land'? Didn't they also find grace - for they, like Noah, survived the Flood. And why was it necessary for Noah to experience a local flood, and survive, when he could simply have been told to join these others! [We have already drawn attention to the ridiculous notion of Noah spending 100 years building an ocean-going ark when a trek across country - taking no more than a few months, perhaps - would have achieved the same purpose!].
- But to return to the covenant itself: it embodied the promise ".neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth."(Gen.9:11). The rainbow is given as a guarantee of this solemn promise, and also to remind the Almighty of it. In the interests of consistency, "earth" must here be read as "land" - so again we have to consider what this means in the context of the large, but local, flood that Noah had recently experienced. History bears witness to the fact that many local floods have occurred since Noah's day - some of considerable size involving the destruction of all flesh within the confines of the area concerned. So what size of flood did God have in mind when he made the promise? We look in vain for a qualification of this important detail.. Its absence can only mean that the Flood was understood by both parties to be global.
Taking all these matters into considerations, I suggest there can be little doubt that the Scripture speaks plainly of a global Flood. The inference must be that we are all descendants of Noah. [Dick's reference to the Nephilim as evidence that others beside Noah and family survived the Flood is dubious, for these appear to have involved a supernatural element - which, one assumes, would have been unaffected by the Flood.]
My response to those who bring forward 'scientific reasons' for believing otherwise is this: the Creation involved the bringing into being of _supernatural_ as well as _natural_ entities; and while we are aware of - and marvel at - the underlying 'fine tuning' that makes terrestrial life possible, we clearly know nothing about equivalent matters that might be necessary to sustain the spiritual realm - and their possible 'echoes' in the natural world. In addition, if we take the Scriptures seriously, there are forces arrayed against us that we know little of, whose specific aim is to destroy our allegiance to Christ and the Gospel. To that extent, all deductions deriving from the empirical data of science - particularly as they tend to undermine revealed truth - are suspect, as are the assumptions upon which they are based.
As Christians, we should stop pretending that verses like 1Sam.18:10-11, 1Kings22:1-36, Job 1:6-12, 2:1-6 and Eph.6:10-18, are not for us. Had the javelin leaving King Saul's hand found its mark, who then was responsible for David's murder? Would a post-mortem performed on King Ahab have uncovered the real reason for his death? What modern doctor would have correctly diagnosed Job's condition? Can it be that the Apostle Paul was a fantasist?!
Vernon
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