The Town of Odyssey

Being a NT scholar, I've not spent nearly as much time with the OT as I should. Since coming to this realization I have gone into academic study mode of reading the book. This lead me to reading the Noah story for the first time in years. This study raised a few flags. Is God any better than Hitler? Was the flood not genocide? Can God send someone to hell for simply following His example, even if that example is regarded as sin?

*please note 1) I'm playing devils advocate. 2) I get God is God and he can do whatever he wants because he is perfect, whereas his creation is fallen. 3) That judging others and condemning them is for God alone. I'm just curious to see how others struggle with these questions. I cannot get my heart and my head in the same place on this.

This is an issue I have always struggled with, how to reconcile the violence of the Old Testament with the love of the New Testament.

Looking at the flood specifically I think we have to consider the metaphorical implications of the flood as well as the historical truth of the event. The outer flood which was destructive to man's flesh is symbolic of the flood of sin which is just as destructive to his soul. I think looking at the flood is instructive and helpful to looking at any natural disaster. Why do natural disasters happen? First I think we have to acknowledge that these are bad things but why do they happen? The answer that I have right now is that evil is the corruption of good, evil does not have an existence by itself it only exists by corrupting what is good. So in the case of Noah we can see that the earth is full of evil, God's creation, which is good, has become twisted and as I said earlier what we see is a flood of sin that destroys men's souls. So to renew, it is important that it is not to destroy for destruction sake, to sate some kind of wrath, or destroy evil, but to renew the earth there had to be a flood. This renewal of the earth, of it's good nature, is a foreshadowing of Christ's redemptive work during His incarnation, death, and Resurrection. God's flood like Christ's ministry was not one founded on violence or the sating of wrath, it was one of love. Love of His people and a desire for them to be in full and perfect communion with Him. This was not possible in the time of Noah when the image of God in creation and man had been so utterly corrupted nor before the time of Christ when the image of God in us was held in bondage to death, sin, and the devil. The flood and the death of Christ were both necessary to free us but just as Noah in the ark was necessary so was the Resurrection of Christ, so that on the day of judgement we too may be resurrected.

(For some reason my post wasn't posted....)

Anyways, I had said I believe God and Hitler each had different reasons for annihilating a race/civilization. Check this out and read the first comment made by Tom Ragsdale.

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John Chrysostom wrote: This renewal of the earth, of it's good nature, is a foreshadowing of Christ's redemptive work during His incarnation, death, and Resurrection.

Very, very good point.

RAP BATTLE----er.

One of the main issues I struggle with is even debating something like this. You're comparing the God of the universe to a man. Two completely separate entities. When you put God on the same plane as man, you're nullifying God's sovereignty. Because he's God, he is something man is not. It's like (emphasis added) comparing an apple to the intangible, abstract idea of love.

But to answer your questions: By plain definitions, yes, the flood was genocide in the sense that God destroyed almost all mankind. However, is this not God's prerogative? He created mankind. Shouldn't he be able to do what He knows is best? Because he is sovereign and we are not, we are in no position to say "yes, God's genocidal tendencies are evil therefore he is evil". He created the human ability to reason and to discern right from wrong. How can we judge the person who created the ability to judge?

Does that help?

Edit: fixed some coding and punctuation.

If the Flood was genocide it would have destroyed all humanity. God intentionally saved some so it could continue.

If you're going to take the Bible literally when it comes to the flood (which I do), you also need to go back like two verses before that story picks up.

The situation on earth wasn't just, "People are bad!" It was "People have bred with fallen angels and created a race of super mutant giant demon spawn!"

There was some cleaning up that needed to be done.

Post-flood, the times God said, "Go and kill EVERYONE!!!" it was usually mentioned that it was some race of freaks. Giants, six fingered, etc. Sunday School teachers want to criticize the 10 Israeli spies that disagreed with Joshua and Caleb when Moses sent them in to spy, and say "they lied because they were scared," but the reason they didn't want to invade Jericho was because Jericho was full of GIANTS. God was on their side, and they should have trusted Him, but still, my point remains that the only times God caused or asked the Israelites to perform genocide of some sort was against super freaks and X-men and such.

Really, if you take the what the Bible says, for one sin death is the punishment even a lie. God is all-righteous and just, but he is balanced by mercy. Take that and mix it together, and you get the best we can explain God. I've been in Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, and there God's justice is expounded on the most.

Top, God destroyed the Israelites themselves.

They seem to be doing pretty good for a group that was destroyed.

The Top Crusader wrote:Post-flood, the times God said, "Go and kill EVERYONE!!!" it was usually mentioned that it was some race of freaks. Giants, six fingered, etc. Sunday School teachers want to criticize the 10 Israeli spies that disagreed with Joshua and Caleb when Moses sent them in to spy, and say "they lied because they were scared," but the reason they didn't want to invade Jericho was because Jericho was full of GIANTS. God was on their side, and they should have trusted Him, but still, my point remains that the only times God caused or asked the Israelites to perform genocide of some sort was against super freaks and X-men and such.

Not only that, but some of those groups were incredibly depraved—and by depraved I mean violent child sacrifices, cannibalism, and free rape all over the place. God was enacting the same judgment on the Canaanite cultures as He did when He first flooded the earth—punishment for wickedness. Hitler allowed the slaughter of millions because he was a hateful, vengeful, arrogant racist. God allowed it because He is just to condemn wickedness and acts to protect His people from it.

TigerintheShadows wrote: God allowed it because He is just to condemn wickedness and acts to protect His people from it.

He acts to protect people from "Evil" by commiting the "evil" himself? That is incredibly logical...
Also I would say that God does more than allow, if he has a hand in the lives of individuals, his role cannot be passive. If he is protecting people, he must be active in individual lives.

Liz_Horton wrote:He acts to protect people from "Evil" by commiting the "evil" himself? That is incredibly logical...

God tells His people that vengeance is His and He will repay, which implies to me that violent acts on someone else are evil for us because we are taking matters into our own hands. An omnipotent God who creates would, I would think, have the right to do what He chose to His creation. It's not like His definition of good and evil intrinsically coincides with ours.

Interesting. I think that question can be answered in one verses.
The wages of Sin is death.

The Top Crusader wrote:If you're going to take the Bible literally when it comes to the flood (which I do), you also need to go back like two verses before that story picks up.

The situation on earth wasn't just, "People are bad!" It was "People have bred with fallen angels and created a race of super mutant giant demon spawn!"

There was some cleaning up that needed to be done.

Post-flood, the times God said, "Go and kill EVERYONE!!!" it was usually mentioned that it was some race of freaks. Giants, six fingered, etc. Sunday School teachers want to criticize the 10 Israeli spies that disagreed with Joshua and Caleb when Moses sent them in to spy, and say "they lied because they were scared," but the reason they didn't want to invade Jericho was because Jericho was full of GIANTS. God was on their side, and they should have trusted Him, but still, my point remains that the only times God caused or asked the Israelites to perform genocide of some sort was against super freaks and X-men and such.

1. Okay, it actually doesn't say that angels (fallen or otherwise) bred with human women, it says:

Now, I realize that it's a popularly held belief that this is a reference to angels, but the fact is that the word for "son," used in this verse is rather ambiguous. While doing a brief scan of the uses of this word in the Old Testament I found a whole lot of times it was translated as "son," as well as the word "children," however, I also found a handful of other translations of the word including: "worthy(of death)," "old," and "arrow." I looked into some commentary on the word (the word, not that specific verse.) that outlined some of the general uses of "son," in the Old Testament among which were: an actual, direct descendant (there's a similar word for daughter as well), a more familiar way for a superior to refer to a subordinate, a way for a subordinate to refer to themselves when speaking to a superior (e.g. instead of saying to their master "your servant hears," they might say, "your son hears.), a bunch of young guys which no particular relation to the one speaking, and that the thing referenced belongs to something (in Job an arrow is literally called "the son of a bow." There were a couple of others, but you get the idea.

So, there's a possibility that you're right, but I think there's enough uncertainty of what exactly is being referenced here (as well as some other things throughout the Bible, that I haven't referenced here) that it warrants at least a small disclaimer, that may that's not necessarily what was going on.

2. Again, not really sure this is true across the board. (Not sure it's not either. I'm just typing out loud here. ) See, I've recently been reading through Joshua (ALL THE NAMES ) and there are basically a whole ton of cities that Joshua conquered using the "Kill them all!" approach. But, since Rahab and her family were saved from the destruction of Jericho, I'm going to assume not EVERYONE of the men, women, and children that Israel slaughtered in that area were giants. And, on top of that it says in chapter 11

YAY for peace! ....Except that we're also told in the verse right before that that:

Sooo, if the point was that they just kill off all the freaky bad guys...then it seems like they were kind of bad at it.

Yeah, I was going to say that also. Only David and some of his warriors faced giants.