This week we discussed episode 4 of the BEMA podcast: His Bow in the Clouds. Please consider listening to the episode before watching this video about our discussion.
Genesis 6-9
In this episode they skipped chapter 5 because it is all genealogy. I created a visual timeline of chapter 5's genealogy because I am a visual person and I wanted to see what to would look like. The first section in each person's timeline is how long they lived before having the next person. So Adam lived 130 years before he had Seth and Seth lived 105 years before he had Enosh and so on. The second section is how long they lived after having the next person and then how long they lived in general. As you go down the list you can see that Methuselah and his son Lamech died right before the flood. Noah lived 350 years after the flood so his timeline has three sections: How long he lived before having Shem, Ham and Japheth, followed by how long he lived after having them and then how long he lived in general.
The Flood Myth
I was introduced to the idea of a "flood myth" after I graduated high school, which was in 1999, but it didn't deter my belief in God's word; despite that being the intent of the person sharing the information. I haven't studied any of the other flood myths, but here is a short list of the other ancient civilizations that have one:
Ancient Mesopotamia - Epic of Gilgamesh
Aztec
Greek
Hindu
Buddhist
China
Norse - blood bath
Aborigines
A quick Google search will take you to a lot of these and you can find out more about them.
Noah and the flood
Genesis 6:1-5 opens with humans increasing in number and then introducing the idea of the Nephilim.
1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with [My spirit will not remain in] humans forever, for they are mortal [corrupt]; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
I did manage to find a resource for a Midrash teaching concerning the Nephilim or fallen angels: Midrash teaching.
What are the problems in this story?
Consider what sticks out as you read through these beginning scriptures.
What or who are the sons of God?
How did they reproduce with women on the earth?
Do these "sons of God" have flesh bodies?
Then their children became "the heroes of old, men of renown."
After these children are born, then it says that:
5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Did this come as a result of the "Fall" in Genesis chapter 3 or did these wicked inclinations grow as a result of these children being introduced to the gene pool?
This chapter goes on to read:
6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”
This is the first time we see God experience regret for creating something.
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
It states that "Noah found favor," so did he do something that stood out to God in some way or was his bloodline important for something else? We find an answer in the following verse:
9 This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.
It states that "Noah was a righteous man." I wonder how easy it would've been to stand out as "righteous" when it later states that:
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
I wonder if he stood out as "righteous" because he wasn't violent or maybe because he avoided the newly created Nephilim bloodlines. Maybe he was chosen because God knew he would listen and do everything he told him to do just as it states in the last verse of this chapter:
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
Chiasm - Look at the numbers
The chiasm in this story starts in Genesis 7:4 and ends in 8:12.
Each passage has a number in it that leads the reader to the "treasure" in the story. Check it out in God's Word for yourself and see it unfold.
7 - Genesis 7:4
7 - Genesis 7:10
40 - Genesis 7:17
150 - Genesis 7:24
150 - Genesis 8:3
40 - Genesis 8:6
7 - Genesis 8:10
7 - Genesis 8:12
After following the chiasm we end up in Genesis 8:1
“But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.”
What's the treasure in this? It is God's remembrance of Noah that leads to the treasure because God then promises that he will never again destroy the earth with a flood. The rainbow is the treasure in this story. In Hebrew it is just the word "bow" and when you think about what a bow is used for it is used for destruction. The beautiful part of this is that God's promise is that when destruction comes again the "bow" will be pointed at him. Think about how a rainbow is aimed up at the sky, not down towards the earth.
Just as an archer aims at their target so God's next target will be himself. Why does God need to be reminded of this? The origination of a sign a promise comes from what is known in the ancient world as a "Suzerain Vassal." This is a treaty or a covenant between two parties, usually one more powerful than the other. In our case God is the Suzerain and we are the Vassal. The Suzerain usually supplied the vasal with a sign to be used for future use so that when the Vassal could produce the sign of the covenant then the Suzerain wouldn't attack or bring destruction. God takes this idea a step further because He gives himself the responsibility of holding on to the sign and if He brings destruction again it will be on Himself rather than us, the vassals.
There are some amazing parallels between this story and the creation story. Look at the part where it talks about God sending a "wind over the earth." This points back to Genesis 1 when God's Spirit is hovering over the waters. After seeing that we see other parallels from Noah's Flood to the creation story.
Genesis 1:1-2
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Genesis 8:1
8 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
In Hebrew this word for "Wind" is the same word for "Spirit." In Genesis 1:3 it says:
"3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light."
Noah opens a window to let a bird out and there is light. After that God separates the waters as He did in the creation story. Then Noah sends a bird out and eventually it brings back vegetation and God created vegetation on the third day. Next the water dries up enough for the animals and Noah to come out and that correlates with the creatio. of animals and man. Finally God tells Noah and his family to be fruitful and multiply just as God told Adam and Eve the same.
I hope you learned a lot and gained a lot of wisdom from this episode and from our discussion.
Learn more about the BEMA podcast at bemadiscipleship.com
Join us next week as we get together to discuss episode 5 of the BEMA podcast: A Misplaced Curse
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