Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and I have hinted that we were going to start getting into the flood narrative, and so we shall. But we're going to start broadly. We're going to be talking big picture here. We're going to be looking at the flood as narrative, and looking at the flood in relation to God. We're going to be talking about presuppositions we have, and we're going to get into a few of those fun textual criticism arguments that people make. So I'll be mentioning the documentary hypothesis and things like that.
[00:00:50] And I have a special surprise in about the last third of the episode or so, because I saved part of my conversation with Troy from last week, To add to my overview of the Flood today. So you'll get to hear more from Troy about chiasms in regards to the Flood.
[00:01:10] Now, in part, I think it's so funny that we focus so much on this historicity element of the Flood, as if that's what matters. But simultaneously, we declare ourselves the people of the book, right? And a book is, well, it's a book, in case you didn't know. . So, however the Flood ended up playing out, or not, in history, what we have of it is a text.
[00:01:39] Like, let's say we didn't have the Flood narrative for a minute. If we studied something like geology or whatnot and we found evidence of a great cataclysm, well, what would that tell us exactly? Specifically, what would that tell us about God? Or could we even tell anything from it at all in regards to who God is?
[00:02:00] I mean, let's look at the extinction of the dinosaurs, or really any other massive extinction event at all, what do those tell us from a theological perspective? Why don't we have mammoths anymore today? Do we say that we don't have mammoths because they were wiped out due to their sin? Is that why? Is it because mammoths were so very wicked that they all had to be killed by God? I mean, I hope you find that thought as amusing as I do, because it's silly, isn't it? We don't look at the extinction of a species and go, Well, they had it coming. They should have prayed the sinner's prayer, and God would have saved them.
[00:02:41] Of course that's not what we're thinking about. Or, well, maybe I'm being a bit presumptuous here, because I have seen some hints about those evil meat eaters. But look, no, dinosaurs weren't destroyed because so many of them were carnivores, and that went against God's plan.
[00:03:00] And my point is here that it's not in fact the scientific and historical aspects of the flood that really matter. Like, you can have opinions on what that is, and that's fine. You can take a global flood, a local flood, the galactic flood, whatever. It might sound like I'm taking a non historical view at times, but I'm not trying to do that.
[00:03:25] It's just that, from my perspective, the historicity question is imminently unimportant
[00:03:30] It's the question of why. What was the purpose of the Flood? Why is it here? What does it tell us about God and humanity?
[00:03:46] What many of us, I believe, unfortunately, do think about is that the story of the Flood is about God being so fed up with humanity that he had to destroy us all, except for a handful of exceptions, of course, because somehow it makes sense that one family and one family only were doing the perfect thing.
[00:04:08] So God spared them, because they were doing the perfect thing. Or at least that they were really, really good. Or, well, at least not as bad as everyone else, right? That's the story of the perspective of the flood coming as a judgment. And now maybe you're sitting there thinking, What? Of course the flood is a judgment.
[00:04:31] Okay, well, yes, but there's nuance to that. I mean, notice, humanity is wicked and evil and violent, but Noah isn't saved because he happens to be less violent. No, it's because he's righteous. And what does it mean to be righteous? Well, your answer to that is going to depend on your view of the law and who God is, really.
[00:04:59] I think before we even get to the narrative of the flood We ought to consider and talk about the ways that we see God. Who is He? And I've seen this question answered before by people who strongly affirm that the purpose and intent of the Flood was to destroy humanity in God's wrath because of their sin.
[00:05:21] And the qualities of God that were brought up were things like God's holiness and justice. And certainly, I would agree that God is a holy and just God. Saying he's holy, though, it always strikes me as a bit strange. I mean, not that it's strange, but the idea of God being holy is that he is so other than us. It's almost the case that holy doesn't even really have a definition other than, that's who God is. It's kind of a circular definition, so it's not really a definition so much as it's frequently really a statement about ourselves. When we say that God is holy, what we mean is that He is so unique and beyond us. Which is true, but it's often a trait of God that it's used to bash humanity. Oh, look, God is so holy that we can't even approach Him.
[00:06:17] And really, I don't think that is the point. I mean, it is dangerous to approach Him. But does He want us to approach Him? Yes. Is He willing for us to approach Him? Absolutely. And are there ways that we can approach Him? Of course there are. So okay, there's standards of conduct, right? If you're approaching a king, there's standards of how you do that.
[00:06:43] And we should keep in mind how serious it is that God is God and we are His creation. But we often have this idea looped in that God is so holy that He can't be around sin. And I'm really curious where that idea came from, because it's not from the Bible. Anyway, we're not here to talk about the sacrificial system today, but my point with all of that is that we do tend to import some bad ideas into the text. So that's one of the things we'll be talking about here, and I'm looking forward to some of the things that Troy has to say about that.
[00:07:21] Okay, so holiness and justice. Justice is another thing that we have some very particular notions about, right? If you listened to my episode a few times ago, where I was talking about the term of blot out, and how that applies to things like purification, and the heavenly records, and the books of life, and things like that. In a modern western view of justice, it's that God cannot forgive and forget, so to speak. We say that a debt has to be paid for. It can't just be erased. A sinner must be punished for their sins. That's what we usually say.
[00:08:01] But God has said to either remember things or forget things. And He can remember and forget good or bad things. Either one. So for the moment, I'm just going to leave you with the thought that this is something God can do. He can choose to remember or He can choose to forget. He can choose to keep things written in the Book of Life. Or he can choose to blot them out good or bad things. Remember, both types of things go into the Book of Life, and both types of things are said to be blotted out or remembered.
[00:08:38] Okay, so we have the context of God remembering. We have the context of major violence previous to the flood, right? Humanity was very violent. And frequently, the assumption is that God has to do something because He is a holy and just God, and He can't just let that go on. So, the context here is that God is Judge.
[00:09:04] Now, of course, God is our ultimate Judge, and the one who decides whether or not our names are kept in the Book of Life, or blotted out of the Book of Life. The one who decides whether our deeds, good or bad, remain in that Book. So, while we're thinking about God as judge, who is enacting justice according to his law, we have Noah here.
[00:09:26] And Noah is declared to be righteous. And for most of us, we think that means that he has done no wrong, that he hasn't broken any of the laws we're not really given much more context here in Genesis in order to fully flesh out the idea of righteousness because this is the first time the word actually shows up. But it is paralleled with the word blameless. So, along with that, we get the idea that he hasn't transgressed the law. Or if he has, he's done something about it.
[00:09:59] But let me suggest something. For most American evangelicals, when we approach this word righteousness, we are viewing it from the Reformation lens of the description of what justification is. So, when we're talking about righteousness, I need to set aside our preconceived notions of what that means. To give you an idea of the nuance of this Hebrew term, let's look at a few ways it has been translated. It's most often translated with the word righteousness. Another common translation is integrity. here are some other options. acquittal, deliverance, honest evidence, judgment, justice, prosperity, Right, Righteous Deeds, Righteous Help, Salvation, Saving Help, Victory, and Vindication.
[00:11:00] Okay, so now I'm going to bring in some information from the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary about this term. In Akkadian, it's an adjective that means right. It's used for acting in the king's interests, for example. The cognate in Old South Arabic means proper or appropriate or happy or fortunate. The cognate in Ugaritic means legitimate, like a legitimate son or wife or something that brings right order.
[00:11:36] Now to be clear, the word is used in a forensic sense, meaning it's involved with the law, and notice that for Noah, it is paralleled with being blameless and with walking with God. And this word blameless is the same word for the type of flock that you would bring in for sacrifice.
[00:11:58] Another thing we know about the word righteous is that it is frequently used in comparison with the word wicked. Reading from Word Biblical Commentary, Gordon Wenham says, quote, More generally, a righteous person is one who keeps the moral law. Ezekiel defines the righteous man as one who does what is lawful and right. Then goes on to give examples of sins he avoids and good acts He does, for example, clothing, the naked and feeding the hungry. End quote.
[00:12:31] Now, we don't have any context here yet of Noah acting in any way, like a priest. Of course, after the flood, he does give a burnt offering, but we see most family patriArkhs acting like that in Genesis. In later writing, we do have some description of Noah in that way. In Jubilees and in one Enoch, noah is described as a priest who made atonement for the corrupted earth and who maintained purity laws. And in the New Testament, the whole situation of the Flood and Noah is seen as a prototype for eschatological judgment, like the judgment at the end times.
[00:13:14] Okay, so we've got a little bit of hint here of priestly action on the part of Noah. We see the word righteous appear once again in Genesis 7 1 when they are entering the Ark, which is, again, another place that's very interesting to see this word righteous show up. Especially if you're thinking about the Ark as sacred space.
[00:13:37] So, again, previously we're thinking about the judgment of God on the Earth because humanity is violent. And I want to point out that Noah is not being saved because he's not violent, or because he's less violent, but because he's righteous and blameless. And also he walks with God. You might be thinking, so what? We already knew all this stuff. This is obvious. Move on already. And okay, maybe you're right. It's time to move on. But when we're talking about the nature of God and who he is, once again, you can see how much our view of the sacrificial system is going to play into our view of what's going on with the flood. Even though this is well before the institution of the actual sacrificial system at Sinai.
[00:14:25] It's very common for people to approach the Old Testament, and especially the flood, and the conquest, and all of that, and we have a hard time with seeing how vindictive God is, right? So we try and get him off the hook by saying that he's holy, and he's just, and so of course he can be vindictive if he wants. People deserve God to be vindictive, right? That's the idea.
[00:14:49] But, you know what, there's kind of a problem with that. Because by the end of the flood narrative, God is like, you know what, people are still going to be wicked. And we're not going to do this whole thing again. So that almost sounds like people are going to be getting away with being wicked, doesn't it? And then we say, oh well, you know they won't get away with it because they will be judged after they die. Well, okay, so tell me, how is that not also true at the time of the Flood?
[00:15:23] So look, we can't say that there isn't any space for discussion of judgment here, but my suggestion is that we are focusing far too closely on that. Let me read a quote from Walter Brueggemann in his Genesis commentary. He says, quote, the flood story is among the best-known biblical narratives. It is undoubtedly borrowed from a common religious tradition of flood accounts. However, in this text, the flood narrative has been claimed to express the particular theological affirmations of Israel's faith. Our exposition will indicate that the theological intent of the story as shaped in Israel has significantly altered it from the purposes of earlier traditions. As Israel moved beyond popular understandings, A serious exposition of the text today requires an abandonment of the stereotypes of the account held in most current popular understandings. In contrast to those understandings, we will suggest that the focus of the story is not on the flood, but upon the change wrought in God which makes possible a new beginning for creation. The flood narrative faces a basic incongruity of human life. On the one hand, God has called the world into being to be his faithful covenant partner. He has willed unity, harmony, and goodness. With quite different textures, the poetic liturgy of the first chapter, and the narrative of the second chapter, have sought to model such an intent. But on the other hand, it has not happened that way. God willed creation ordered by Sabbath rest, but it is a recalcitrant creation, resistant to the purposes of the very one by whom and for whom the world exists. The Incongruity is asserted about creation. It is also true of Israel, the paradigm of creation. God has such high hopes for Israel. In Jeremiah 3. 19 it says, I thought how I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beauteous of all nations. And I thought you would call me, my father, and would not turn from following me. But Israel refuses the destiny envisioned by God In the next verse, it says, Surely, as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so have you been faithless to me, O house of Israel, says the Lord. It is the same with creation. The creation has refused to be God's creation. That essential fracture between creator and creation is the premise and agenda of the flood narrative. This text provides a way to reflect on the meaning and cost of that fracture and upon the future that is yet in prospect between God and God's world. End quote.
[00:18:42] Okay, so a couple of points from this quote. The main idea is centered around the flood reflecting the nation of Israel. And of course, with the nation of Israel, isn't there a major theme of judgment? There's always the threat of living catastrophe when the people are not righteous. When they're not following God's law, et cetera.
[00:19:07] Of course, it's not about the law per se. It's about loyalty to Yahweh. It's about walking with God. But there's probably another thing in there that for some people it made their ears perk up. And that is the idea of God changing. Did Brueggemann really just say that God changed? What?
[00:19:31] There are certain things we believe we understand about God, such as God is omniscient, and omnipresent, and all powerful, and unchanging, right? Unlike some of the attributes of God, we actually have verses that talk about God being unchanging. Now, of course, with anything that we talk about here in this podcast, we need to check our modern presuppositions at the door.
[00:19:57] Now, this is more of a philosophical question, and I'm not going to go into the nuances, But the flood narrative is one of those places where I see people ask if it's really true that God is unchanging. Because in the King James Version in Genesis 6 6, it says, quote, and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. End quote.
[00:20:25] People understandably read that and say, wait, how can God repent of something? Sinners are supposed to repent, and God is not a sinner. Well, repenting means to turn direction. So that's what this is suggesting here. Because of the correlations of the word repent, other translations have phrased it differently.
[00:20:48] The ESV translates that verse as, quote, And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart, end quote.
[00:21:00] The NASB says, Quote, The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. End quote.
[00:21:11] So, can God change? Well, the flood narrative says that he can. Even if we go with the newer translations, God made humanity and then he regretted it. He wasn't angry, he was sorrowful. It's an important part of the story itself. We'll probably say a lot more about this in the future, but Right now, we're concerned with who God is and why the Flood happened, and what's the main takeaway and intent of the author.
[00:21:41] Let me read this quote from Brueggemann again. He says, quote, The focus of the story is not on the Flood, but upon the change wrought in God, which makes possible a new beginning for creation. End quote.
[00:21:57] I like this because I think we forget that the Bible is supposed to reveal God to us. We tend to act like the whole purpose of it is our human history. And I know, hopefully we are acknowledging that salvation history, which is God working in the world, in our actual human history. And this is why Christianity has such explanatory power, because it does explain God working in the world. So don't get me wrong here, God is working in the world, in history. But, this is fundamentally what I mean about the Flood not being about judgment so much as it is about a new creation. That's not to say there is no element of judgment within it, but okay, we're going to be getting into more of that with the conversation with Troy.
[00:22:46] But before that, I wanted to talk a little bit about the structure of the narrative of the Flood, and we will address a few things about the documentary hypothesis, otherwise known as J E D P, which I've talked about before, but if you're not familiar with that, this is the theory that the Pentateuch came from four distinct textual sources, J, or the Jehovist, or Yahwist source.This is the source that uses Yahweh as a name for God. E is the Elohist source, or the source that primarily uses the name Elohim, for God. D stands for Deuteronomy, because it seems to be its own source when they're looking at it. And finally, P is for the Priestly source.
[00:23:38] So as far as the Flood goes, the text criticism idea here is that the Flood narrative came from two different sources, source J, or Yahwist, and source P, or Priestly. I have a few resources that try and split these two different sources out so you can see what part of the story comes from which source. Because we have various ancient flood narratives, the concept is that two of those flood narratives were brought together by a later editor.
[00:24:10] Now, when you read the story of the flood, you will notice some odd repetitions and things that look like discrepancies. When the animals are mentioned, sometimes there are sets of two. And sometimes there's sets of seven. And first there's a raven. And then there's a dove. We have quite a few phrases that are repeated as well. So these are things that people have noticed and they've said, well, it looks like they've crammed two different stories together.
[00:24:38] And this is what gets me every time about this, because Genesis is a beautifully crafted book and it really doesn't waste a lot of words. It doesn't have a lot of extra information that we don't need, except for maybe places like this, where we go, well, those editors really flubbed it there, didn't they?
[00:24:59] Well, I don't get that, because these instances of repetition are hardly unnoticeable, right? It doesn't take a genius to see that there is repetition, and what, on the surface at least, look like inconsistencies. So, why didn't editors take those out? But here at Genesis Marks the Spot, we have much more faith in the biblical authors and editors than that kind of clumsy editing.
[00:25:26] It doesn't matter if the text comes from different sources, because what we affirm as Christians, is that the Bible is authoritative in the form that we have today. So it doesn't fundamentally matter that there's editing, and it wouldn't matter if there's different sources.
[00:25:42] But what Troy is going to be bringing up is some information on how the narrative really does come together, and we don't need two sources to do that. But I thought we'd look at the splitting up of this text and see what that actually ends up looking like.
[00:25:59] So I've got a book here, it's called Reading the Old Testament, An Introduction, and it's by Lawrence Boadt. This is actually a Catholic publication from 1984. I have the original first edition. There is a second edition out, which probably has some updated Arkhaeology and things like that. This book is a bit of a classic. Its focus is to try to read the Old Testament in its Jewish context. There's a lot of other newer material you might want to read instead of this book, especially the first edition.
[00:26:35] But, you know, a lot of us today do think that contextual Bible studies is pretty new, and for most people it really is. So in a sense this book was a bit ahead of its time, I think. Not that most lay people were reading it back then.
[00:26:51] But before we get into the separate flood narratives, I want to give you a quote from the book that I really liked. He says, quote, a factor about oral cultures in the ancient Near East was their almost positive dislike for exact facts and specific dates. Religion was centered on sacred times of the year when people could reach back and touch that primeval creation. For example, celebrating in temples, cut off from the everyday world, the great New Year's Fest, when nature renewed its beginning like the first beginning. In this worldview, remembering the deeds and events of the past year could be a block to achieving union with the moment of divine creation. It does not mean that Babylonians or Assyrians had no sense of their own history. They surely did, but they expressed it and gave it meaning for themselves by using themes from the great myths about creation, or through reference to the heroic deeds and lives of the great primeval gods, heroes, and kings. The actual details of historical events were far less important to an ordinary man of ancient times than was the pattern by which it was explained and the essential primeval event to which it was compared. End quote.
[00:28:14] Yeah, that's great stuff right there. Then he gives a chart that is a comparison of ancient and modern methods of recording historical events. I won't read this whole thing, but I like it too much not to read part of it.
[00:28:35] It says, the ancient Israelite historian would record the traditions of the tribe or nation as they interpret them. The modern scientific historian, on the other hand, attempts to reconstruct past events objectively and accurately. The ancient Israelite historian uses oral sources with a few written records and lists, and the modern scientific historian relies on documents and written records almost exclusively. The ancient Israelite historian often includes several parallel versions of the same story, and the modern scientific historian sorts out the conflicting accounts in order to find the single original one. The ancient Israelite historian uses past history to explain convictions for the present time or for a particular point of view. But the modern scientific historian writes history without special bias or undue emphasis towards only one side of the picture.
[00:29:37] Or at least that's the goal, right? We know that doesn't actually happen.
[00:29:42] Now, I know you guys are always curious about what a resource says about Genesis 6 4, so I'm going to go ahead and read that from this book here. And, oh, you guys remember how I was really curious about That Dean Koontz character in the book The Taking, and his explanation for the Flood was murder? Well, this says something about that. So, let me go ahead and read it.
[00:30:05] This is a section called The Giants Born of Sin. It says, quote, This story belongs in style and approach to the Yahwist. It forms the reason for the Flood story to come. If humans killing one another had not been sin enough, it's even worse when God's divine beings, lesser gods in early thought, angels in later theology, violated the limits set for humanity at creation. Originally, the story explained why there had been giants in the old days, a widespread ancient belief as we can see from other references to giants in Deuteronomy 2:20 and 3:11. The Yahweh views the existence of these monsters as a sign of the gross abnormality caused by sin in the world. It fully merited the destruction and purification that flood water could bring. End quote.
[00:31:04] Alright, so there you go. The Supernatural Sons of God explanation in this book. Now, after that, the book talks about the flood and the two sources that supposedly make up the flood narrative. And then he says. Quote, we can detect certain signs that these were two original accounts in the fact that God announces the flood twice, in Genesis 6, 13 and 7, 4, and twice promises never to send a flood again, in Genesis 8, 21 and 9, 15. Noah is told to take a pair of each kind of animal in some passages, but seven pairs of clean animals with one pair of unclean in others. There also seems to be two different numbering systems at work. One based on seven and 40 day periods. Another that adds up to a full year end quote.
[00:32:02] Okay. So I probably am not gonna have a whole lot of time to get into the calendar aspects of the flood today. Though, I have at least mentioned it in a previous episode. But what I wanted to read is that he's got these two supposed sources of the flood account, and they're pretty succinct so you can see them easily. So I'm going to go ahead and read those, and the original does use King James Version English, but I'm going to be nice to you guys, and I'm going to translate at least some of that into normal English when I read it. Most of us aren't used to all of those thes and thous.
[00:32:39] The J version says, quote, And the Lord said unto Noah, Come with all your house into the ark, for you have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast you shall take to yourself seven and seven, the male and his female, And of the beasts that are not clean, two, the male and his female. And it came to pass, after the seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. And it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark, which he had made, and he sent forth a raven. And he stayed yet another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dried. End quote.
[00:33:37] Okay, so that's the Yahwist version. Now I will read the priestly version. It says, quote, And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make you an ark of gopherwood. Rooms shall you make in the ark. And shall pitch it within, and without, with pitch. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shall you bring into the ark. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day, were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the water assuaged. and in the second month, on the seventh and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry. End quote.
[00:34:42] Okay, so it's really interesting to me that the Priestly version isn't the one that mentions clean and unclean animals, because in theory, the purpose of having more clean animals is for sacrifice. And eating, I guess.
[00:34:59] Okay, so the major differences in the two accounts is that the J version has seven pairs of clean animals and two pairs of unclean. And the rain was on the earth 40 days. And then Noah sent out the raven. He waited seven days and then sent out the dove. And then the priestly version has the mention of gopher wood, only two of every animal, the mention of Noah's age. The water was on the earth for 150 days. And the wind came up and dried the earth.
[00:35:30] And so I don't know if you noticed that one of the reasons it might seem like there's two accounts is that two kinds of birds are mentioned. And yet here they both end up in one of the versions. And I don't know about you, but I think the J version has way more priestly information in it. It's the one that mentions clean animals and seven days.
[00:35:54] All right, but anyway, that's one way the Flood has been split up into two different versions. Before we move on from this resource, I want to read one more paragraph at the end of this section. It says, quote, Ancient Israelites undoubtedly fully believed that a flood had once destroyed the earth. Indeed, almost every nation around them also believed that a major flood had occurred near the beginning of time. But Israel also understood that the story of Noah was not history in the ordinary sense. It was a religious lesson told in mythological language about how God's mercy and promise far exceeded a terrible disaster to human life. End quote.
[00:36:41] All right, so he puts it in a slightly different way than Brueggemann did, but once again we have a focus on God's mercy and promise rather than the destruction of life. if we had more time, I could read yet another account of these two different versions. Honestly, it's just kind of a modern, egotistical way to read ancient literature. Luckily, we have a better way to read Genesis, and I am going to talk with Troy about that. So thanks, Troy, for this next bit of conversation.
[00:37:16] Troy Yurchak: Well, I think that what we've done is laid a groundwork on a much smaller passage, but I do think that it would be nice to cover 10, 000 foot view, a larger narrative that follows the chiastic structure. And I know that like the last episode that you did, , you kind of got into the flood a little bit so I think that it would be useful to maybe touch base on the chiastic structure in the narrative of Noah. If you're going to cover that in greater detail, we can look at here's the structure that underlies it, the pattern that's underneath it. And then as you're covering it in greater detail, you can grow branches and bloom from that underlying structure.
[00:37:53] Carey Griffel: Yes, let's do that because that's literally what I was going to be doing in the future. So absolutely. Let's get into that.
[00:38:01] Troy Yurchak: Awesome. Okay. So just like in Genesis one, you have a genealogical inclusio, man, I'm never going to get that word to come to my tongue right when I need it. So you have a genealogical note in, Genesis six, nine through 10, and you have a genealogical note in Genesis nine, 18 through 19. So it kind of gives bookends, which means, Hey, there's a potential for there to be a narrative in between. Not necessarily saying it has to be a chiasm, but then you see right inside there, so point B and B prime at the beginning of the story, you see God sees a specific Hebrew word Ra'ah that the earth, Haaretz, is ruined, Sahat. And then you see at the very end of this narrative, right before that genealogical note, you have God promises to never again ruin, Sahat, the earth, eretz and God will see the rainbow and remember. Ra'ah.
[00:38:56] So you have these three words in between these genealogical notes that kind of give you a clue. Hey, there might be a narrative structure here that is a chiasm. So like we said, this is, It's very helpful when you're telling an oral story. So what's the centerpiece and then what are those. What are those patterns that go out and then go, all right, now I can tell the story in this way.
[00:39:21] So God sees. The very next thing is God instruct So that's a point C then Noah and his family and the animals enter the So it goes through that process. This is a big picture. I'm not talking about specific verses.
[00:39:36] Point E as the flood begins and the Ark is closed. Point F is the water's rise. you'll see, it's much easier to see, once you pay attention to the numbers in this narrative that you have a lot of repeated numbers. Those numbers are also very helpful in pointing out larger narrative structures in a chiastic structure, because you'll get repeated numbers and there'll be repeated. Like, if it's seven, 10, 40, then it'll be 40, 10, seven. So the numbers are very big clues to this.
[00:40:08] So the centerpiece in, let's see, where is this? The, book, I think that you're going to have that , in the notes, is the literary structure of the old Testament, a commentary on Genesis and Malachi by David A. Dorsey, does a lot of chiastic-- bringing a lot to the surface. So in this book, it has. G is the climax as all life on the land dies, right. I want to address that later, but put a note there. So then, right after that, you have the waters recede. So F was waters rise, F prime, waters recede, E is flood begins, Ark is closed, E prime is flood ends, Ark windows is opened.
[00:40:49] Point D is they enter the Ark. Point D prime is they exit the Ark. Point C was God instructs. And point C prime, God gives more instructions to Noah in the light of a new covenant with Noah. We talked about God sees the earth and it's ruined and then says, I will never ruin the earth and I will remember when I see the rainbow.
[00:41:12] So. That's the main overarching theme of this, the structure with that centerpiece that we talked about all life on the land dies. Now I have one, I have a quibble with that because you actually look at the verses seven 21 through eight three. I think there's a better centerpiece. So at the end of seven 24, it talks about the death of all life. And then it says, God remembers Noah. And then it talks about all the life that was in the ark is saved. So you have all life outside the ark parishes; all life inside the ark is saved. And then you have the centerpiece in between those two that God remembers, Noah. And I think that that is the centerpiece.
[00:41:58] So what are your thoughts?
[00:42:01] Carey Griffel: Yes, I absolutely agree that that is the center of the chiasm of the flood. And like we can go into more detail about that. But The actual words are repeated, and when you go into the Covenant, when everybody leaves the Ark, you have that word, remembered, remembered, remembered, remembered, like as if it's something important that we're supposed to take note of, right?
[00:42:23] Yeah. So, and again, I think this is an example of bringing the presuppositions into the text. Like, how do we see the flood? What do we see the flood doing? What is the point of the flood?
[00:42:38] Troy Yurchak: Right. And I think that seeing Christ on every page is so important, right? When Jesus talked to the Pharisees and he says, look, you search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life, but they speak of me. Being able to take Christ as the proper lens to view the rest of scriptures. So what was Christ's revelation of who God was? Father, right? And if God is father, a father remembers his child. . That's easy, but if God is judge, well, the death of all the wicked life, right?
[00:43:14] You bring those two different presuppositions. If I start with Genesis three, man is failed and is unworthy, but God for some reason wants to save them, but he's judge and just. Not to say that he isn't judge and he isn't just, but that is a subset of him being father, right? When you have that, of course, I'm going to miss the point that, God remembers Noah. It's three words in Hebrew as a centerpiece between what? What happens outside the Ark versus what happens inside the Ark. You see, that becomes highlighted when I have Christ as my lens to look at the father through, right?
[00:43:55] That father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. So God remembers like that'll preach. And it's so deep that he remembers humanity and their struggles. He knows-- Hebrews that he knows our struggles. He's not alien to our struggle. Why? Because God became incarnate and went through everything that we've gone through.
[00:44:18] And so God remembers, Oh, , What a different centerpiece to the flood narrative than God murdered everyone because he couldn't stand them, which is the pagan stories that predate the Genesis story. If we're not attentive to the correction that Well, is it corrective or retelling of stories that predate what you find in scripture, that it's a correction to an understanding of the divine, that God as a father is not angry, but he's saddened is what you see at the beginning of, of the flood narrative.
[00:44:54] Here's where we're building all the branches and the little rabbit trails that you can go into this narrative, right? That he's, he's not angry. He's not annoyed. He's saddened. It's such a different view. And it's, beautiful and it's. It's attractive. It's not necessarily attractive. That's not the right word for it. It's a I don't know. Help me. What, what is a word that when you, when you see gods being annoyed and then they're being starving. So they accept the Noah character sacrifice and they, they've, they've swarm it like flies where, you know, that draws to the new Testament Beelzebub, Lord of the flies.
[00:45:31] You see that picture in the pagan story, but in this one, it's no, it's an offering of God remembers Noah, brings him to safety and Noah offers that sacrifice. And it's not because Noah offers a sacrifice that God remembers, but God remembers first. It's such a different story. It's a different, a different telling.
[00:45:53] And if we keep force feeding, God is primarily judge because of our twisted Western view of what justice is. We will miss the little treasures.
[00:46:04] Carey Griffel: You have the idea of appeasement versus relationship and God accepting people as who they are and, I don't know, I feel like there's another word that you can use in relation to, you know, Like the opposite of what appeasement is, but you have a definite contrast in the nature of the gods and God.
[00:46:30] Troy Yurchak: Yeah, you see a much more relational approach when you see this as Reciprocal gifts, right? And near the end of the story, once again, tying it back to Genesis one, the command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, right after introducing that mankind is made in the image and likeness of God. You have those same words spoken to Noah that everyone who sheds man's blood by man shall, their blood be shed because man is the image of God. And then there's a command, be fruitful and multiply, even though man's heart is Affected by and tends toward sin, God makes a promise, I will place my bow in the heavens and remember that I will not do this again.
[00:47:19] It's not going to solve the issue there. There's another way to solve the issue. So I've put my bow down and it's aimed at me, which I think is a, another wonderful little visual note that the bow is aimed at God himself. And that's the solution. And that he makes that covenant, reiterates it with Noah, but repeats the same language that he used about Adam and Eve in Genesis one.
[00:47:43] So with this, Oh, we lost the image, but not according to scripture, right? Is that God has hope that we can still image, right? And, and I think that that relational aspect of, still holding out that my imagers will image me properly.
[00:48:05] Carey Griffel: Yeah, and you know, I mean, I get that it's hard to see that center, because it's very small in the flood, about God remembering Noah, that's not a big phrase. It doesn't have fireworks and look at me, here's the center, like, it's kind of hard to see. And so . I can understand coming to the text and saying, this is a story about all of creation being destroyed by God's wrath. And so we've got to find a center that has God's wrath in it. And I just don't think that's what the center is.
[00:48:41] Troy Yurchak: But that's the thing is that the whole, the whole chapter, you have to import, eisegete, wrath into it. It says he's saddened. There's not a place where it says that he's angry or wrathful. The first place that wrath is used, or God is angry, is with Moses when he's given five or six different excuses of why he won't image God to Pharaoh and the people of Israel.
[00:49:08] That's when God gets angry, is that people that should know better and refuse, that's where you see the wrath of God. You don't see the wrath of God here. You see God saddened. You see God like there's the... getting into some of the details of the story, not that I want to get into all of them, but there's the destruction of all creation comes before God. And then he makes this choice that, all right, it's either, I let this continue and all of creation is destroyed, or I uncreate here with a remnant and give place for an Ark, a safe passage through as I recreate the world into the next age. Man, that really sounds like what Christ is. Right? And, and once again, that's that whole reason of, it is hard to see that, that very small center, but when you have the lens of Christ, that small center becomes very big, right? It becomes the pinnacle of this story of God remembers.
[00:50:18] Carey Griffel: Yes. . You have that connection with sacrifice, but not sacrifice as an appeasement. Sacrifice as a relational aspect of communing and fellowshipping with God, right? So, and, I mean, that's the story of God coming down with us. Like, Jesus coming here, being incarnate with us, He's not doing that because He's wrathful. He's doing that because this is what is embedded into creation. This is how we commune with God.
[00:50:55] And so when we see Genesis 1, we see the flood, we see all of history, we see the Gospels, we see Revelation. And you know, all of these narrative threads of, like, priesthood and temple and sacrifice. Well, what do all of those mean? If we decide that they're all about wrath, then that's what we're going to find in the text. We're going to be able to cherry pick that out, because there are those elements of judgment, and so certainly there's wrath somewhere. Certainly God has wrath, but it's a very particular thing and it's maybe not what everybody thinks it is. And finding it everywhere, like the lifting up the bush and finding wrath everywhere. That's just not what we see. It's not what I see. It's not what I see in Jesus as our genuine lens for scripture.
[00:51:52] Troy Yurchak: Yes, absolutely. It's, it just reminds me of a real easy picture is if you read Judges and look at some of the commentaries, you see the cycle of judgment, is the way that they put it. But if you actually look with the lens of Christ and God's intention is to redeem humanity, you will find that wrath is not the last part in each of the cycles. It's God redeeming his people in each of the cycles. And it's, it's so interesting. Oh, we found the wrath. I don't need to look at the story anymore. Right.
[00:52:31] Carey Griffel: We're done now. We found it.
[00:52:32] Troy Yurchak: We're done now. We found the wrath. We found the centerpiece. And it's like, wait a second. No. The next thing is that the people cried out and God answered them and gave them a new judge to free them. We started at the wrong point to see where the culmination of that story is. And you're, you're right. If there's a verse that talks about that to the pure, all things are pure, or merciful, God shows himself mercy, merciful, but to the shrewd, he shows himself torturous. or to the twisted, he shows himself torturous. I don't have that verse perfect in my head, but it's almost as like what you're looking for is what you'll find. If what I see is a wrathful judge that has perfect Western retributive justice, then that is what I'm going to find. And it's going to be the echo chamber that I need to fit my already presupposed Conclusion, and I'm not going to look any deeper or any closer at the text. I've seen it from a 10, 000 foot view. I don't need anything else.
[00:53:33] but once you put it on the lens of Christ and that he was here, he came to reveal the father. Well, now I've got to look at all these and go, I need to find the father here. Right. I need to find the father in the judge's cycle. I need to find the father in the flood. I need to find the father in the story of Cain. I need to find the father.... and when you start doing that, it's like, Oh my, there's so many more beautiful things. The first murder God doesn't kill. He protects. He's like, I want to stop this cycle. Right. And you start seeing this, the pattern is so much different when you start seeing this.... well, he didn't stand afar off and look at this worm and okay, I'll, I'll collect a few of you. It's no, he got down and dirty and met us where we were and offers mercy and offers forgiveness and offers peace and offers union all the time.
[00:54:37] Carey Griffel: And those are the things that are the center of liturgy.
[00:54:41] Troy Yurchak: Yes,
[00:54:42] Carey Griffel: it's not wrath, liturgy isn't about wrath and no, it's, this pattern and path of redemption and flourishing.
[00:54:53] That's what it is. and it's, it's just, it's sad to me how often and in so many places that's missing. Like we're missing that. We're missing that view. And so, yeah, that's, I don't know, maybe we should just leave it at that here, because this is where I think all of it kind of centers at is seeing it in this kind of relational way of what is the pattern of creation and what is the purpose of creation and why did Jesus come here and why are we the body of Christ? What does that mean?
[00:55:33] Troy Yurchak: What does it mean to be... the hands, the feet, the mouth, the eyes, the ears, the face, there's a poem and I, I don't remember. I'd have to, I should have been prepared and had it because this is one of my favorites, but it talks about that we are the Lord's last message given in word and deed. What if the type is crooked? What if the print is blurred? Tried to get it to rhyme again, but it's we're, we're the face, we're the image of God. And if we are going to image God. We don't have, it's what we're designed for. It's our telios. So if we have a twisted view of who God is, we will image that.
[00:56:16] So what does it mean to be the body of Christ? What does it mean to walk in forgiveness? What does it mean to, to walk in such a way that the outcast, the sick, the twisted, the person that has no hope in the world, finds hope in relationship with us? What does it mean to be able to speak against religious authorities that are damaging a perspective on who God is, that you need to be submitted and perfect for God to bring back our rulership of this land?
[00:56:56] It's like, no, you missed the point. Right. You were supposed to be priests to all nations. What do priests do? They're the intercessor between God and those that they serve and vice versa. The voice of the people to that God, right? The appeal. And I think that being the body of Christ means that we join our high priest in doing the work of a priest.
[00:57:23] And, and, and when we, once again, liturgy plays into that, Up until recently, I didn't know the role of a priest other than in the text, I didn't see it lived out. I could see Christ. I can see what I can read in scripture, but I had no.... what does it look like today? What does it look like now to be the body of Christ, to participate in the headship of the high priesthood of Christ, how do you define that when you're 500, a thousand years, 2000 years removed from an active priesthood.
[00:58:05] Once again, the liturgy made that alive and real and now, and gave me a pattern to walk out and show love and intercede, be a, to use a pagan term, be a sin eater, like, absorb the sin of those around me. God, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. I have, I've, I see someone doing that in my life. It's so much easier to do that in someone else's.
[00:58:35] Carey Griffel: Yeah, that is powerful stuff, Troy. Thank you again for that. For those listeners who aren't familiar with some of the stuff he's talking about, like being a sin eater. That's the kind of idea where somebody would take a ritual meal in order to absorb the sins of someone who had died, and thus that person's soul would be left without the consequences of their sins.
[00:59:03] I mean, of course, as Troy said, that is a pagan notion, and you might see it come up in some movies or modern stories. But we can repurpose that idea by realizing that when we forgive someone of an offense that they committed against us, and we work to make that friendship, that relationship whole, and we release all of our obligations for revenge to God, at least to me, that's the same kind of notion.
[00:59:33] Now, whether that has anything to do with God actually forgiving the other person, I can't say. But I can say that in the times that I've had that happen in my own life, when other people have forgiven me very graciously, or I have reached out to forgive others, it's the kind of situation where you really have a level of peace that you wouldn't have otherwise. And it changes things, it changes things in me. Forgiveness on both sides, it's a powerful thing.
[01:00:08] At any rate, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and this bit of conversation with Troy. And I hope you think a lot about God's role as Father in relation to what we read in Scripture. And it matters, because we are God's imagers, and as imagers, we are part of the family of God. And God, as Father, is the ultimate role model for us today. Again, does the Father judge? Does a father punish? But of course he does. But a father only does that in hopes to bring goodness to the child. And I think that's a major shift in understanding of the Flood if we can see God in this light.
[01:00:56] Thank you guys, as always, for listening. Thank you to all of you who help support me in my ministry in this podcast. Your blessings and your prayers are greatly appreciated. I'm looking forward to getting more into the flood narrative, but we will be interspersing other topics within that, as we usually do.
[01:01:18] If anyone has any questions or particular topics you'd like to see me address, especially in relation to the flood, please let me know. You can get ahold of me on Facebook. You can join my Facebook discussion group and ask there. And you can contact me through my website at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com where you can also find guest profiles, blog posts, artwork, reviews, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff that I'm not thinking about right now.
[01:01:50] I will have a blog post about the chiastic structure of the Flood, so you can look for that if it's not posted on the show notes here. Thanks again, guys. I wish you all a blessed week. And we will see you later.
