My religious training about Noah was surely from reading cartoon books that “simplified” the meaning of the Bible for young impressionable minds that don’t yet have critical thinking skills. Even as a child, it made no sense other than maybe a story it was a story like Santa Claus or Zeus.
With the controversy over the Noah movie and its desire to be True to the bible version (rather than the cartoon version), I decided to actually read the relevant text and see what the Bible actually says rather than what people think it says from reading fictional interpretations
http://biblehub.com/niv/genesis/6.htm
New International Version
Wickedness in the World
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 witha humans forever, for they are mortalb ; 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.
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.
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.”
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Noah and the Flood
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.
10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
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.
13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
There are dozens of obvious questions about the story (Was Noah a half Nephilim / human hybrid?), but I’m focusing on this issue I can’t get past. God decided he had to kill all animal life except eight humans and every animal except 7 pairs of unclean and 1 pair of unclean saved in the Ark – because humans were “violent”?
Surely among the evil women that God killed, many were pregnant carrying unborn innocent human life inside their body.
Help me understand.
Some of the books in the bible appear to be history presented in an abbreviated version. There is much more in other books and sources. Read this found on a parchment fragment: 4Q201(En ara) copied ca. 200-150 B.C.E. found at Qumrum:
13. [They (the leaders) and all … of them took for themselves] wives from all that they chose and [they began to cohabit with them and to defile themselves with them]; and to teach them sorcery and [spells and the cutting of roots; and to acquaint them with herbs.] And they become pregnant by them and bo[re (great) giants three thousand cubits high …]
– Book of Enoch (from Translation by J. C. Greenfield
The book of Enoch is another source rich in the history of the fallen messengers, but it is not in the bible. Lots more info out there.
Also, there is a good translation of a Dead Sea scroll, the Genesis Apocryphon found at Qumran Cave I, this is really just a fragment that runs about 3 pages, there are missing fragments and the translation team did a credible job. I recommend anyone out there to read the entire document.
It begins with Lamech (who’s father was Methuselah, who’s father was Enoch) questioning his wife concerning the birth of their son Noah. A very interesting exchange follows. Then at the very end of the document is another interesting account of Abram, renamed Abraham, and his wife Sarai, renamed Sarah, on a trip into Egypt.
Regarding the question “Is God really pro-life?” I quote lyrics from Megadeth:
And when you kill a man, you’re a murderer
Kill many, and you’re a conqueror
Kill them all…Ooh…Oh you’re a god!
maybe you’re not really a god, but a global warmer denier. 🙂
Similar to the saying
“If you owe the bank $100 and can’t pay, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank $100 million and can’t pay, you own the bank”
Do the US Treasury bondholder’s own America? If China ever figures that out, things could change.
China has been selling the at the top of the bubble. All the US treasury paper they bought when interest rates were much higher (prices much lower) they are selling back to the Federal Reserve at a huge profit. Guess who China has swindled on the deal? Hint- Its the same people that, if they liked their doctors, they could keep their doctors… and if they liked their health plans, they could keep their health plans.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/fed-owns-64-more-us-government-debt-china
Could, or will the chaos that Argentina is experiencing come to America? The value of the Argentinean peso has been declining and the bottom has not been seen yet. It’s all due to the failure of the Socialist government.
A wave of violent crime in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, has just prompted the city’s authorities to declare a state of emergency. There have been police strikes across Argentina and I believe in the past few months police have refused to go on patrol in 19 out of 23 Argentinean provinces. Mobs have taken over the streets, looting shops and robbing homes. A police officer was killed while protecting a supermarket in the provincial capital of Resistencia, which is in the province of Chaco.
Question for anyone here, if God asked you to kill your neighbor, world you?
IF His reason is: my neighbor’s dog barks at all hours and ‘wakes the dead’. 😉
The biggest negative of this place I’m living is it is “dog friendly”. My neighbor has a small dog that likes to bark – he’s reasonably decent except that his dad lets him out in the common area to play without being on a leash (city law) and with “dad” not supervising him. He’s a playful dog and generally not a threat unless dad falls asleep forgetting that his dog is outside. My upstairs neighbor has another small dog that is a constant yapper that starts yapping at the slightest or no provocation. She works and the dog stays home by itself all day. After six months, the dog still perceives me as a threat. Fortunately, she is getting married and spends most of her time living elsewhere.
Could be the dog’s ears aren’t so good and he thought he had heard you are mean to fire foxes and bowsers.
I remember a time when I was young and living in the city. A neighbors dog would bark all night. At the time the city had no ordinance that dealt with such nuisances.
Now I am back to life in the backcountry where there is the constant threat and presence of coyotes on the prowl ‘n howl all night. Train whistles, distant sirens and such things are triggers that set them to howling. My neighbor traps varmits for city folks and even he has a difficult time trapping coyotes.
I think dogs are a vital part of life when people need to be alerted to suspicious things going on around their homes, but nowadays people acquire dogs as puppies because they are so cute. When puppies grow-up most people do not know that dogs need to have a purpose in life, in other words they need a job.
People also need to have a job or some purpose in life to feel respectable and contribute to society. Also, consider the common ordinary cows we see in a farmer’s field. During winter cows are like Liberals, they have to be fed by their owner everyday, but come springtime cows want to be Conservatives, which is their true nature anyway, and go into the fields and fend for themselves.
The reason I answered Nidster’s question is because I do indeed blame the owner/master, not the dog itself.
We have a dog. She never barks except when someone knocks on the door, as she has been trained to do. She was raised on a ranch, and learned to ‘alert’ only under specific situations, otherwise the idea of barking wildly was dicouraged (it gives away your location/presence).
When all the other neighborhood dogs are ‘going off’, she remains quiet and somewhat annoyed by their noise.
It seems like most dog owners have become a lot less considerate, and are selectively deaf to their own dogs.
Many areas have a dog barking ordinance, but do not enforce it… there is a town on the north end of Tucson which enforces a no tolerance ordinance. It was the quietest place we’ve spent a winter… everywhere else (from Michigan to Arizona) seems to be an endless cocophony of nuisance barking with no effort to stop it.
Did Noah’s pair of dogs bark incessantly? I doubt it…
To blame the owner or not to blame the owner… to punish the bowser or not to punish the bowser…
The story goes on to tell how one day, Noah got drunk on the wine from his vineyard and his son Ham found him naked in his tent passed out, so Noah put a curse on the descendants of Canaan that they would be slaves.
Say what?
It also mentions that part of God’s reason for the flood was that people started developing languages and could not understand each other, and by wiping out everyone except Noah and his children, God was able to restore the world so all humans spoke the same language.
God also was irritated that humans lived so long, so he put a cap if 120 years on life, so God wouldn’t have to be bothered with us.
After being on the ark for almost 200 days, Noah is told that all of the animals of the earth are his to eat, which contradicts the later dietary laws 0f Leviticus.
Some people consider the 66 books that comprise a single holy book to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You are pointing out some flaws and inconsistency’s, but at the same time you are mixing things up a bit. For instance, Noah was not a Jew and the dietary restrictions were instituted after the Israelites came out of Egypt. Wonder if there is any mention of GMO’s in the bible?
There are all sorts of things to be learned from the bible and of course from other texts more ancient than the books it contains. I’m no expert, so that is why I choose to learn from individuals like, Joseph P. Farrell who has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford. He is one of those rare individuals who obtained a high level of education, but also retained his common sense. Patristics is the study of Religion, he does not teach Religion, rather he teaches others about Religion, sort of in a roundabout fashion. There are a lot of Religions out there, some are in unsuspecting guise. Religion is something that has no single adjective to describe it.
Anyways, Genesis is a fascinating book. There is the Flood, there is Nimrod and the Tower of Bable story, and it contains lots of stories that were bandied about by other Religions and Cultures in ancient times. And, like all things Religious there is a definite need to have some Truth mixed into the stories.
Also check out Paul(nee – Saul). Who has a dream of animals floating on a blanket and God says – eat of these any you will. Some of these were of cloven hoof.
Thomas Jefferson rejected the story of Saul/Paul in the most unambiguous terms as a fabrication by the Romans to take control of this religion and use it for their own purposes, so he rejected all of the accounts of Paul in books of the bible written by him, and all references to spirits, angels, miracles, and most importantly the resurrection. He was a product of the Enlightenment and fearful of the Roman Catholic church having a role in the New World by imposing religious views via the coercive force of government.
Interesting stuff. Many people reject the books attributed to Saul/Paul for reasons too lengthy to go into here. Some consider the Most Worshipful George Washington, who made fervent prayers to the Great Grand Master of Heaven, to be our greatest President.
Painted in 1865 by Constantino Brumidi, in the eye of the dome of the U.S. Capitol Building’s Rotunda is The Apotheosis of Washington. Brumidi depicts him as the god Jupiter, rising to the heavens in glory, surrounded by a bevy of lesser gods and goddesses, Minerva, Neptune, Mercury, Vulcan, Ceres….
And to this day, most people still believe America was founded as Christian nation.
http://apotheosisofwashington.com/