The story of Noah's Arc. (again, a joint post.)
This story is very much like how we remember the story, but...
It only mentioned animals, but nothing of animals being in pairs. In fact, in both pictures that show animals there wasn't even one pair present.
If God already had a better plan, for his son to come, then why did he waste his time with the flood to wash away hate and sadness if he knew it would happen again? If he had a plan to not destroy the world, but to save it, why did he not just save the world first?
The last part, "God's strong anger hate and sadness and death would come down once more - but not on his people, or his world. No, God's war bow was not pointing down at his people. It was pointing up, into the heart of Heaven." What?!
Also, God having a plan versus us having free will with God watching over us. This story is stressing that God is all-knowing and already has a plan for the future.
Not sure why the book didn't mention the pairing of animals. strange to leave out that detail.
ReplyDeleteNow to the bigger questions....
The whole story is one of those WTF moments in the bible that I don't have a good answer for. If you read Genesis you'll find all kinds of crazy details (including the fact that there were giants inhabiting the earth at the time of Noah). I will def have questions about this one when I get a chance to talk to the big man directly.
My best answer about why did God wait to send Jesus is a little un-orthodox. I feel that Jesus is the means of salvation for all people in all times. So, if Jesus had come immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, it would have the same outcome. The reason for waiting to send him has to do with us. Has to do with building a story that we can understand and make sense of even with our limited understanding of God's infiniteness.
Maybe we, as humans, needed to see the "angry" side of God to learn and understand what justice was. And once we got to a certain level of civilization or moral evolution, we were "ready" to see Jesus and understand him. And this era of history is challenged not with abiding by the rules of a moral code laid out by God but learning to step with the Spirit and live lives of deeper love / relationship.
Still, it is very jarring from where we are now to read this story and see God in it.