Katalepsis

God’s Words to Noah: Be Fruitful and Multiply Some More
After Noah’s sacrifice, God seems pretty pleased with humans again (despite having killed them all in a massive flood). He blesses Noah and commands that he and his sons be fruitful and multiply. We’ve heard this one before. The last time this happened, humankind became evil and it looks like it’s going to happen again. God says that he will not destroy us despite our tendency towards evil. But if that’s the case and God is so forgiving & merciful, why did he need to destroy the world once? Couldn’t he have foreseen his own feelings on the matter? I am constantly amazed how anthropomorphic the God of Genesis is. He is described as a human being, with feelings, thoughts, and the like. It isn’t that he created us in His image–it seems we have created Him in ours. He definitely lacks omniscience, a property that I thought was essential to the Judeo-Christian view.

God Makes Us Omnivores At Last: Thou Shalt Eat Meat
9.1-3 Once again, God places the world and its creatures into God’s hands. But this time, he commands that we eat meat!

Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

Were humans vegetarians before? This is certainly implied by the passage. But if that is so, why was Abel “tending flocks” back in chapter four. What was he tending them for, if not to eat them? God adds an exception, however.

But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.

I guess this explains the practice of slaughtering animals of their blood before consuming them. Further, God makes the same comment about human life. He says that anyone who takes the blood of another man will be held to account.

And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.”

This appears to be the first “rule” laid down by God for humankind after the Fall (besides being put in charge of things and the command to increase and multiply). It is a divine law against killing other human beings. The reason it is denounced, however, seems to have nothing to do with our modern beliefs about the wrongness of killing. It is frequently said that killing is wrong because it harms the victim by depriving them of their future ends and goals. Indeed, it is the ultimate harm to that person. But here, the wrongfulness of murder seems to be cashed out independently of the victim. In effect, who cares whether or not it harms the victim. Murder is wrong because it offends God. It is to treat too lightly God’s creation, whom He made in his own image. While I can understand the reason for it, I can’t say that I like the fact that the immorality of murder has been justified in the absence of the victim.

Additionally, I’ve been assuming all this time that this only refers to murder–the shedding of another’s blood. But is it broader than that? Can it be used to argue against certain biomedical practices, such as withdrawing food & water and life-sustaining treatment? Many medical ethicists argue that doing these things, particularly when they are requested by the patients themselves when competent, is precisely how we respect our fellow humans. Hence, we respect the image of Man when we allow them to make decisions about their own lives and exercise autonomy. But here, it seems that the only respecting that we can do involves absolutely not interfering with the so-called “natural” process of life & death.

The Noahic Covenant Between God & Humans: No More Floods
9.8 God decides that he’s going to do things right this time and establish a covenant between himself and humans. This will not be the last time that he does this. But this covenant is interesting because it is not limited to one group of people or even people in general. Instead, it is established between God and absolutely everything that came out of the Ark. If you made it on the bus (be you human or animal), you are included in the agreement.

It is strange that God includes the animals in the covenant. Can animals agree to a covenant? Do they have the competence to comply at all? Of course, I suppose that you can argue that there is no need for them to agree. The Noahic Covenant does not seem to require anything of humans, other than perhaps the “ground rules” revealed in previous verses about eating rare & bloody steaks and slaughtering other humans. It’s more of a general promise to life on earth. God promises that he will never flood and destroy the earth again. Hmm…does this mean that we’re not covered by other forms of life-ending events? Could God send an asteroid or set the world ablaze and get around this promise? If it weren’t for the contract-like specificity of God’s promise, it might bring us some comfort. This is God’s promise to all generations that will ever arrive on earth. If it weren’t for the gap in cataclysmic world-ending-event insurance, we could have some peace of mind.

That’s Why We Have Rainbows?
9.13 I’ll admit…God doesn’t say that rainbows didn’t exist before this moment. It could be that he just looked around for something suitable and picked it. But God says that the rainbow will serve as a sign of this covenant. It is convenient, given its tie with rain clouds. Perhaps God is worried that he might start flooding the earth again and makes the rainbow his cue because he is sure to see it during the downpour.

Whenever he sees the rainbow, he will remember his covenant to us. Why does God need a reminder? Why shouldn’t it, instead, serve as a reminder for us of God’s covenant? That would make more sense. Instead, I have this image of a God who is “just doing his best,” trying ot make ends meet. He often forgets things, so he places post-it notes in the sky to jog his memory.

However, given that the Jews are about to spend hundreds of years persecuted at the hands of the Egyptians and that they receive all kinds of promises that take way too long to fulfill, perhaps we can understand why God needs the reminder. He really dropped the ball on his people in Egypt.

The Destructive Forces of the Flood
After God closes Noah and his family up in the ark, he opens the floodgates and sends down rain for forty days and forty nights. The water continues to rise until it is a good twenty feet above the tallest mountains on earth (fifteen cubits). That’s smart because I guess it would mean that the ark is in no danger of running aground. It is one of the most depressing verses perhaps anywhere

Every living thing that moved on the earth perished–birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. (7.21-23)

Again, we apparently like things in threes. We have to be told that we were destroyed three times. My question still remains about plant life: was it destroyed? Certainly, it couldn’t have survived a lengthy period under water without sunlight. Did God create it anew? It isn’t listed in the things that were wiped out. The emphasis seems to be on living & breathing animals. But if “every living thing” was destroyed, I would take that to mean vegetable life as well.

The Waters Recede from the Earth
8.1-12 The waters begin receding and after 150 days, the ark comes to rest in the mountains of Ararat. But they couldn’t get out because the water was still high. (Apparently, they didn’t even bother to open a window.) They just sit there for another 5 months (150 days) and the tops of the mountains finally become exposed. After forty days, Noah finally opens the window and lets out a raven. I’m still not sure what the raven was supposed to do. But then he sends out a dove to see if the water has receded from the surface of the earth. But the dove can’t find any land. Noah waits seven days and sends it out again. This time (famously) it comes back with an olive leaf in its beak. This lets Noah know that the water has receded from the earth.

Okay. Somebody explain to me why the dove is necessary. If the water had dropped to the point where the mountains had become visible (v. 5), wasn’t there already demonstrative proof that the waters had receded from the earth? Couldn’t the dove have landed on the mountaintops? Are we supposed to think that Noah wasn’t going to budge until the valleys had been exposed as well? I mean, he’s been on that ark for something like 347 days at this point. You’d think they’d be running out of food, tired of the smell, and ready to get off the moment land comes into view.

8.13-14 We are told that the land was completely dry by February 27th, over a year following the first day of the flood. I didn’t know that Noah had been on the ark that long. I always thought it was just forty days, forty nights and then a short waiting period. I told myself that I wasn’t going to comment on all of the obvious problems with the Noah story (how do we fit all of the animals on the ark, how is it possible that they were kept alive, where did people go to the bathroom, how did they have enough food for everyone, where did they get their freshwater, et cetera). But this seems ridiculous. Where did they get their fresh water for that year? After the forty days of rain, it sounds like there was nothing. How they didn’t all go stir crazy is beyond me.

A Year Later: Humankind Rejoins the Earth & God’s Promise to Humans
8.15-22 God calls everyone out of the ark and commands them to increase and multiply. Of course, the minute that some of the animals are free, they are ruthlessly slaughtered in a sacrifice to God. I wonder if the clean animals “flipped for it” to decide who got to be fruitful and who got to be slaughtered and sacrificed.

The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

God sounds a lot like Zeus at this moment, enjoying the barbecue aromas of his creation’s offering. Combining this story with that of Cain & Abel, it is clearly shaping up that God is a carnivore. He just loves his meat. He promises not to destroy all living creatures ever again. He follows it up:

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.

This sounds very comforting. But what about the Final Judgment? Isn’t that pretty much an end to everything as we know it?