Noah and the Flood

The following notes are from Harrell's presentation and class discussion on Sunday, October 14.

The time from Seth's birth to that of Noah was noted with the explanation that much of the Old Testament is a documentation of the Jewish heritage.

A brief discussion of the "sons of gods" marrying the "daughters of men" noting possible interpretations: Angels (sons of gods), the Greek view (gods themselves) as recorded in the Homeric Epics. It was suggested that this reference had no relation to the Noah story other than the resulting sins faced retribution, unlike the Greek version whre the gods simply returned to their Olympus.

The Gilgamesh Epic (Sumerian version -- much older than the Biblical version) tells a similar story to Noah and the ark. The flood was probably not world-wide (not enough available water) but was confined to Tigris/Euphrates Valley (which was THE!! world to that civilization.) The question of how many species of animals were loaded on the ark is limited in terms of space, for the animals and for the food and water and the time it would have taken to load very large numbers. The actual species were probably those in their culture (plus "clean" animals: three pairs for breeding and one for sacrifice).

Some thoughts for consideration: 1. What are our "giants" which create fear in our hearts? 2. If the ark is a symbol of God's grace (salvation for the remnant), how big does our "ark" need to be (reaching out to those in need)?