Comment by Forrest Curo on 5th mo. 9, 2011 at 9:21pm

It might be better to think of it as... Someone who loves us very much has written us some poems. You want to tell Him/Her, "I don't want to read Your silly poems; I just want to talk directly with You." But there's a great deal to see and know about that 'You', much of it in those writings.

 

Which we are, after all, supposed to be discussing here.

 

Why, for example, are we given this story in which people start out in direct communication with God... and progressively turn away, become so alienated from their Creator and each other that "the Earth was full of violence from them", and God removes them from the game for unnecessary roughness?

Comment by Rickey D. Whetstone on 5th mo. 9, 2011 at 11:45pm

Well . . .  I'm glad you asked your question.

 

Well . . . I'd rather spend time with my wife . . . and not read her old love letters to me . . . all by my lonesome  self. 

Now to the Bible.

The story that you mention is . . . just that . . . a story . . . a  fable . . . made up by men that did not talk to God.  It was made up to answer questions . . . that primitive men could not answer.  

 

 

For example . . .  primitive men though that the Gods were angry when lighting strikes the earth.  Or when a drought occurred . . . the Gods were always to blame.

 

Anyways . . . God was teaching me about the flood of Noah . . . in October of 2010.

 

If  . . . the flood of Noah was world wide . . . and all animal life destroyed .. .  as was written.   Then how did all the Kangaroo's  manage to find their way . . . only to Australia.  Those rascals can really hop.  

 

Better yet . . . the three toed sloth  traveled all the way to South America  . . .  it some how . . . found a ride from the mountains in  Turkey,  across Africa and then managed to swim the Atlantic and end up in the jungle of Brazil . . . thats a distance of over 6,000 miles.     Now . . . the three toed sloth is a great swimmer however . . . it is slower than a turtle on land.  A sloth the travels half a mile a day is really trucking.  

If  any  human . . . were given the task to travel from the mountains  of Turkey and end up in Brazil.  They could not accomplish this task with just their body.  They would need to construct a boat and have the know how to navigate.   It's just impossible for a life form that does not have wings to travel great distances over land and sea and to be found only in one place.  The flood of all the earth did not happen.

 

Again if God removes all mankind  because God's plan has gone . . . up in smoke.  Then God is not the almighty.     And if God is afraid that men will build a tower to the heavens . . . and God will not be able to stop them . . . then God is not the almighty.   Our culture allows us to swallow the most outrageous ideas.

 

Mankind has chosen to walk away from God . . . on his own foolish whim . . .  and with the help of the fallen angels that tell many  lies  about  God  . . .  to us.          

Comment by Irene Lape on 5th mo. 10, 2011 at 8:03am

Interesting conversation - a couple of things come to my mind as I read through. It is difficult, I think, for some people to read the biblical narrative because it is true that many who find it meaningful try to pull easy truths from the text in a way that is deeply troubling. The story of Noah, while perhaps inspired by other flood stories or perhaps by some really devastating flood back in a time when people dealt with life by relating events to myths that had meaning for them, cannot be literally true; but what I would like to suggest is that it and all the small stories, legends, historical pieces, reflections, prayers, and life lessons that make up the text, form a great long arc of interwoven metaphors and meanings that will enrich the interior encounter that is the most important aspect of our faith. But that may just be me. I started to read scripture when I was a teenager and I never (thankfully) had anyone pushing it on me or demanding I see it a certain way. We have a capacity to experience our creator without surrounding the relationship with a lot of stuff, but for me the biblical narrative fertilizes and enriches my personal encounter in such a satisfying way, I can't imagine my life without it. But again, that's me.

The question of whether the idea of a punishing God is one we can connect to as Friends is also interesting. While the idea seemed to not gather much support here, I did notice other posts on the Osama Bin Laden killing that said people felt more comfortable with the notion of "vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." I don't think we can have it both ways. I think evil needs to be dealt with if we want there to be justice. Love does not exclude toughness. I know I have felt punished by God in the past for things I have done that were not good. I don't feel at all comfortable when people proclaim that they know God is punishing X for doing Y - that never feels appropriate to me. 

The key thing I see in the Noah story is that it shows that God wants this creation thing and his rather high expectations for human beings to work; and He will learn that just starting the whole project over again is not the way forward. He will need to work patiently and slowly with us over a very long stretch of time. After the flood, He promises us He will never again will turn to wiping us out and starting from scratch. I wish we would all learn that. We wouldn't keep going back to square one to start the one true religion.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 5th mo. 10, 2011 at 2:01pm

Two main issues:

1) Does God want us to study "Him/Her" through "His/Her" works (including this one?)

 

I myself have found it quite difficult to know God except through the questions "She" sends me to wonder about and the "answers" I receive-- and my point is, I do receive those responses in a great many ways. Yes, there's God at work inside me 'confirming' whether each 'answer' is a 'true', 'untrue', or a (?).

 

So I can't read the Bible without God reading over my shoulder. Saying everything from, "That's a crock," to "Yes, that's true," to "You just aren't seeing what I mean by this yet." I'm not saying there aren't human fingerprints all over it, some of them really nasty! But they belong; all of it is intentionally part of the Creation, which I don't think was "God's first mistake."

 

2) Is this story "a lie"?-- or an account of a collective human experience? Where "was" 'Atlantis'? Certainly not in any place we can identify on this Earth! The place I dreamed about once... was very much the sort of place I can imagine God destroying-- not to "destroy evil" but to remove people from it.

 

It's interesting-- among the recurring themes of these scriptures-- how God offers to do this for the Hebrews: "Moses, why don't I just off these kvetchers and start over with your kids?" Moses (who has undoubtedly been thinking much along those lines) is horrified! And so they continue to work with the people we have, and are.

Comment by jp on 5th mo. 13, 2011 at 10:29am

At the end of the first chapter of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKCOO'S NEST, the narrator concludes his summary with, "and it's true, even if it didn't happen." I was in high school when I read that book: a devote, Evangelical Christian who had been taught to take the Bible literally. For example, when Jesus said, "A man had two sons..." he was speaking an historical fact from which he was going to derive a moral. But that line from that book was an "Aha!" moment, and taught me how to hear the parables of Jesus. And later, as I was able to ease myself out of the literal straight-jacket, how to read the history parts of the Bible.

Since becoming a Quaker, (well, probably long before that, but certainly I found unity with Friends in this idea) I have been learning to read the Bible with (as Forrest puts it) "God reading over my shoulder." This book CANNOT be understood with our humans minds alone, studied academically to extract its truths. 1 Cor 2 -- the Apostle Paul speaks my mind.

In the mid 1990s I threw my Bible across the room in anger and despair. It would be ten years before I could pick it up again without pain (and at this point, in the company of Friends). And in these past 5-6 years, I have been discovering dramatically different understandings from the same words. I did just FINE during those ten years, because the Word of God was with me (as Rickey can also testify) and the Word -- the Living Christ -- would be enough if all the Bibles were destroyed. But I, like Irene, find the written words enrich my life, and spark ideas, and provoke conversations with God that provide "openings" (I love that word the way Fox used it!).

Do I believe the Word of God is authoritative, inspired, and inerrant? Yes; He/She is. And that Word teaches me to understand his/her word. THAT is why I'm lovin' this Bible study and discussion with all of you. Please keep the thoughts and lessons coming, Irene, and keep up the comments and questions, Friends. You all are feeding my soul.

Question: how important is it that God promises not to destroy the earth by water? After all, there are so many other ways to destroy it, and God is nothing if not creative...

Comment by Paula Deming on 5th mo. 13, 2011 at 11:22am

Comment by Paula Deming just now

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Irene, I was raised agnostic. Last year, after 20 years as a Friend, I was exposed to Friends of a Christian bent. I recently read the Gospels for the first time (after having tried on several occasions to start at the beginning; last time I made it as far as Judges).

Therefore, I want to thank you for this Bible Study you are conducting. It is very special.

Yours in the Light, Paula

Comment by Forrest Curo on 5th mo. 13, 2011 at 12:42pm

Genesis 8:20->

 

Noah builds an altar, and cooks up a sacrifice of every clean animal. God likes this, and says, ~ 'I will never again curse the ground because of these people-- [They can't help it!]-- or destroy every living thing because of them. While the Earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.'

 

So the part about promising not to flood the whole Earth... could leave some big loopholes. We aren't guaranteed against plagues or local disasters, neither are we promised idyllic living conditions. But as I read it, this Experiment is to continue, no further complete erasures needed or intended.

Comment by jp on 5th mo. 22, 2011 at 10:22am

I'm a bit late in responding to this post, and I know you've moved on to (written about) the next few chapters, but I wanted to point out what I think was intended HUMOR in the tower of Bable story: the repetition of the phrase, "Come, let us [do some action]."

"Come, let us make some bricks and bake then thoroughly." They do so, and there follows commentary on building materials -- which makes me wonder if this is a new-fangled technology that would make ME want to digress about modern technology, but since I don't know I can't quite do so.

"Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower, etc." I think the tower and the making a name for themselves and not being scattered is important in some way, but it isn't my point right now. Did they have the city in mind from the beginning, or was it having these nifty new bricks that inspired them? Either way, the method of the telling makes me smile. It is good story-telling technique, don't you think?

God comes down to see the city (and THAT amuses me, even while reminding of the last time the book speaks of God walking around - back when Adam and Eve hear the sound of Him/Her walking in the garden; we read of God speaking to people, but the explicit APPEARANCE of Him/Her seems rare), and S/He says, (are you ready for this?):

"Come, let us go down and confuse their language..." There is a part of me that wants serious discussion about the text and meaning, the use of "us" when God is speaking, but another part of me just loves the story-telling and how it makes me smile like a child again.

Comment by Irene Lape on 5th mo. 22, 2011 at 6:12pm

I do think there is a lot more humor in it than we sometimes think. We are so used to being told to take the words so literally and so seriously, we forget that it is literature, that it is written by creative people to get at something they think is important. And then there are so many stories collected and put together so long after the story first originated, it is very hard to say things about it that are very certain. That is why I think multiple "takes" are very helpful. For me the story has always reinforced something I take from the original "fall" story. I see the forbidden fruit - of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - to be human certainties and systemization of "good" and "evil" - I'm not sure it is meant to be something easily known, quickly known. Maybe over long periods of time with a lot of faithful living and closeness to God, we will act wisely. But human "systems" always worry me. And the same message can be seen in the Tower of Babel story. God doesn't want us to think we can do too much on our own. When we get cocky about ourselves, we can be dangerous. So he makes it harder for us to conspire together. I appreciate very much hearing what other think. Thank you for your contribution.

 

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