BRAINSUCKER POSTS:
I'm curious : About the story of Noah Ark, Was it Noah himself who write the story? Or was it a folk Lore that been told from mouth to mouth for generations before it was written?
LEAUKI POSTS:
It was folk lore that was told among descendants of Noah's tribe and finally written down by Moses 3300 years ago. At least that is a version that agrees both with historical facts as we know them and Jewish tradition.
Good response Leauki, but calling the account of Noah's Ark from the ancient Jewish Tradition "folklore" somehow doesn't do it justice.
The underlying structure of the first 11 chapters of Genesis comes to us from two ancient sources ..the Priestly and Yahwistic traditions. Through them it's not difficult to conceive of an assured continuity and preservation of the transmission of oral material.
Most agree that the integration of these traditions was given to Moses and thus we have the truths contained in Genesis 1-11.
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BRAINSUCKER POSTS:
I think it is not relevant for us today to discuss about this story as a historical material, or as a fact, but more of morale teaching that it offer to the readers of the story. Well, I'm sure the writer didn't aim us, modern people who have a lot of materials to deny such story. but, long or short, the story teach the readers to believe in God, and if they believe and obey God's order, they would be save. It was success for thousand of years, and still workable for modern people like us.
Genesis definitely has an historical nature but we can't approach it as we would a modern historical work. Rather, Genesis is a theological interpretation of ancient Israelite history that gives a religious illustration of the Divine plan of salvation.
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RIDDLEKING Re; your post #703...
FROM: http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestorysummaries/p/noahsarkflood.htm
Points of Interest from the Story:
• God's purpose in the flood was not to destroy people, but to destroy wickedness and sin.
Whoever wrote this point of interest from the story of Noah's Ark is mistaken. Genesis tells us that God gave them 120 years to repent. They didn't. Almighty God sent the Flood as a just punishment for previous sins and as a lesson for future generations. God didn't send the Flood to wipe out the gift of free will nor to destroy wickedness or prevent the possibility of future sin.
God saved Noah and his family from the moral flood of sin.
God has always willed that if man did good, man would not be destroyed and that if he does evil he will be destroyed.
Can you all help in understanding this text? .....
So god killed man-kind and everything else from the face of the earth?
>> Morally speaking i don't think god is in the business of commiting mass murder in the name of religion. It reinforces the ideology of suicide bombers killing themselves in the name of god because god kills too in that preference.
God was pleased with the offerings and promised never again to destroy all the living creatures as he had just done.?
>> really, he's very willing to admit his mistakes unlike some of the religious folks these days as they twist his words left right and centre.
Ha, ha, ha, God doesn't make mistakes, but we do plenty.
God has a perfect right to do as He pleases with the work of His own creation. He didn't have to create nor has He any obligation to any of His creatures that He should contiinue to confer existence upon them. What God makes He is free to unmake.
When we make a thing which will not fulfill the purpose for which it was made, we destroy it and set to work again.
All this just goes to show the inability of man to comprehend the full significance of this event.