Genesis 6:9-22
This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
Years ago I saw a story in the newspaper that was so unusual that I still have the yellowed article today. One summer a local police department received dozens of phone calls complaining that a certain home in a certain neighborhood was emitting a terrible odor. Concerned about possible foul play, officers descended on the home, expecting the worst. Upon investigating, officers discovered not a dead body, but that the home in question was inhabited by an otherwise ordinary couple in their mid-60s – along with their 70 cats.
Not “7 cats”; not “17 cats”; but “70 cats” – that’s “7 - zero”!
Even if you happen to be a cat lover, and I know there are plenty of you out there, you know deep in your heart that’s too many cats!
The police reported that the cats had completely taken over and pretty much destroyed the interior of the house. The stench of cat waste was so overpowering that animal control units from three communities were called to help de-cat the property. After all the cats were removed, the house was declared unfit for human habitation.
I mention that story, not just because it brings me an odd sense of amusement, but because it bears a certain similarity to the story we look at in Genesis 6. The story we are currently studying also involves a large number of animals cooped up in a relatively small space, although I’m pretty sure Noah was grateful he only had to take 2 cats!
What are we to make of the story of “Noah and the Ark”? Are we to believe that an ancient man named Noah actually spent over 100 years building a giant boat by hand, stuffing it full of pairs of every kind of animal imaginable, and then rode out a flood the likes of which the world had never seen before and has never seen since?
Or, as many do, are we to see the story as a kind of Biblical mythology that teaches certain ideas about God but isn’t intended to be understood literally?
There are three basic theories about the flood story.
The first is that the flood story is, indeed, mythological; a kind of allegory about sin and salvation, not an event that actually happened in history. Those who take this position point to the fact that there are thousands of “flood stories” found in over 70 of the worlds languages and across many ancient cultures (including the “Epic of Gilgamesh” that many of us had to read in college literature courses). What those who take this view fail to acknowledge is the possibility that all these stories might, in fact, stem from an original historical event.
The second position is that the flood story of Genesis 6-9 is to be understood literally; that it was an event that was both historical as well as a global. This is the classic view that water covered the whole earth deep enough to cover even the highest mountain peaks (think Mt. Everest), and that the ark contained male and female specimens of every species of animal and bird living on the earth at that time.
Now, obviously, this classic interpretation of the story creates a few questions. Where did all that water come from and where did it all go? That’s more water than has ever existed on the earth and the mixing of fresh water and salt water would have created tremendous problems. And how could the ark have contained the millions of species of animals and birds that must have existed at the time?
Interestingly, some scientists have estimated that of the 2 million plus species on the earth at the time, most would have been insects or creatures that could survive in the sea, and that only some 35,000 “kinds” of creatures would have needed to be on the ark. Furthermore, others have calculated that some 70,000 animals would have easily fit into half of the arks space, leaving the rest of the cubic footage for 8 human beings and supplies.
However, the most obvious answer to these questions is, of course, that God is sovereign and can do anything he wants to do! Once we accept that he created the heavens and the earth by the word of his mouth, anything becomes possible. God, after all, possesses adequate creative and engineering resources!
The third position is that the flood story is literal and historical, but that it was local in scope. This position assumes that, at the time of the flood, human civilization had not yet moved beyond of Mesopotamia, to say, regions of the earth like Antarctica, therefore the spread of human sin was limited. This view sees the flood as covering the world as far as a human being living at the time could see – that is as far as the horizon. This would be like my five year-old son describing the Fox Valley flood of 1995 by saying, “There’s water covering everything!” In defense of this position, there is geological evidence of a devastating flood in that region that took place some 7600 years ago (see “Noah’s Flood” by William Ryan and Walter Pittman).
All that being said, the most important things to see in the story of Noah is how serious human sin is to a holy God, and the lengths to which that same God goes to save his creation.
The seriousness of sin is seen in that sin brings death not only to human beings as individuals; but to human relationships and human society, as well as to all of creation itself.
And the gospel is seen in that God provides salvation not only to human beings as individuals; but to human relationships, and human community, and to all of creation as well.
Brian Coffey
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