Noah’s Flood — Again

Noah’s Flood — Again

December 6, 2024

First of all, I want to be perfectly clear, honest, and open: I’ve come out. I confess…I am a Born Again Bible Believing Christian.

There. I feel so much better now!

I came to a saving knowledge of God, Jesus, and the Bible almost 54 years ago after searching the relief that turning to God to rescue me, to Jesus for forgiveness, and to the Holy Spirit to teach me and to reveal to me and to build me up from the inside out in the new nature that Jesus had provided for me.

There. I feel so much better now. In fact I have continued to feel better and better from that time till now… not that I haven’t slid off the path many times or turned up a blank while reading the Bible or made serious errors that may have hurt or harmed others.

You see I was way far lost in my life, clueless, depressed, suicidal, and wandering aimlessly… But God has never abandoned me even when I abandoned Him. He always has patiently guided me back to the strait and narrow which Jesus spoke about:

“Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad the way leading to destruction, and many are those entering through it. For small is the gate and narrow the way leading to life, and few are those finding it.” — Matthew 7:13–14, Berean Literal Bible.

It’s not always easy. It’s not always popular. Still and all, its results are way better than one could possibly imagine!

Now, enough of my coming out…

Recently, I began to read an article, but almost instantly dismissed it as just another “wannabe theologian” randomly complaining about God, Jesus, and the Bible.

I muted the author as soon as I was startled by one of his left handed swipes at something I have figured out.

I did so, I confess, impatiently, because I’m tired of empty talk and such people running their mouths on and on about what’s wrong with Christianity or about so many other notions and beliefs other people have formulated and established in their minds.

I wish they would use the same strictest of standards and hardened methodology on themselves and admit to their own shortcomings first and then telling everyone about their own progress and pragmatic results (or the lack thereof) — while using their own metaphysical or philosophical assertions and applied customs and practices.

My final thoughts on what I had begun to read was actually developing into a question about the authorship. Thinking back, it occurred to me, because there were so many flood stories cited, maybe over a dozen, I asked myself, “Could that essay have been an AI construct?”

I don’t remember seeing PhD next to the writer’s name… Anyways… Having dumped the publication, I’ll never know.

Then I thought, “Maybe this guy had read one of my essays on the Story of Noah and the Flood and was trying to refute it”

Nah! I would be arrogant to think so…

So, I concluded that the author was not responding personally to my own essays about Noah and the Flood but just to any Believers’ perspective about God, Jesus, and the Bible.

Still and all, my speculations continued, but in a different vein…

My perspective is that the Bible story of the Flood is true, completely true. It is our lack of understanding that causes it to become a fairy tale in people’s minds. The story has filtered down to us based upon misconceptions and the context of the times and culture when it was recorded.

Through my studies, I arrived at the conclusion that the Flood was probably regional, not worldwide, but it was expressed that way since the author had no idea about anything but the world he could see.

The way some present it in children’s books and cartoons adults have adopted in documentary form with all the story ‘s misconceptions and assumptions.

Now, I have come to the interpretation of events simply from my own Bible studies and what I have learned from principles of Science, Geology, Cultural awareness, and pragmatic down to earth meat and potatoes logic that permeates the Bible.

Please keep in mind that way back then, you see, there were no NASA satellites. How could they possibly have known any better?

They weren’t stupid.

They just didn’t yet have the info — not unlike people today. We can’t always come to the right conclusions when we don’t have enough info, either. Right?

In the same way, without the author’s publication sources of his information, it is impossible for me to research to confirm or to discredit all those flood stories he cited. Were they fables like some think about the Biblical Flood story? Were they parables? Mythology? Tall tales told to little children?

(I’m not sure if they weren’t scrutinized with the same intense methods as he attacks the Bible account.)

“Ohh 00h,” I suddenly thought… Maybe they were examples used to support the assertion that the Flood of Noah was truly a worldwide deluge encompassing the entire Earth!

Since I only got through reading two or three paragraphs, maybe I judged the essay too prematurely. My bad.

Well, if the latter is true, I would have to check if the dates, months, and years of all those flood stories coincided, right?

Today, we see all kinds of the changing climate’s rain event floods and stronger monsoons. We are seeing more earthquake sourced tsunamis — all of increasing frequency and intensity.

So, at least the regional concept of Noah would have been a possibility.

A pure naturalist might say the Flood had nothing to do with God, but I would counter with the view that God created the Universe and everything in it, it is logical to assume He knows how to use all of it — like the parting of the Sea of Reeds in the Exodus story. See the National Geographic documentary:Buried Secrets of the Bible with Albert Lin (Full Episode) | The Parting of the Red Sea: The Truth

As I have come to study the Bible record, concluding that it is a factual and historical account, recent geological study has a developing theory that a great sea formed behind a huge earthen dam while the Ice Age glaciers were melting. The dam eventually collapsed and flooded the region.

That is at least encouragement to me that the account is both possible and more reasonable. We have to examine the Bible stories from the perspectives of the people living at the time and salted with the cultural norms or ordinary people.

Oh, and about all the animals, as I’ve thought it through, were also sourced regionally — not any from Africa, nor India, nor Australia, neither North and South America, no Polar Bears, etc, etc, etc — maybe even just the domestic animals? (I haven’t really thought about that question…) This also adds to the credibility of the Bible’s account.

When reading the Bible, we cannot be looking through our own eyes, but through theirs. Beyond that, we really need God’s perspective to correctly understand all of the writings in the Bible.

Of course, I admit my viewpoints must really be considered as if they were conjecture, since I wasn’t there, but in many ways, so are the views of everybody else. We have to have a little trust in others. The Bible writers were sincere people and included embarrassing events as well as the reassuring ones. I know that that is nearly impossible these days in our modern culture of conflict… but try it out. It’s a sturdy ship. It’s not going to sink from underneath you. The storms won’t overwhelm and the Captain has a steady hand on the helm and the tiller.

In God’s loving kindness, He has preserved the Bible to reveal His ways as well as Himself: His unconditional, sacrificial love, His precepts of righteousness and justice — how far separate, how higher and how superior He is than — so much more than we could think up or imagine.

In another sense, the Bible provides food for our faith.

Regardless, the most important story in all the Bible is the story of Jesus of Nazareth with the concept of the Gospel message, the Good News the angels sang at His birth. You know, because you’ve heard it…

“And suddenly there appeared with the angel a great multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests!’ ” — Luke 2:13–14. BSB.

So, I’ll leave readers with this:

“For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” — 1 Corinthians 1:21, Berean Standard Bible.

Christmas is nearly here. So, let’s “remember the reason for the Season!”