Noah's Ark

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dchezik said:
I said in my introductory post as a newcomer that Noah’s Ark was absurd on its face and someone asks me for the absurdities.

There are so many, it’s hard to know where to begin, but here goes:
  1. How could an omniscient God “repent” for anything; i.e., be sorry he had done something, such as create humans? Being omniscient, it seems unlikely he would make a mistake and not know how wicked people would become. Took him by surprise, I guess!
  2. Instead of a flood, why didn’t He send a plague to selectively wipe out those sufficiently wicked, and spare children and animals, who couldn’t be wicked?
  3. How could Noah and his family collect male and female of every species, which would have to include insects, invertebrates such as scorpions, cockroaches, as well as reptiles such as rattlesnakes, cobras, bushmasters, pythons, crocodiles, Komodo dragons, etc.??
  4. How could the ark accommodate the logistics? – the food, water, bedding, and disposal of excrement?
  5. And why did God favor some animals in the choice of extermination? All animals that weren’t on the ark, drowned, but the marine life was not touched! Maybe sharks and whales are inherently good?
  6. What about plants that somehow survived being underwater for several weeks? Were they on the ark, too? Try this on your houseplants!
I’d really like to hear some of your reasons for believing these things! Remember, you’re in good company – James Irwin, former astronaut believed it! I’d really like to know why!
  1. Well, let’s move on to Sodom and Gomorrha… more wickeness! I guess God dealt with this evil threat pretty effectively. Once again, he didn’t care about the collateral damage of children who weren’t old enough to really be sinful. They were fried to a cinder with all the rest.
Still, it seems that over the years God has grown more tolerant of wickedness. He now leaves untouched some real sin cities with their dens of prostitution, crack houses, etc., although Pat Robertson apparently believes 9-11 was God’s response to our increasing tolerance of gays and lesbians! Of course, he has yet to lower the boom on the Vatican for the tolerance of all the pedophile priests! Is he showing favoritism or has He just resigned himself to human wickedness??

Here’s to some critical thinking! Don’t just accept – question! Explore! THINK!
Click to expand...
I will answer point no. 1. The “grief” that God felt in Genesis 6:6 does not mean that God did not know the future. The Akedas Yitzchak compares it to a person planting a sapling, nurturing and protecting it from harm until he will cut it down for lumber. The man feels sorrow that he chops down the tree for which he worked so hard, even though he knew from the start that he would do so eventually. In this sense’ the Torah borrows human terms to describe God as grieving.
source: annotation in the the stone edition of the Chumash

Rashi uses the same verse to point out that "one must overcome worrying about the future in order to appreciate what he/she has. Rashi (Bereishis (Genesis) 6:6) cites as an analogy a concept that is crucial for living a happy life. When a child is born, his/her parents are happy. Why aren’t they sad that eventually the child will die? The answer is that one must live in the present. At a time of joy, experience the joy of that moment. Do not allow future sorrows to destroy the positive aspects of the present. Learning to live in the present frees oneself from much needless misery and suffering. "
source:
anshe.org/parsha/bereshis.htm

If I can find time I will answer your second question sometime today (it’s after midnight here).
 
When the story of the flood was written, did the writer have the concept of the globe? Obviously, knowing history, people in those days couldn’t picture a global flood in to the scale that we can today.
In Hebrew, earth and land was used interchangeably. Choosing to use one word over the other makes a big difference. Words “land” and “earth” . Where earth is understood as global and land is understood as mainly local.
Example:

The word “earth” used in Gen 6 to Gen 8 is translated from two Hebrew words, marked as Strong’s number #127 and #776. A good example is in Gen7:4 when both words are used and translated to the same English word.
Gen 7:4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth #776] forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth #127].

In the King James Version, Strong #127 (Hebrew ‘ad-aw-maw’ – relating to ‘soil’) is translated as “ground” 4 times between Genesis chapter 6 and 8 in Gen 7:23 and in Gen 8:8, 13 and 21 (and 5 times as “earth”). And if one studies the 43 translations of this word in the book of Genesis and the 225 times used in all the OT books - land(s)-125, earth-53, ground-43, country-1, husbandman-2, husbandry-1 – we could see that it was translated to ‘land’ and ‘ground’ 3 times more often than to “earth”. It does give a better rendering if translated as “ground” or “land” (‘a large piece of ground’) most of the times as their context require it. A few examples as follow:

Gen 2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth #776], and watered the whole face of the ground #127].
Gen 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth #127 (ground)],
Gen 47:23 Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land #127]for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land#127 (ground)].
see more: preteristarchive.com/Hyper/2003_cheo_noahs-flood.html
 
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