Noah's covenant in understanding original sin

[fnr]

How does the Genesis depiction of Noah’s covenant fits into our understanding of “our fallen nature?”

Here’s a key passage (Genesis 6:5-9)
5 When the LORD saw how great the wickedness of human beings was on earth, and how every desire that their heart conceived was always nothing but evil,
6 the LORD regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved.
7 So the LORD said: I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I have created, and not only the human beings, but also the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air, for I regret that I made them.
8 But Noah found favor with the LORD.
9 These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man and blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.
Reading Genesis as a piece, it’s very clear that in sequence, the Noah narrative intentionally spans the Adam-Eve-Cain-Abel narrative with the Tower of Babel narrative. The Tower of Babel is right before the calling of Abram and his renaming as Abraham. So it seems to me that doctrinally, any understanding of fallen human nature is inherently tied up in the narrative flow of Genesis serving up the covenant of Abraham, the last covenant before Christ. But God made a covenant with Noah between Adam and Eve and Abraham. So that, to me, seems central to understanding our fallen nature (Genesis 8:15-22):
15 Then God said to Noah:
16 Go out of the ark, together with your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives.
17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you—all creatures, be they birds or animals or crawling things that crawl on the earth—and let them abound on the earth, and be fertile and multiply on it.
18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives;
19 and all the animals, all the birds, and all the crawling creatures that crawl on the earth went out of the ark by families.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and choosing from every clean animal and every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21 When the LORD smelled the sweet odor, the LORD said to himself: Never again will I curse the ground because of human beings, since the desires of the human heart are evil from youth; nor will I ever again strike down every living being, as I have done.
22 All the days of the earth,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
and day and night
shall not cease.
In the next chapter, God makes his covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:1-17):
1 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth.
2 Fear and dread of you shall come upon all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all the creatures that move about on the ground and all the fishes of the sea; into your power they are delivered.
3 Any living creature that moves about shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants.
4 Only meat with its lifeblood still in it you shall not eat.
5 Indeed for your own lifeblood I will demand an accounting: from every animal I will demand it, and from a human being, each one for the blood of another, I will demand an accounting for human life.
6 Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed; For in the image of God have human beings been made.
7 Be fertile, then, and multiply; abound on earth and subdue it.
8 God said to Noah and to his sons with him:
9 See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you
10 and with every living creature that was with you: the birds, the tame animals, and all the wild animals that were with you—all that came out of the ark.
11 I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood; there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth.
12 God said: This is the sign of the covenant that I am making between me and you and every living creature with you for all ages to come:
13 I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
14 When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds,
15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and every living creature—every mortal being—so that the waters will never again become a flood to destroy every mortal being.
16 When the bow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature—every mortal being that is on earth.
17 God told Noah: This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and every mortal being that is on earth.
I should underscore that Genesis is figurative language (Catechism 390), so appeals to the literal historical events in Eden and Noah are not that useful. But honestly, Noah’s covenant does not appear in the Catechism’s discussion of original sin and that’s odd to me.

 

[TimothyH]

So it seems to me that doctrinally, any understanding of fallen human nature is inherently tied up in the narrative flow of Genesis serving up the covenant of Abraham, the last covenant before Christ.

I’m not sure I understand the question fully, but would just like to point out that the covenant with Abraham is not the last covenant before Christ. God made a covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai.

I don’t understand how covenants fit in to a discussion of fallen nature. Can you explain so that I better understand the question?

-Tim-

 

[fnr]

I’m not sure I understand the question fully, but would just like to point out that the covenant with Abraham is not the last covenant before Christ. God made a covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai.

I don’t understand how covenants fit in to a discussion of fallen nature. Can you explain so that I better understand the question?

-Tim-

Hey Tim,

Sorry about that error. I meant to say that Abraham is the person from whom “God’s people” came. You’re right about Sinai. Oops.

My question is based on reading the whole narrative of Genesis, in which Genesis 1-3 is just the beginning of the narrative. I’ve been trying to read everything in the Bible in context, so you can’t just read a single chapter or verse on its own to obtain the meaning of the author. Protestants turned Paul into their avatar by doing such out-of-context reading of the Bible. Likewise, people dismiss Acts 2:42-47 by saying that it was just a little slice of the Apostles living like hippies, but if you look at the whole narrative including Acts 6:1-7 (putting people in charge of caring for widows, after which Jewish priests are described as living the faith), Stephen’s speech in Acts 8 (in which the temple is shown as a new idol), Acts 9 (Saul’s conversion), etc., it puts the whole narrative into a picture of how to live as a person in the Kingdom of God.

If you look at the whole book of Genesis, we focus so much on Genesis 1-3, its historicity and so much else, partially because Paul discusses Adam so much. However, Genesis has so much more to say, and the narrative builds to the covenant of circumcision and the promise of Isaac, through whom all the Jewish people would be born.
1-2 Adam and Eve
3 The Fall
4 Cain and Abel
5 Generations between Adam to Noah
6 Warning about the Flood
7-8 The Flood
9 Covenant with Noah
10 Generations of Noah’s offspring
11 The Tower of Babel
12 Abram’s call and migration
13 Lot settles near Sodom
14 War on Sodom, capture and rescue of Lot, followed by blessing of Melchizedek in ceremony of bread and wine
15 Promise of many descendants and land to Abram and his descendents
16 Birth of Ishmael by Hagar
17 Covenant of circumcision and promise of Isaac (forebear of the Jewish people)

If you look at the structure of Genesis, Noah plays a major role in the rebuilding of humanity, though God still says that there is wickedness in the hearts of men. In the (figurative) Genesis narrative, in the wake of the Flood, all of humanity is descended from Noah’s “household,” so in some sense Noah is also a universal forebear of humanity alongside Adam.

If you look at the great sweep of Genesis following the covenant with Noah, you’ve got the Tower of Babel story, then Abram, through whom we see the prefiguring of Christ in Melchizedek’s bread and wine, followed pretty quickly by the promise of Abram’s many descendents and their land, and the son through whom all that will happen, Isaac – following the circumcision covenant.

There seems like a lot there to inform our understanding of original sin in looking at the narrative of Genesis (not just Lot ).

 

[grannymh]

I should underscore that Genesis is figurative language (Catechism 390), so appeals to the literal historical events in Eden and Noah are not that useful. But honestly, Noah’s covenant does not appear in the Catechism’s discussion of original sin and that’s odd to me.

May I respectfully point out that the paragarph 390 of the* Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition*, says nothing of the sort.

This is what it really says. scborromeo.org/ccc/para/390.htm
**390 **The account of the fall in *Genesis *3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.

 

[Crumpy]

Scott Hahn’s book Letter and Spirit explains all the covenants. I read it, but my aging brain doesn’t remember all the details.

But Hahn did a great job on that book, which cannot be distilled into a post, here.

It doesn’t ring a bell to me, about how original sin ties into the Noahide [Jewish term] covenant

except this

The Adamic covenant had been broken and in his mercy and “lovingkindness” God re-established a whole series of covenants, because he did not abandon mankind.

The Jews say that God created forgiveness before the world, because otherwise there would have been no reason to create the world.

One way in which Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament is that he established a new covenant with all mankind – which is what he OT was supposed to do – ya know? – the Jews were supposed to be a priestly people to help save all mankind. Now, Christians are the priestly people, for the same purpose.

Original sin stands there at the beginning of the entire Bible as the foil against which God unfurls his salvation plan.