Sunday Edition: Noah's Flood

Sunday Disclaimer

Our Sunday home learning is religion/morality oriented. As we are Mormon, the lessons will reflect a Mormon approach. Within Mormonism there is also room for theological variation, and what is taught here represents what we feel is true.

Lesson

The Bible tells the story of Noah's flood, where God decides to destroy the world by flooding it because of the wickedness of its inhabitants. There is a version of this story in many cultures across the world, leading some to speculate that the idea of a flood story might be in our brains naturally, while some people think that it might be based on some real flood that happened to our ancestors long ago. However, there's strong scientific evidence against some of the details of the story: there was no flood that covered everything in the world and destroyed all life just a few thousand years ago. Furthermore, the animal species we see today were not dramatically reduced to just two per species. We would have detected such a reduction genetically, they would probably have not been able to start a whole new group with just two because of problems that come with siblings marrying siblings and cousins marrying cousins, and all the species we have today would not have come close to fitting on the boat. God could have made all these things happen and intentionally changed the evidence in our genes and the geological layers, but then that would be a God that intentionally tries to trick us. He expects us to use our minds.

Like the creation story, the flood story has several different versions in the one story in the Bible, leading some researchers to believe that it was a combination of several stories combined together. However, some of the stories are different in regards to how long the flood lasted and how many animals were taken on board. This shows that the people putting it together didn't care about the differences since they allowed both versions to stand side by side.

Throughout the Bible there are things that happen that people see as symbols for something else. Many Christians have seen Noah's flood as being symbolic of a baptism of the entire earth. Later, when God introduces the gift of the Holy Ghost (which we receive after baptism) he refers to it as a "baptism by fire," many Christians believe that the second destruction of the earth will come by fire, in a way baptizing it by fire like it was previously baptized by water. Also, Christ's baptism was represented by a dove, as was the baptism of the earth.

In one of the Noah's flood stories, he sent out a dove to look for dry land, and it returned with an olive branch. The dove is symbolic of a lot of things like peace and holy Ghost, and its use here may be symbolic as well.

After Noah landed he had three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth; some early people thought that these three sons went on to populate the entire earth, and that different races came from these different sons; however, we know that race is much more complicated. For example, a lot of black people are more closely related to white people than they are to other black people.

Similarly, some people think that the Tower of Babel story, where God changes everyone's languages, is the reason why people speak different languages, but now we know that linguistic change happens across thousands and thousands of years, and didn't happen all at once.

Future

When the children are older I want to show them the Noah, the excellent Darren Aronofsky film.

Reading for Parents

Origins of the World's Mythologies by Witzel. Unlike some comparative mythology works, this one is solidly academic and tries to limit the speculation. It makes a compelling case that the similarities seen in the world's mythologies (most prominently exemplified by the ubiquitous flood story) are derived from a common proto-culture and religion we had as a species coming out of Africa.

Adam, Eve, and the Fall

Sunday Disclaimer

Our Sunday home learning is religion/morality oriented. As we are Mormon, the lessons will reflect a Mormon approach. Within Mormonism there is also room for theological variation, and what is taught here represents what we feel is true.

Adam fell that men might be, and men are, that they might have joy. -2 Nephi 2:25

Lesson

We don't know how much of this story happened and how much of it is literal. We do know that God used this story to tell us about how things are.

The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Bible, it tells us the creation story as understood by the ancient Hebrews. If you read it closely, there are multiple versions of the story in Genesis, so scholars think that there were various related stories that were combined together at some point long ago. This was their best effort at figuring out how the world was made. They didn't know about supernova or hydrogen atoms.

In one account in Gensis, the world before the creation was an ancient, dark, chaotic sea, without any organization. A lot of early ancient groups like the Mesopatamians and Norse thought that the early universe was a lot of chaotic material. While most Christians believe that the Creation began with the creation of matter, Joseph Smith revealed that the Christian of the world consisted of the organization of pre-existing matter that was floating around.

The ancient Hebrews, along with a lot of other people back then, thought that the world was a plate surrounded by a big world ocean, and that the disc was floating on a lot of other underground oceans. They also thought that the sky was a dome over that disc, that's why Genesis talks about the "firmament," when it mentions the sky, which means in place. If you read Genesis closely, you can see hints about what they thought the earth was like.

One of the first things God does in the creation in Genesis is creating light: he says "let there be light." Some people think that there was a double meaning here. God creates light, he also shines spiritual light and truth in the darkness.

After God created the world, he created the stars in the night sky in order to let the Hebrews know about dates and holidays. Back then you only knew dates from the stars, you knew that it was Christmas, for example (except they didn't have Christmas back then), when a certain star was in a certain place in the sky.

God also created the plants bearing seed after their own kind, and created animals who multiplied after their own kind. This is important, before then the world was lifeless, inert matter. God animates things and give them life. The ancient Hebrews (and others) attributed life to the "breath of life" that God gave things. God tells them to fill the earth; God wants there to be lots of fish in the sea and birds in the sky.

God created Adam. Adam means "all humans," but it's also a name. Sometimes in the Bible we don't know whether it is talking about a specific person or whether it is talking about all humans when it says "Adam," this is maybe one way that God is showing us that Adam represents all of us.

God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden. This was like our life with God before we came to this earth. Nobody was sick, and nobody was ever hurt. Nobody was ever unhappy because there was nothing there that made people unhappy. However, we can't really experience good things without bad things. If things were always good we wouldn't recognize that they were good. Also, we can't grow without difficult things happening.

Adam was in this place without any hurt or suffering, but God said that it was not good for a human to be alone, we need other people. Specifically, Adam, like us, needed a companion, not just a friend to spend time with, but his other half. God then created Eve, who was named Eve because Eve means "mother of all living," it was an important title because motherhood, the carrying, giving birth to, and raising of children is a holy position.

There were lots of different trees in the Garden of Eden, but two were very important: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam and Even that they could eat of any of the trees except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told them that if they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they would be cast out of that perfect world, and would eventually die. Satan later came to Eve and told her that if she ate of the tree that she would be like God, knowing good and evil. This is something that makes us different from the animals and more like God, is that we do know about good and evil. She decided to take the step forward in her progression and ate of the fruit. She went to Adam and, since she ate of the fruit and was going to be cast out, and since he was commanded to have children with her, he ate of the fruit as well, they both agreed that it was better that they know the good from the evil and be able to grow.

They were thrown out of the Garden of Eden, and God put guards in front of the tree of life so that they couldn't eat of the fruit and become immortal while they were still sinful. A lot of other societies back then had stories about trees owned by Gods that would give people immortality. In this story, immortality is exchanged for wisdom and experience.

God told them that now they had to work the dirt as farmers, and could only eat if they worked for their food. This is a true today, as God expects us to work for our food and survival throughout our life.

In the book of Genesis there is a motif with dirt, a motif is a theme throughout the story. God tells Adam that he was formed from the dirt, and will return to the dirt after he dies, and has to work with the dirt to keep himself alive. Some scholars think that this is suggesting that Adam's mortal life is bound to the fallen world.

However, because they partook of the fruit, we are as the Gods, and know good and evil, and eventually we can repent and return into the presence of God, like Adam being able to return to the Garden of Eden. However, after we return we will become more like God because we were able to grow because we had to deal with bad things and suffering, and because we know the difference between good and evil. Eventually, through progression if we deal well with these things, we will become a God.

When Adam and Eve were thrown out, they were also able to have a little bit of divinity with them in their ability to create life. They (and us) are commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. The ability to create after himself and create forever is one of the reasons why God is God, and we have a part of that in our ability to create life here on earth.

Suggested Readings

For Mormons, the Two Trees by Mormon Scholar Valerie Hudson is a good LDS account of the Fall. Most scholarly Genesis commentaries point out the themes above.

Future

I want to read more early Christian/philosophical/artistic commentary on the creation and fall. It's a very primal account so its themes show up throughout Western writings, even though not-insignificant differences between Mormon interpretations of the Fall and traditional Christian interpretation necessarily limits the amount I'll be able to get from it. For sure I want to read C.S. Lewis's space trilogy that addresses some of these themes.