Day One

Items of Interest

Parallels between the Creation Narrative and the Flood Narrative.

• As Noah and his family exit the ark they are told to bring out all of the animals so "they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it." (This is same language used in the blessing God speaks upon His creation.)
• Noah, like Able, brings a pleasing sacrifice of animals to God.
• God blesses Noah and his sons with same language used in the creation story, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth."
• INTERESTING CONTRAST: After be fruitful command in creation story God tells Adam and Eve that he gives them every seed bearing plant and every tree that has fruit in it. He gives animals every green plant. In the account of Noah, he gives the animals as food.
• Sin and nakedness are connected in both accounts and after their nakedness is revealed a curse is issued.

Lesson: I think God is showing us just how deeply scarred this world is. Our sins, evil cannot be wiped away by a giant flood. Ironically, the flood only serves as a dam that stems the tide of sin. He is showing us that the Earth is too deeply scarred. Our sin nature is too deeply embedded within us. Another solution is needed. We can't pick up, move locations and expect for our problems to go away. Sin has invaded all of creation.

Other things I noted:

The dove brings back an olive branch. Is this why a dove and olive branch are universal signs of reconciliation and peace?

Much is written about the differences between man and woman. Those differences existed before the fall so they are an important part of who we are. But I'm impressed with how God seems to really take the time to show Adam how Eve is very much the same as him (and very different from all of the animals he had just named.) In fact, this is what Adam most notices about her: "This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." Perhaps Men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus, but after the fall there was a great desire to be about that far away from one another. Anyway, the fall is largely about division and the creation of a world in tension. Of men and women who long to be intimately known but also fear such nakedness.

I think it was Martin Luther that said before the fall men and women were equal. After the fall we are not. He also said that God gave men big shoulders and small rears because men were created to lead. He gave women small shoulders and large rear ends because women are to follow. So my pear shape is also a result of the fall. Poor Eve, she is already blamed for the pain of child bearing. If you ask me, I think Luther is piling on at this point. And of course, here I am being selfish and thinking about what I am missing out on because Eve had to eat the apple.

Of course, I have my apple a day as well.

But if I were perfect and I loved perfectly, and felt the separation between me and someone I'm willing to die for. . . Well, I wonder how God felt and still feels at our fall.