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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 6/26/2002 11:00 AM (GMT -6)

Hi all-

Genesis 6.7-8: “So the LORD said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

Here goes. It’s late at night here and I haven’t checked any reference materials. Just wanted to jot this note off the top of my head.

In Hebrew v. 8 begins with the conjunction “waw,” a single letter which is sometimes consecutive (“and,” “so,” etc.) and sometimes adversative (“but”). The English translations I have all understand this “waw” in the adversative sense: “But” Noah found grace in God’s eyes. The idea appears to be: As opposed to X, Y, or as opposed to all of humankind totally corrupting themselves (i.e., NOT finding grace in God’s eyes), Noah did find grace in God’s eyes. Simple enough.

Two things:

1. What’s this tell us about the communication of God’s grace? If grace is understood as the unmerited, unconditional favor of God, what would the depravity of human beings have to do with it anyway? I mean, when we read that Noah found grace in God’s eyes most of us assume that in addition to this telling how good God is, we are also being told something about the condition of Noah’s heart. But that shouldn’t enter into our understanding of grace, should it? Seems to me that Noah’s finding grace in God’s eyes here is attributed to the kind of person Noah was. He was godly. God could work with him. Hmmm. I’m not sure I even know how to form my question here. I’ll just let it sit and come back to it later.

2. Secondly, how are we to understand the adversative “but” of v. 8? Is it just that whereas everybody else blew it Noah didn’t? Would it be possible to take seriously God’s regret at having created humans, and to conclude that v. 7 is informing us that God decided to END it…ALL—everybody; finished, finito, caput, over—and that subsequent to God’s decision to wipe the entirety of the human race out Noah then becomes the adversative “but” to THIS decision? That is, instead of Noah providing a reason for God’s NOT DECIDING to wipe humanity out, I’m wondering if Noah rather provides the reason for God to CHANGE HIS MIND ABOUT HAVING DECIDED to wipe humanity out.

Objections. This would seem to call into question God’s knowledge of all present reality. Wouldn’t Noah have been known to God as holy and righteous all along?

I’m thinking on it. I think perhaps there’s more to this that we’re missing.

Tom

"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde

Edited by - TGB on 06/26/2002 4:01:38 PM

Edited by - TGB on 06/26/2002 6:45:52 PM

Seymour
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105

Posted 6/26/2002 6:59 PM (GMT -6)

Good question. I have to believe that God's grace is either contitional or unterlly senseless. What is the difference between someone who has God's grace and someone who doesn't? How does these avoide being reduced to EITHER self-justification OR random favor, either of which are unjust.

Some folks dance cool, all angels and swaying hips, Sensual as all get out and in. Me, I'm a hick, and I dance like one, I just kinda jump around and grin.
--Greg Brown

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 6/26/2002 7:39 PM (GMT -6)

Boy, Tom.

Interesting questions. All of them.

I was reading a book by Breck on the origins of the ideas of the Word and Spirit in, well, all over the various time periods when the OT and intertestemental period writings were being done.

Point being that the works by the Spirit as recorded in the older OT passages do not quite protray the Spirit as a person. Things hadn't gotten that far yet. And...there's more...the terms and constructions used (even as the writers were moved, as in Heb.) did not make the sort of distinction between good and bad that we might--you and I. Remember mention of God sending evil spirits; it fit the conceptions of the time. But it didn't imply what you or I now feel that we have to read back into it! I mentioned on another thread how God pretty much forced Baalam to prophesy. That is an example of 'old' prophesy. (Interesting book.) Its like when the WIND and the SPIRIT are the same thing, and the un-understood forces of nature that bring both good and evil events are certainly from God... And God being distant the 'spirit' is an intermediary. And the Word and the Spirit work together with each bringing the other. And so through centuries the forms of this all evolve...

The application is that what is in the Noah texts, insofar as some of it is very old, one might expect to find some of the beginnings of the progressive revelation that eventually leads up to the fulness of what John has in his Gospel. (Even Paul does not use the word 'Trinity." The Church kept working on that one.) But back with Noah text we can expect to see stark contrasts, and an absense of the sophisticated framework of an Ezekiel.

So, Seymour... Where Noah and Noah's God does not live up to contemporary ethical standards... you just have to get past it. As literature perhaps you can identify what is being revealed -- something very much in contrast with the other gods of the day who's deads are also recorded in the same stark fashion!!! With the Bible we have progressive revelation.

Just look at how hard a time we have with the integration in the NT of (1) the Duality of spirits (light and darkness in John 1-3) with (2) God who is in control of all life--both good and bad. The later portrays God as giving us life even when we do sin; the later depicts a strict predestination. We have so much trouble brining these two together. But revelation moved forward as the Persian Zoroastrianism influenced Hellenistic Judaism via the captivity and afterwards...and influenced the Essenes and Qumeran...and gave form which then was used by John.

So..................... We have to not read Noah the way we would Jesus parables!

Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 6/26/2002 8:01 PM (GMT -6)

Tom,

Are you suggesting that perhaps “waw” in this case should not be translated “but”, but should rather be translated “so”. In which case we would understand this passage to mean that God did not change his mind at all in this particular situation. We are simply misunderstanding. God chose to wipe out all the people but not all mankind for ever. In order to accomplish this He needed to keep some folks alive to do the “reboot”. SO … he had to choose someone (clearly some “household”) to preserve. SO … Noah found favor in His eyes. Noah and his household received grace for free. Noah was chosen. Noah didn’t change God’s mind because God suddenly realized that Noah was okay when He thought everyone was really all messed up. God just needed to preserve someone and He picked Noah.

Wow, wild thought there Tom. It sort of makes sense to me because it is almost like the author is presuming that, “of course, God wouldn’t just end mankind altogether. God is love.”

thanks
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Edited by - Iconoclast on 06/27/2002 01:03:19 AM

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 6/26/2002 9:27 PM (GMT -6)

Iconoclast: Are you suggesting that perhaps “waw” in this case should not be translated “but”, but should rather be translated “so”?

Tom: No, I think “but” is correct, especially if the LXX is allowed to influence us. The question then is in what sense is it adversative?

Iconoclast: In which case we would understand this passage to mean that God did not change his mind at all in this particular situation.

Tom: That may be the way to go. I was just wondering whether there isn’t something more to this, namely, a change of mind on God’s part—from having decided to wipe us all out to deciding on the basis of Noah that this won’t have to be done. There’s not a lot at steak here. I was just wondering.

Let me suggest a way we might be able to understand this passage as representing a change of mind on God’s part. Remember Ezek. 22? God determined destruction for Israel. He didn’t want to wipe ‘em out and so he “looked” for someone to stand in the gap. I take this “looking” to represent not God’s immediate knowledge of whether or not there existed someone who qualified as intercessor, but rather God’s attempt over time to draw all the possible candidates into intercession for the nation. Nobody responded. God then judged the nation. It’s not that God’s decision to judge and God’s knowledge that there existed no intercessor transpire simultaneously. I think judgment is settled for the nation UNLESS God can find someone who’ll work with him. And that took some time at least to determine.

Can we understand something similar going on in Genesis 6? Total annihilation is settled for all mankind unless God can find someone who’ll work with him. Finding that someone took time. Turned out that Noah was the one.

Make sense?

Tom

"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde

Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747

Posted 6/27/2002 3:03 AM (GMT -6)

Okay, with all the whoopie going on between the sons of God (angels in this interpretation) and the human women, it's been suggested that Noah's line may have been one of the few left "uncontaminated." Wild, eh! Hey, I'm just tossing it in here, that's all. I'm just tossing it in here!

For the . . . hmmm, what would this post be for?

Starkman

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 6/27/2002 6:33 AM (GMT -6)

Something that we should factor in it that that whole family was blessed. I remember hearing on Moody's radio (WMBI), here in Chicago, that old Mathusela's life-span ended about the time of the flood.

Actual or symbolic, it still has to be factored in -- especially in the above discussion.

Don'ya thunk?

PotOnWheel

(ISA 64:8 "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.")

Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 6/27/2002 7:03 PM (GMT -6)

TGB:

Can we understand something similar going on in Genesis 6? Total annihilation is settled for all mankind unless God can find someone who’ll work with him. Finding that someone took time. Turned out that Noah was the one.

Make sense?

Iconoclast:

Makes a ton of sense. With this additional perspective could we then interpret "waw" as both "but" and "so"? God cannot do a "reboot" without finding someone to fill in the gap - to work with Him - thus the "but". At the exact same time it is also a "so" in that free grace / favor is given first. The positive response to the grace / favor given (not that Noah is inherently "good" enough) means that Noah is willing to work with God and therefore stand in the Gap and allow the "but". It is a dance.

In either case, Way to go Noah!

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 6/29/2002 2:42 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
God can find someone who’ll work with him. Finding that someone took time. Turned out that Noah was the one.

Not to be a 'broken record' (What's the CD equivalent?), but, Noah comes from a very good family. In Genesis the effects of 'sin-death-sin-death' can be seen in ever increasingly shortening lifespans! Noah's great-great... lifed a loooooonnnnnngggg time. And the math shows that they all wrapped up this life about the same time.

Sooo... You can modify the 'find someone' to include "cultivate" someone; or a-people-of-sorts. You might also say 'sustain' a-people-of-sorts as going up stream a bit brings us to Enoch "who walked with God" and never died.

timlings
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Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 130

Posted 7/3/2002 11:26 AM (GMT -6)

How about this for a thought...?

quote:
1. What’s this tell us about the communication of God’s grace? If grace is understood as the unmerited, unconditional favor of God, what would the depravity of human beings have to do with it anyway? I mean, when we read that Noah found grace in God’s eyes most of us assume that in addition to this telling how good God is, we are also being told something about the condition of Noah’s heart. But that shouldn’t enter into our understanding of grace, should it? Seems to me that Noah’s finding grace in God’s eyes here is attributed to the kind of person Noah was. He was godly. God could work with him.

So...it looks like Noah found favour in God's eyes because there was something favourable in him.

I think that often Christians can have a skewed view of what God thinks of us. We think that we're scum, but God loves us anyway. But loads of places in the bible it talks about people that actually pleased God. God was pretty chuffed with Job, with David, with a load of his prophets and so on. Perhaps this should alter our view of grace. God's grace to us is that he forgives all our sins and then actually rewards our righteousness. Like in Revelation where the bride is presented to the lamb all dressed in white. The white clothes are the righteous acts of the saints. They actually please Jesus!

Hmm. Don't know how much that fits in with the thread, but it's my tuppence worth.

Love

Tim

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