Genesis 8

And the Flood is over! Noah and his family spent one year and ten days inside the ark, which seems like a very long time to be bottled up. My wife and I haven't spent more than a year living in any single location since we got married! From the description of how Noah sent out birds to scout for dry land, and his reaction when he finally opened the covering on the ark, it appears that they didn't have a deck they walked on or even windows that could see out to the sides of the ship. So much for all of those cartoon depictions I saw growing up.

I also like the promise God makes at the end of the chapter:

"While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
And cold and heat,
And summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease." (NAS)

So no ice ages, no massive global warming - no need to be concerned about such things! Mind you, I think we should still be good stewards of the earth and all that God has given us... but it is ever so nice to be able to sit and laugh when folks on TV start to freak out over "global warming" :)

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Genesis 7

Ah, the Flood. The Deluge. Judgment by water. A new beginning for mankind. It is too bad we didn't learn from that lesson, but I suppose that is what we get for being sinful creatures.

So Noah was 600 when the Flood happened, meaning that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1656 years since Adam's creation. It is also worth noting that when God first instructed Noah to build the ark we see him being told that he is to take with him his wife, his sons, and their wives. Because we are told in Genesis 5 that Noah was 500 years old when he had his sons (were they triplets, or was that just an approximation?) it means that there was well less than 100 years to build the ark. His sons must have already been grown and married, so maybe 70 years at the most? A project like that certainly would have taken time for one family, and they would have needed to tend to other things at the same time in order to sustain themselves while building it.

I've also always been amused that God's judgment here extended to the animals and birds - but fish and things that live in the sea get off scott free. That wasn't supposed to rhyme, I apologize. Anyways, the Flood being worldwide and quite deep probably accounts for a lot of the land features that modern science claims could only have happened over millions of years. It is too bad that so many scientists and historians discount the Bible out of hand, or they might find much easier ways to explain many of this world's mysteries.

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Genesis 6

This chapter contains the prelude to the Flood, and right before it an interesting reference to "the heroes of old". They are given the name of Nephilim here, and while the name doesn't really bring much with it the description does. The idea of "sons of God" marrying daughters of men could be a simple reference to humans, but if that was the case then why the special name? And what would have set them apart as men of renown compared to others? No - there must be something else here. I think that these were angels who left their proper station and because of their actions brought forth quite powerful men. It is actually mirrored in the Greek account of Hercules, and would go a long way to explaining many of the myths of the ancient world. Goliath, the giant who David slays, may have been descended from such a bloodline; after all, this passage said that they were on earth in those days (before the Flood, presumably) and also afterward.

The main focus of this chapter is on Noah, though, and the preparations God instructed him to make for the impending judgement. It is noteworthy that Noah "walked with God" - the same phrase that is used of Enoch in Genesis 5. It must have taken a lot of faith in order to go building a boat like the ark, presumably a long distance from any major body of water. I suspect that Noah went through a lot of ridicule from his contemporaries for that, and I don't know how well I'd have stood up to something like that... but "thus Noah did".

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