You don't have to "dance" around FK, because you know you are hinting at me, and what I said is that the Flood never happened (not for the reasons given in the Bible). It's a myth, which exists in many other religions (some older then Judaism), in an almost identical form.
It never happened because God doesn't regret anything. And Gen 6:6 clearly states that God regretted having made man (because of man's wickedness).
Add to this the Reformed myth that God is the source of their wickedness by design, and you have a self-cntradicting fairytale, where God, who creates man in sinful nature "discovers" just how wicked and out of control man is (but well within God's "plan"), and he is "sorry" he ever made man, and decides to drown the whole wretched lot along with innocent animals, save for a few good ones.
The myth, like all myths, has a message behind it: the wicked will be punished and the few good ones will be spared. Fear is not uncommonly used in all religions to bring people into compliance with religious rules.
The is also true of Exodus. Historical evidence fails to show Exodus ever happened; in fact, all evidence seems to show it didn't! There is no evidence whatsoever that that the Jews ever lived in Egypt for 450 years prior to that, or that one million of them lived in Sinai afterwards for 40 years. In fact, all evidence shows that they never left Canaan.
But, Exodus is an important part of the Israeli folklore and is an essential part of Judaism and, by extension, Christianity, as religions. But I submit that ti is fundamentally in opposition to Christian mindset because Christian God doesn't kill. God is the source of life and not of death. There is simply no Christ in Exodus, or in the Flood ofr that matter.
The Church, of course, treats Exodus and the Flood as part of the Biblical tradition and therefore "true" in some undefined way for many reasons, least bit of which is a wrathful God of the OT.
***It’s a myth, which exists in many other religions (some older then Judaism), in an almost identical form.***
The fact that the flood story exists in other religions doesn’t make the story a myth. I see that as strong evidence that the flood really happened and is seared into the collective memory of the human race.
***The Church, of course, treats Exodus and the Flood as part of the Biblical tradition and therefore “true” in some undefined way for many reasons***
Not a bad way of putting it.
The Church kept it in Scripture; the Church has determined that it should be there and that we make use of it. The question, whether all men perished in the Deluge, must be decided by the teaching of the Bible, and of its authoritative interpreter. As to the teachings of the Bible, the passage which deals ex professo with the Flood (Genesis 6-9), if taken by itself, may be interpreted of a partial destruction of man; it insists on the fact that all inhabitants of the “land”, not of the “earth”, died in the waters of the Deluge, and it does not explicitly tell us whether all men lived in the “land”. It may also be granted, that of the passages which refer incidentally to the flood (Wisdom 10:4; 14:6; Sirach 44:17 sqq., and Matthew 24:37 sqq., may be explained, more or less satisfactorily, of a partial destruction of the human race by the inundation of the Deluge; but no one can deny that the prima facie meaning of 1 Peter 3:20 sq., 2 Peter 2:4-9, and 2 Peter 3:5 sqq., refers to the death of all men not contained in the ark. The explanations of these passages, offered by the opponents of the anthropological universality of the Deluge, are hardly sufficient to remove all reasonable doubt. We turn, therefore, to authority in order to arrive at a final settlement of the question. Here we are confronted, in brief, with the following facts: Up to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the belief in the anthropological universality of the Deluge was general. Moreover, the Fathers regarded the ark and the Flood as types of baptism and of the Church; this view they entertained not as a private opinion, but as a development of the doctrine contained in 1 Peter 3:20 sq. Hence, the typical character of both ark and Flood belongs to the “matters of faith and morals” in which the Tridentine and the Vatican Councils oblige all Catholics to follow the interpretation of the Church.
You don't have to "dance" around FK, because you know you are hinting at me, and what I said is that the Flood never happened (not for the reasons given in the Bible).
I know, I just didn't want to appear to be pitting two current allied posters against each other. I mean, I would never do that. :)
It never happened because God doesn't regret anything. And Gen 6:6 clearly states that God regretted having made man (because of man's wickedness).
Well, if you throw out everything that follows from your interpretation of a single verse, then I can't imagine there being much of anything left of the Bible for you. How did you determine that your interpretation of Gen. 6:6 is the correct one? I mean, you chose one of disunity, one that corrupts many other scriptures in your mind. I assume you must interpret at least some verses to be in unity with others, and I was just wondering how you decide when to make the breaks you do.
Does everything just collapse into the red letters in the Gospels, for example? But that can't be because you have to throw out Jesus' own words as well. Jesus accepted the Flood as fact:
Luke 17:26-27 : 26 "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
Jesus Himself says that the flood, obviously from God since Jesus did not say anything against what scripture taught, came and destroyed them all. Jesus agrees that God kills, yet you do not.
The myth, like all myths, has a message behind it: the wicked will be punished and the few good ones will be spared. Fear is not uncommonly used in all religions to bring people into compliance with religious rules.
How ironic for an Apostolic to say that to a Reformer. :)
The is also true of Exodus. Historical evidence fails to show Exodus ever happened; in fact, all evidence seems to show it didn't! There is no evidence whatsoever that that the Jews ever lived in Egypt for 450 years prior to that, or that one million of them lived in Sinai afterwards for 40 years. In fact, all evidence shows that they never left Canaan.
If you deny all these things for lack of physical evidence to your satisfaction, then what is your physical evidence for Jesus and what He did? You're a Christian so you believe it, but where is your physical evidence?
But, Exodus is an important part of the Israeli folklore and is an essential part of Judaism and, by extension, Christianity, as religions. But I submit that ti is fundamentally in opposition to Christian mindset because Christian God doesn't kill. God is the source of life and not of death. There is simply no Christ in Exodus, or in the Flood for that matter.
Well, if the Church doesn't even teach this narrow view of God, and Jesus didn't support it, then may I ask where it came from?