Online Articles
The God of the Great Flood
[Editor’s note: In anticipation of the Southside Lectures, we will be using articles written by our lecture speakers for the next several weeks.]
In the mist shrouded world of ancient legends, one story reappears in all cultures: the story of a great Flood. Will and Ariel Durant write in The Life of Greece: “In the 15th century before our era, said Greek tradition, the iniquity of the human race provoked Zeus to overwhelm it with a flood, from which one man, Deucalion, and his wife Pyrrha, alone were saved, in an ark or chest that came to rest on Mt. Parnassus” (39).
The ancient Mesopotamian world had the Flood story, (the Gilgamesh and Atrahasis epics), too. So why is this story ubiquitous among the legends of the world? Could it be because it really happened, leaving an indelible mark upon all who descended from the survivors?
Why is the Bible’s account (Genesis chs. 6-9) so different from the others? Listen to Everett Fox in The Five Books of Moses: “In general one may say that in contrast to the earlier Mesopotamian versions the biblical one is unambiguous in both tone and intent. It has been placed in Genesis to exemplify a God who judges the world according to human behavior, punishes evil and rescues the righteous. This is a far cry from the earlier accounts, where the gods plan the destruction of the world for reasons that are unclear (or in one version, because mankind’s noise is disturbing the sleep of the gods), and where the protagonist, Utnapishtim, is saved as the result of a god’s favoritism without any moral judgments being passed” (34).
Truth always outshines made-up stuff. When have the “gods” ever demanded holy and righteous living? They act as capriciously and immorally as men. Men created the gods and the gods’ actions betray this. But not so with the True and Living God! Deep within us we hear the ring of truth in the story of Noah’s Flood. Mankind is accountable to their Creator because of their sin. God judges in perfect righteousness. His holiness will not tolerate rebellion.
This one attribute of God drives most of mankind away from Him. The reason is simple – we foolishly believe we are “independent” beings. The alternative is just too restricting for rebels. It means there is a high moral code to which we all must adhere and by which we all will be judged. But in making this assessment of “ultimate reality and truth” it betrays a unique facet of man among all of earth’s creatures: only we can reason! If this world in which we find ourselves just “happened by accident” then there is “no reason” for its existence. How is it that we, who appeared only by accident, can “logically reason” about anything? The fact that men try to “reason” with other men argues for a “standard” and ultimate judgment of our actions. It is so in every order, be it religious, moral, or political. Is the way of ISIS to be chosen over the way of Western ideals of freedom, choice and justice? Does one speak of truth and reason over the other? Nazism? Communism? The questions and answers are always the same, are they not? We know…deep down “know” – that we all “reason” and come to ultimate judgments about fundamental matters in life. Some ways are “true and right” and others are just plain wrong and damaging.
Which leads us back to the universal belief in a Great Flood. Why is this so? What does it point to? Is it more rational to believe that the stories of gods being mad at the noise of mankind came “first”? Or, is it more likely that a Creator God making man in His own image, thus imbuing him with a knowledge of “right from wrong” – judged a world which had descended into constant evil and violence – is the “true” story? Is it more likely that mankind “went up the scale” in making a God whose moral righteousness demanded killing everyone because of heinous sin – or, that mankind “dumbed down” the story of gods who didn’t care how man lived (so long as they weren’t too noisy)? Which scenario makes more sense? Wouldn’t “reason” say mankind had “good reason” to want to “dumb down” the story of the Great Flood in the Bible? If the stream can rise no higher than the source, mankind would create gods who were as capricious and wicked as man, not the other way around.
Here’s a “greater” end to the Flood story. Unparalleled among the gods, the True and Living God graciously delivers those who love, fear and obey Him! "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
