Different views on Geneis flood means homosexual marriage is OK?
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| English: The ark of Noah and the cosmic covenant / L'arche de Noé et l'alliance cosmique / 04 CATACOMBES NOE ET LA COLOMBE SAINTS PIERRE (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The author avoids a whole lots of facts that don't fit his theory. He mixes literal historical interpretation with law, covenant and Biblical teaching.
Article below: Sustainable practices ... the bible needs to be re-read and considered in the light of contemporary knowledge and experience in order to properly understand the concept of marriage and long-term homosexual unions. Beliefs must be tempered by facts.
Those who, like me, grew up in ''Bible-believing'' churches are likely to think they have little choice but to accept what the Bible says (or implies) on same-sex marriage. They may secretly wish it were otherwise. They might acknowledge the strength of arguments in favour of honouring and encouraging long-term homosexual unions. However, they are also likely to believe they have no room to move. I once thought that way until some surprising implications of the story of Noah's flood began to dawn on me. I discovered that, as a Christian, it is possible to go back to the relevant biblical texts, to understand again what they are saying in context, and to rethink them in the light of contemporary knowledge and experience. Indeed, in failing to do this, those Christians who refuse to budge on homosexuality also find themselves locked into unsustainable ways of reading the Bible. Let me explain.
Genesis 6 describes God's intention to wipe out every living creature, including the human race. God enacts this intention by unleashing a gigantic flood, with only Noah and his family spared destruction. The story is unambiguous. As a Sunday-school child, I got the point - quickly and frighteningly. Moreover, whenever the story is referred to elsewhere in the Bible, the writers appear to take the story as factual. Jesus appears to have accepted the story in this way (Luke 17:26-27). Jewish and Christian interpreters have also mostly taken it that way as well, until the past few hundred years. The big problem with this is that the Noah flood story is almost certainly not factual.
A worldwide flood of the magnitude described could be expected to have left abundant evidence of its occurrence. There is no such evidence. This creates something of a problem for Christians who, rightly, want to take the Bible seriously in what it says. There have been two big responses to the problem. The first is to persist in taking the story literally. This is the approach of those who describe themselves as creationists.
The strength of this approach is its consistency. Creationists will often argue, with some warrant, that Christians who are not creationists are inconsistent - they take some parts of the Bible literally, but aren't willing to give other bits the same respectful and believing treatment. The difficulty with their approach is that it runs in the face of mounting scientific evidence against a literalistic reading of this biblical text.
The second response, which one is more likely to encounter among evangelicals, is to suggest that Genesis 6-9 describes a localised flood. There are two problems with this suggestion. The first is that it misreads the Noah story. To suggest the flood was localised misses the point of the narrative, which is that the flood was intended to be worldwide and universal in its impact. It also seriously underestimates the size of the flood, which is said to top ''all the high mountains under the entire heavens'' to a depth of at least seven metres. This is no localised flood.
Geologists have found evidence of large floods in Mesopotamia, in Ur, Uruk, Nineveh and Kish, for example, where flood deposits have been dated to the fourth and early third millennium BC. However, and significantly, other cities of the region show no such evidence. What makes this second response so relevant to the discussion about marriage equality is that the only reason a plain (and church-history-long) reading of the Noah story has been overturned in favour of seeing it as a localised flood, even if unconvincingly (or, more convincingly, as myth), is that scientific discoveries have made that necessary. Many of the first geologists were Christian clergymen. It was under pressure from their discoveries that the biblical text came to be reread and reappropriated. There is good reason to think we will need to do the same with the issue of marriage equality.
Throughout history and across cultures, and within the Bible itself, homosexual practice has been almost universally condemned. But we now know, or have increasingly strong reasons to believe, that people are born gay or lesbian. Far from this being unnatural for them, it is an example of God's creative handiwork. And once again, advances in scientific understanding are occasioning a rethink of relevant biblical texts. As a result, straight Christians like me must take seriously the heartfelt desire of our gay and lesbian friends to share in the benefits and responsibilities of marriage. Rev Dr Keith Mascord is the author of A Restless Faith: Leaving fundamentalism in a quest for God (2012). He taught philosophy and pastoral theology at Moore Theological College until 2006 and now works as a parole officer.
