We are at 1 Peter 3:19. We have last read that the christ was put to death in the body but made alive by the spirit. Now the author is saying that through that spirit (whatever that is) the christ "went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when god waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built."
Let's unpack that. The author is referring to the Genesis flood story. It appears that he believes god was patient with the supposedly disobedient people who died in the flood. He gave them time to be obedient while Noah was building the ark. We all know what happened. In the Noah story, the people did not change their wicked ways and they were all drowned, except Noah and his family. The author refers to these drowned people as spirits in prison. What does he mean? It is likely that he is referring to Sheol or Hades, the shadowy underworld place where all the dead go in the ancient Jewish and Greek mythologies. In the Old Testament, death is synonymous with Sheol. It is a place from which there is no escape, a prison if you will. The author of 1 Peter is telling us Jesus went and preached to the dead, after he died. So, he went to Sheol just like everyone else, but there is a difference that the author will reveal to us eventually.
We go on to read about Noah and the ark and how only eight people were saved through water. (And supposedly the rest of the people on earth died through the same water) Now, this water that saved those few people (though technically it was a boat that saved them) symbolizes baptism that now saves them, the readers. Again, generic water, which once floated a boat and drowned everything else in an ancient story, now symbolizes baptism which saves believers. Saves them from what? Why from the wrath of god that gets dispensed on the disobedient, of course! Though the author doesn't tell us that specifically, it is easy to infer, just by the nature of the story.
Now the author wants the reader to know that baptism isn't the literal washing of dirt from the body, "but the pledge of a good conscience toward god. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus." So the symbolic power of baptism exists because Jesus was resurrected. He didn't stay in the land of the dead. We are not told if this is a resurrection of the body or just the spirit. We are told that Jesus "has gone into heaven and is at god's right hand-- with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him."
This whole story of Jesus dying and going to preach to the "spirits in prison" is part of the christian doctrine of the harrowing of Hell. Not all christian groups teach this. Not all christian groups teach that believers are saved by baptism. Some latch on to the word "symbolic" and say it is not the act of baptism that matters but the previously mentioned "pledge of a good conscience toward god." These seem to be important teachings, if they pertain to salvation. Why don't all christians agree?
On to chapter four. Since christ suffered in his body, the reader is to have the same attitude. What attitude is that, the attitude of suffering? Apparently, "one who has sufferred in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of god." I'm not so sure about that. Plenty of suffering people do evil things and have human desires, sometimes because they are suffering. It is also in direct contradiction of buddhist teaching which says that suffering is caused in part by human desires. Suffering is supposedly alleviated by ritual practices of the mind and body that have the side efect of helping us to live more comfortably with our humanity. I don't know how well it works, but it at least sounds more appealing.
Till next time.
Showing posts with label flood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flood. Show all posts
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Genesis chapter 9
After reading chapter 9:
*Then Noah plants a vinyard with grape cuttings that he carried in the ark for a year. He tends the grape plants for the approximately 3 years it takes to get a good crop for wine making. Then he squeezes the juice from the grapes, stores it, and lets it ferment, so he can get drunk.
*While Noah is drunk, Ham sees his father naked so his son Cannan is cursed as a punishment, introducing the justification for slavery into the world. All the descendants of Shem and Japheth can just point to this verse and the descendants of Canaan will pay for Ham's indescretion. This will come in handy later when the Israelites want to take over the land of Canaan.
*Noah lives to the ripe old age of 950, which would be about 2,000 B.C.E. by Bishop Ussher's chronology. At that time the world was amazingly full of people, even as far away as India and China. You would never have known there was a flood if the Bible didn't say so.
*God tells the people and animals to go make babies and fill the earth back up, which they must have done with extraordinary enthusiasm.
*Now he sanctions the eating of flesh as as well as vegetation, and animals begin to fear for their lives. However, there will be no eating flesh with blood in it. No rare steaks from now on.
*After we find out there is no penalty for killing animals, we see the introduction of the death penalty for killing a human. Man and beast will be executed for this crime, because people are like God. At least man is.
*Now God promises never to destroy the whole earth again, with a flood. The prismatic effect of light through water droplets, will remind God of this promise. Otherwise, he would forget.
*Then Noah plants a vinyard with grape cuttings that he carried in the ark for a year. He tends the grape plants for the approximately 3 years it takes to get a good crop for wine making. Then he squeezes the juice from the grapes, stores it, and lets it ferment, so he can get drunk.
*While Noah is drunk, Ham sees his father naked so his son Cannan is cursed as a punishment, introducing the justification for slavery into the world. All the descendants of Shem and Japheth can just point to this verse and the descendants of Canaan will pay for Ham's indescretion. This will come in handy later when the Israelites want to take over the land of Canaan.
*Noah lives to the ripe old age of 950, which would be about 2,000 B.C.E. by Bishop Ussher's chronology. At that time the world was amazingly full of people, even as far away as India and China. You would never have known there was a flood if the Bible didn't say so.
Genesis chapter 8
After reading chapter 8:
* God remembered Noah? Verse 1. Was he in danger of forgetting?
*The ark was afloat from the 17th of the 2nd month ( chapter 7) to the 17th of the seventh (!) month, which makes six months. Then it landed on the mountains of Ararat, which, contrary to popular belief, has not been verified.
*It took another two and a half months for the mountain tops to become visible, and another 40(!) days after that for Noah to open THE window to send out a raven. The fresh air must have been awesome. The raven just kept flying back and forth until the water dried up. That was one raven with a lot of pent up energy. The dove was less enthusiastic and came back quickly. After another 7(!) days ,the dove brought back an olive branch. After another 7(!) days, the dove flew the coop.
*On the very first day of the new year, the water was gone. But did they come out? No. They waited till 27th day of the second month to make sure the ground was really, really dry.
*When all the months and days are counted up, after about one year of being shut up in a floating zoo, everyone and everything came out. One wonders if there were more creatures and people coming out than originally went in, or less? Think about it.
*Noah builds an altar to the lord and roasts some livestock and birds on it. Barbecue! It smelled really good to God, in spite of the fact that he doesn't have a nose. Then Noah and his family probably feasted on the cooked meat, because that is what was done with meat sacrificed to gods. Gods can't eat meat (no digestive systems), they just smell it.
*Then, God supposedly took back his curse on the ground, (verse21) but people still sweat and toil and contend with weeds and pests. ( chapter 3:17-19) So, one wonders what curse he was talking about.
*In spite of us all being evil from childhood, God promises never to kill the whole world again. We should be grateful.
* God remembered Noah? Verse 1. Was he in danger of forgetting?
*The ark was afloat from the 17th of the 2nd month ( chapter 7) to the 17th of the seventh (!) month, which makes six months. Then it landed on the mountains of Ararat, which, contrary to popular belief, has not been verified.
*It took another two and a half months for the mountain tops to become visible, and another 40(!) days after that for Noah to open THE window to send out a raven. The fresh air must have been awesome. The raven just kept flying back and forth until the water dried up. That was one raven with a lot of pent up energy. The dove was less enthusiastic and came back quickly. After another 7(!) days ,the dove brought back an olive branch. After another 7(!) days, the dove flew the coop.
*On the very first day of the new year, the water was gone. But did they come out? No. They waited till 27th day of the second month to make sure the ground was really, really dry.
*When all the months and days are counted up, after about one year of being shut up in a floating zoo, everyone and everything came out. One wonders if there were more creatures and people coming out than originally went in, or less? Think about it.
*Noah builds an altar to the lord and roasts some livestock and birds on it. Barbecue! It smelled really good to God, in spite of the fact that he doesn't have a nose. Then Noah and his family probably feasted on the cooked meat, because that is what was done with meat sacrificed to gods. Gods can't eat meat (no digestive systems), they just smell it.
*Then, God supposedly took back his curse on the ground, (verse21) but people still sweat and toil and contend with weeds and pests. ( chapter 3:17-19) So, one wonders what curse he was talking about.
*In spite of us all being evil from childhood, God promises never to kill the whole world again. We should be grateful.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Genesis chapter 7, part 2
Is there any evidence of a worldwide flood covering the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet, killing all life on earth, about 4,000 years ago? Absolutely not. There is evidence of mass extinctions of life hundreds of millions of years ago, but not within the history of homosapiens. We also have evidence of localized floods throughout the world. But, hey, that still happens with great regularity.
What about all the flood stories similar to the story of Noah from around the world? Guess what, when you are in the middle of a flood zone, cut off from contact with the rest of the world, it looks like you are the only one left and the whole world is flooded, even if people 10 miles away are eating dinner and watching TV. Naturally, you would be telling the story of your adventure for the rest of your life.
Then there is the problem of the massive influx of fresh water into the oceans and seas. All saltwater creatures would have been exterminated as well. Of course there is no evidence of that either. Not to mention the massive die- out of vegetation that would occur if the land was under water for at least 150 days. Noah couldn't have had room for two of every species of plant in addition to the animals.
At best, we can speculate about various flood mythologies and wether or not Noah's flood is based on the cultural memory of a localized flood. What we can not do is say it is definitely the record of a specific flood at a specific place in a specific time.
See:
Noah's ark
Flood myth
Edited.
What about all the flood stories similar to the story of Noah from around the world? Guess what, when you are in the middle of a flood zone, cut off from contact with the rest of the world, it looks like you are the only one left and the whole world is flooded, even if people 10 miles away are eating dinner and watching TV. Naturally, you would be telling the story of your adventure for the rest of your life.
Then there is the problem of the massive influx of fresh water into the oceans and seas. All saltwater creatures would have been exterminated as well. Of course there is no evidence of that either. Not to mention the massive die- out of vegetation that would occur if the land was under water for at least 150 days. Noah couldn't have had room for two of every species of plant in addition to the animals.
At best, we can speculate about various flood mythologies and wether or not Noah's flood is based on the cultural memory of a localized flood. What we can not do is say it is definitely the record of a specific flood at a specific place in a specific time.
See:
Noah's ark
Flood myth
Edited.
Genesis chapter 7, part 1
After reading chapter 7:
*We see the number of animals going into the ark changes. Now we have seven (magic number) of every clean animal, male and female, and two of everything else. Is that seven males and seven females or just a total of seven, leaving one without a mate. Should that one be male or female?
* How did Noah know which ones were clean and not clean? We don't, yet.
*Noah had seven ( there's that number) days to get all the animals on the ark ( verse4). Noah did it by golly. He got at least seven each of over 10,000 species of birds; at least two each of over 8,000 species of reptiles; over 3,000 species of amphibians; and over 5,000 species of mammals. We don't know if insects count as creatures that move along the ground. If they do, we need. to add in about 800,000 species of those. One wonders how Noah distinguished between the males and females of some of those creatures. There is no mention of God helping with this task. (Oops, we forgot about the thousands upon thousands of currently extinct land dwelling animals, including all the varieties of dinosaurs. Noah certainly had his hands full)
*Noah was 600 years old (a nice round number) when the flood occurred. That would make it about 2,350 B.C.E., according to Ussher's chronology, about the time of the 6th dynasty in Egypt.
*In verse 12, we are introduced to another special number: forty. The rains fell for 40 days and 40 nights. We will see this number and phrase again.
*On the very day of the flood, God shut 8 people into the ark with all those animals. They were in for a wild ride. One wonders how easy it was to know that every living person and animal was dying outside the ark, including relatives, infants, and children. We're they really all deserving of such a horrible death? Did those 8 people feel any remorse or survivor's guilt? We will never know.
*We see the number of animals going into the ark changes. Now we have seven (magic number) of every clean animal, male and female, and two of everything else. Is that seven males and seven females or just a total of seven, leaving one without a mate. Should that one be male or female?
* How did Noah know which ones were clean and not clean? We don't, yet.
*Noah had seven ( there's that number) days to get all the animals on the ark ( verse4). Noah did it by golly. He got at least seven each of over 10,000 species of birds; at least two each of over 8,000 species of reptiles; over 3,000 species of amphibians; and over 5,000 species of mammals. We don't know if insects count as creatures that move along the ground. If they do, we need. to add in about 800,000 species of those. One wonders how Noah distinguished between the males and females of some of those creatures. There is no mention of God helping with this task. (Oops, we forgot about the thousands upon thousands of currently extinct land dwelling animals, including all the varieties of dinosaurs. Noah certainly had his hands full)
*Noah was 600 years old (a nice round number) when the flood occurred. That would make it about 2,350 B.C.E., according to Ussher's chronology, about the time of the 6th dynasty in Egypt.
*In verse 12, we are introduced to another special number: forty. The rains fell for 40 days and 40 nights. We will see this number and phrase again.
*On the very day of the flood, God shut 8 people into the ark with all those animals. They were in for a wild ride. One wonders how easy it was to know that every living person and animal was dying outside the ark, including relatives, infants, and children. We're they really all deserving of such a horrible death? Did those 8 people feel any remorse or survivor's guilt? We will never know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)