Some people view Noah's flood as sheer fiction. Others view Noah's flood as a reflection of a dim historical memory that's undergone legendary embellishment.
One of the striking things about the flood account is how it presents the flood as a natural event. The account as a supernatural framework. It gives God's motivation for sending the flood. God repeatedly speaks to Noah. And God "shuts" them in. Those are the most explicitly supernatural elements.
It also says the animals "came" to Noah, which might suggest God sent them. And there's a reference to God sending a "wind" (which may be a Hebrew pun).
But the flood itself is depicted as an event caused by natural mechanisms. In that respect it's not different in kind from other floods. If you were an outside observer, you wouldn't notice anything about this particular deluge to distinguish it from other floods in terms of what caused it.
Put another way, the flood account has far fewer supernatural elements than the Exodus. In that regard, the flood account is conspicuously unembellished.
If you think any supernaturalism is a mark of mythology or legendary embellishment, so that we must strip away all the supernatural elements to arrive at the historical core, then the flood account reflects legendary embellishment. But that says everything about secular prejudice and nothing about the realism of the account. Reported miracles are only ipso facto evidence of pious fiction or legendary embellishment on the assumption that naturalism is true.
I think you have a good point about the account being somewhat less supernatural than the plagues and the Exodus.
ReplyDeleteI think the bigger problem for Noah's flood comes if one takes it to be a universal flood, because there the possibility for conflict with independent science becomes very real. Whereas it's ridiculous to think that we could have scientific or archaeological evidence that God *didn't* send a plague against the first born of Egypt.
Even the Exodus miracles seem rather restrained. The first 9 curses on Egypt seem to be phenomena that occurred naturally from time to time, although certainly not all at once. The Death of the Firstborn seems to be the only curse that clearly has no plausible natural mechanism.
ReplyDeleteExodus supplies us with a natural mechanism (or, at least, partial mechanism) for the Red Sea Crossing, an "east wind."
All of the biblical miracles are actually rather "small" and understated. Far more subtle than those of various works of fiction, ancient or modern. In the Bible we don't have, say, God uprooting and flipping over a mountain.
Of course people will always ask why God does not provide more miracles or bigger miracles. But it seems that is just not the way God wants to operate. What he has provided must be regarded as sufficient.
--The Death of the Firstborn seems to be the only curse that clearly has no plausible natural mechanism.--
DeleteI have seen speculation that an outgassing of CO2 could have killed the firstborn, who are alleged to have had the preferred sleeping spot closer to the ground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus_Decoded
It would thereby be linked to seismic/volcanic activity that caused the preceding plagues.