Western Lit. 1-10: Ethics and Sanctions in the flood narrative

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and it was good. On the sixth day, God created man and said it was very good. God gave unto him every plant in the garden except one, the tree of choosing the knowledge of good and evil. The fall from grace occurs with the choice of mankind to govern themselves rather than follow God. It is with this choice that spiritual death becomes a reality, The result is that man was cut off from God and began a spiral into sin. The flood narrative explores what can occur when mankind becomes totally depraved and without goodness.

    Unlike in its contemporary Gilgamesh, the biblical flood is not about a natural disaster explained by an annoyed god. The disaster is the direct result of the ethical choices of mankind. According to the story, Great men (or Nephilim) began to gather wives and wealth for themselves instead of leading. As for the common man "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. So the LORD was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart." Clearly, the problem was the ethical implications of man's choice to subvert God's legal sovereignty for his own. As a result of this rebellion, God chose to re-create the world with water, the image of chaos. 

    As the flood was the result of an ethical decision it is important to note we worship a God who is not only just, but who defines justice. God Might have chosen to destroy all of mankind. Instead, God chose to show grace to those who followed his laws, and Noah was one of those people. The Arc is the image of God's grace. Because of his faith, God told Noah about the coming destruction, and he gave him a way to save himself by preparing for judgment day. We can learn from this that God appoints morality, and he appoints sanctions, like judgment and grace, to uphold that morality. The floodwaters are an allegory for the chaos we drown ourselves in when we subvert the moral authority of God. They are a sanction for rebellion. in the same way the arc is the image of the grace through faith that preserves us against this evil

    After the period of judgment on the earth, Noah gave a sacrifice of clean animals. This sacrifice represents how the worship of God should be set apart, it was not an ethical judgment. However, the sensation of this sacrifice has marked a new period in history. "The LORD smelled the soothing aroma, and the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done". God is not only promising to leave the world as it is, but as we will see, this is a promise to restore creation to its goodness. 

    Genesis 9 marks the start of a new covenant with mankind. this covenant is not a contract, nor is it a moral convention. The covenant is imposed from above. it claims that its moral sanctions are absolute and from God. The commands that follow include these. Man should be fruitful and multiply, he may eat every living thing, but without it's blood in it because blood is tied to sacred life. God also commands that Nobody should ever kill another man because they are in the image of God. God also promises to never again destroy the earth. It is with this covenant that God lays down his bow and promises to never again destroy life in this way. Implied by this is the idea that he will one day save the earth from the sin that corrupts it. Sadly this sin returns quickly to the world through the cursed sin of Ham. 

     "Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it on both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said, “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.” He also said, “Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant. “May God enlarge Japheth, And may he live in the tents of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant.”"

    Now what could this possibly mean? For centuries the most popular interpretation was race. Rabbi and preist alike saw it as a sanction for slavery on the grounds of sin. This is not the case however. The significance of this passage is as an allegory for sin. A concept connected to the concept of sin is that it must be covered. The father here is representative of your future past self. The idea that you father your future yourself. The thought is that the sons of Noah ritually covered their sins so that they could maintain their status before the divine, but Ham failed to do this. The image of covering sins is like repentance, covering his past self and moving forward without looking back. Instead He arrogantly announced his sin to the world. Because of his failure to repent of his sin, his violation of himself, he castrated and sodomized his past self, therefore his future was tarnished. That is why one of his sons was punished and not him. There is an idea that he had other potential selves whom, like their uncles, repented of their past sin and moved on. But there was a form of himself which failed to do this, Cannan, who was always in conflict with God because of his arrogance and refusal to repent. He was sanctioned to suffer the wrath of god forevermore because of that.

    In conclusion the story of the flood is an ethical one. It teaches us that God has moral standards which need to be upheld in order to preserve the world from chaos. God chooses to place sanctions on mankind according to his justice. All men commit evil, but God preserves the faithful in a great vessel of grace. Those who stray from his path drown in their own evil. In order to progress we must cover our past sins and walk out without looking back. The failure to repent results in a life of suffering and torment for us from which we cannot escape. That is the story of the flood, a story of Ethics and Sanction by God for our moral depravity and refusal to repent. The story of a people saved by grace, who still choose to stray from it.