Thw beautiful tale of Noah's Ark has demonstrated the effectiveness of the literary contrivance of an ark in finding acceptablity in the minds of men for millennia, now.
That the story had to pass through many generation of humanity, and needed to find meaning in each and everyone of them, and from us, too, to the generations following us. This certain calls for applaud of that tricky metaphor, an Ark.
Certainly, way too much in logical thinking alone tells us that the whole story is a metaphor. The "flood" is about us, Modern Homo Sapiens, emerging suddenly in an enormous population explosion, exactly 40,000 years ago. Genesis 6 even tells us of the lower forms of Humanoid we left behind, replaced, exterminated, and survived.
Yes, in the "ark" of the Homo Sapiens skull, there is a brain which knows all the animlals of a former day and time, but in the words of our language, a capability unknown ever before. Neanderthals could NOT speak! Only us. We, the descendents of some one, first, Homo Sapiens creature, are now divided into the three races with analogy to Ham, Japeth, and Shem.
That this is not the literal tale, though once honestly believed by men, like us, who thought it was literal, is not anti-scriptural.
It IS anti-ancient interpretation.
But, it is not disparaging of those men who lived before us. We have collected the knowledge, and we, today, understand and recognize the rationality of this as a metaphor (Genesis 6 through 9). It is praiseworthy of the literary foresight and creativity, not a disparagement of scripture. The poetic analogy of flood waters, compared to immense population increases and the spreading across all Asia and Western Europe, is both true and fitting artistic license.
Consider these verses from The Freudian Bible Translation and Interpreation:
Gen. 6:8 But Noah, (the predecessor of the Modern Homo Sapiens which were to emerge), found grace in the eyes of the LORD, (the Universe and that is therein).
Gen. 6:9 These are the generations (of humanity) that followed Noah, the three racial stocks of Homo Sapiens that followed):
Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked, (he experienced
the Reality of the nature of the universe into which he had been evolved, he thought rationally and realistically, compatibily with the Creative Power), his God, (The First Cause, being Absolute Total Energy).
Gen. 6:10 And Noah begat three sons, (three Homo Sapiens members from his racial
stock; Shem, the Mongoloid Stock; Ham, the Negroid Stock; and Japheth, the
Caucasian Stock).
[This message has been edited by kofh2u, 04-18-2004]
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