The reasons for the flood

[theplains]

I had a few questions on this passage in Moses.

Moses 8:25-26 says, "And it repented Noah, and his heart was pained that the Lord had made man on the 
earth, and it grieved him at the heart. And the Lord said: I will destroy man whom I have created, 
from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air; 
for it repenteth Noah that I have created them, and that I have made them; and he hath called upon 
me; for they have sought his life."

This is quite a bit different than what the Bible teaches in Genesis 6.

Verses 5-8 - "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination 
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord [the ESV uses the word
"regretted"] that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I 
will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping 
thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me [the ESV uses the phrase "I am sorry"] that I have 
made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord."

Verses 11-13 - "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God 
looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence 
through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

The reasons for the flood had no bearing on Noah.

But the Religion 327 - Pearl of Great Price Student Manual seems to indicate that the biblical account is
false. 

Moses 8:25. "It Repented Noah, and His Heart Was Pained"

Note that this verse is an important and inspired correction
to Genesis 6:6, which reads: "And it repented the Lord that
he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his
heart." The Hebrew word used here, and translated repented
in the Bible, is nacham (naw-kham), which literally means
"to sigh," "to breathe strongly," "to be sorry," "to pity."

Did God really destroy the earth with a flood because of how Noah was feeling and the threats on
his life or was it because of how great the earth's wickedness was and because it pained God at 
His heart?

The POGP says, "... and he hath called upon me; for they have sought his life."

Does this mean his wife, three sons, and their wives were not in danger of being killed?

Thanks,
Jim

[clarkgoble]

It's interesting that this is such a big change, although clearly Moses is an adaption of the Genesis 7 account rather than an independent account.

I don't think Moses 8 says God destroyed Noah's area because of what Noah felt though. Rather the main emphasis of change is to make God not so changeable on a whim - i.e. it's emphasizing the theological perspective that God knows what he's doing. The original Hebrew, as the Institute Manual notes, isn't as problematic as it appears in the KJV. At the time Joseph didn't really know Hebrew but a lot of his changes in the JST were fixing these comments on God.

Anyway, the JST emphasizes strongly Noah as a prophet warning the people and trying to get them to repent. It comes off more like Noah thinks he can convince people and when he fails, he's dismayed. However you raise a great point about verse 26. The key part is the "for they have sought his life." Maybe it's just me, but that reads more like a local flood and that he's doing it because of that local conflict. 

[Kevin Christensen]

Then there is this from Nibley in 1975:

Quote

Apocalyptic in general, and the writings attributed to Enoch in particular, are correctives for this myopia. They give us what purports to be a much fuller account of what happened. In the Bible we have only two or three verses about Enoch. But these parts that have been thrown out of the Bible (anciently they were part of it) give us a much fuller picture. This allows us to curb the critics’ impetuosity and limit their license. The apocalyptic writings tell us in detail what happened—in much greater detail than the Bible. They also tend to make it clear to us just why it happened, and they have come to be regarded as invented “theodicies” to justify the ways of God to man.

In giving us a much fuller account than the Bible of how the Flood came about, the book of Enoch settles the moral issue with several telling parts:

1. God’s reluctance to send the Flood and his great sorrow at the event.

2. The peculiar brand of wickedness that made the Flood mandatory.

3. The frank challenge of the wicked to have God do his worst.

4. The happy and beneficial side of the event—it did have a happy outcome.

https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=999

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[clarkgoble]

I'm not sure I agree with Nibley that we ought treat these late Hellenistic texts as informative of what happened with Noah. (Which I take to be the original question) They're definitely interesting. I'd add that as I read it the JST version privileges a local view of the flood. After all not everyone in the world was trying to kill Noah - just the people he had been teaching. So a large hurricane comes and takes Noah to a better place.

[Kevin Christensen]

I'm all for a local version of the flood. 

On the lateness of Enoch texts, in The Older Testament, Barker has this interesting comment.

Quote

We do not date the biblical texts on the basis of either their actual MS remains, or of the latest redaction or allusion discernable within them.  Such a procedure would be recognized as ludicrous, yet it is the one scholars employ to decide the date of the Enochic material.” (Older Testament, 64)

The oldest manuscripts of both 1 Enoch and Isaiah come from Qumran and Barker's case in The Older Testament is that Isaiah knew the Enoch material.  On the previous page she has this:

Quote

What is important for my argument is that we have in this epistle [of Enoch] clear evidence of prophetic mythology and wisdom forms used together within the framework of the angel mythology, in conflict with Deuteronomic ideology, indicating a deep-rooted dispute among the heirs to the traditions of Israel.

In her later essay on "The Fragrant Tree" in Welch and Parry, The Tree of Life: From Eden to Eternity, she cites Daniel Olsen's Enoch: A New Translation, for this interesting tidbit:

Quote

Before Hezekiah built the tunnel that brought [the Gihon’s water] into the city (2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:20), the water of the Gihon created a real stream in the Kidron Valley. It is interesting that Enoch’s journey [1 Enoch 26:1-2] describes accurately the geography of Jerusalem before the time of Hezekiah, that is, in the ministry of Isaiah.

I happened to be making these citations in a review I finished writing last night.  Her point is that the traditions cited in Enoch are deep rooted and broadly based, and can be much older than later manuscripts and versions and editions.

I have a broken link (alas) to a very interesting paper by Daniel Gibbon on quotations from the Enoch in the Book of Mormon.  I should have saved it.  Wish I had.

Best,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[Atheist Mormon]

29 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

I'm all for a local version of the flood. 

You think BYU's geology department should teach this version of flood events rather than random meteorologic events? 

 

[Kevin Christensen]

I didn't attend BYU (I got my English degree from San Jose State).  But I would be very surprised to find if it was the policy of anyone involved with the BYU geology department to teach random meteorlogic events, rather than, say, geology.  Using standard geology textbooks.  For instance, this guy:

http://geology.byu.edu/Home/content/Faculty Directory/barry-bickmore

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

You think BYU's geology department should teach this version of flood events rather than random meteorologic events? 

BYU teaches the standard science. Not sure why you think otherwise.

[cinepro]

46 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

BYU teaches the standard science. Not sure why you think otherwise.

You might be correct to say that BYU science departments teach the "standard science", but it's a stretch to imply that all the teachers at BYU are toeing the scientific line on Biblical stories.

[cinepro]

4 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

You think BYU's geology department should teach this version of flood events rather than random meteorologic events? 

 

The BYU Daily Universe just had an interesting story on the Science Professors preparing their curriculum for the coming year.  They even have a picture of them preparing their biology and geology lesson plans:

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

You might be correct to say that BYU science departments teach the "standard science", but it's a stretch to imply that all the teachers at BYU are toeing the scientific line on Biblical stories.

Depends upon the teacher. I confess I've no idea what the religion department is like anymore. However I have heard it is much, much better than when I was there. What that entails I'm not sure. Of course when I was there I took my religion classes primarily from the Honors Department (now sadly departed) and it was usually FARMS folks teaching the classes. Stephen Ricks when he taught my Pearl of Great Price wasn't a big proponent of fundamentalist readings of Genesis. (As a funny aside that class was the first time I read Nietzsche - which I guess tells you a lot about it)

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

The BYU Daily Universe just had an interesting story on the Science Professors preparing their curriculum for the coming year.  They even have a picture of them preparing their biology and geology lesson plans:

OK, that is funny even if I disagree. Again going just by when I was there in the early 90's they were pretty open about how they taught biology or geology. And that was when the "Gospel according to Bruce" was still raging pretty strong. (Rumor was that the explicitly neutral yet open to evolution entries in The Encyclopedia of Mormonism was Hinkley trying to curtail that influence) If you were in science you were required to take one semester of a special religion class that was a symposium taught by various professors. It was addressing the various conflicts you allude to, however everyone including the Larry Dahl section was pretty open to evolution if not stronger. So my experience from back when it was supposedly more of a conflict than today was that even the religion classes taught evolution and normal geology. 

In fact the worst part about the class was that I was impressed enough with Larry Dahl that I took his D&C class -- one of only two religion classes I took from the religion department. I hated it because it was nothing but a Seminary like class focused on making sure people did the reading and barely touching on the actual history or theology of each section. Ended up with a B+ because all the tests were nothing more than "gotcha" like stupid questions to ensure you read the reading. (Like fill in the blanks for what word was in some sentence in that section -- no concern over whether you actually understood what you read so long as you had memorized it) Hated that class more than anything else I took at BYU.

I don't want to imply that debate over evolution wasn't raging at the time on campus. But it wasn't as one sided as many make it appear. Science was taught pretty straightforwardly.

Edited August 7, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Atheist Mormon]

7 hours ago, cinepro said:

The BYU Daily Universe just had an interesting story on the Science Professors preparing their curriculum for the coming year.  They even have a picture of them preparing their biology and geology lesson plans:

I'm lost here.....🙁

[clarkgoble]

7 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

I'm lost here.....🙁

They're dealing with a minefield. i.e. the claim is that teaching evolution at BYU is like negotiating a minefield. I think this wrong but I thought it was a pretty clever analogy presented impeccably.

[cinepro]

16 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

They're dealing with a minefield. i.e. the claim is that teaching evolution at BYU is like negotiating a minefield. I think this wrong but I thought it was a pretty clever analogy presented impeccably.

A few years ago, during a lesson on the Creation in our Gospel Doctrine class, the lesson was proceeding as planned when I raised my hand and asked "So what about evolution?"  The teacher (a friend of mine) responded "I don't know.  What do you think Brother (cinepro)?" 

I responded.  "Oh, I don't have a comment.  I'm just here to lob hand grenades."

So I guess I like the military analogies on the subject.

[cinepro]

16 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

I'm lost here.....🙁

As clarkgoble explained, I think science professors have to walk a fine line between teaching honest science, but not overtly subverting any gospel doctrines.

Never forget...

[clarkgoble]

7 minutes ago, cinepro said:

As clarkgoble explained, I think science professors have to walk a fine line between teaching honest science, but not overtly subverting any gospel doctrines.

Never forget...

Things have changed a lot from the turn of the 20th century and the conflicts over secularism from 1910 though the 40's though. Heck, they've changed a lot since the 80's. I think that Hinkley's work getting The Encyclopedia of Mormonism helped a lot. Dr. Evenson's article on evolution in that was carefully gone over by the 1st Presidency to provide more space for evolution. I can't recall but I think the longer original version is still part of the BYU Evolution pack that started getting given out when Dr. Evenson was dean.

[theplains]

On 8/6/2018 at 1:05 PM, clarkgoble said:

The key part is the "for they have sought his life." Maybe it's just me, but that reads more like a local flood and that he's doing it because of that local conflict. 

If you interpret it that way, then the correct rendering as written in Genesis would read like a global flood.

Jim

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, theplains said:

If you interpret it that way, then the correct rendering as written in Genesis would read like a global flood.

In the KJV translation the Genesis version does read like a global flood. If you know the Hebrew (and I don't so I'm going by those who do) then apparently everything seems local except for the phrase "covered the mountains." I think it's local not because of how the KJV reads but because there are reasons to distrust the textual accuracy of the Old Testament and because there's overwhelming evidence there was no global flood. 

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, cinepro said:

As clarkgoble explained, I think science professors have to walk a fine line between teaching honest science, but not overtly subverting any gospel doctrines.

Never forget...

On the other thread we are discussing old apologetics vs new apologetics and Clark had a hard time understanding what I called old apologetics

Clark

This is old apologetics.  

What those guys were fighting against- we (I and others) are still trying to correct the paradigm or at least get it understood as a valid alternative.  

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by mfbukowski

[theplains]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

In the KJV translation the Genesis version does read like a global flood. If you know the Hebrew (and I don't so I'm going by those who do) then apparently everything seems local except for the phrase "covered the mountains." I think it's local not because of how the KJV reads but because there are reasons to distrust the textual accuracy of the Old Testament and because there's overwhelming evidence there was no global flood. 

Genesis 6:7,17 sounds like a global flood to me.  But on the other hand, if you distrust the textual accuracy of
the Old Testament, it seems very possible that you also distrust the textual accuracy of the New Testament.

Thanks,
Jim

[clarkgoble]

All narrative accounts have a certain element of error in them. Look at The History of the Church for instance. That's not to knock those who write, just to recognize that as they write they're human with the biases of humans.

The Old Testament though is much more problematic than the New Testament simply because of when it's written. Significant portions are heavily edited and redacted after the exile and arguably only put together during the Hellenistic period. Further we have a warning from the Book of Mormon 1 Nephi 13:23 that many things were removed. Most significantly though there's clear indication of major doctrines lost and also traditions that are (IMO) clearly followed by Lehi that didn't survive the exile. Priesthood is one example - Lehi clearly follows a tradition of priesthood that wasn't limited to the Levitical priests and that was still willing to offer sacrifice in high places. We know from Jeremiah that the Josiah reforms were centralizing such practices. The post exilic writers and redactors largely made the priesthood into purely Aaronic except for a few passages that mention others. While unknown at the time of Joseph Smith, the idea that this unification and centralization to Aaron priests only is general consensus among contemporary scholars. 

Anyway, the other problem with the Old Testament beyond this authorship/transmission problem is that Genesis happens thousands of years before the people compiling it lived. Since many (perhaps most) of the compilers weren't inspired, they're just taking older traditions from before the exile (typically called the E and J sources) and merging them or reconciling them. There's pretty overwhelming evidence for instance that the Noah account is an attempt to merge two disparate accounts. (That's why the number of animals mentioned isn't consistent) Many scholars also think there's clear evidence of influence from Babylonian and other sources on the Noah account. But there's really no reason to assume that the accounts we have from before Hezekiah are necessarily that accurate. There's pretty strong reasons to think Deuteronomy arose around the time of Josiah when a prophetess "found it" in the Temple. 

Given all that, then yes, I think there's pretty strong reasons to read the Old Testament carefully and with some suspicion.

The New Testament is different since arguably the main texts are within the lifetimes of people who knew Jesus. Some texts like Mark strongly suggest a performed oral tradition, much like a play. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are then corrections and/or modifications to that earlier account. While there are some texts that are a bit more problematic, like John, by and large I think there's considerably better reasons to trust the New Testament. That said though even the New Testament isn't a short hand of what Jesus actually said written at the time. So the angel's warning to Nephi about the difference between what came out of the mouth of the prophet versus what was written down. More significantly there are pretty compelling reasons to think, much as with the Old Testament, a lot just never made it into the NT canon. But I'd trust the NT a whole lot more than I'd trust the OT.

Edited August 9, 2018 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

On the other thread we are discussing old apologetics vs new apologetics and Clark had a hard time understanding what I called old apologetics

Clark

This is old apologetics.  

What those guys were fighting against- we (I and others) are still trying to correct the paradigm or at least get it understood as a valid alternative.  

I confess I'm still rather confused. I didn't see much, if any, apologetics in the 1912 debates. Of course I tend to see both sides as not exactly thinking through things terribly well. It came off as people dogmatic about a secularism they didn't actually understand very well and on the other side dogmatic about traditional readings. Whether one takes a more paradigm approach which claims religion as an incommensurate language game or simply points out the epistemological limits in a pre-postmodern sense one would still be doing better than either side did in the era from 1912 - 1940. (IMO)

Edited August 9, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Atheist Mormon]

8 hours ago, cinepro said:

As clarkgoble explained, I think science professors have to walk a fine line between teaching honest science, but not overtly subverting any gospel doctrines.

Never forget...

I find it very funny......But I can assure you I'd rather teach at BYU than Oral Roberts U........ But I am positive any those guys who learned the Principles of Evolution or Plate Tectonics are not gonna teach anything else.

Edited August 9, 2018 by Atheist Mormon

[clarkgoble]

20 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

I find it very funny......But I can assure you I'd rather teach at BYU than Oral Roberts U........ But I am positive any those guys who learned the Principles of Evolution or Plate Tectonics are not gonna teach anything else.

There were some top evolutionists at BYU. As I recall one of the first examples of evolutionary gain, loss and re-evolution of wings was discovered at BYU. That symposium I'd mentioned on issues in science and religion science majors had to take was partially taught by Paul Cox, one of the top evolutionary scholars in the world. He became a dean there and then was hired by an university in Sweden as I recall. I used to climb with someone from Berkeley who came for graduate work at BYU just because of him. Although she wasn't exactly taken with the local culture. (She wasn't Mormon and had a very hard time with Sundays in Utah) Again I've not really kept up with things recently - perils of become old I guess.

Edited August 9, 2018 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I confess I'm still rather confused. I didn't see much, if any, apologetics in the 1912 debates. Of course I tend to see both sides as not exactly thinking through things terribly well. It came off as people dogmatic about a secularism they didn't actually understand very well and on the other side dogmatic about traditional readings. Whether one takes a more paradigm approach which claims religion as an incommensurate language game or simply points out the epistemological limits in a pre-postmodern sense one would still be doing better than either side did in the era from 1912 - 1940. (IMO)

This is about as easy as I can make it, trying to use your terminology:

"people dogmatic about a secularism they didn't actually understand very well and on the other side dogmatic about traditional readings." = Old Apologetics

ie

Arguments made by " people dogmatic about a secularism they didn't actually understand very well and on the other side dogmatic about traditional readings" = Old Apologetics

Arguments made by people who are NOT dogmatic about secularism which they understand well and are not dogmatic about traditional readings = New Apologetics.

That's the way I see it.