Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Boundless Bible. My name is David Shapiro, hey, I'm Javi Marquez and I'm Jason Holloway. Gentlemen, the story that we know of Noah did you know that he brought animals two by two onto the ark? I know this story. Did you know that that's actually not accurate? He did not bring two of every animal onto the ark.

Speaker 3: 0:25

That's what I meant. I do not. Yes, yeah, there are so many things about this. Seven pairs.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Seven pairs of clean animals. Yeah, one pair of unclean animals. This story is just filled with different symbolisms and different things that we think we know the story. Another one is it did not. They were not on the arc for 40 days and 40 nights. Right, they were actually on the arc for about a year, yep. So this is one of those stories where it's amazing how much you think you know about a story because of all the things you've heard, but really, when you look into it and you go deeper into it, you go, wow, okay, there is an entire story that I never even realized was there, and that's what I think we should jump into today.

Speaker 3: 1:08

Veggie. Tales lie to me.

Speaker 1: 1:14

So let's jump right into how this all is kind of set up. So right now we have a very sinful world, and when I say sinful world, there's a lot of academia that go back and forth about what was sinful about this world, but we know that this was human beings really going off the deep end, acting foolish, hurting each other, lying to each other, manipulating the world around them, being completely opposite of what God created us to be, created us to be. So God basically came up with a plan, and his plan was I am going to rid the world of everybody, and that was it. I'm done with man. It's a very scary thought, but he found favor in one righteous man, his family, noah, and this is Genesis six through nine.

Speaker 1: 2:02

This is what that story comes from, and he gives Noah a task which I actually love. I'm just going to point this out. His task was to build an arc. To build this arc, he gave him the exact plans for it and this gentleman was to build the arc and his name Noah. In Hebrew is Noah meaning rest or comfort. I'm going. This is anything but restful.

Speaker 1: 2:25

If the entire this is anything but restful, the entire story is anything but restful. But his name was rest and that's it. He built the ark and it was time to bring the animals on, and God is very specific. You want to talk about the God of details. I know that if you look at boats today, these boats, they are made in that almost exact shape that God laid out thousands of years ago. The animals that were brought on seven pairs of clean and one pair of unclean. This is so you can actually do sacrifices afterwards.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Birds were, I mean we're talking about. Everything was thought down, even to the detail of. I want the kinds of animals, not species, and that's important because of how many we're bringing on. So it wasn't. I want every species of dog. I don't want, you know, the, the chihuahua and the bulldog and the golden lab. I just want a, the pair of of a canine, um, which is the kind. So it's.

Speaker 1: 3:27

This is the god of details. It's amazing so far, and it hasn't even started raining yet. Yeah, um, and noah through this time is also not just building. He is trying to tell everybody about what's happening. He's trying to actually correct the world and say we are acting wrong. This is going to happen. It's going to flood. We need to change our ways and nobody was listening. So this Noah is truly trying to do the right thing, and I'm going to pause there. We're going to get into the actual flood in a second.

Speaker 1: 4:04

But one of the things that a lot of people look at and they say, hey, there's a flood story in every culture. Have you guys heard that? Yeah, yeah, of course. So there are over 200 cultures that have a flood story in it. Most famous do you guys know what? The most famous one is the epic of gilgamesh. I knew you'd know that one. It's the mesopotamian epic of gilgamesh. And this is a lot of times where people say, well, this didn't happen, because all these other places have the same flood story and this is just mythology and all that. How do you guys feel about that?

Speaker 3: 4:42

go ahead. Ob far as mythology, well, you know me, I take it very literal. I take it as they're all telling the same story. They're telling the same story of what we know it to be as Noah and that's they're pretty much writing the same accounts. It's almost the same thing. When they talk about you know, I feel like the one to come, and they're talking about Jesus as the one to come as a savior. So that's how I see it, as all the other stories of different countries and stuff like that that mentioned this kind of flood, I don't think it was multiple floods in different kind of areas to create this thing. I think it was one story.

Speaker 2: 5:22

Yeah, I mean, yeah, one global flood. I mean I think the story itself is unique for reasons we'll talk about throughout, but I mean, the fact that there is a flood story in every not every in many other cultures is proof that there was a flood of some sort. You know to what extent, I don't think is always knowable, I think but the fact that there is one tells you that there was a flood or there was a significant amount of flooding, or there was a significant event of flooding, and that alone gives you enough faith to keep digging through the story. Right Now, the account is very, very different. The account is very different.

Speaker 2: 6:01

One of the things I've heard, particularly with Epic of Gilgamesh, is that when you're looking at the flood story, the flood story was not about saving the world, which is what God did. It was about punishing the world, and in the Noah story it's about saving. I mean, yes, there's a punishment there which, by the way, we got to go back to, because for me that's the beginning of the story, right, but it's not punishment, it's redemption. And, but it's not punishment, it's redemption. And in the other stories it's just punishment, and in the story it's redemption and it's kind of a reset and it's a love story that has a bad beginning maybe, but it's a love story nonetheless.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Yeah, I definitely agree. I think when you look at for me, I always look at the story that comes after that the Tower of Babel, where he divides people I'm going. If you look at the story that comes after that the Tower of Babel, where he divides people I'm going. If you look at multiple places in the world, there are ziggurats. If you look at multiple places in the world, there are pyramids. If you look at multiple places in the world, there's this flood account. It is very possible that this was a flood that actually happened, that people discussed through generations and then, when it got to the Tower of Babel and they all split and went to different parts of the world, they brought their version of the story with them, and this is what we see is a story that I believe also literally happened. But, jason, why don't we, before I jump further, why don't you say, if you said you know you had one from the beginning of the story, let's jump right into that?

Speaker 2: 7:20

I mean, look, one of the biggest problems that I think anybody has with the Bible and this is anybody who has a problem with the Bible is why would God kill the entire earth and every animal and every everything at all Like? I don't even need to hear the rest of the story. You know, as a person who's fighting against the Bible for whatever reason, because I'm agnostic, because I'm atheist, because I'm, whatever, those people are going to ask this question and it's a tough thing to encounter. You know why. And, by the way, the language is difficult. The language in the Bible says that God regretted or I think the word is regret regretted his decision to make people, to create these people and man. That's some really tough stuff to deal with.

Speaker 3: 8:04

Yeah, I mean I no, I was going to say I think it's you're right.

Speaker 3: 8:08

It's a tough thing to to kind of take in and to know to see that God is does this right? I mean we want to see God as a loving God that loves us and love his creation and wants to pat us in the back whenever we do wrong or just kind of hug us when we do wrong, and stuff like that. And I think you're right. I think when I first read it the first couple times I'm like why would you do this? This is ridiculous. Why don't you just stop evil? Just bloop, you know whatever it is, and I think that's his bloop. Bloop is the flood. So I think to me I love, like what you said, jason, before is a redemption story and because of that redemption story we see God's mercy, god's love for what he has, his intention from the beginning, which was to love his people and to love the earth that he made. That it was good and I think that's what we see there and I love that you mentioned that.

Speaker 1: 9:01

For me, when you look at the meaning of water in Hebrew, it's life or sanctification. And when we look at that, we look at a mikvah bath, we look at baptism, we look at different things where water is used as a way to bring forth life and it's also a way to purify. And when I look at that, it is hard because we're saying, hey, there was an entire world of people at this point that were being killed from the flood, but this is God's sanctification, this is purification of the world, this was his, this was the world's baptism. And for me, I'm saying I might not understand that because I'm not God, but I have to trust in his plan.

Speaker 1: 9:43

And I don't know what happened to all of the people there. If you go by Jewish standards, they would have all been in Sheol and eventually, after that, been in heaven. So I'm going is it really cruel for all of these population to be in heaven? Is that something where I'm angry at God about? Or do I say listen, it's his world, it's his creation. He's allowed to do with it as he wishes. And if we were not doing the things that we were supposed to be doing, he is absolutely allowed to punish us, but in the terms of, in my mind, purification to give out better life. He was giving out life to give out better life.

Speaker 2: 10:25

He was giving out life. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I see that for sure. I think that one of the problems I had, especially when I wasn't a Christian, was this whole God knows, you don't thing, and I get that that's maybe a little bit selfish to. I just don't. I've never loved that answer Because it doesn't solidify anything. I mean, it makes you have to have more faith, which is probably the point.

Speaker 2: 10:46

But as I've looked at the story over the years, one of the things that has come to me and one of the ways I've rectified this whole baptism of the earth type thing is that, realistically, we have the story of Adam and Eve where we became sinners. Right, we are sinners. We became accountable to our own sins, and that's the sinners. We became accountable to our own sins, and that's the truth. We became accountable to our own sins. We would die because of those sins. That was told to us very directly from the Garden of Eden. If you eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you will die. Right, that's very clear, explicit, and we did it anyway. And so now you have this time after Adam and Eve and after their offspring and so forth and so forth and down the line, and it very clearly lays out that people at the time were acting. You know, all the feelings in their heart were bad. Right, it says that all of they were sinful. They were I even think I'm taking extra biblical, like mental things, but like you're talking about a society that has no major rules yet, no legal system, no law system, no, none of those things. And you have to imagine, early humans would be animalistic, they would be tribal, selfish, violent. You know, they would be fighting amongst themselves for power and things like that. And so they've done all these sinful things.

Speaker 2: 12:05

And God is coming along and saying he's not saying I'm killing you because you suck. He's saying look, you knew what would happen if you sinned like this. Just, the punishment is coming a little earlier than you think it might come. And I'm going to find somebody who is not so tribal, somebody who's not so animalistic, somebody who is more civilized and focused on me and my ways and the goodness, not focused on the tree, but focused on me, which is why he calls out Noah. He says he was pleased with Noah. He was pleased with Noah and who he was, which is why he decides to extend the life of humanity, through the civilized one, through the godly one. And so it's a long way of saying I'm not saying I think it's great to kill off everything in the universe, but it's understandable when it has already been laid out as that. That's just, the consequence of sin is death, and if I need to reset the stage for all these current sinners who are not going anywhere positive, then it's not a completely unreasonable thing to do, I guess.

Speaker 1: 13:10

No, I mean, and it's listen, like I said, when I mentioned something like hey, you know, this is God, and sometimes we can't understand that. It's not saying that he is so high and powerful, although he is. But there are some things where we, being three very different guys, there's some things you guys are going to do, I go. I don't understand that because I wasn't born and raised that way.

Speaker 1: 13:31

So, for me. I'm going to look at it and go. That doesn't make sense. Listen, you you've mentioned you love Indian food. You love spicy Indian food. I'm going I don't know how you can do that. I that's not me and I'm looking at going. I have no idea how you can consume that much spicy food and not be crying and miserable. And meanwhile you're going. This is the greatest thing ever. This is the greatest meal.

Speaker 3: 13:54

So after he eats it, he cries.

Speaker 1: 13:58

But that's something where I look at God, I go I'm not going to understand him because I don't have the feelings that he has. I didn't make this creation. That turned on me that way. But then there are the things that I think that he does. That shows the loving side as well, even in the same story, and this is something I always looked at this and love the way this played out In Genesis 7.16. It talks about when Noah is now finally on the ark. He's built it, he brought all the animals on. He goes on. God shuts him in. He doesn't shut the door. It says God shuts him in, um. And when you look at the word shut, it's the same word used as when God shut out Adam and Eve from Eden, or when God shut the door during Passover. And it's this divine control over life and death. So even while he's killing, he's having divine control over life and I love that. I love that imagery of God himself protecting you.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Has wrapped you in his embrace and said you are safe in here.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Yeah, so even in this story, where you can focus on the bad and the horror and the why would he do this? You look at the other side of him going. How beautiful and how loving is he that he personally shut the door to make sure that Noah was safe.

Speaker 3: 15:23

Noah and his family, so I just I sure that.

Speaker 1: 15:25

Noah was safe Noah and his family. So I just I love that part of it. I just think it. It just. To me, it's exactly what God's about, which is, yes, he's all love, but he is also just. You can't have one without the other.

Speaker 2: 15:43

Right. I mean, that's exactly right. You can't have one without the other, right. And again, the people of the world at the time were being were living in a wrong way. They were not following the God that they knew and the way they knew they should be following Him, which actually, by the way, I actually saw a couple interesting notes, too, about. You know it would talk about what the people weren't doing, and then the Bible would give these notifications that you know in Leviticus is when you actually find out what these laws are, or, in Numbers, you would find out what these laws are that they weren't doing, and I actually found that interesting, David, and I wanted to ask you about that, because you know you don't find out about the laws until Leviticus, or something you know, like you don't find out about some of the other things you're supposed to books, and yet in Genesis they're already not following them.

Speaker 2: 16:26

So it goes to say that there must have been some knowledge of what is right and what is wrong by God's standards, even before Leviticus was written.

Speaker 3: 16:35

Before you answer that, david, I wanted to say when you think about the time in between Adam and Noah, I would like to think and the Bible maybe mentions it here and there, but I like to think that he did put something in there to kind of save us from doing bad is what I'm trying to say it took to Noah and the violence and how out of control it was for him to wipe it out with the flood and all that stuff. I like to think those many years, which is a couple hundred years in between, that there was hey, do good. I like to think that God put good morals in our hearts. We're always seeking, we know what's good and bad regardless. I really like to think that and I think during that time, like you're saying, with the law it was already written in our hearts. We see that with Cain and Abel it was wrong. It was no law written already, but it was wrong that he killed his brother To give you an example.

Speaker 2: 17:33

Well, romans 1 actually says something about that too. Paul says that all men know God, whether or not they have called him by that name or not. So that part I definitely agree. I not that thing. So that part I definitely agree. I mean Paul says that. On the other hand, I mean it does also very clearly say that they knew that they were not doing the law. I mean it says it very, very clearly in Genesis. So again, it just goes to show you that, even though it wasn't written until Leviticus, it had already been handed by God in Genesis. Who he handed to may not be written down, but it was because it was there. Mic drop, yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:05

And here's there's a couple of schools of thought. Is one Javier hit the nail on the head, which is it was written in our hearts and they knew the law. Another one that that has is you know, when Adam and Eve, when they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they were kicked out. They were kicked out of Eden. It does not say that their knowledge was removed. So is it possible that the tree that they ate of was the one that produced the knowledge that they passed down as the law? So that's another school of thought that comes from some of the sages.

Speaker 1: 18:34

Again, I always say I know 100% what happened over the last 47 years, because that's how old I am. I have no idea what happened 6,000 years ago, but it's a beautiful thought to think that Adam and Eve still did retain some of that knowledge and were able to pass that down. And that makes it even more severe of if they knew good and evil and they chose evil and they were passing down these laws from God and people still chose evil. This is also why God is saying you know what?

Speaker 3: 19:01

enough I have an interesting question that I was thinking about as I was reading this. God chose Noah because Noah was a righteous man. He was right in his eyes, but he also chose his family to go with him. Were they righteous as the same as he was Right To say like Adam? That's a bad example, because I can't enable, but do you get what I'm saying? He brought his family with him but Noah was the righteous one, so I like to think, were they just?

Speaker 1: 19:31

as clean and, and you know, righteous. I don't know if it's just as righteous. I think it's very specific. You know, if we stick just to the Bible, which is is the best way to go. It talks about Noah. Now, noah did need a family to reproduce afterwards.

Speaker 1: 19:44

And that's that we'll talk about that after the flood, which is the promise of the new covenant and all that. But he did need a family to continue the the expansion of the population on the earth. But I do think that, if we just go by the Bible, noah was righteous, he was had favor by God and family. You're just going along for the ride and you got lucky. Well, here's.

Speaker 2: 20:05

Here's the other part too. I mean, we have this relationship with God as a father-parent, you know, parent-child relationship, right, and so we are not worthy but we follow our Father and that makes us more worthy. So, even if the children and the wives by the way, it wasn't just His children, it was His children and their wives, their wives it doesn't mean that they have to be worthy as well, it means that they have to follow their father, which, again, one thing I want to touch on before we finish is that we keep talking about Noah as being so righteous, but let's not forget what happens after the flood. So we'll get to that later. I don't want to spoil that, but I mean, look, nobody's that righteous and I think that's one of the points of the story which I love Like he was, it wasn't that he was righteous enough to get on this boat and do all the things he was about to do.

Speaker 2: 20:49

It was that he trusted in God enough to do the things he wanted. And that is what righteousness in our lives is right. We're not righteous, but we can try to be, we can follow righteousness, we can follow behind righteousness and try to get there. But again, we'll talk about Noah's, you know, foible.

Speaker 3: 21:08

I think that's a good point, jason. I think that's a really. I'm glad that you said that. I think that's exactly what people should know that even Noah, I like to think even Noah, moses right, and all these great big characters that we see, that are know, we feel like we're called by god and like we're not, we're not worthy, and it's like no, this is another character, most likely, that was just as flawed as everybody else around them, but still followed god's heart and tried his best to do good. You know, and that's what we all for sure, we still for sure until this day after noah, which is why we needed jesus. So I think you bring a good point there, jay.

Speaker 2: 21:46

That's the only qualification, guys. I mean that's the only qualification. Like nobody here on this you know we're talking right now or nobody outside this room is righteous, they are. There are people who are following God and there are people who are not. There are people who are trying to do the will of God and there are people who are not. And that's as close as you're going to get. Like you know, we've already talked before, we're sinners, we don't deserve heaven, we don't deserve God and the mercy and the grace and the love that we get. But we get it, and you know anyway. So let's talk about the flood.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Well, flood well, real quick, just because it's funny, javi, you brought up moses, the the word arctava. No, the word arctava actually means box and it's the same word used as moses's basket when he was going down yep, down the road so this is actually. They're both saved from waters of chaos, that's true, right so when you look at that. Yeah, it's just. It's just one of those comparisons. You mentioned moses, I just figured I'd throw that one out there. That's actually the same word, such a great note the ark and the basket.

Speaker 2: 22:51

And, by the way, david, you just mentioned waters of chaos. Can we spend a moment talking about that? You just kind of glossed over that one, but I mean, water in the Old Testament typically means chaos, right, it's. It's like one of the universal symbols for chaos and unrest and, and you know, you don't know when it's going to.

Speaker 1: 23:08

You know storm and tide's going to come up anyway, so go ahead. No, it actually is both. It's almost like a shalom where you have hello, goodbye and peace. It's the same thing. It can be in chaos, but it also can mean uh sanctification and purification in life.

Speaker 1: 23:20

But we are. So we have this flood, and here becomes one of my favorite things is so Genesis 711. I'm just going to start there. This is all of the apologetics proof, all the scientific evidence that this flood to me actually happened. And in Genesis 711, it talks about the fountains of the deep that burst forth. So it's not just hey, it rained.

Speaker 1: 23:43

And people say listen, if it rains every day for 40 days, there's no way you can drop enough rain. Uh, in 2014, scientists found a level in the crust of a crystal called ring I'm going to just read it so I get it right ring, woodite, and these are said to hold water in them and the in their structures. They can hold water enough water to equal three times all of the ocean water in the world. So when it says the fountains of the deep burst forth and they found now three times ocean water below the ocean, it just again. That's one of those things where I'm saying is that proof? Maybe not on its own, but it does say in the bible in 2011, the chilean desert, they found 80 whale remains, plus whale remains of other fish, shark, things like that. They found trees and plants fossilized standing up, creatures fossilized halfway through eating. They have found on mountaintops, sea life and fossils. There is just an astounding amount of evidence that there was a flood. I believe it was global. Some people say it was one area, and that was it.

Speaker 1: 24:56

It was localized, but I feel like there is enough evidence in enough areas of the world to show a global flood. I'm just I always get excited about this because I love taking the bible literally and seeing you know, kind of, if there's any evidence for that. And there's some strong evidence for the flood that's good yeah, I think I've seen, and now we forgot it was I forgot it was calling.

Speaker 3: 25:20

It was like talking about noah's ark and just kind of the, the, I think, the sediment rocks and how, like, if it would have took so many millions of years of the water to recede back or whatever it is, it wouldn't like it was. You could tell it was a recent. Uh, what is it flooded? Right, it was a what do you call it? A young earth kind of thing. Right, it was like a recent thing. I'm sorry I don't know the term. That probably should have never brought it up, but I I think it was a good documentary. I think it was called Noah's Ark, history Found or something like that.

Speaker 1: 25:50

No, there's quite a bit, and it does show a lot of evidence of a rapid flooding and that kind of leads. Rapid flooding leads right into the other thing that most people think. So, aside from two pairs of animals or one pair of animal, it is hey, it rained 40 days, 40 nights, but they did not spend 40 days and 40 nights on the arc. They were actually on there for about a year. They it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, but it prevailed for about 150 days and then it took 150 days to recede. So you're talking about 370 days total that they were on the ark. That is a lot of work to feed that many animals.

Speaker 3: 26:28

yeah, for a year let me go back to it is this wow, is genesis history. That's the documentary.

Speaker 1: 26:35

Okay, genesis history talks about the science behind creation and the flip okay, great, so so 370 days of feeding animals, taking care of animals Again. Noach means rest. I'm just telling you there's no rest for this man.

Speaker 2: 26:49

There's no rest for that man.

Speaker 1: 26:51

I don't know who named him, but boy.

Speaker 3: 26:53

I wanted to say also, Dave, you were saying that enough to feed the animals, but he also sacrificed some animals, right?

Speaker 2: 27:03

I think that was at the end, at the end of the flood, they, they did the sacrifices for, cleanly for and he created altar clean animals for those purposes right yeah, which we'll get into.

Speaker 1: 27:12

So let's, let's fast forward. I mean, listen, the flood is an amazing story but to be honest, it's, it's scary. There's a flood, it's a global flood, it it rains. 700, 370 days later, noah does something to see if he can get out because, you remember, god shut them in. He has no idea if it's safe out there. There was a flood. I can't imagine the noises that would have come for him and his family on the ark. But he is now at the point where he releases two birds, yeah, into the air. Do you guys know what those birds are? A dove and a raven? Yep, and it's really interesting when you start looking at. There's a symbolism for them, obviously, but also there's a practical reason. One was he released the raven as a bird first and never came back. Because this is a bird, who's a scavenger bird, and if you have an entire world that was drowned, there's a lot to pick off of. So he didn't come back because this was Thanksgiving meal for this Raven and he wasn't returning.

Speaker 2: 28:20

Floating carrion, there you go, and then you have the floating buffet for a floating buffet for a raven.

Speaker 1: 28:27

Yeah, yes and you have the dove. And the dove, uh, came back once exhausted. There was nowhere to land, it was tired, and then it got sent out again and landed in on an olive branch and then, not having come back, noah said hey, there's a place for it to go. There must be land. It's time to get out.

Speaker 2: 28:53

You know, I never really thought about the scavenger versus the. You know, I don't know what you would call the opposite of a scavenger, but I never thought about that. I always thought that a raven is black and a dove is white. So you have this dark light, you know, dark light combination. So I sent evil back. I sent evil out and it never came back. I sent goodness out and it came back. That was how I always read that. Actually, I always read that the two birds represented goodness and evil. Because, remember, that's why the earth was cleansed. It was cleansed so that there would be no more evil. It was, you know, destroyed and and wiped clean so there would be no evil. So you would, if you sent out evil, you wouldn't want evil to come back, that's. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 29:36

So that was always how I read that no, which is that that, again, there's a symbolic side of it, and that's that. And then there's a literal side of why didn't it come back? And because it was, that part was yeah, yeah well, that's true.

Speaker 2: 29:49

I never thought that it was eating. I just thought it was like yeah, you're good, I don't need you. I've. I've been on this boat for a year, says the, says the raven, and I'm out of here.

Speaker 1: 29:55

Get me out of here and then we get to the point where javi just mentioned, which actually is really before we get into all the things, things that Noah did. That was a little strange. The first thing he did was he sacrificed, actually, before we even get there.

Speaker 2: 30:09

I have something else. I wanted to add, one of the things. As I was reading, I realized that there's this really really cool correlation between the creation story and this story. This is technically the recreation story. Let's be honest, it's the recreation story and the first thing that happens is he opens the window. And what would come in? When you open a window, breeze light, right. So the first thing you would see is light. And you know, you, you look out and you see that there is. You know there's, there's water. You know he separated and then the water went down. So he separated the, the heavens, from the earth, and he separated the waters from the from the earth, and and so like. There's.

Speaker 2: 30:46

If you, if you follow through it, all of the same things happen. Who's the first to get off the off the boat is the animals, not the humans. And the next thing is the animals, the animals. And then the humans come off next and the humans are to be, and God says you will be stewards over them. So again, it's an entire retelling of the creation story. Again in this story.

Speaker 3: 31:06

It's far less explicit.

Speaker 2: 31:08

Be fruitful and multiply. It's exactly like I was saying. It's the recreation story and I found that really fascinating that the same story is there twice more creation story. And I found that really fascinating that the same story is there twice more implicit than explicit, but it's right there in your face that.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Welcome to the Boundless Bible. My name is David Shapiro, I'm Javi Marcotte, hard reset and Jason Holloway.

Speaker 3: 31:24

Restructured you know, so I don't know.

Speaker 2: 31:26

I just found that fascinating. I'm not sure I know where that's going yet. I mean I don't know if there's any further point to that. I'd love if anybody out there has any more points that, I'd love to hear it. But I found that really interesting. Don't know what you guys think.

Speaker 1: 31:37

No, I love it. It definitely is a recreation. I mean it has to be, because the entire world went away and he had to restart it Again. It's that baptism of going down with death and coming back with life, and it's beautiful. Yeah, it's a beautiful symbolism of what happened.

Speaker 3: 31:54

It happened so quickly I mean, we barely got out of Genesis before that happens, the reset, you know it just kind of reminded me.

Speaker 2: 32:02

We haven't gotten out of Genesis. We've gotten six chapters before you had to have a hard reset. It just goes to show you how humans are made. We're like give me free reign and I will wreck it quick.

Speaker 3: 32:11

I will wreck it quick. Watch me. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, wreck it quick, I will wreck it watch me, that's good, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:18

So I don't want to, yeah, I don't want to run out of time. So it's the quick. It's the quick like he. The first thing he does is he sacrifices to god. God loves the smell. It's a beautiful moment and and I'm gonna really go over this quickly but god makes this covenant with man again that he'll never do this again. That rainbow is going to be the symbol of him having never drowning humans again in that way, and it kind of I'm just going to fast forward to where this is all beautiful, well and good, and then something really strange happens. After, after noah, who was somebody who trusted god, who was good in eyes, who got to be saved from everybody else on earth, he planted a vineyard which, right off the bat I don't know if there's any nutrients left- in the field to plant after a flood.

Speaker 1: 33:10

But he planted a vineyard and made grapes and pressed it and got drunk, yeah, and got naked and went into his living area, his tent, and laid there naked uncovered, yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:29

Which would have been really, you know that's. I'm not saying that's the sin, but I mean that for his sons to come in, which they will in a second I kind of jumped the gun on that one, but would it would have been distasteful, but also like there's something in the in the culture, like it would have been very disrespectful, you know, like and and disrespectful to him and disrespectful to the sons, like overall it was just a really bad situation, right and so sorry I cut you off there, but I know you're good.

Speaker 1: 33:56

Actually, just while we're going off on a tangent real quick, if you have ever ever heard a jewish person who's about to take a drink, wine is very big in jewish culture. They say l'chaim. It means to life, it's something positive. The reason they start that, the reason they do that, is actually because there's a couple of stories the first few stories that have to do with wine in the bible are bad stories. They end poorly. So when they drink they actually say they want something positive, would let this drink lead to something positive to life. And then they take the drink because it started off so poorly with drinking in the beginning. That's actually why, where L'chaim came from, what a great note.

Speaker 3: 34:37

But think about what just happened right for Noah. I just left maybe everything that I know. This just happened. He just wiped out all my neighbors right, or people that I know in this world, like I didn't even know what's coming up next. Now I have to cultivate and figure things out. I can imagine he was just shook, probably scared. Did he know what's going up next? You know that kind of play was your mind, I think?

Speaker 1: 34:59

maybe no, I definitely think he had a reason. Yeah, go ahead. No, he had a reason.

Speaker 2: 35:07

No, I don't think anybody. I don't think anybody's like they don't get it right. We get why he did it right. But I think what I find so interesting about the second part is number one I kind of alluded to it earlier which is that everybody gives Noah this like saintly, never did anything wrong, must have been the best person ever credit, only to find out, look, he's human, he does human stuff and he makes human mistakes and he gets drunk enough to end up naked in his tent where his sons will walk in. I mean, that's clearly you have drunk enough to not be there, entirely right.

Speaker 2: 35:41

But what I've actually found even more interesting this read around was that the first son comes in and sees it, which first of all, it's disrespectful. It's like, you know, it's really anti the culture, like it's just not a good thing for him to do, and he walks out and basically tells his brothers, which is again even more disrespectful. Now he's probably making fun of his father or he's, or he's not telling his, he's telling his brothers about the sin that his father has created, which again, it's just like it's kind of gossipy, right. It's kind of like it's like hey, look, he did this bad thing. And then the other brothers come in, they face backwards, they bring the robe and they cover him up right and Noah ends up basically cursing it's Shem, right, shem is the one who it's Ham, ham, ham yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:29

Ham's the bad one, right? So Noah basically curses Ham and blesses Shem. And I forgot his name, the other brother, japheth. I thought you were going to say it was Jason. I was like hold up there.

Speaker 3: 36:42

It was Japheth right.

Speaker 2: 36:43

And so he Joking yeah, clearly, so they get blessed. And again, one of the things I found interesting about this is all of the world was destroyed because of sin, because of not following God and following the right things to do the right. You know kuth things to do the civil things, to do the mannered things, to do the good things to do. That's why the world was destroyed. And then you're on a boat for a year, you get off the boat and you're still gonna do some things like that. No Consequence, right.

Speaker 2: 37:16

And so the two brothers who did act with kuth, with direction, with knowledge of what is good, what is right and what is wrong, they get the blessing. And again, I think this is just another way to say like, look, you can go through it all, you can see it firsthand, but if you don't learn your lesson from it, it's not going to pay off, like you have to be willing to do the work after in order to get that. I just thought that was really really, really interesting. That that's the very first story right after the boat we're looking at.

Speaker 1: 37:43

This is Genesis 9-1. This is where this curse comes in. And what's even more astounding is Noah actually doesn't curse Ham. He curses Ham's son, canaan. Right right, rightaan, right, right, right, right, right. And now you're going. You know, listen, if you want to talk about embarrassment and you said, hey, you know, noah was embarrassed and and really went over the edge and and cursed his. Why would he curse his son? And this is a question I get a lot is, if he was mad at ham, why in the world would he have cursed his son? And I actually have a theory on this, and I don't know if you guys have heard any theories or if you're curious about mine.

Speaker 3: 38:22

I'm curious about yours because my question was kind of similar to where you were going with it, jason, but more along the line of why in this order that he's like. I almost feel like maybe this is a little bit outside of this conversation, but I almost feel like it was maybe an afterthought within the author, knowing the history of what things happened, because it just seems so prophetic. It really is. It's really prophetic. It's like curse be Canaan. And Shem is going to overtake Canaan, pretty much, and the descendants of all of that it's not just them and their immediate pretty much, and the descendants of all of that, right, it's not just them and their immediate family, but the future of this descendants.

Speaker 1: 39:06

Okay, Well here comes my theory. You ready for this? There is no way Noah could have cursed Ham because God already blessed them. God said said when they got off I'm blessing Noah and your sons. Specifically says that in the Bible I'm blessing Noah and your sons. How in the world is Noah going to take away God's blessing? So the next person he had to go to was his son, because that one was not blessed, so he had to curse what wasn't blessed by God. Interesting, that's clever.

Speaker 2: 39:38

Got to say that that's clever. It's a clever conception, but it's also if that's really Noah's intent, that's also very clever of Noah. He's like well, you've got the protection of aura around you, but I'm going to go to the next one. That's pretty clever. I hadn't thought of that. That's cool.

Speaker 1: 39:51

Yeah, it's just one of those thoughts of going why, yeah, it's just one of those thoughts of going. Why in the world would Noah? Because you can't think that Noah all of a sudden is a cruel person. We all admitted him drinking. You know, shoot, I would have been. You know I'd have sampled a little bit of the Manischewitz myself, but you know this is not somebody who dislikes his family. He was embarrassed, but I think that he also realized that he had to punish, just like God did as a father. There's punishment involved. I can't punish what God has blessed, so I'll punish the next thing.

Speaker 2: 40:23

Yeah, I also think that. Look, genesis is a really complex book. It is not just a literal book, but it's also an. I mean, many people think it's also an ideological book. Right, like there is, there was a historical event, but it's also there to tell you a lot about why things are the way they were.

Speaker 2: 40:40

And Genesis was written a bajillion years ago and later you would find out about Canaan and you would find out about, you know, the descendants of these people and those people and how the politics between them work, how the tribalism behind them work, who becomes the Egyptians and who becomes the? You know the Cush. The Cush came from Japheth, I think, right. And so you find out that those people came from here and the followers are sorry, the sons of Shem are the Israelites and the Mediterranean people and the Canaanites. Anyway, like all of this stuff, it's not just literal. Even if it is literal, it's not just literal. It's also a world history of why the Canaanites are the way they are, why do they believe the things they do, why are the Egyptians the way they are? Why are the Ethiopians the way they are and acting the way they are, and why is this the, not the academy? Why is this the dynamic between them? And it goes back and tells that story. So again, just super, super, super interesting.

Speaker 1: 41:38

Yeah, listen.

Speaker 2: 41:38

I love this story.

Speaker 1: 41:40

Yeah, this is by far. This is up there. You know, with it's right up there, the Exodus is one of my favorites, this one is one of my favorites. I'm so glad we had a chance to really kind of go over this.

Speaker 2: 41:51

Before we end, though, there's actually something I think we kind of glossed over that I'd love to talk about a little bit more. You talked about getting off the boat, and I think this is a really beautiful way to end. You talked about getting off the boat, and there were the sacrifices, there was the altar, there was the thankfulness right, but it wasn't just Noah who made a promise at that point and a thankfulness right, it was God. God made a promise too. God made a promise in that moment that he would no longer destroy the world with water. He made the promise that he would no longer. You know, he would no longer do that. But, more importantly, you know, we talk about the rainbow. You mentioned the rainbow earlier.

Speaker 2: 42:27

I think I read one time, or heard one time, that it doesn't actually say rainbow, it says bow in Hebrew. Right, it actually says bow in Hebrew, and one of the meanings of that, probably among many, many, is that the bow, in that time, would have also been an arrow. You know bow and arrow, and that rainbow, that bow, is always facing heaven, not earth. So God is taking responsibility. God is taking responsibility, just like he does in other covenants, saying if something goes wrong, I take the responsibility. I'm the one who's putting it out here and I'm taking the responsibility. God is taking responsibility, just like he does in other covenants, saying if something goes wrong, I take the responsibility, I'm the one who's putting it out here and I'm taking the responsibility. So the bow is pointed towards me. So the rainbow is also the sign of responsibility of God to take care of us.

Speaker 1: 43:08

That's beautiful. I love that. I think that is a great way to end. I mean, what more beautiful imagery than God being responsible for taking care of his people?

Speaker 2: 43:17

Yeah, and this wasn't something that I read. Actually, funny enough, the very first time I heard that story was actually in a kid's book. It was a kid's biblical telling, and you start to learn that that's one of those things. But I continue to look at that bow image, and not only is it the arrow pointed at God and not at us, because God takes the ultimate responsibility, but it's also when you look at a bow or a dome like that. That's a form of protection. You are under the bow, you are both behind the person shooting, but you're also underneath the shelter of that bow and again.

Speaker 2: 43:48

So now, every time I see a rainbow, I kind of think of that and I think that that's what this is all about. God is my protector, god is the ultimate protector, and if I want to, if I want that protection, I need to stand behind him. I need to not try to stand in front of him, or else I'm going to get hit with that arrow, right. I need to be under the protection of God by being behind him and behind his drawn bow. So I don't know, I just wanted to share that as well. Yeah, and his drawn bow. So I don't know, I just wanted to share that as well.

Speaker 1: 44:13

Yeah, and the covenant was to all people. It was never to the chosen people, this was all people. This is just an absolute beautiful way to end it. I appreciate that, jason.

Speaker 2: 44:23

Cool. So, guys, this has been awesome. This is one of my favorite stories as well. All of Genesis is my favorite stories, but this one particularly has just more and more and more layers. So, for everybody listening, we appreciate you, as always. We hope that you can give us some likes, some comments, some shares. We would appreciate some subscribes. Now that we're on YouTube, we'd love to see the, we'd love to see those numbers grow so more people can find out. But we appreciate your questions and comments. Actually, we're getting more questions and comments from you guys now, so I think we're probably going to start doing some episodes with where we address them directly. So we're looking forward to that as well. But again, always appreciate your time and looking forward to talking to you soon. Thanks again, bye-bye, bye Later, guys.