11/13 - Genesis Chapter 5 ~ 9

This week, Daniel will lead us for Genesis Chapter 5 and beyond. Please read his reflection for discussion.

Genesis Chapter 5 to Chapter 9
There are three aspects to this section

1. The long life spans attributed to these ten antediluvian patriarchs have a symbolic rather than a historical value.
2. The prospective of “life span”
3. The covenant (differs from “new covenant”)

The long life spans
The earth might be a lot older than Genesis seems to show. Many people have that belief. However, scientists are not at all certain how old the earth is. It does not matter if days and years were a different length then. We know that God made the earth. And he made everything in it. If time was different then, it does not make God less wonderful. And it does not make man less wicked. We trust God.

At that time, people lived longer. Life was healthier. There were not so many illnesses.

5: 23-24, The whole lifetime of Enoch was three hundred and sixty-five years. Then Enoch walked with God, and he was no longer here, for God took him
Jude 14-15: Enoch, of the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied also about them when he said, "Behold, the Lord has come with his countless holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict everyone for all the godless deeds that they committed and for all the harsh words godless sinners have uttered against him.

Enoch walked with God clearly implies that he did not die, but like Elijah was taken alive to God's abode.

120 years
There might have been two meanings:

1. Man would live only about 120 years
2. God would send that flood after 120 years

Noah the Ark and the Covenant
6:4, At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons.
Some interpret as “Angle had intercourse with human”

Great Flood:
Both biblical sources go back ultimately to an ancient Mesopotamian story of a great flood, preserved in the eleventh tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic. The latter account, in some respects remarkably similar to the biblical account, is in others very different from it.

7:2-3, Of every clean animal, take with you seven pairs, a male and its mate; and of the unclean animals, one pair, a male and its mate; likewise, of every clean bird of the air, seven pairs, a male and a female, and of all the unclean birds, one pair, a male and a female
‘Clean animals’. God gave strict rules about which animals people could *sacrifice. And he was strict about which animals they could eat. Those animals were called ‘clean animals’. But there were other animals that people must not *sacrifice. And they should not eat these animals. These animals were called ‘*unclean animals’.

7:4, forty days and forty nights
may just mean a long time not exact how long the rain lasted.

Size of the Ark:
The dimensions of Noah's ark were approximately 440 x 73 x 44 feet, a foot and a half to the cubit. The ark of the Babylonian flood story was an exact cube, 120 cubits in length, width and height.
A *cubit is a measurement that people used then. It is equal to 18 inches (about 45 centimetres).

9: 17, God told Noah: "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all mortal creatures that are on earth."

God had made an agreement (*covenant) with Noah before the flood. He told Noah about it again here, because it was very important. God included all *creatures in the agreement. People must take care of God’s earth and God’s *creatures.