I have had that question on my mind ever since I did a series of posts on Noah and the flood way back when I first started this blog. After all, it seems like everyone who survives some tremendous ordeal nowadays writes a book about it, or has a book about it ghostwritten for them.
People who believe that everything in the Book of Genesis is literally true accept that there really was a man named Noah who lived to be nine hundred and fifty years old. At god's command, he built an ark to protect himself, his immediate family and pairs of every living thing from the world drowning flood that was on its way.
That got me to wondering. Noah is supposed to have lived through an event, that if true, was the most catastrophic event in human history. Why didn't he write a book about the ordeal and how he survived it? According to Genesis, he lived about three hundred and fifty years after the Flood, so he had plenty of time on his hands to write a book.
He could have provided valuable information as to how he and his immediate family managed to feed and clean the waste of countless animals without succumbing to disease, for example, thus anticipating the questions of future skeptics. Of course, one reason Noah did not write a book is because he was not a real person who lived to be nine hundred and fifty years old and survived the worst catastrophe in human history.
7 comments:
According to the story, Noah hit the old wineskin pretty hard after his ordeal and was probably too busy rolling around naked in his tent and cursing future generations to do much writing.
If they had only had blogs in those days I'm sure we would have heard the details since being drunk and naked does not seem to be much of a liability in this business.
First of all, Brian, that's hilarious!
I have wondered about this also. I remember trying to read those little bibles that you get in Sunday school. So and so begat so and so....and lived to be 900 years old! Wow, I think I seen through that at an early age. Why do people insist on believing these outrageous stories? But not the story's of Zeus and such?
Noah could have started Alcoholics Anonymous! "My Name is Noah W." Farmers could have had bumperstickers on the backs of their carts and wagons that read "Another Friend of Noah W.'s"
"...one reason Noah did not write a book is because he was not a real person..."
Didn't stop Moses. :) Noah was an imaginary slacker.
Moses may have written a book, but wasn't he a stoner?
Your last sentence nicely sums up the reason why. =)
The beginnings of the OT was written around 450 BC. That is officially when ethnic Israelites morphed into a unified monotheistic group that called themselves Jews and worshiped one very angry God.
That is when many myths were put together. A way of controlling the masses while giving them some false sense of predetermination and history.
Moses didn't exist. Abraham didn't exist. Noah didn't exist. King David may have existed, and he might have hurt a 6 foot tall goon too while he was head honcho over about 200 people in a small region. Remember, the average person back then was 5 foot 1. 6 foot dudes were freaks back then.
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