Episode 137. I know that you've been very patient, but the big question I suspect that you've been wanting to ask is this, who exactly was Noah? Here is the answer. Noah, is the creation of re-cycling and theological re-interpreting. According to this theory, there were real Mesopotamian floods and real Mesopotamian flood survivors. The Mesopotamians interpret these events in the light of their pagan theology, and then they write down their flood accounts and focus on a central flood hero. The Hebrews then recycle and re-interpret the Mesopotamian flood accounts. And here's the key idea, the Mesopotamian flood hero is morphed into the flood hero of the biblical flood account, and this is Noah. He is a morphed Mesopotamian flood hero. It's important to emphasize, Noah is not a literary invention, or fictional character in an allegory or fictional story. The P author, the J author, and the redactor believe that Noah was a real person. To fully appreciate this view of Noah, we need to think like the ancient Hebrews. They would've argued, yes, there really was a worldwide flood, everybody knows that. But no, it was not launched because noisy humans stopped the gods from sleeping. Instead, it was launched by the God of the Hebrews because humans were sinful. The Hebrews would have also argued, yes, there really was a man. His family and animals saved in an ark but, no, it was not the pagan flood heroes, Ziusudra, Atrahasis or Utnapishtim. Instead it was the only righteous man, Noah, who was saved by the Hebrew God. To further explain this approach to Noah and the flood, let me offer a modern example of re-cycling and re-interpreting. This would be evolutionary creation. Evolutionary creationist like myself argue, yes, living organisms originated through biological evolution. Every biologist knows that, but, no, its not a destriological process. Instead, it's a process that was ordained and sustained by God. In the light of our discussions on Noah and the flood, we can take the Message-Incident Principle and offer a new application. Please turn to page 40 in the class hand outs. The central message of faith in the biblical flood account is not difficult to understand. God judges humans for sin, and God saves the righteous person. As well, Noah is also typological, that is, he is an example of a righteous person who obeyed God. In order to deliver these messages of faith, God allowed the great flood motif to be used as an incidental vessel. In the ancient world, the flood is ancient historiography based on an ancient phenomenological perspective. Belief in a worldwide flood is the history of the day in the ancient near east. In other words, it is an ancient understanding of history. To repeat, in Genesis 6 to 9, the flood is used as an incidental vessel to deliver spiritual truths. In this way, the Holy Spirit accommodated and allowed the Mesopotamian flood accounts and their flood hero, to be recycled and reinterpreted into the biblical flood account and Noah. And so here is the bottom line, and this might be a bit uncomfortable for some of you. The biblical man, Noah, never existed. Now, there's no doubt about it, this idea that Noah never existed is quite shocking and even distressing to most Christians. As I mentioned earlier, this section of the course is the one that Christians struggle with the most. Here's a couple suggestions that I'd have for the Christians. Firstly, never lose perspective. Christianity is not based on Noah, it's based on Jesus. And my second suggestion is, just leave this theory of recycling and reinterpreting flood motifs as that, leave it as a theory, and let it percolate in your mind for a while. And you'll see when you revisit this in the future, it won't bite or be as shocking as when you first learned about it. End of episode.