Do you really need any more proof?

May 29, 2009, 7:50 am by dc-agape.

Image by Juddejah via Flickr

Tales of the Patriarchs (Part 3)

Childhood does not seem to be very important to the Jewish writers of Religious materials.  Just as in the case of Jesus, this story of Noah tells of his birth and without fragmentation jumps to his adult life.  Unlike Jesus, Noah brags about his birthright and how righteous he is.  Then we find out that he marries a woman by the name of Emzara.  They have three sons and an unknown number of daughters.  Then we get to a confusing part, a Watcher who is a messenger from the Holy Ones comes to Noah after he has had a vision about the Flood.  The last section I will cover in this post is again the Flood, a repeated topic in these Tractates.

The first thing we read from Noah, as an adult, is his bragging about how righteous he is and will always be!  Isn’t that pride?  And marrying off your children to your brother’s children is, of course, now considered a sin (but I will get to that in a second)!  He also killed all his daughters by not allowing them on the ark (that is coming up in the next paragraph as well).  And we know that he gets drunk off the first wine after the Flood.  I guess these small flaws are OK, and that he is still a righteous man, both in his eyes and in YHWH’s eyes.

Cousin marriage was acceptable at the time, even though YHWH would eventually decide that it was a sin worthy of death (Lev 18:6)!  So remember that either YHWH does change or go for it, marry your cousin…YHWH approves.  The worst thing about this section is that it clearly states that Noah had daughters, yet we know that they did not join him on the Ark.  This means that he sacrificed his own flesh and blood, because of the Flood that YHWH created.  What a loving father!  Even more what a loving YHWH to force a man to do such a hideous act, can you imagine the pain Noah felt as he watched his daughters drown?

Noah has a vision, which he shares with no one.  And then a Watcher comes to give him a message from the Holy Ones about the flood.  I will have to amend my last few posts.  The Watchers are different from the Nephilim, which are different than the Sons of Heaven.  It seems from this passage that it is the actions of the Nephilim that cause YHWH to create the Flood that kills all live on dry land, except plants.

I will close this post with the most horrific description of the Flood presented in any Religious Document:

1QapGen Col.6 row 25-Col.7 row 4 until the Floodgate of heaven [opened…destroying] humanity and cattle and wild animals and birds […] […] upon them.  The earth and all that was upon it, in the seas and on the mountains […] all the constellations, the sun, the moon, and the stars.

So in this version the flood gates did kill all the animals in the seas as well as all the animals on the dry land.  Since some of the fragmentation occurs at critical points we cannot tell what happens to the sun, moon, and stars.  Are they witness to the horrific actions of YHWH or could the Flood be so intense that even they were destroyed?  The worst is yet to come.  One of the Watchers then tells Noah

1 QapGen Col.7 row 5 “I hereby grant you your reward from me”

Noah’s reward was to be the only man standing after such horrific violence.  He was King of the World.  And of course, what does Noah do?  He rejoiced and “shouted for joy”!  He was overwhelmed with excitement that YHWH had destroyed the entire planet.  He was ecstatic that his daughters had drowned in the Flood.  He was all bubbly because even Methuselah was now dead.  If you calculate the age that Methuselah died it was in the year of the Flood.  Noah was the one and only leader of the entire human population, I bet he was excited! 

As an Atheist this tale is so horrific I cannot see how anyone could worship this monster named YHWH.  He is twisted, has horrible tastes in righteousness, and punishes innocent people due to his own actions.  The destruction of the planet by a Flood has got to be one of the worst ways to kill every living thing, including the sea life (due to fresh water mixing with the salt water).  But to chose Noah as the living representative of Humanity?  Noah was so flawed that it is no wonder that the world is so fucked up now!  Maybe this really did happen.  It does explain why some humans are such a mess.

Posted in Genesis Material, Tales of the Patriarchs, Dead Sea Scroll, Family Values?, Tall Tales, Readings | Print | 3 Comments »