Title: Bow in the Clouds
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: Genesis 9:8-17
On the evening of Ash Wednesday, we spoke of grace. We considered how grace meets us before we have any way to ready ourselves for reconciliation or forgiveness. We looked at how grace does not consider the concept of being worthy or unworthy. We looked at grace as the framing for God's plan of redemption, a plan that flows out of God's great love for us and all of creation. In counterpoint, I often hear people refer to the flood narrative in Genesis as presenting a very harsh counterargument. When we read the whole text, however, we find God hanging up his bow (a weapon) in the clouds. Do we recognize that commitment by God not to deal in violent retribution?
No doubt as many of you, I grew up with a very harsh understanding of the flood narrative. This was a picture of how God deals with sinners. That such a read contrasted sharply to Jesus' life, ministry, and teaching was never really discussed. Then my dad introduced me to the basic outlines of myths from Babylonia that spoke in very different terms of a world-wide flood. He helped me see that this narrative is told in response to those other tales which circled around the Hebrew people, especially while exiled in Babylonian captivity. What we find in Genesis is a theological response to the theologies of Babylon, Egypt, and the rest of Mesopotamia.
To set the scene, a little background is in order. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest and most complete of these myths to which we have access. Gilgamesh was king of Uruk, famous for building a wall around the city in the middle of the Third Century BCE. Within that tale, Utnapishtim relates a flood narrative to Gilgamesh. The god Enlil's sleep was disturbed by all the noise being made by humanity and plans to flood the earth. Utnapishtim is warned by one of the gods and instructs him to build a huge boat in the form of a cube covering an ...
Author: Christopher Harbin
Text: Genesis 9:8-17
On the evening of Ash Wednesday, we spoke of grace. We considered how grace meets us before we have any way to ready ourselves for reconciliation or forgiveness. We looked at how grace does not consider the concept of being worthy or unworthy. We looked at grace as the framing for God's plan of redemption, a plan that flows out of God's great love for us and all of creation. In counterpoint, I often hear people refer to the flood narrative in Genesis as presenting a very harsh counterargument. When we read the whole text, however, we find God hanging up his bow (a weapon) in the clouds. Do we recognize that commitment by God not to deal in violent retribution?
No doubt as many of you, I grew up with a very harsh understanding of the flood narrative. This was a picture of how God deals with sinners. That such a read contrasted sharply to Jesus' life, ministry, and teaching was never really discussed. Then my dad introduced me to the basic outlines of myths from Babylonia that spoke in very different terms of a world-wide flood. He helped me see that this narrative is told in response to those other tales which circled around the Hebrew people, especially while exiled in Babylonian captivity. What we find in Genesis is a theological response to the theologies of Babylon, Egypt, and the rest of Mesopotamia.
To set the scene, a little background is in order. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest and most complete of these myths to which we have access. Gilgamesh was king of Uruk, famous for building a wall around the city in the middle of the Third Century BCE. Within that tale, Utnapishtim relates a flood narrative to Gilgamesh. The god Enlil's sleep was disturbed by all the noise being made by humanity and plans to flood the earth. Utnapishtim is warned by one of the gods and instructs him to build a huge boat in the form of a cube covering an ...
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