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Rivers, Covenant, and Ecological Insights

This document provides a summary of the Sunday service readings from Genesis 8:20-22; 9:12-17 and Matthew 28:1-10 focusing on rivers, God's covenant with humanity, and the story of Noah's ark. It discusses how early humans lived as foragers for most of our existence, the agricultural revolution led to deforestation and flooding, and the industrial revolution has intensified global warming and ecological problems. The document examines the Sumerian and Hebrew versions of the great flood story and how Noah saved all living creatures, representing God's covenant to never destroy the earth again. It questions if the Hebrews saw the flood story as revealing the same truth of renewal and life in the face of chaos

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richbert
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86 views1 page

Rivers, Covenant, and Ecological Insights

This document provides a summary of the Sunday service readings from Genesis 8:20-22; 9:12-17 and Matthew 28:1-10 focusing on rivers, God's covenant with humanity, and the story of Noah's ark. It discusses how early humans lived as foragers for most of our existence, the agricultural revolution led to deforestation and flooding, and the industrial revolution has intensified global warming and ecological problems. The document examines the Sumerian and Hebrew versions of the great flood story and how Noah saved all living creatures, representing God's covenant to never destroy the earth again. It questions if the Hebrews saw the flood story as revealing the same truth of renewal and life in the face of chaos

Uploaded by

richbert
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

NEWS and NOTES RIVER SUNDAY, 28

th
September 2014
Genesis 8:20-22; 9:12-17 Matthew 28:1-10
Rivers and Gods Covenant with Humankind
Our Homo Sapiens ancestors appeared 200,000 years ago. For the first 95% of our time on
earth we survived as subsistence Foragers before the Agrarian revolution (4.9%) and then
the Industrial revolution (0.1%). The Agrarian Era caused extensive deforestation to feed
the increasing population causing catastrophic river erosion and flooding during periods of
abnormally high rainfall. This ecological problem is captured in our OT reading of the Great
Flood. The problem continues, but is now intensified by Global Warming of the Industrial Era.
Archaeologist Irvin Finckels The Ark before NOAH:
Decoding the story of the Flood, tells of deciphering the
1800 BCE cuneiform script of the clay Ark Tablet
where the Sumerian god Enlil puts it to his fellow gods,
The noise of mankind has become too intense for me.
With their uproar I am deprived of sleep. Therefore Enlil
sends an annihilating flood, but to circumvent this
disaster, another god Ea instructs Atra-hasis to build an
Ark to save human and animal life.
Exiled to Babylon from 597 BCE, the Hebrews attribute the Flood not to noisy humans but to
in Gods opinion .. the earth had become ruined and filled with violence.

(Genesis 6:11). But
Humankind is redeemed by NOAH saving all living creatures in his Ark, because Gods
Covenant .. is between me and you and every living creature .. for all generations to come.
Genesis 9:12-13. So how did the Hebrews come to this amazing ecological insight? Were they
expressing the same truth revealed in our NT reading of the resurrection revealed in Jesus
Christ as the power of the renewal of life in the face of chaos and disaster? A truth at the
heart of both Christianity and the evolutionary process? A truth we need to rediscover for
the sake of humankind.
Richard Smith

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