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Imagine a Bible without covers. Imagine that it is unbound, a sheaf of papers piled together a little haphazardly. Are the pages numbered? Are the separate books clipped together? If you dropped it, would you ever get it back together and in order again?The Hebrew Bible as we know it has covers. It has a Table of Contents, pagination and even an ISBN number. It is not just a "canon" but The Canon, fixed, unchanging in black and white. This can make us hard to remember that the Bible is not really a thing, but rather a collection of things. It’s a grouping of assorted poetry, history, just-so-stories, works of praise, travelogues and even a building manual and recipe or two. And it certainly did not spring full-fledged, ISBN number and all, from the hand of Moses like Athena springing full-grown from Zeus’ head. It took a lot of time and arguing for people to decide just what should be included in the Bible, and what should be left out.
Both Judaism and Christianity have myths about how their Scriptures came to be canonized, but these are idealized stories that do not tell even a portion of the tale – the debates, infighting and suppression of books which for some reason were out of fashion or that some groups in power found ideologically or theologically suspect. Many of the books in the OT and NT canons barely made it in there… imagine a bible without the Song of Songs, without Esther, without the Gospel of John or the Letter to the Hebrews?
But what about all those works that were left out? Did the people who loved and preserved these books just drop them like hot potatoes because somebody in charge suddenly decided that they were not “scripture?” No… these (now-parabiblical) traditions continued to be preserved, venerated, and of assistance for generations of theologians and thinkers who turned to them for guidance and biblical interpretation. Sometimes works of biblical interpretation - which were never meant to be read as Scripture in and of themselves – became so venerated over time that they attained the quality of scripture and were thought to relate the “truth.” We’ll meet examples of both trends now, pertaining to the main character in this week’s bible portion: Noah.
Debate swirled around the character of Noah in ancient times. What were we to make of this hero’s essential nature? He certainly starts out well, all that ark building and command obeying, but the whole drunkenness and exposure bit in Genesis 9 gave interpreters pause. Was he righteous, or wretched? Saint or sot? Here are some ancient “votes” on the issue:
Very early Jewish texts like 1 Enoch and the Genesis Apocryphon (discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls) imagine Noah as exceedingly righteous – almost divine. Both these works preserve a story of Noah’s miraculous birth and attributes as an infant. Noah is so disconcertingly special that his father Lamech thinks that he must be illegitimate – his mother must have been fooling around with those naughty angels who were marrying human women in Genesis 6:1-4! Lamech finds out that Noah is his son, but only after putting his poor wife through misery; in the Genesis Apocryphon she begs him to remember their enjoyment during lovemaking in order to prove that she is faithful. Whoever said ancient texts were boring? Click here for a link to excerpts of these stories: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddbxqpcb_1hjmtw3cf
The bible does seem to indicate that Noah was righteous, but many rabbinic interpreters focused on the follow up to that statement:
Then the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation. (Gen 7:1)
Why in this generation? Maybe, some said, Noah was simply the best of a bad lot? See this discussion:
R. Johanan said: In his generations, but not in other generations. Resh Lakish maintained: [Even] in his generations — how much more so in other generations. R. Hanina said: As an illustration of R. Johanan's view, to what may this be compared? To a barrel of wine lying in a vault of acid: in its place, its odour is fragrant [by comparison with the acid]; elsewhere, its odour will not be fragrant. B. Sanhedrin 108a
In the New Testament, however, Noah’s saintliness was upheld and he was likened to Christ:
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
1 Peter 3:18-22.
Of course, this typology overlooks Noah’s drunkenness… something many ancient rabbis (in response to Christian claims of Noah-Christ connections?) refused to do:
Noah, after having been called A righteous man (Gen. VI, 9), is called A MAN OF THE GROUND; but Moses, after having been called An Egyptian man (Ex. II, 19), was then called The man of God (Deut. XXXIII, 1). He was more beloved than Noah, who ended as a castrate. AND PLANTED A VINEYARD. As he was going to plant the vineyard the demon Shimadon met him and proposed, ' Come into partnership with me [in this vineyard], but take care not to enter into my portion, for if you do I will injure you.’ Genesis Rabbah 36:3
By the time we arrive at the story of Noah in the Qur’an – retold more than seven times in this work – Noah is an indubitably perfect prophet, and a type of Muhammad:
27 We did send Noah unto his people, ‘Verily, I am to you an obvious warner; 28 that ye should not worship any save God. Verily, I fear for you the torment of the grievous day. 29 But the chiefs of those who misbelieved amongst his people said, ‘We only see in thee a mortal like ourselves; nor do we see that any follow thee except the reprobates amongst us by a rash judgment; nor do we see that you have any preference over us; nay more, we think you liars!’ 30 Said, ‘O my people, Let us see! If I stand upon a manifest sign from my Lord, and there come to me mercy from him, and ye are blinded to it; shall we force you to it while ye are averse therefrom? 31 ‘O my people, I do not ask you for wealth in return for it; my hire is only from God; nor do I repulse those who believe; verily, they shall meet their Lord. But I see you, a people who are ignorant. 33 O my people, who will help me against God, were I to repulse you? Do ye not then mind? I do not say that I have the treasures of God; nor do I know the unseen; nor do I say, "Verily, I am an angel;" nor do I say of those whom your eyes despise, "God will never give them any good!" God knows best what is in their souls-verily, then should I be of the unjust.’ Sura 11
The end of this week’s reading introduces another figure – one whose righteousness is not in doubt in Judaism, Christianity or Islam: Abraham. One of the most fun and interesting traditions relating to Abraham in antiquity was a story of his actions as a young boy: Abraham Smashing the Idols. Most Christians I teach have never heard this story; many Jews in my classes know it so well that they are surprised to discover that it isn’t in the bible! To read Jewish and Muslim versions of this tale, click here:
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The history of how the Bible was compiled and accepted is a long and convoluted story. Various writings were considered for inclusion, both in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. L. Michael White, a noted biblical historian, in chapter 4 of his book, From Jesus to Christianity, states,
“One accommodation (to the return of the Jews of the Diaspora) was the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. This process largely took place in Egypt beginning as early as the third century BCE with the books of Torah. This translation came to be called the Septuagint, after the legend that it was translated by seventy Jewish elders with the aid of divine guidance. The term septuagenta means “seventy”; hence the standard abbreviation for this version of the Jewish scriptures is the Roman numeral LXX. Eventually it included all the books now considered part of the Jewish canon plus a number of other works that are now part of the Apocrypha.”
Although the early history of the Septuagint is shrouded in “legend,” the evolution of the New Testament, and the Bible as a whole, is much better documented. I’m finding references to the influence of Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons from 177-190, the work of Athanasius of Alexandria in 367, the Council of Carthage (394) and the Council of Trent, from 1545-1563. There were many other influences, too numerous to list here.
The question of whether Noah was a progeny of an angel, or super-human being, and a human mother seems to be a moot point, as his mother emphatically insists that she conceived Noah with his human father, Lamech. It seems a little strange to me that Lamech didn’t recall the ecstasy of their union while his wife had vivid memories of that blessed moment. Perhaps Lamech was suffering from a memory deficit disorder!
The accounts of Noah’s glorious physical appearance may be the result of glorifying legends surrounding him. At any rate, Noah was definitely a type, or representation, of God. Noah was the spokesman of God, and the follower of God’s specific instructions given to him in his particular place in history. There are several other men in Jewish history who were given similar roles and who represented God to the Chosen People, notably Abraham, Moses, Saul, David and Solomon.
However virtuous these men were, they each suffered a falling from grace. Sometimes this was a mere peccadillo, as Noah’s (perhaps one-time) drunken stupor and Moses’ smacking the rock with his staff in momentary anger. Other times the fault was grievous, as David’s adultery with Bathsheba and pre-arranged murder of Uriah. I’m so glad that David repented of his sins and graced us with his psalms as well as with his splendid leadership of the Jewish nation. Also, his kingdom is to endure forever!
Why did God allow His representatives, so seemingly perfect, to be less than perfect? Perhaps it was to show us that He is in charge! The Jews had an unfortunate tendency to fall away from worshiping the One True God to the worship of idols, animals or even humans, like the pagan peoples surrounding them. Perhaps God wanted to ensure that the Jews would not stray from Him by worshiping His chosen representatives. And in the case of David, God must have wanted to show his mercy, love and beneficence to the sinner who repented and returned to Him.
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