archangel writes:
If God had to wipe out humanity because of the stain of sin and start over with a more pure version through Noah's bloodline, my question is what was the corruption infecting humanity that made this cleansing necessary and why did it have to include the destruction of all animal life except 2 creatures of each type that God chose and guided to be saved on the Arc?
Is there any information regarding Gods reasoning in this area either in the bible or in any other holy writings by the Old Testament Patriarchs? In other words, does anybody grasp the full reasoning behind Gods plan for the great flood as it played out in the real world?
I can't think of any specific explanation of this in Scripture. But we see something similar in some of God's commands to wipe out pagan nations. Sometimes they were allowed to take spoils, but at other times they were to wipe out everything, including animals and possessions. Why? We can only speculate. Some of the pagan practices were extremely depraved; perhaps this had affected the animals and possessions.
Another option is given by Gleason Archer in his "Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties":
quote:
The word them seems to include the animals as well as men; what could the animals possibly have done to merit God’s disgust?
So far as the birds and the beasts were concerned, the context of Genesis 6:7 says nothing about their displeasing or angering God; so it is not really justified to interpret the purpose of judgment as directed at them equally with the depraved race of men. It was simply an inevitable consequence of the coming Flood, that it should destroy not only mankind but also all brute creation living in man’s environment. The intended antecedent of them was really the preceding man (Heb. ha’adam)in the sense of the human racerather than the various orders of bird and beast that are listed with man. Actually, God’s solicitude for the survival of all these various species of animal and bird found expression in His command to Noah to preserve at least one pair of parents in order to propagate each species.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." — Albert Einstein
I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. — Erwin Schroedinger
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