Closing Time - Genesis 8

8:1-4 - The water came out of the sky and the ground and flooded the whole earth for 150 days, the “God remembered Noah, and every living thing… and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged.” I think this is a case of translation without context, similar to how it said that God repented of making man, etc. It’s not possible that God flooded the earth and then “forgot” that he had done it, and the way that this is written gives us a sense that God is oblivious or too caught up in his own wants, needs, or desires to keep track of what we’ve got going on down here. Obviously, this isn’t the case, and again, I think that this is just a translation miscommunication or maybe even Satan’s active influence to make us believe that God isn’t really interested in us after all. Just as the earth took some time to flood, it also took some time to get rid of the water, and as the water level dropped “the ark rested… upon the mountains of Ararat.” The IM notes that “no location for Mount Ararat is given in the scriptures. The traditional site is a mountain found in northeastern Turkey near the border of Russia.” I’ve seen all these documentaries that claim they have found the ark up in the mountains, it’s pretty interesting and it makes me wonder if pieces of the ark could in fact remain to this day in a way that it would be recognizable to us. Another aspect of the location of Mount Ararat that makes me think is that if it’s in Turkey, which makes total sense to everyone because human civilization is supposed to have started in the Fertile Crescent, the land in Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, so the story of Noah could have been just a valley flooding or a large part of land, it didn’t necessarily mean the entire earth. But what the IM notes is something completely different, that it had to be the entire earth because, “it should be remembered that the Garden of Eden was in the land now known as North America.” Adam-ondi-Ahman is supposed to be “where Adam dwelt,” and that is located in Missouri. The IM notes, “Although it is not known how far men had moved from that general location in the sixteen hundred years between the fall of Adam and the Flood, it is likely that Noah and his family lived somewhere in the general area.” So if Noah and the ark started in Missouri and ended up in the mountains of Turkey, then the flood would have had to effect the entire earth. The IM quotes Elder Joseph Fielding Smith as teaching, “Without any question a considerable distance separated the point where the Ark commenced the journey and where it landed. There can be no question to contradict the fact that during the flood great changes were made on the face of the earth. The land surface was in the process of division into continents. The rivers mentioned in Genesis were rivers that existed in the Garden of Eden long before the land was divided into continents and islands.” It’s interesting to consider how and when the land masses went from a consolidated Pangea to the separated places that we have today, it sounds like he’s suggesting that it happened during the flood, but who knows. 8:5-12 - It took several months from the time the rains stopped until the water receded enough for Noah to be able to open the “window of the ark” and then he sent out a raven, “which went to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.” I’m not exactly sure what that means, did the bird just go out and fly around and then come back? I don’t know. Noah also sent a dove who flew around but “found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him in the ark.” So she flew around but couldn’t find any place to land, so that probably means that the water was going down but still covering everything. Noah waited seven days then sent the dove out again, but this time she came back “in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off.” So now the water is starting to get low enough that trees are visible. This still begs the question are these trees that held on to the ground during the flood, is it just debris that has been ripped up and landed somewhere, are these trees in the stage of healing in such a way that they can provide for Noah and his family? I find many problems with this whole “3 weeks and the water was gone and everything was back to normal” thing, but again, we’re not taking it literally, just figuratively. Seven days after the dove brought back the olive branch, Noah sends her out again and then she doesn’t come back. Again, I find this suspect, but whatever. 8:13-22 - I’m not exactly sure of the timeline, but it appears that Noah waits in the boat for several more months until he “removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.” It took several more weeks for the ground to be dry enough for the Lord to tell Noah that it was ok to get off the ark with all the animals, and they get a command just like Adam and Eve did, “be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.” So Noah does just that, him and his family and all the animals get off the ark, “and Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” This makes sense as to why there were so many clean animal pairs needed. God is pleased with the sacrifice and “smelled a sweet savour,” which I think is a reference to the incense burned in the temple. Because He is pleased, God promised to not curse the ground any more for man’s sake, but then in a seemingly contradictory way says, “for the imagination of mans’ heart is evil from his youth.” I don’t know if this is supposed to mean that God is accepting that man is bad and that he can’t keep killing all of them every time the evil gets out of control. It seems like such this statement is not in keeping with the general theme of the verse and makes me wonder if this is also a translation problem, or Satan’s influence, or something that I miss altogether. God promises a normal return to seasons and planting and day and night “while the earth remaineth.”