Creation Undone: The Flood

I have been reading Greg Boyd's excellent book Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence. I typically hear skeptics and atheists speak about God committing genocide when it comes to several of the violent conquest narratives, especially the flood story. Why did God kill all those people, women, children, babies and animals who were not on the ark? Here are several of Boyd's points and I will fine tune my own at the end.

1.  The flood narrative should not be interpreted as judgment violently imposed upon the earth.  It is an example of what human collective sin looks like that ends up destroying itself. The flood was not the result of something God did but what happens when God withdraws his merciful restraints from the cosmic chaotic powers of the deep.

2.  The ancient near eastern culture viewed God as sovereign over all acts whether God caused it or simply allows it to happen. Notice the actual depiction in Genesis chapter seven have the flood waters as the agents of destruction and not God. There is a cosmic battle going on here that effects the whole universe.

3.  Notice the flood narrative parallels the creation account in Genesis in reverse order. The flood is undoing creation as we see conflict and chaos and order in the creation narrative, here the separation of the waters and the floodgates bring destruction and chaos once again.  The purpose of the flood is not to punish sin but to rescue God's creation project.

Here are some of my own reflections on all this:

1.  The New Testament focus on the flood story is not judgment but salvation. The focus is on those who are saved, not on those who are destroyed.

2.  Judgment in the Bible is not so much punitive as it is restorative. The fires or floods of God's judgment is His love which is to purify us, not to destroy and punish us (except the pain people experiences of resisting God's presence and love).

3.  The Genesis structure and background story is one of idolatry and exile. The Bible's focus is on the non-violent self sacrificing love of Christ on the cross and we should interpret these stories through those lens. The focus again should not be Adam or Israel's sin but Christ and him crucified and him victorious over the principalities and dark powers of this universe.