Hi killerbunny. Cute handle, by the way
So glad that you did some research. That's awesome! I encourage more. Not that anything can replace the Bible, but the more you read, the better.
I also want to thank you for your reminder to treat one another with love. Jesus tells us to love our enemy, even. Shouldn't we love our sisters and brothers in Christ at least as much, and treat them with respect? Thank you.
I'd like to try to summarize a view that is not common on these boards, but is common in the world among Christians. There are a lot of Christians who agree with you (and others here) that Jesus really did say what the Gospels say he said. Where we are disagreeing is what he meant by it.
I believe that Jesus literally said, "As it was in the times of Noah...." What I don't believe is that Jesus thought that Noah was literal. I -- and many, many Christians in the US and abroad -- believe that Noah was written as a parable. It was never intended to be taken literally. Judaism has always taught this: it has always looked to the symbolic meaning of Scripture (our Old Testament is Judaism's Scripture), not to the literal ones. Jesus was a Jew, we know this. Therefore, we must assume that he was taught, as all Jews, that Noah, as well as all the other stories in Scripture, was symbolic rather than literal.
So, when he said, "Just as it was in the times of Noah...." he was not, in his mind, referring to a historical event or person, but to a common story that all Jews shared and would have understood.
To give you an example: have you, or someone you know, ever said, "My spidey sense is tingling" when you have a feeling that something is about to happen? Of course, your friends would immediately catch the reference to the Marvel Comic Book Character "Spider Man," who had that uncanny ability to sense things before they happened. But by saying that, or understanding it, you certainly aren't saying that you believe Spider Man actually exists, was a real, literal person, and the stories are "true." You know that, your audience knows that. There would be no need for you to say, "And I mean that in a symbolic sense." You wouldn't have to explain it -- it's a given. No one would think for a second that you meant it in any other way.
See, in my generation, the same "spidey-sense" thing was Radar O'Reilley, a character from the television show M*A*S*H. Again, totally fictional. We all knew he was fictional. And yet, sometimes we would refer to him, or to any other of those cultural icons, characters we all knew.
By referring to Noah, Jesus was referring to what he believed -- and what his entire audience believed -- was a fictional character. The fact that Noah is fiction is not important. What is important is what happened to Noah. That is the reason Jesus is referring to it. "Everyone except for Noah and his family were destroyed, according to that fictional story we all read when we were growing up and learning to read the Torah. That's what it's going to be like in the future." But if Jesus had said it that way, it would be as silly as you saying, "Well, if I believed that Spider Man was real, I'd say I had his spidey-sense, and that my spidey sense is tingling, because I sense that something is about to happen." You don't have to say it that way. Your audience gets the back-drop. All you have to say is, "My spidey-sense is tingling," and they get the rest.
Now, if you want to believe that there really was a person named Noah, who built a giant boat, and took with him 2 of every non-water-dwelling animal in existence today onto that boat, and a global flood then wiped out the entire population of the earth with the exception of Noah, his family, and those animals, you can believe that. There are plenty of people who believe that way.
I and others are simply pointing out that there are a lot of Christians who do NOT see it that way. Judaism has never taught literalism, so Jesus would not assumed a symbolic meaning of Scripture, both for himself and for his audience. If Jesus was trying to say that Noah was literal, that it really did happen that way, it would have been a huge break from the common belief of the day, and he would have had to explain it a lot more than our Gospels record. Is it possible? Yes. Does the text indicate it? No.
Just for a little more background, Christianity didn't start teaching "literalism" until the last 1800s, so this is really a new teaching, in the grand scheme of things. I guess I'm just an old fashioned kinda gal. I think if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me
