Monday, February 3, 2014

Sunday School class and not reading Noah literally.

As a Mormon, I participate each week in a one hour adult Sunday School class. This is pretty much expected of active adult members. Honestly, Sunday School has sometimes felt like a drag, and I have not always been mentally or spiritually engaged in the class.

But something has been happening in our ward, which is Mormon for congregation. I have noticed a growing depth and purpose to our Sunday School classes. Perhaps I am the one who has changed. The current Sunday School teachers are diligent and effective, but no more so than teachers in years past. In the Mormon church, teachers are unpaid amateurs. They usually only hold the position for a year or two, and they aren't selected on the basis of scriptural expertise. They facilitate discussion. They ask questions. They usually aren't Biblical scholars, and they don't have all the answers.

 Whatever the reason, my feeling is that all of us, teacher and students, seem to be reading the scriptures deeply, asking searching questions, and looking for answers with both our hearts and minds, to a greater extent than I have experienced in the past. Class participation is high; a majority of members make substantial contributions to the discussion. Men and women of different ages, races, and backgrounds are sharing insights, speculations, opinions, experiences, and firm convictions. As we express our occasionally divergent views, I feel united with members of the class in our search for a better understanding of God. As we seek God together, I am coming to know my ward members better. This is a new way for me to feel like I am part of a community of saints. For me, this is what Sunday School should be.


It has been years since I have read the lesson (the text to be studied that week) ahead of class. But after a particularly meaty lesson yesterday, I decided to look in the student manual and prepare myself for next week's lesson by reading the text.

And . . . it's a Noah lesson. As in Noah and the Ark.

For years, I agonized over the Noah story. There was just no possible way that I could believe that he managed to collect representatives of every species of animal and put them on his ark. Nor could I believe that the entire planet - up to the mountaintops - was literally covered with water. It seemed to be one of the stories that kept me from being a fully believing Latter-day Saint.

Official church publications talk of a literal, global flood. Here is an article from the Ensign (the monthly magazine for adults that is published by the church) that leaves no room for anything other than a strictly literal interpretation of the Genesis account. That issue of the Ensign was published when I was a student at Brigham Young University. I distinctly remember reading the article with a sinking feeling. I even wrote a short paper for one of my university classes on my inability to reconcile the scriptural account of the flood with my understanding of science.

Noah and his ark have bothered me so much that for a long time I avoided Noah's ark themed books, toys, and puzzles for my children. It always amazed me when parents would blithely teach their children the story of the animals boarding the ark two-by-two. Inside I was screaming, "But there are tens of thousands of animal species on Earth. And that's not counting the invertebrates!"

Gradually, I have moved on from my all-or-nothing fundamentalism. I never could believe in the "all," and I didn't want to be left with nothing. I gave myself permission to believe in a local flood and in the incompleteness, fallibility, and sometimes figurative nature of scripture (including the account in Moses), and still be a good Mormon. This approach, of course, has implications beyond Noah and the ark. Some Mormons would probably consider my views on scripture to be unorthodox at best and heretical at worst. But for now, this is where I am, and I don't know where else to be.

If you're interested, here is a collection of statements made by church leaders about the flood. Included are references to the theory, which I do not discuss here, that the flood was a kind of baptism of the earth.

UPDATE: This post from Times and Seasons discusses ways in which the Biblical text itself might prefer a non-literal reading and cautions against arguing from a scientific standpoint. I got there by following a link I found on this interesting blog which is devoted to commentary on the Gospel Doctrine Old Testament lessons.

13 comments:

  1. Interesting. I usally check out of Sunday School because in our ward full of PhDs we tend to overthink things and it drives me bonkers. A few weeks ago the lesson on the creation dissolved into a dissertation on theoretical physics, with all the phyiscs guys in the room arguing. Not my idea of fun. As for Noah, I do believe it to be a literal thing, but obviously there is a lot we don't understand and/or need to know about it. I just figured if the earth had a flood it must have been a different place before and then after, what was important was that Noah was obedient to the Lord and by that was blessed. I look forward to reading your thoughts Genevive. Read you soon, Joyce Anderson

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  2. It is an interesting thing to think about. The terrain of the Earth may have been a little different that long ago. I just imagine that if the mountains were shorter and the oceans were less deep and the ice was all melted and if all of the moisture in the atmosphere of the whole earth left the air and rained down at the same time, then there may be enough water to cover the whole earth. I never really cared enough to do research on the numbers though.

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  3. Paul and I have talked a lot about science and religion. It's not an easy thing to reconcile. We've decided just to cling tight to the pieces of the puzzle we do understand and have strong testimonies of, and have faith that the few missing pieces will eventually work themselves out. Seems a lot like your philosophy too. Thanks for sharing!

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  4. I love the story of Noah; but like you, I have been to a zoo. I don't see all the elephants, lions, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, horses, cows, pigs, and polar bears cooperating for six months at sea. I don't worry about the how, and I don't worry about the literal reading of Noah's story or several others. I figure that there are lessons that we can and should learn from the story. The one story I take most literally is the atonement, which strikes me as more scientifically impossible than Noah.

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  6. It's been years and years since I've taken almost any of the scriptures literally. I also think of the Noah story as referring to a portion of the earth. In the distant past, there was all of civilization (as the people living there knew of it) around the Black Sea, that could have flooded, and in fact there are indications that it did, and wiped out that civilization. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/ax/frame.html
    This could have given rise to the story. Things like that. Or not. This was a great post. I wish our Ward had your diversity and depth for Sunday school. Really it seems if people have an honest question and give anything thing but one of the 5 expected Sunday school answers – “pray, read your scriptures, etc" people are upset in our ward. I know it's not just me that feels that way. I've talked to several others. Anyway, not being “all or nothing” is the only way I can be a member too, anymore, : ) Christ taught in parables, and I'm starting to think that more of the scriptures than many people think are parable oriented.
    I’m definitely a “liahona” saint, rather than an “iron-rodder,” as described in this talk I love that I’m sure I’ve shared before: “What the Church Means to People Like Me” http://www.zionsbest.com/people.html --Lesli

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  7. Love the post! I also struggled for a long time with the flood and other scriptural stories. Recently I've taken the attitude of thinking of *all* of scripture as being allegorical (and if a piece here or there happens to actually coincide with history, fine, but I won't really worry about that). Anyway, looking at the scriptures this way has made them much more expansive and richer and even truer to me. I'm not saying this is the correct view or anything like that, but it's working for me right now.

    I hope that we get some good discussion on Sunday. I probably worry too much about rocking the boat (haha--Noah, rock the boat...) and keep my mouth shut more than I should. I'm going to try to contribute more to class this year.

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  8. If I'm right in my thinking about the flood narrative, most of the current General Authorities are really, really wrong about it, but the discrepancies of the sciences of paleontology, geology, archaeology, and so forth to the account of the flood don't really make that big a difference to the core of the gospel. What I get more worried about is the inconsistency between neuroscience and the idea of the soul. I mean, we understand now how memories are formed in physical patterns, and we can see how those patterns are destroyed with age and disease. A lot of the things we thought the spirit was supposed to do, the physical brain is actually doing.

    Doug

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    1. Doug, I know what you mean! That worries me too.

      One ability that the physical brain isn't supposed to have is what I might flippantly call "clairvoyance." There have been a few times in my life where my brain seems to have done something supernatural. I have hope that there is indeed some interface between our physical brains and something else, something spiritual.



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  9. I've been thinking too about how literally to take some of the OT stories. We are reading it as a family this year and when I got to the creation and the flood I hedged a little about how I explained it to my kids. I personally, as a scientist, have also decided not to take it all literally, but have wondered what other LDS people think about that. Glad I'm not alone.

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  10. Thanks to everyone who commented. I feel enriched, and I'm still pondering the things that some of you said.

    If you still have Noah on your mind, or you're interested in how Biblical scholars might read Genesis, you might check the links in the update of my original post.

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  11. I feel like the people you encounter along the way as a "raised in the church" mormon can really alter your understanding. Like, your lesson about Deborah to the YW can be something that changes their whole way of thinking about priesthood and women and the scriptures. If your youth Sunday School teacher said the flood is real and literal and covered the whole earth no questions asked, then it's hard to get past that. In one of my Humanities classes at BYU a TA said that Job might have just been a story to illustrate a point. So that was when the idea of more figurative, less literal began for me. It's kind of fun that suddenly there can be a 180 shift with something you have "known" your whole life.
    I don't go to Gospel Doctrine because I work in primary, but I'm feeling inspired to do some OT studying anyway. Thanks Genevieve.

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    1. I agree with what you wrote. For me, the shift away from thinking literally about some parts of the OT has made it so much more meaningful.

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