In my previous post, I ranted about those who feel the need to call the Bible 100% accurate about historical facts. The Bible is not about historical facts. Indeed, I imagine there are very few historical facts in the Bible that might actually make any difference in anyone’s life. At the moment, I can think of only one event whose historicity (whether or not it actually happened) is made important by a biblical author (see 1 Cor 15:13-14). Certainly not Noah’s ark. In my last post, I mentioned Noah’s ark as a relevant example of this principle. Bob Cargill, a fellow Bruin, has published an article at Biblical Interpretation addressing this theme regarding Noah’s ark: “Forget about Noah’s Ark; There Was No Worldwide Flood.” The following bit hits on my point exactly:

It is time for Christians to admit that some of the stories in Israel’s primordial history are not historical. It is ok to concede that these stories were crafted in a pre-scientific period and were designed to offer ethical answers to questions of why and not questions of how. Christians and Jews must concede that the Bible can still be “inspired” without being historically or scientifically “inerrant.” . . . Simply because a factual error exists in the text of the Bible does not mean that an ethical truth or principal cannot still be conveyed. It is time for Christians to concede that “inspiration” does not equal “inerrancy,” and that “biblical” does not equal “historical” or even “factual.” . . . It is time Christians conceded that there was no flood. . . . It is time for groups of evangelical amateurs to stop making sensational claims about discoveries they did not really make. And it is time for people to stop looking for Noah’s ark. [emphases mine]

Right on, Bob (check out his iTunes lectures on Jerusalem, by the way). To his comment “answers to questions of why,” I would also add “who.” That is, these stories also indicate who is the highest God and, by extension, define a people: the people of that God.

By the way, your faith is not in vain if Noah’s ark didn’t exist . . . even if Jesus refers to it. A commenter on Bob’s biblioblog [not to be confused with "Bob Loblaw's Law Blog"] raises this issue: What about the fact that Jesus talked about Noah? The commenter (who is certainly not alone with this argument) says:

If the Noah’s Ark story is merely fictional, how do we interpret NT passages referring to it? (Matthew 24:37-39, Hebrews 11:7, I Peter 3:20, II Peter 2:5)

I can accept that the epistle writers’ understanding of the OT may be culturally bound, but what about Jesus’?

He’s willing to go further than most, granting that the epistle writers are culturally bound. But why can’t Jesus be culturally bound? Seems to me (reading his culturally bound parables, for instance, or about his culturally bound crucifixion) that he was. It also seems to me that suggesting otherwise feels a bit like docetism. Furthermore, even if we granted that there was no way anything Jesus said could have been culturally bound, the fact of the matter is: we don’t have the direct words of Jesus. He didn’t write anything, at least nothing that lasted (John 8:6). If the epistle writers are culturally bound, then why aren’t the gospel writers? And finally, the specific reference in Matthew is figurative apocalyptic discourse anyway. The historicity of Noah’s ark makes no difference to the point the Matthean Jesus is making in the passage.