Noah’s Choice And God’s Message To Vegeterians
Noah, the bible tells us, built an ark. Then he escaped the flood in it, he, his family, and all the animals: each species sent either two or seven representatives, depending how close it was to god (e.g., if they were “clean” animals or not).
They were stuck together in this ark for many months. First the rain, 40 days, then until it dried, then until land was seen, then until the pigeon found the olive leef, then until god allowed Noah to leave. Finally, the flood was over.
Now, the bible tells us, Noah leaves the ark. What is the first thing he does? Probably what every reasonable man would do after such an experience: he builds an altar, and sacrifices something to god: maybe, the reader could wander, he wants to thank the lord for his salvation. But wait: does he sacrifice “something”? let’s read exactly what the bible says, in Genesis chapter 8, 18-21:
(18) So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. (19) All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
(20) Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. (21) The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
Have you noticed verse 20? It is more straightforward in the Hebrew original, but you can get it here, too: after taking care of the clean animals for months, stuck together in this ark, now that Noah can finally leave the first thing he does is take all these animals and slaughter them one by one!
I would end this blog here, leaving you to wander about the nice psychological consequences, if god was not even better in the following verse: he likes the smell. The smell! You just drawned the entire world, and now you say: hmmm… I like the smell of the burning flesh, let’s promise not to drawn the entire world in a flood again! I won’t kill everyone, because I will loose the nice aroma, and man’s foolishness is not worth loosing it!
Take this into consideration next time you are bar-b-quing some clean animal.
Please the lord, all you vegeterians.
October 26th, 2006 at 7:44
It’s called a barbecue, Elad. Noah had a barbecue, I can’t see what can be wrong with that, he was crammed for 40 days with a bunch of animals, why won’t he have a party? I say he deserves to eat the animals.
Another fine point: If he had only two of each kind… And he barbecued some of them… So he actually brought species to extinction in his barbecue. How about that?
– Arik
October 26th, 2006 at 10:44
Arik,
He cooked only the “clean” animals, of which he had seven. He was stuck with them for something like a year, not for 40 days, so maybe by that time he actually had more then seven. I just tried to imagine what went on there, and what he felt, having treated them all this time and then taking everybody to the altar, without being requested to do so: he couldn’t handle just a single cow or something, could he? By the way, he is never said to have eaten the slains, although he must have been hungry after all this time in the ark, so it is most probable.
Another thing, if you continue the reading you discover that the rainbow thingy is actually god’s reminder of the covenant for himself rather then for the man: if god ever feels like flooding again, it should appear and remind him of the nice aroma he’s about to loose… or something
- Elad
October 31st, 2006 at 23:02
I don’t think your reading of this chapter is correct - in the Hebrew original, the word used is ניחוח, which most often means a pleasant smell but not always, and even if it is supposed to mean a pleasant smell, the way I read it is reported as factual and not as something that god finds pleasant. They way I always understood it is that god was pissed at Noah for sacrifising all the animals that Noah was asked to save and just gave up on the whole thing.