Genesis 5:32-10:1 New International Version (NIV)
Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
I love this story, because it it utterly insane. Really, it makes no sense at all and does not stand up to even childish analysis. I am reminded of the day I was first given this mad story, it was at school, I was about eight and my Catholic teacher decided that she would take it upon herself to teach my class the beauty and wisdom of the Great Flood. It went something like this.....
"Right class, today we are going to learn about Noah's arc. Does anyone here know this story?", she beamed, looking forward to enlightening the class.
Three of the kids put their arms up, immediately identifying themselves as the Catholics in the room who went to Sunday school. A small portion of kids in the other corner of the classroom growled, identifying them as children of hard-core Protestants. I remained stationary, playing none of those games with the kids.
"OK, so it came to pass that God told Noah that he would remove man from the World so it would rain for forty days and forty nights and there would be a great flood and......", the teacher became alarmed that one of her class has suddenly burst into tears, "Sally, what is wrong?"
"Miss, miss, its been raining here for two months (it being Scotland and all), we are all going to drown in a flood, I want to go home...", said Sally who took everything the teacher said as the absolute truth.
"It's OK Sally, we are used to rain in Scotland, you will be fine, just sit and listen to the story," she reassured the sobbing child, "...right, so, God then instructed Noah to build an Arc, a big boat..", the teacher was then interrupted by me, "What is it?", she sounded irritated as I had spent all morning correcting her on the solar system.
"Miss, would it not have made more sense to build the Arc before the flood, it must have been tricky afterwards? My dad has been trying to fix a fence in the muddy bottom field and he say's its a fuckin' nightmare out there...."
"Agrestic! Language! You are on your last warning!", she scolded. It is worth bearing in mind that Scottish kids are fluent in swearing by the age of six and it is expected to invent a new swear word before the age of twelve. "God is just telling Noah what he is going to do at this point, so he can build an Arc..."
"If I saw someone building a boat in a hurry I would be asking him why, Miss", I retorted
"He was told to keep it a secret, Agrestic, so that the sinners on Earth would not copy him"
"Pretty big thing to keep secret miss, there must have been fucking tonnes of wood....."
"Agrestic, language! Noah separated himself from the rest of the people, so that his secret to God was kept"
"He must have gone a long way from other people Miss, because that is a shitload of wood he needed, anyway what was to stop other people coming over and watching what he was d.....?"
"He built a fence, now be quiet and listen!!", she was already sensing that this was not going to be an easy ride for her and some of the rest of the class were egging me on. "I'll continue, so Noah started building a huge boat..."
"He'd need an L shaped inner privacy fence Miss!", I interrupted, having thought long and hard about fences, "You, see if he was taking a load of wood in the gates would open then people would see in, so he would have to put in an L shaped inner fence so they could not. It would have to be big too Miss, because my dad says that getting a tractor and trailer through the double gates in the hay field is a complete pain in the a...."
"Yes Agrestic! Very clever, now be quiet and listen!", she was becoming slightly exasperated and took a mouthful of tea to calm herself down, "A huge boat, which was fifty cubits in length..", she glared at me at this point to prevent another interruption, "and made of wood. Once it was complete the animals came to the boat two by two and began to board the boat.", already she could see a mix of expressions amongst the class, some kids were enthralled, some bored and one or two looking very confused.
"All the animals Miss?", I asked, really struggling with the concept
"Yes Agrestic, all the animals", she replied already sensing trouble
"Of the entire world?"
"Yes, that's right Agrestic, all the animals of the World boarded the Arc....", she was about to continue but...
"Like camels and elephants and rhinoceros?"
"Yes...."
"And the insects?"
"They will have just flown above the water Agrestic", she sipped another mouthful of cold tea, it didn't help.
"No Miss, the insects need to rest, they cannot fly for forty days, some don't even live for more than a couple of weeks, we have really bad fly strike at the farm right now and the maggots feed on dead things, it's fucking disgusting Miss!"
At this point the teacher opened her bottom drawer and discretely poured a large shot of whisky into her tea cup.
"Then the insects must have gone onto the Arc Agrestic, as I said it was all the animals..."
"And invertebrates too Miss!", I added trying to be helpful
"ALL the creatures of the World got onto the Arc, two by two....", the refreshing gulp of whisky was restoring her composure.
"What did the tigers eat Miss?", I asked thinking about the logistics of keeping large numbers of animals in a wooden boat.
"Uh, um, oh yes the Bible says that, uhm, they became vegetarian for the time at sea!", the whisky had calmed her nerves but softened her reason too, "are you quite finished Agrestic?!"
"No Miss, I'm just warming up!", I replied, starting to get into the swing of things.
"Do you want sent out of this classroom?!", she barked, hoping to bludgeon me into silence. However, that very morning the battery had died on my Dad's tractor and the swearing could be heard all the way down the glen, there was no chance her shouting at me was going to have any effect.
"Yes please Miss!", I replied, thinking I was going to get a chance to read more of my book titled 'Space and the Universe'.
"Shut up and be quiet Agrestic!!"
"Kangaroo's Miss", I quietly replied.
"What??"
"Kangaroo's Miss, how did they get on the Arc?", knowing full well that this presented her with a logistical nightmare.
She ducked below the desk and took a gulp directly from the bottle, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she sat back up again.
"God , did it, he made the animals arrive using his divine power!"
"Wouldn't it have been a shitload easier for him to use his divine power just to have gotten rid of the bad people Miss?", I had clearly thought about it too much, "I mean there are way more animals and insects and beasties in the World than there are people, it would have been a lot easier just to, like ZAP! and make them disappear!", I was becoming enthusiastic about the idea now and imagining ways it could work.
Sally burst into tears again, "I don't want to be zapped Miss, I want to go home!!"
"Sally, it is fine, nobody is getting zapped..."
"Apart from you Miss", I muttered under my breath as I caught the smell of cheap whisky in the air
"Agrestic, just be assured that Noah made the Arc, nobody saw what he was doing because of an L shaped fence, all the animals and creatures of the World arrived, two by two and filled the boat. OK?!", she was now regretting having not taken the offer of a job at the local greengrocer.
The class remained silent, so the teacher felt like she was back in control again. She took one more sip of whisky from the tea cup, burped quietly and decided to continue..
"So, the rains came for forty days and forty nights, shut up Agrestic, and then a great flood came and covered the world in water. All that remained was Noah's Arc and the animals inside!", she has at least got to this point in the story and felt like she was nearing the end.
"Miss...", I asked, really slowly
"Fuxsake, what is it now?!", she snapped, loosing her composure
"My Uncle Jimmy is a fisherman up near Lewis, he says Auntie Agnes is a complete bitch, so he goes off in his boat even where he has no quota left, just to get away from her like. He can stay on the water for weeks at a time. Wouldn't there be seafaring folk already in the World who already had boats?"
"I suppose that there might have..."
"Mind you Uncle Frank says that Uncle Jimmy just moors up in Oban and spends his time with a hoor called Gladys!", I added, trying to be helpful.
"Agrestic, please, just listen. All the animals were in the boat and nothing else was left on the world except water, OK?"
"Where did the water come from Miss?", I asked recalling a chapter I had read in a science book
"From the sky Agrestic, it rained"
"But the water comes from the sea Miss! The sun evaporates the sea, it condenses as clouds and precipitates as rain, then it goes back to the sea!", I was on firm ground here having read it and alarmingly understood it.
"God made the rain, so it was extra water added to the World, so the sea levels rose to cover everything, OK?!", she had ceased trying to avoid confrontation at this point and was beginning to doubt herself.
"No Miss that cannot be right either! The weight of the extra water would cause the weight of the planet to change, the additional gravitational pull would cause the Moon to crash into us!", I beamed at her with my cleverness.
Sally screamed and sobbed, "I don't want to be squished by the Moon Miss!!, I wanna go home!"
The teacher, brought the bottle onto the table and in full sight of the class drained it. "Who want's to go outside and play?", the class cheered, "fuck off then....."
