Yes, children love animals, but even more, parents seem to love to surround their children with stories of the flood. This has always baffled me: how did the horrible, brutal story of the massacre of all creation (save the inhabitants of one boat) come to be universally acknowledged as an excellent children's story and soothing night-time routine???
 

I guess it depends on who you identify with in the story. The focus is (for children's books, and perhaps even in general) on the ark and those inside. For Noah and his family, it is an amazingly hopeful story, because it really is God's first act of salvation since the fall.

I really think the big reason we tell it to kids is nothing more complicated than the animal connection. (Scenes of Eden are also very common for nursery murals).

By the way, I think this engraving by Dore captures both aspects of the story beautifully.
 

If this blog is like most of those I've been to, you'll hopefully notice even when I comment to old posts. So I'll ask here - why does Genesis 9 seem to portray such a very 'small' God, like one from Norse mythology, who a) is so angry and forgetful that he has to leave celestial notes to himself, b) is used as the 'explanation' for the rainbow the way the Greeks used Zeus' thunderbolts as an 'explanation' for lightning, in a way that feels very grafted-on? This troubles me. It feels incongruent with the rest of the Bible, where I have the impression that God's actions on Earth are aimed at mortals, while divine things go on in Heaven.
 

Hi Erik,

This is, in fact, like other blogs you've posted on - at least in this regard.

The topic you raise is one I've wrestled with at length - you'll find quite a few posts on it. I talk about it specifically here.

One thing I would suggest is to test your assumption with Genesis. Read the Enuma Elish, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Iliad. Immerse yourself in the world of antiquity - travel back in time. Then try reading the Bible with those eyes. You will, of course, see obvious similarities. But, because it is part of the fabric of the time, the common ways of speaking and conceiving will fade to the background. What you will be left with is a very striking picture indeed of the god of Israel - here is a good god, that loves mankind!

In other words, it is precisely when you assume Genesis to be yet another myth of antiquity that you see how unique it really is. You find that the sort of things that scandalize you are rather common to antiquity, whereas the sort of things that are part of the distinct and unique message still overwhelm us with their goodness, beauty, and truth.

That isn't to say we can always easily separate the two. Nor should we want to. If the Bible still speaks to us moderns today, we must not begrudge that it also spoke to the ancients, nor can we be too proud to associate ourselves with them. Shall the hand say to the foot, "I have no need of thee?"