Well, I wouldn’t call it waffling. As I said, I’m not certain. I think there are a variety of plausible interpretations. I don’t think most of those interpretations make the meaning of 2 Peter 3 any different. The scoffers are those who deny that “the Day of our Lord” is coming. I take that to mean those that deny Christ’s divinity in particular.
Two points:
I think people who’s whole family was killed in a local flood would care very much.
I believe the point of the flood was not the size, but the sovereignty of God and the continual unfaithfulness of humanity. I believe that to interpret 2 Peter 3 as specifically talking about those that do not hold to a global flood is very much missing the point of those verses. It’s a very idiosyncratic reading.
OK, so I’m going to try to lay out how I would look at 2 Peter 3 and the flood account in Genesis 6 as clearly as possible.
2 Peter 3
I take verses 8-10 to help clarify verses 3-4 (Scripture interpreting Scripture). The discussion is about the return of Christ and the coming judgement. Christians are waiting for the “day of the Lord” and the scoffers are saying “yeah, right, he’s not coming!”. The meaning of verses 5-7 then are a reminder of God’s sovereignty and rule over all Creation. He is not to be trifled with.
Genesis 6-8
There seem to be a few different interpretations of the flood story:
Global flood, all land animals, birds, and people beside those on the ark were killed.
Regional flood, all descendants of Adam besides those on the ark were killed
Local flood, significant flood that is the source of the flood story, unknown number of people killed
Borrowed flood legend from other ancient near eastern civilizations to make a theological point
Complete myth with no bearing on reality
Now, for me personally, here’s how I would rank Scriptural support and outside support for each of those.
Scriptural (God’s Word) support:
Likely
Likely
Somewhat plausible
Somewhat implausible
Unlikely
extra-Biblical (God’s World) support:
Very unlikely
Somewhat plausible
Plausible
Plausible
Plausible
I think 2 and 3 best reflect both the totality of Scripture and evidence we find in the world around us. I think 1-4 are probably all compatible with 2 Peter 3. I could be wrong, I’m open to that possibility. I don’t find this issue to be critical to salvation or core Christian beliefs. I think it’s worth exploring though certainly.
So, going back to my OP, how would i know if my interpretation is wrong? Well, if new geological evidence came up that made 1 (global flood) more plausible then I’d be fine moving that direction. If, on the other hand, there was some really good textual or archeological evidence for 4 (borrowed ANE myth) I might lean that way. I certainly generally prefer a more straightforward reading, but I don’t think it’s always what God intends for us to take away. I think Scriptural evidence certainly is a significant part of the picture as well.
Here’s an example where Catholics and Protestants reverse roles on literalism (and likely one where Paul rejects a literal understanding)
The problem with consubstantiation boils down to two central points:
It attempts to claim Christ is “really present,” but then denies a truly bodily (physical) component to that presence. That makes no sense. If Christ is merely “spiritually” present, which is what consubstantiation suggests, then he is not wholly present. Christ can “appear in another form” as we see in Mark 16:12 when he appeared to Clopas and the unnamed disciple on the road to Emmaus, but if it is truly and really Christ—body, blood, soul and divinity—there must be what Pope Paul VI called in Mysterium Fidei a truly “physical” reality to our understanding of that “true presence.” Otherwise, there would be no real distinction between that presence and the presence of Christ in his word or in us as Christians.
Consubstantiation ultimately denies the word of Jesus Christ who said, “This is my body . . . This . . . is the new covenant in my blood” when he instituted the Eucharist in Luke 22:19-20. “Consubstantiation” claims Jesus was still holding bread and wine in his hands—even though it also claims a sort of undefined “real presence” alongside the bread—but Jesus declares the “bread” and “wine” to be his body and blood. Unless we are having some trouble with the meaning or use of the word “is” Christ’s words in context are very clear. Christ is presenting himself as the New Covenant “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” who must be consumed in order for the people of God to participate in his saving sacrifice (John 6:53). This is the language of the real presence, including the bodily part, not the language of either consubstantiation or pure symbol.
Jordan, this is not a personal affront or insult in any way, but it is telling here that the interpretations you find most Scripturally sound are also the ones you find scientifically least “plausible”. If nothing else you do seem to see that there is a point of conflict between this passage and your current understanding of science. That’s a good place to start.
Well, if new geological evidence came up that made 1 (global flood) more plausible then I’d be fine moving that direction.
The geological evidence we already have strongly points in that direction. If this sort of evidence truly is of interest to you, I hope you are following the articles at creation.com closely!
I think Scriptural evidence certainly is a significant part of the picture as well.
Then why not default to that view which you find scripturally most likely, regardless of your current understanding of science? Isn’t God’s direct revelation in Scripture more important than a human consensus view?
The scoffers are those who deny that “the Day of our Lord” is coming. I take that to mean those that deny Christ’s divinity in particular.
Well, in this particular place Peter doesn’t specifically mention the divinity of Christ, but it’s no stretch. But Peter does specifically mention that these scoffers will deliberately overlook the creation and the Flood. It seems you are skipping over that important detail. Every possible interpretation you listed as scientifically “plausible” is also an interpretation that nobody would scoff at (including atheists!). But Peter’s scoffers here are those who deny these historical facts, not merely the divinity of Christ.
I think people who’s whole family was killed in a local flood would care very much.
Sure, but that’s a non-sequitur. We weren’t discussing whether it would matter to those affected. We are talking about how Peter says that later on, this would be an event that scoffers would deliberately overlook (deny it happened).
I believe the point of the flood was not the size, but the sovereignty of God and the continual unfaithfulness of humanity. I believe that to interpret 2 Peter 3 as specifically talking about those that do not hold to a global flood is very much missing the point of those verses. It’s a very idiosyncratic reading.
Anything less than a global flood just makes the story look like complete myth/fiction (and is not faithful to the text). It clearly says that the water went over ALL the highest mountains under the whole heaven (v. 6:19), and no local flood can achieve that because water seeks the lowest point. And Noah was given 120 years advance notice, so there would have been no need at all to build an Ark and put animals and people on board. Just move; 120 years is more than enough time to get out of the way!
As a case in point, I wonder if you can show me any theologians who read the Bible and came to the conclusion of a local/regional flood prior to the advent of secular old-earth geology in the 1700s. If not, why not?
Well, it certainly is a frustration. My default is a pretty straightforward reading, assuming that the translators did a good job putting the Hebrew and Greek into understandable English. Sometimes there are passages I don’t understand that I seek more cultural or contextual help. Also, my pastor is an expository preacher. We do a book of the Bible over 3-4 years going verse by verse. The flood story is definitely a “big one” when it comes to “conflict” but like I mentioned previously, I’m not particularly concerned about the outcome. I think multiple interpretations are possible without doing harm to the message of the story.
Well, to some extent I’ve already been there, done that. I grew up YEC, and in fact I think I’m the only non-YEC in my family. I’m also the only scientist in my family. I have RATE sitting on my bookshelf next to a radioisotope geology textbook from Berkeley. I read Scientific Creationism by Morris and took structural geology, hydrology, and geochemistry courses as an undergraduate. Part of my job is to teach some of the physics and chemistry that a young earth and global flood would have to violate in order to be factual. Unlike some former YEC people, I don’t have any animosity towards YEC generally. Most I know are good hearted people who are trying to follow truth as best they can. So, I’ll probably poke around CMI a bit, it’s been probably 10 years since I look at YEC literature much.
I do default to that view, unless there is strong outside evidence that makes me think I’m interpreting it wrong. That has happened for me in the case of a young earth and global (over the highest mountain) flood. If God intended that the flood story had to be taken literally, I believe he would have make it abundantly clear in creation. It would have left an enormous mark on the physical world, one that would be unmistakable. I simply don’t believe that God hides the truth from science. So I take special and general revelation seriously. Both are also prone to misinterpretation so we need to work hard to uncover the truth in both. I think “plain reading of Scripture vs human consensus view” is a false dichotomy. The Church has to interpret both the text and the data around us. I really think Scripture and science are a both/and, not an either/or.
I’m not skipping verse 6, I’m reading the entire chapter, which seems (to me) to be obviously about the timing of the day of the Lord and having patience and hope despite the naysayers. Verses 5-7 seem parenthetical, and as I’ve said previously, focused on God’s sovereignty and judgement. That fits in nicely with the overall point of the chapter. I don’t see it making a specific point as to the particular interpretation of the flood. I think it’s just assuming a global flood, which makes sense. I just can’t see how it would require a global flood so I don’t see 2 Peter 3 as helping us make an interpretive decision about Genesis 6-8. I don’t see it making a specific point about the scoffers being those who deny the specific historicity of a specifically global flood.
But can’t you see how it wouldn’t have to be global to be scary or thought-provoking. I mean, take Hurricane Katrina or Sandy or Harvey. If somebody (as they often do) says that a hurricane’s destruction was judgement from God, why do people scoff at that? Is it because it’s not big enough? Because it doesn’t kill enough people? No, they scoff at it because they either 1) don’t believe in God or 2) don’t believe God uses natural disasters as judgement. It’s not the size or the details of the disaster that make one person scoff and another bow down in worship, it’s the God behind it all! This is the maddening part to me.
It makes it look like a story. A story we may not know the factual details of. I come from a part of the rural West where cowboy poets are the local art form. They are known for creative language and plenty of hyperbole. My dad once said about new tires on his truck, “they could climb trees if’n the bark was right”. Is my dad a liar? No, obviously not. Is the cowboy poet always easy to understand? No, sometimes you need context, back story. Sometimes you need to let it percolate to find a deeper truth. I think some parts of the Bible are very similar. A story doesn’t have to be 100% accurate to be 100% true.
I’m not exactly sure, I’ve never worried that much about it. As I’ve said before, I don’t see it affecting any Church doctrines or the Gospel so I’m not bothered either way really. Interestingly though, the guy who gave us:
seemed to think there were good reasons to rethink it a couple hundred years before “secular geology”:
Leonardo doubted the existence of a single worldwide flood, noting that there would have been no place for the water to go when it receded. He also noted that “if the shells had been carried by the muddy deluge they would have been mixed up, and separated from each other amidst the mud, and not in regular steps and layers – as we see them now in our time.” He noted that rain falling on mountains rushed downhill, not uphill, and suggested that any Great Flood would have carried fossils away from the land, not towards it. He described sessile fossils such as oysters and corals, and considered it impossible that one flood could have carried them 300 miles inland, or that they could have crawled 300 miles in the forty days and nights of the Biblical flood.
What I want to reiterate is, a global flood seems reasonable if all you have is the Bible, especially in English. It’s only when you start looking around for the obvious remains and you start grappling with the physical ramifications that it makes you pause and think “wait, maybe I’m reading that wrong”. Geology is not some vast secular conspiracy. It’s just trying to slowly and methodically piece together history from what God has given us in creation itself. At this point I feel like we’re left with YEC folks essentially saying “God must have supernaturally intervened so that it looks like there wasn’t a global flood, even though there was.” That seems very unlikely.
Then explain what it is that the scoffers are denying. This is the point I’m trying to get you to address. You cannot say they are merely denying Christ. That would not be taking Peter seriously when he says they deliberately overlook those specific historical facts (and he lists creation and the Flood!).
If somebody (as they often do) says that a hurricane’s destruction was judgement from God, why do people scoff at that? Is it because it’s not big enough?
It sounds like you are suggesting Peter’s meaning here is that the scoffers would deny these things were from God, (not that they happened at all). Yet Peter says they would deny that it happened. Just read his language; they are denying the events, not just that God did them.
A story doesn’t have to be 100% accurate to be 100% true.
Sigh. If Christ is not raised, then our faith is in vain. You’re applying a cherry-picked hermeneutic to Scripture where some things have to be 100% accurate while others do not. Peter is crystal-clear that these events he’s talking about are real history, not myth. And he says scoffers would deny them.
Leonardo doubted the existence of a single worldwide flood, noting that there would have been no place for the water to go when it receded.
Leonardo was an artist, not a theologian, and in any case people certainly doubt that Leonardo was a Christian at all. The Deists would like to claim him as one of their own, for example:
Sounds like he had a lot of the same misconceptions that modern-day skeptics do, and may have been be one of the “scoffers” Peter was warning about.
At this point I feel like we’re left with YEC folks essentially saying “God must have supernaturally intervened so that it looks like there wasn’t a global flood, even though there was.” That seems very unlikely.
Do not misattribute old-earth speculations and interpretations to God himself.
And I have repeatedly said, I think they are denying “the day of the Lord”, the return of Christ. I think Peter is saying that they don’t think Jesus was truly God, and so the Christian “hope” is pointless. This then makes sense of why Peter would bring up creation and flood, they speak to God’s sovereignty and judgement.
It seems pretty clear to me that they are denying what happened because they deny God either exists or has power over them. I don’t think specifically denying a global flood is the point, at all.
Oy vey! You don’t seem to understand what I meant by that. I am saying, taking the resurrection as an example, that I don’t have to have 100% historical accuracy in the text to believe that Christ’s resurrection is 100% true. I don’t have to nail down if Judas hanged himself or jumped off a cliff before I can declare “He is risen!”. The New Testament is a witness to Christ, not a logical proof of Christ, not even a case for Christ. It is, as Luke puts it, “an orderly account”.
I’m not applying a cherry-picked hermeneutic, I’m applying a hermeneutic that takes into account context, history, creation, other parts of Scripture, etc. That means different parts of the Bible have different genres, different levels of historical accuracy, etc. I’m trying to use God’s complete revelation, special and general, Word and World, to figure it all out. I will make mistakes, I’ll need to adjust with more information, but I truly feel that God’s OK with that. He asks that we seek him, I’m trying to do that as best I can.
I’m not sure how you got that out of what I said, but I would maybe gently reflect that back.
In the end, if Noah’s flood was global, great! I don’t have a problem with that. It just seems unlikely from what we see in the world. If Noah’s flood was regional, local, or a “redeemed” myth, then I don’t see how it makes the message any less important to us today. I don’t see how either way would change my interpretation of 2 Peter 3 either. I would interpret it the same way if I was YEC (and did when I was).
So they deny the events themselves. They deny what happened. So… who is scoffing at the idea of a local flood? If the flood was local, then that works with secular geology just fine (allegedly), and thus it is accepted even by atheists as the explanation for why we have this flood legend. Nobody is scoffing at a local flood (nor would they).
I may have misspoken there then. I don’t believe that the scoffers are scoffing at the flood. I believe, as I’ve said before, that the scoffers are scoffing at the idea of the day of the Lord or Christ’s return. I think Peter is using the creation and flood stories to remind the scoffers that God is very much present and sovereign and the day of the Lord will indeed come. I might sum up verse 5-6 as “But the scoffers are intentionally ignoring God’s power in creating the entire universe, and his coming judgement of all things”
I really can’t see how the verses are a call to either accept or deny a global flood. I just simply can’t see that in the text.
I think the key is for you to realize that there is more to the text than merely scoffing at Jesus. That is the ultimate point, but they do it by way of scoffing at creation and the Flood. It’s unmistakably there.
That’s the only direct quotation. But we both know that Peter attributes more to them than just that saying. He mentions two things they would deliberately overlook. Since I’ve beaten this horse to death, I’m happy to just end the discussion for now if there’s nothing else you’d like to add. I respect your disagreement.
I agree. I think it’s been a good conversation. I’ve never heard of your interpretation, I think I can see where you getting it from and can appreciate more why you bring up 2 Peter 3 a lot. I just see my interpretation as more consistent with the text, but I could be wrong
I don’t subscribe to any “human consensus view.” I look at the evidence. I place the evidence that God provided over your or anyone else’s interpretation of Scripture.
You, OTOH, conflate your minority interpretation of Scripture with “plain reading” and always keep yourself many arms’ lengths away from the actual evidence, turning to human interpretations instead.
I’d say that harmonizing the actual evidence with Scripture brings one far closer to God than your hearsay approach.
