Douglas Clark's Article on Spectrum Website

The Spectrum website posted an article that is interesting about the recurring theme in Genesis of accounts of human foibles and divine correction, the salient points are excepted here:

Collapse, Correction, and Rescue: A Deluge of Questions
By Douglas R. Clark

Genesis 6–9 is part of what scholars call the "Primeval Prologue," Genesis 1–11, which differs somewhat from what follows in Genesis 12 and beyond with its universal perspective and "prehistorical" flavor. A remarkable collection of accounts about divine origins of the earth and human faith and foibles, Genesis 1–11 proposes five cycles of collapse, correction, and gracious rescue, the fourth of which is the Flood Story. These can be represented as follows:

1. Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. All was "very good" until Adam and Eve collapsed under the temptation to arrogance in the face of God’s command about the tree. The corrective measure involved death on the day of eating the fruit, but God kindly intervened, rescuing the pair for reasons known only to grace.
2. Cain and Abel in Genesis 4:1–16. Cain succumbed to the rash decision to murder his brother, an act that did not result, as we might expect, in the punishment of "life for life," but in hard labor and exile east of Eden. Graciously, God protected Cain’s life with a visible mark, allowing him to marry and raise a family.
3. Lamech and his wives in Genesis 4:23–24. While the cycle of collapse, correction and rescue only partially unfolds here, Lamech ascends to arrogance, taking on himself the right to murder in revenge for an injury, thereby violating also the principle of "limb for limb." Neither expressions of punishment nor gracious intervention appear in this cycle.
4. Noah and the flood in Genesis 6–9. Because of disastrous and disgusting moral human collapse, God brings about the corrective response of a massive inundation intended to wipe out every living thing, only to intervene graciously by saving people and beasts in the ark of safety and pledging no repeat performances like this one—ever.
5. The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Arrogance again figures in the downfall of humans as they try to rise to the heavens. God confuses their language, thus preventing further construction of both the tower and the hubris it represents. Grace comes not so much in this story, but in the subsequent appearance of Abraham in Genesis 12.

The Flood Story thus does not occur in a vacuum. In context, it represents an increase in the intensity of human collapse to the point of a totally engulfing storm of evil and guilt. It reflects a rise in corrective punishment with the watery burial of everything known to humans. It also conveys increased divine favor, driven only by grace knows what, to rescue, redeem, and reclaim humanity and the world.

I like the concept but it has inserted a few things which aren’t really in the stories rather they are insertions placed in the story by various traditions. For instance in the Adam and Eve story Clark says:

The corrective measure involved death on the day of eating the fruit, but God kindly intervened, rescuing the pair for reasons known only to grace.

This is not found in the story. They are expelled from the garden. The verse was never meant to imply that they would die on the very day they ate the fruit. If it did then God would have lied to Adam and Eve. The concept of God lying to people is something that the author of Genesis would never have considered to be an appropriate interpretation. The point of the story is man fails but God does what He says He will do. The only viable interpretation is that the translation of “day” is idiomatic for “when”. So we don’t have a story with unexplained grace we have actions, with results and consequences. Indeed instead of gracious rescue the stories tell of consequences but the consequences do not show abandonment by God. God remains active even when the people fail.

Clark is more accurate in number 2:

Graciously, God protected Cain’s life with a visible mark, allowing him to marry and raise a family.

You can see why in some ways that Clark wanted to rewrite the Adam and Eve story. It is a little harder to say that God graciously kicked them out of Eden so that they would no longer have access to the Tree of Life. To the traditional Christian it sounds better that God had promised to kill them on the day they ate the fruit and then He graciously decided not to kill them just to expel them. Why the idea of a God saying sin and I will kill you is more attractive to most Christians I don’t know. It is I suppose the siren call of traditionalism as put forth in the penal theory of Atonement generated in the latter part of the Middle Ages. Where the God who promises to kill you is gracious if instead He kills someone else, someone innocent, and let’s the guilty go free. Naturally to make such a travesty seem acceptable the vague story of Creation is the place to start. Fertile ground for speculative additions that it is.

Clark has done well in pointing out to us the replication of the idea of man’s sinfulness and God’s character which does not abandon the sinner. That of course is the focus of Genesis as we move into the promised nation who will in time bring forth the promised Messiah and the reconciliation of all things as the Bible in small steps leads us through the journey of learning about God and ourselves.