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Under Construction, Week 2, Day 8

by David Joynt on August 18, 2019

Under Construction, Week 2, Day 8

GENESIS 6:5 | The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.

There were flood stories that circulated among the peoples of the ancient near east in what some call the Fertile Crescent.  The fertility of crops and survival of these nations depended on rivers and flood plains.  The idea of a world wide disaster was common then and now.  Movies and T.V. series are often based on a post–apocalyptic narrative, in which a natural or man-made disaster destroys civilization and the survivors must restart things.  The  Walking Dead is a current example.

The biblical authors however, take up the Flood Story to comment on the deeply flawed character of human life.  The Lord said that “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was evil continually!”  The disaster of the flood is a judgment on human beings.

What is your view of human nature?

What do you base it on?

 

Tags: judgement, flood, human nature

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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