Waterworld

In these past weeks, we've been walking the world before the flood. It was a world filled with proud warriors and strong men (Genesis 6:4). It was also a world that broke God's heart (Genesis 6:5-6), on account of how widely evil had multiplied and metastasized through all flesh until the whole earth was corrupt, ruined (Genesis 6:11-12). And yet God found one healthy spot: a man named Noah. God favored him, graced him (Genesis 6:8). Noah was righteous in his ways, unblemished in his integrity, and walked with God like Enoch had (Genesis 6:9). And so God disclosed his plans to Noah, commanding him to build something unusual: a massive ark out of wood and reeds and bitumen, with very clear specifications, because this ark was going to be a foreshadowing of Christ's Church (Genesis 6:13). It was going to rescue man and beast alike at the end of the world. And so God waited patiently as Noah built his ark, years whizzing by (Genesis 6:22; 1 Peter 3:20). Noah bore witness, a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5), but even as the final days and hours counted down, none would follow. And so Noah entered the ark with his household and the grand zoo God had sent (Genesis 7:7-9, 13-15).  And then God sealed the door (Genesis 7:16). The hour was here.

We've been reading Genesis alongside other Middle Eastern stories about the flood – one scholar suggests that “probably some version of the story had been told for millennia,” since before there was even writing to write it down with.¹ These pagan versions of the story describe the flood as coming by darkness and storm, with the gods having a very open and visible role in the disaster: “A black cloud rose on the horizon; Adad the storm god was roaring inside it, Thunder and Lightning marched at the front, bearing his throne over mountains and plains.”² “Adad rode on the four winds, his mules...; the gale, the storm, the downpour blew for him, the wicked wind...”³ “All the evil winds, all stormy winds, gathered into one.”⁴ “The chariot of the gods was flashing, it was flooding, it was killing, it was threshing.”⁵ “Erra, god of war, ripped out the moorings; the dikes overflowed as Ninurta walked by.”⁶ “Anzu with his talons ripped apart the heavens.”⁷ “All that was bright turned dark. Like an ox he trampled on the land, and it shattered like a pot of clay. For a full day the wind blew, it stormed from the east and brought the flood that spread like war over the country.”⁸ “The Flood bellowed like a bull; like a screeching eagle the winds howled. The darkness was dense, there was no sun.”⁹

Now that's some storm! In comparison, Genesis is simple, sparse, stingy with the details, too concise to indulge our fancies.¹⁰ Goodness knows Israel's psalms and prophecies are littered with vivid pictures of God getting his hands dirty, riding in and dominating the scene like that; but in the Bible's flood story, the LORD doesn't ride in on his chariot, doesn't fly his clouds or fire his arrows, doesn't march through the land spewing forth his wrath. He's behind the flood (Genesis 6:17), but from the moment the flood gets going, he stays off-stage, unobtrusive, allowing things to play out.¹¹ And where the pagan stories are so obsessed with wind and darkness that any rain feels almost an afterthought, Genesis saves wind for the resolution (Genesis 8:1) and goes all in on the water.

“The sluice-gates of the heavens were opened, and rain fell upon the earth” (Genesis 7:12). Now, a sluice-gate was a kind of gate used to control waterflow out of an irrigation canal into a farmer's field; they'd usually be opened slowly and just a bit, to carefully measure out how much water the field needed. But now the great sluice-gates of the sky are thrown open, as it were, dumping their full force into the field of the world!¹² And as if that weren't enough, “all the fountains of the great deep burst open” (Genesis 7:11). It's bad enough that the rain is crashing down so out of control all at once, but the ocean beneath all things has come unglued. It isn't gently trickling upward, like a drippy spigot defying gravity. The springs are cracked, split, exploded!¹³

Some Jewish writers dramatized the flood so much that it started to sound like the other flood stories again, how God “threw clouds together and..., having covered the moon together with the stars and the crown of heaven all around, he thundered loudly, a terror to mortals, sending out hurricanes. All the storm winds were gathered together and all the springs of waters were released as the great cataracts were opened from heaven, and from the recesses of the earth and the endless abyss, measureless waters appeared, and the entire immense earth was covered.”¹⁴ Can you see that in your mind's eye?

Now, the pagan stories were all clear and unanimous how long this stormy, windy flood lasted for: “For six days and seven nights, the wind blew; the storm and the flood flattened the land.”¹⁵ “For seven days and seven nights came the downpour, the storm, the flood.”¹⁶ To which Genesis replies, “A week? Well, ain't that cute!” I mean, come on, we nearly tried that just this past week (and, sadly, some of our neighbors further north did experience pretty devastating flooding from it). No, the downpour of the True God beats the pants off the storms of the fraud-gods. Not just seven days and seven nights, but “rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights” (Genesis 7:12), “and the flood continued forty days on the earth” (Genesis 7:17). Ever after, the Bible measures out “sadder events” of trial and testing in forties,¹⁷ like Moses doing penance for Israel “forty days and forty nights” (Deuteronomy 9:18), Goliath taunting Israel daily “for forty days” (1 Samuel 17:16), Ezekiel symbolizing Judah's downfall for “forty days” (Ezekiel 4:6), and of course Jesus “fasting forty days and forty nights” in the desert (Matthew 4:2). This downpour of rain marks the world's first Lent.

The pagan stories, focusing so little on the rain, tell us nothing of the water but that, by the seventh day, “the flooded land was flat as a rooftop.”¹⁸ But Genesis tells us that, since humans “multiplied” evil on the earth (Genesis 6:5), it's fitting that “the waters multiplied” (Genesis 7:17); and since humans boasted of being “mighty men,” 'prevailers' (Genesis 6:4), it's fitting that “the waters prevailed and multiplied much on the earth” (Genesis 7:18).¹⁹ By the time in the pagan stories the storm clears, you could look around with your binoculars “fourteen peaks rising from the water.”²⁰ But the Bible, adding more and more water to the point of absurdity, says that “the waters prevailed so very much on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; fifteen cubits upward the water prevailed, and the mountains were covered” (Genesis 7:19-20). “An immeasurable flood of water”²¹ – behold, “the terrible and strange water of God!”²²

As for what that does to what lives in the world, whereas Genesis leads with the animals and saves the people for last, the pagan stories are silent on the animals but very much want you to know that nobody outside the boat was having a very good time. “Annihilation came upon the people like a battle array. A brother did not see his brother, they were not recognizable in the destruction..., the offspring were like flies.”²³ And before the storm was done, “all the people had turned to clay.”²⁴ Like the Bible puts it, “all flesh expired that moved on the earth … He blotted out all existence that was on the face of the ground, from human to animal to creeping thing and to bird of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth” (Genesis 7:21-23). So “the whole world was wiped out by the flood in accord with God's just judgment” in the face of its corruption.²⁵ But even so, Christians wondered if it was out of God's “characteristic love” that the rains lasted forty days – maybe that meant God slowed the flood down, because even though the people outside had no more chance to board the ark and save their lives, perhaps some might tread water long enough to repent and save their souls.²⁶

The pagan stories gloss over the animals and let us know, briefly, that the humans die in disaster. But you know who also has a hard time in the pagan flood? The gods who let it loose. Since pagan gods don't transcend the world, they aren't masters of what they've unleashed. The raging flood climbs so high that it corners them in real danger from their own stupidity.²⁷ “The gods feared the noise of the flood, they took refuge in heaven... The gods' heart was seized by fear; Anu was beside himself, while the gods, his sons, were huddled together before him.”²⁸ “The gods curled up like dogs in the cold.”²⁹ How different is that from the Bible, where Israel sang with gusto: “The LORD sits enthroned over the Flood!” (Psalm 29:10). Unlike the cowardly, cornered gods of Assyria and Babylon, the LORD God whom the Bible exalts is totally sovereign, totally master of this flood, and not a drop of water budges an inch without the knowing consent of the Almighty's will.

And in the wake of this downpour over which the LORD sits enthroned, the rest of creation has turned to clay, and so “only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark” (Genesis 7:23). God “delivered righteous Noah from the flood in an ark.”³⁰ That much is pretty obvious. Less obvious is that God also saved Noah, not just from the flood, but by the flood (1 Peter 3:20). Early Christians marveled at “the flood that saved Noah,”³¹ teaching that “the water of the flood was salvific for those within the ark,”³² all of whom “enjoy the salvation that comes through faith and water.”³³ The flood is “an act of salvation toward humanity” by tearing down a world that was too ruined to support humanity's reason for being; only through the flood can humanity thrive.³⁴

That's how Noah is saved, but and everyone and everything else that lives is defined here as “those who were with him in the ark” (Genesis 7:23). Noah is the anti-Jonah: where the sailors in the boat couldn't be safe until Jonah was tossed overboard (Jonah 1:15), those in the ark can only be safe because Noah, who found grace in God's sight, is in there as the reason for the ark's salvation (Genesis 6:8). To Noah, as was said to Paul, “God has granted you all those who sail with you,” who are saved for his sake (Acts 27:24).³⁵

The Bible tells us next to nothing about what's going on in the ark, what it's like in there. Readers of Genesis have asked a whole lot of questions, like “how could they have survived without fresh air?”, or “where they got their supply of drinking water from,” or “how did he put up with the stench?”³⁶ The Bible contentedly leaves it to our imaginations. It doesn't even tell us, as some readers speculated, that it was a rough ride, “battered by many raging waves and swimming under the impact of the winds.”³⁷ Genesis just says that, as the waters grew, they “bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth” (Genesis 7:17). The very same waters that destroy the world exalt Noah above the earth, an image of Jesus who says, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). And by being with him, so too “the Church is raised on high” by the floods of this world, floods of tribulation and persecution and woe which only serve to lift the Church up, up, up.³⁸

As the waters prevailed and multiplied still more, “the ark moved around on the face of the waters” (Genesis 7:18). The ark walks on water, dances on the face of the flood. Unable to stay still, the ark is speedily adrift, “steered not by human prudence but by divine providence.”³⁹ Throughout this flood, those on the ark have no control where they're being taken; but God protects them above the flood and uses it to move them where he wills. So often God employs frightful things to move us where we have no power to reach ourselves.

“And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days” (Genesis 7:24). From the dates in the text, we know this has to include the forty days of rain. But then beyond those forty days, there's another 110 days of the waters being at flood level, with no way to notice that they're gently easing off (Genesis 8:3).⁴⁰ Through it all, this long season, “all they can do is wait and hope,” this remnant left in the ark.⁴¹ And we'll join them in a couple weeks. But for now, what is this flood about? What does God want us to see in this story?

What's happening here is that the story of creation from chapter 1 is being watched on rewind mode. Have you noticed how the way creatures are described in these chapters is in the same language as when they were first made (Genesis 1:20-26)?⁴² But now they're being unmade, losing their breath of life (Genesis 7:21-23). During creation, God ordered the water to stay in just part of the world “and let dry land appear” (Genesis 1:9). Now the dry land disappears, and water fills all the places. Earlier still in creation, God “separated the waters that were under the firmament from the waters that were above the firmament” (Genesis 1:7). But with the sluice-gates of heaven and the springs of the great deep both open, these waters from above and below join and mingle and lose their God-given separation (Genesis 7:11). Still earlier in creation, God “separated the light from the darkness” (Genesis 1:4), before which “the earth was formless and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). And the flood brings us right back there. That's what's outside the ark: a “watery wilderness,”⁴³ plunged back into “the primeval night.”⁴⁴ In this 150 days, the flood has “returned the whole world to a state of fluid chaos,” rewound things all the way back to the Bible's very second verse.⁴⁵

This is an “unmaking of the order of creation.”⁴⁶ And as this comes undone, the ark is the only ordered creation left. The ark – which, remember, foreshadowed the Church – was said by one ancient Jew to be “carrying the universe” here.⁴⁷ The other stories picture the ark as totally dark amidst the swirling waters, an image “unmistakably symbolic of the womb.”⁴⁸ In contracting to the ark, creation has returned to an embryonic state. But the obvious reason was so that it could have a new lease on life. One early Christian saw that the flood's “purpose was..., by means of washing, to restore the world, which was completely soiled, to its pristine cleanliness.”⁴⁹ The flooded world, this watery undoing of creation, is in “a state of useful formlessness,”⁵⁰ one ready and primed for “reshaping and refashioning it and returning it to its pristine form.”⁵¹ Only on the other side of that great refashioning can there be “a new beginning to the world,” a creation born again.⁵²

And so hidden under the story of the flood, God has written “the mystery of redeemed mankind.”⁵³ No sooner in the Bible does the Apostle Peter mention the flood, the time when “eight persons were saved through water,” than he adds these shocking words: “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you” (1 Peter 3:21). Open your eyes, and it's obvious that “in the flood..., already at that time there was a figure of baptism.”⁵⁴ The flood, uncreating the world by water so that it could be remade, was in effect “the baptism of the world.”⁵⁵ But the flood of Noah was the symbol; it's baptism that's the substance, the real deal, the thing the flood meant.⁵⁶

When early Christians read about this flood, they saw there “the mystery of holy baptism, in which all human sins are abolished through water,”⁵⁷ “a flood... in which all sins are washed away.”⁵⁸ And that's biblical. It's why Ananias told Saul to “be baptized and wash away your sins” (Acts 22:16), why Peter told the crowds to “be baptized, every one of you..., for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). So “in the baptism of water is received the remission of sins.”⁵⁹ Now, obviously, any mere bath is just “a removal of dirt from the body,” like Peter says (1 Peter 3:21). But Paul says Christ aims to sanctify his Church through “cleansing her by the washing of water with the word” (Ephesians 5:26). That's Jesus' word, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Then the almighty grace of God showers down from the sluice-gates of heaven and uses the washing of water to blot out sin. And “as long as Christians are being baptized..., the ark appears to be floating on the waves..., being cleansed by baptism as by the flood.”⁶⁰

Paul describes being “buried with Christ by baptism into death” (Romans 6:4). “You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me... The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me” (Jonah 2:3-5). And that's what baptism is: drowning, dying, to destroy the old self, the old world, the old humanity, “in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing,” as Paul puts it (Romans 6:6).⁶¹ After all, “what is the flood,” one old saint asked, “except where sin dies?”⁶² In baptism, Jesus holds the old you, the 'body of sin,' underwater until the bubbles just ain't comin' up any more.

It's baptism Paul means when he says that “God our Savior... saved us... by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4-5). We're “regenerated by Christ through water and faith,”⁶³ with the flood having come beforehand to “show what restoration takes place in baptism,”⁶⁴ “separating us from the world, lifting us to a new heavenly position.”⁶⁵ On the other side of uncreation comes “creation reborn and cleansed from sin.”⁶⁶ If the flood forced creation back into its womb, then “by the grace of the saving waters,” we too can receive “a second birth,”⁶⁷ being “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). That's why, just like the world was only flooded once, just like Jesus only died and rose again once, we can only be baptized once.⁶⁸ And so, as with the flood, that's how we come up from that one baptism: “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

And that's the gift Jesus brought you. He suffered and died on the cross, which he called “the baptism with which I am baptized” (Mark 10:38), so that his death could sum up the entirety of the flood. The fountain of his heart burst like the great deep, the sluice-gate in his side rained forth grace, and he baptizes us into his death, flooding away sin, drowning our former self, birthing us anew in the waters of salvation. If you're baptized, you've been through that flood, are going through that saving flood even still – thanks be to God! And now, as we journey on those waters, with all the world drowned to us and us drowned to the world (Galatians 6:14), survivors are few. “But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13), for “many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it” (Song of Songs 8:7). If you want to come through the flood with flying colors, just become love – love as it lives can't be drowned, no matter how many days the rains fall. May this great baptism with which we've been baptized make us all love, a love that stays clean from sin. Let all former things, all corruptible things, be swept away; but let life and love in Christ remain, a new creation. Amen.

1  Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (Stodder & Houghton, 2014), 87.

2  Gilgamesh XI.98-101, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 103-104; cf. also in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:709.

3  Atrahasis: U r. 5'-8', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 96.

4  Eridu Genesis D.1, in The Context of Scripture 1:515; see also in <https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.7.4>.

5  Atrahasis: U r. 12'-13', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 96-97.

6  Gilgamesh XI.102-103, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 104; cf. also in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:709.

7  Atrahasis: C₁ iii 7'-8' and U r. 16', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 33, 97.

8  Gilgamesh XI.107-112, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 104 (= Gilgamesh XI.107-111, in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:709-711); cf. Atrahasis: I₁ B 5'-6', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 86.

9  Atrahasis: C₁ iii 15'-18', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 34.

10  Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2003), 425; Amanda Norsker, “Genesis 6.5–9.17: A Rewritten Babylonian Flood Myth,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament: An International Journal of Nordic Theology 29/1 (2015): 59.

11  Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God (IVP Academic, 2023), 74-75.

12  Joseph E. Coleson, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 223.

13  Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 88.

14  Sibylline Oracles 1.217-224, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:340.

15  Gilgamesh XI.128-129, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 105; cf. also in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:711.

16  Atrahasis: C₁ iv 24'-25', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 35; cf. Eridu Genesis D.3-4, in The Context of Scripture 1:515 and <https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.7.4>.

17  Ambrose of Milan, On Noah 13 §44, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 140:55.

18  Gilgamesh XI.136, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 105; cf. also in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:713.

19  Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11, Christian Standard Commentary (Holman Reference, 2023), 349.

20  Gilgamesh XI.141, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 105; cf. also in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:713.

21  3 Maccabees 2:4, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:519.

22  Sibylline Oracles 1.183, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:339.

23  Atrahasis: C₁ iii 12'-14', 19', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 35.

24  Gilgamesh XI.135, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 105; cf. also in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:711.

25  Augustine of Hippo, The Grace of Christ and Original Sin 2.29 §34, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/23:452.

26  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 25.11, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:132.

27  Paul Copan and Douglas Jacoby, Origins: The Ancient Impact and Modern Implications of Genesis 1-11 (Morgan James Faith, 2019), 165.

28  Atrahasis: C₁ iii 20'-27', cf. U r. 20'-22', in Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 34, 97.

29  Gilgamesh XI.116, in Sophus Helle, Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic (Yale University Press, 2021), 104; cf. also in Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford University Press, 2003), 1:711.

30  Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers 12.59, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:693.

31  Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 2.30.9, in Ancient Christian Writers 64:100.

32  Augustine of Hippo, On Baptism 6.40 §78, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/21:568.

33  Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 2.1.7, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:95.

34  Bryan C. Hodge, Revisiting the Days of Genesis: A Study of the Use of Time in Genesis 1-11 in Light of Its Ancient Near Eastern and Literary Context (Wipf & Stock, 2011), 145.

35  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 24.13, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:114.

36  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 25.15, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:134.

37  Sibylline Oracles 1.226-227, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:340.

38  Bede, On Genesis 7:18-20, in Translated Texts for Historians 48:190.

39  Augustine of Hippo, The City of God 15.27, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century I/7:181.

40  Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1990), 298.

41  James McKeown, Genesis, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 2008), 58.

42  Bill T. Arnold, Genesis, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 103.

43  James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 1-11: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Wipf & Stock, 2018), 104.

44  Joseph E. Coleson, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 229.

45  Daniel Hillel, The Natural History of the Bible: An Environmental Exploration of the Hebrew Scriptures (Columbia University Press, 2005), 50.

46  Loren Haarsma, When Did Sin Begin? Human Evolution and the Doctrine of Original Sin (Baker Academic, 2021), 134.

47  4 Maccabees 15:31, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:560.

48  Nathan Wasserman, The Flood: The Akkadian Sources: A New Edition, Commentary, and a Literary Discussion (Peeters, 2020), 41.

49  Optatus of Milevis, Against the Donatists 5.1, in Translated Texts for Historians 27:97.

50  Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God (IVP Academic, 2023), 70.

51  John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 25.19, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 82:139.

52  Clement of Rome, 1 Clement 9.4, in Loeb Classical Library 24:51.

53  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 138.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 6:360.

54  Ambrose of Milan, On the Sacraments 1.6 §23, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 44:276.

55  Tertullian of Carthage, On Baptism 8.4, in Ernest Evans, Tertullian's Homily on Baptism (SPCK, 1964), 19.

56  Paul Copan and Douglas Jacoby, Origins: The Ancient Impact and Modern Implications of Genesis 1-11 (Morgan James Faith, 2019), 165.

57  Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 260C.2, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/7:195.

58  Ambrose of Milan, On the Sacraments 2.1 §1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 44:279.

59  Cyprian of Carthage, Exhortation to Martyrdom 4, in Fathers of the Church 36:316.

60  Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 264.5, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/7:231.

61  Isaac Augustine Morales, The Bible and Baptism: The Fountain of Salvation (Baker Academic, 2022), 23.

62  Ambrose of Milan, On the Sacraments 2.1 §1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 44:279.

63  Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 138.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 6:360.

64  Leo the Great, Sermon 60.3.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 93:262.

65  Paul Copan and Douglas Jacoby, Origins: The Ancient Impact and Modern Implications of Genesis 1-11 (Morgan James Faith, 2019), 165.

66  R. R. Reno, Genesis, Brazos Theological Commentary (Brazos Press, 2010), 122.

67  Cyprian of Carthage, On the Dress of Virgins 23, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 36:51.

68  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q.66, a.9, in Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas 20:87.