Bad Theology

Text for today: Genesis 9 i-xvii

Having committed one of His more spectacular genocides by drowning everything in the world except for one family and a floating menagerie, God orders the survivors to be fruitful and fill the earth. He assures them that they need have no regard for their environment: no living thing has any purpose other than to serve as food for them, and all animals will fear and dread them. He forbids the consumption of blood, and commands that any man who sheds blood should have his own blood shed because God made man in His own image. God then makes a covenant with every living creature on earth, whereby He condescends not to drown them all again.

This episode shows the Father in relatively benign mood: having temporarily slaked His lust for death and destruction, He is prepared to adopt a more magnanimous aspect, like a death-camp warden handing out sweets to children. Characteristically, God's generosity takes the form of assuring His favourites that they will be a scourge and a terror to all other sentient life: as always, the best relationship He can imagine is one of fear and domination. Similarly, the grounds for His prohibition of bloodshed derive less from any moral considerations than from a narcissistic hatred of seeing His own image vandalised.

Finally, the covenant is pedantically circumscribed in order to ensure the Father's freedom of action in future genocides. God makes much of His pledge not to destroy all flesh with a flood, and sets His bow in the clouds as an aide-mémoire. What need the omnipotent Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, has had for a projectile weapon up to this point must remain a matter for speculation. Of course, the contract as specified by God is non-negotiable and final, and the very limited terms mean that God can send His Son to destroy the world with fire without violating the letter of His promise.