Did Noah preach the "good news"?

M.J.

I've heard it a hundred times. "Noah preached, so we preach." But is that what the bible indicates? To me the bible seems to suggest that it was never God's intention to allow anyone to survive aside from Noah and his family:

Gen 6: 17-18: I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.

Never a hint of God telling Noah in Genesis to go and try and save anyone.

The oft quoted passage Matthew 24:37-39 says (NASB):

"For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. "For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

This doesn't really suggest that they had a choice in the matter...rather it seems to suggest that they didn't know what hit them.

2 Peter 2:5 says,

if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;

This is the big proof that Noah "preached". Still, in a literal sense, it says Noah was preacher of "righteousness", not of God's impending wrath.

It just seems that the constant assertions by the WTS/JWs that Noah went out preaching, in the manner that JWs do today, rests on some pretty flimsy/nonexistant scriptural support.

What-A-Coincidence

damn. that is pretty good. gonna research that myself.

PRAISE ALLAH.

plmkrzy

they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

This could be understood as they ignored Noah's preaching until it hit them then it was just too late.

Narkissos

Traditions and legends are not fixed once and for all, they keep on developing in multiple directions.

The idea of Noah's preaching is echoed in 1 Clement (7):

These things, beloved, we write to you, not merely to admonish you of your duty, but also to remind ourselves. For we are struggling in the same arena, and the same conflict is assigned to both of us. So let us give up vain and fruitless cares, and approach to the glorious and venerable rule of our holy calling. Let us attend to what is good, pleasing, and acceptable in the sight of Him who formed us. Let us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious that blood is to God, which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world. Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all who would be converted to Him. Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him were saved. Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens [to the covenant] of God.

trevor

Yeah! The good news was that all animals, birds and insects could go into the ark.

The bad news - only two of each.

The rest of god's creation were to be drowned by him, because of man's sin. After the flood it was decided that sacrificing animals was a way to atone for sin. All this in a world where the people and animals were allegedly vegetarians.

This is one daft story involving a seriously screwed up man made god!

KW13

What good news was there? lol

In the ark or die!!

TheListener

M.J., I've researched this as well.

In Genesis Noah was not commanded to preach.

With respect to 2 Peter and Noah being a preacher of righteousness: Why can't we say he was preaching in the sense that he was doing God's will and others would/could see what he was doing? If he was building the ark and others asked why I'm sure he told them. Why does preaching have to imply asking others to repent. It seems that Genesis was pretty clear that God selected Noah and his family to survive - period - it's not mentioned that anyone else could get on board.

Also,

If you look at the amount of time (per the bible anyway) between Adam/Eve creation and the flood you have a little over 2,000 years. Using the bible provided life spans and average number of children per household there would have been A LOT of people around. How could Noah and his sons build a giant boad and preach to potentially millions of people? Why do we automatically assume that there were just a few people clustered around in small groups?

I didn't re-read Leo's posts that were linked but maybe she covered all of this and was more clear than I.

I'm sure there is a thread somewhere that discusses the potential number of people living in the ante-diluvian world.

The WTS has said that the number isn't known but it was probably less than the number of people living now. When I read that I thought 'Oh my God, Jehovah potentially already killed millions and millions of people with the flood and now I'm waiting for him to do it again. Will he have to do it a third time in the new order?'

Dismembered

The WT concept of Noah preaching is that when he was buying the building materials at the Home Despot back then, obviously he would have told all those at the cash register and those wearing the orange loin cloths, what he was doing, and what all those building supplies were for. How could anyone question that, it makes perfect sense.

Dismembered

jwfacts

What was the point, there were millions, up to a billion people alive at the time, as 2000 years had past since creation and people lived to 1000 years old with large families. Noah did not have time to get to even a fraction of the people alive.

Hellrider

Well, whatever it was, thank God that noone listened. If they had, then Noah would have probably had to build a whole fleet of Arks. And that`s just to much work for any underpaid carpenter to do, no matter how many sons you got with you in that family business.

Did Noah preach the "good news"?

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