What Does Noah Have in Common with Barney?

My daughter loved watching Barney the Dinosaur while she was growing up. I mean, she really loved it. She would dance, sing the songs, and be memorized the entire ½ hour the show was on. My wife and I didn't mind so much because barney was a decent show. It taught lessons like sharing, playing nice together, picking up after yourself, and other things kids need to learn. I guess a lot of parents felt the same way because Barney, at least at that time, was enormously popular.

So what does any of this have to do with Noah? I'll tell you. Have you ever been in a kids' Sunday school class where they told Bible stories about Noah, or Daniel, or David? They sometimes color pages with little cartoons of Bible characters. They sing songs and play Bible themed games. They hear life lessons about being nice to other people, obeying your parents, and worshiping God. These are all things that Christians parents should want their kids to learn. It's a lot like watching Barney.

My daughter is 21 now and doesn't watch Barney anymore.

I think Churches sometimes do a disservice to kids by teaching them from the Bible like it's a fairy tale. They might not say it's a fairy tale, but they teach it with the same trappings and trimmings as kids see on Barney. It has the music, the games, and it always seems to end with “a moral to the story.” In their little minds, I'm not really sure how kids can be expected to distinguish between Bible stories taught in this manner and other fairy tales like Barney, Mother Goose, or Aesop's Fables.

When these same kids start school, what might happen? Ask yourself this question: If I wanted to learn about science or dinosaurs or the universe, where might I look? Really. Think about it for a second. Name some places where you might learn about science. Next ask, If I wanted to learn about morality or religion where might I look? The answers seem obvious. Like it or not, if people want to learn about science or “facts,” the first places they think to look are schools or text books and if people want to learn about religion, only then would they look to the Bible or the Church. People tend to only think of the Bible as a book about religion. If they want to learn about the “real world,” then you have to go to school or turn to science.

We are telling kids that schools are important and will teach them things they need to know about the world. We believe it ourselves. So when these kids go to school and hear that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, there really was no Flood, and men used to be apes, I think they're apt to believe it. Worse yet, these things directly contradict the “stories” they heard in Sunday school. On Sunday, they sing songs like, “♪Oh God said to Noah, 'There's gonna be a floody floody....'♪” Then they go to school on Monday and hear that there really was no Flood. Which do you think they'll believe? The nursery rhyme or the “facts” they learned in school?

Simply telling children that we don't believe in evolution isn't enough. Imagine a group of kids going to a museum and seeing the fossils of dinosaurs, seeing stone tools used by “ape-men,” and reading that these things lived hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago. To them, these are “facts.” This is “evidence.” They might ask their Sunday school teacher about evolution or if dinosaurs really lived millions of years ago. The Sunday school teach might answer, “Oh, we don't believe that.” A curious child might ask, “No? Then what do we believe?” The teacher answers, “We believe that, '♪God said to Noah there's gonna be a floody floody....'♪” You can see how that's not convincing.

Christ called us first to preach the gospel. He then commanded us to make disciples. Preaching the word is only have the job; we also must be teachers. When we teach the Bible to children, I think we should approach the task in much the same way that kids learn in school. We don't just talk about a man named Noah. Instead, we explain that he was a person who lived in history. When they find a fossil (probably of a shell), it's evidence that this place was once under water – just like the account of Noah tells us. Instead of showing cartoons of Noah's Ark with Noah standing on the deck of the Ark in a raincoat surrounded by a menagerie poking out of every window, we need to show them to scale drawings of what the Ark might have looked like. When they ask us about fossils of dinosaurs or Neanderthals, we need to show them how these things are explained by the Bible.

Making lessons interesting and understandable to kids is fine. But above all else, we need to be sure that they understand that the “stories” from the Bible are real events that happened in history. David, Daniel, and Noah were real people just like their moms and dads are real. We need to explain that Barney is just a character like Sponge Bob.

Kids grow up and they stop believing in Barney.  We don't want them to grow up and stop believing the Bible.  Noah is really nothing like Barney.

Does the Bible Say the Earth is Flat?

In recent posts, I've talked about how critics of the Bible read obvious, literary expressions as literal so that they may make a straw man caricature of the Bible. Because these are usually poetic references and were never intended to be literal, it is groundless to suggest they demonstrate how the Bible is errant. However, there are a few passages that aren't poetic and some people claim these show that the Bible teaches the earth is flat.

There are two passages most often cited. The first occurs in Daniel 4:9-11:

“O Belteshazzar, master of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret troubleth thee, tell me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and the interpretation thereof. Thus were the visions of mine head in my bed; I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth:”

In this passage, Nebuchadnezzar is describing a dream he had to Daniel. In the dream, he saw a tree that was so tall that someone could see all the earth from the top. Since the earth is a sphere, there is no way to see the whole earth at once no matter how tall the tree is. Even from outer space, we could only see the half of the earth which faced us. The only way to see the entire earth at once would be if the earth were flat so does this passage suggest a flat earth? Certainly not!

The fatal flaw in this argument is that it is simply a record of Nebuchadnezzar speaking and the Bible doesn't necessarily endorse what he is saying. Perhaps Nebuchadnezzar truly believed the world is flat. So what? That doesn't mean the world is flat. Did you notice in verse 9 how his comment also suggested there are other gods? Does this mean that Bible teaches there are other gods? Of course it doesn't. So in the same passage in which Nebuchadnezzar makes one incorrect statement (that there are other gods), he also made another incorrect statement (that the world is flat). Neither of these are teachings of the Bible.

Besides that, however, there is a certain ambiguity in the word “earth.” It is not unusual to use the words “earth” or “world” to mean only the inhabitants of the earth or even a limited part of the earth. In Luke 2:1, Caesar decreed, “that all the world should be taxed.” Certainly doesn't mean the literal earth would pay taxes so obviously this refers to the people in the earth. More over, the Romans were aware there were other nations not under Roman rule that would not have been included in the decree so the word “world” in Luke is understood to mean only the vast Roman empire. Likewise, Nebuchadnezzar may have only meant one could see from the tree the entire, vast kingdom of Babylon.

The other event used by critics is the account of Jesus being tempted by the Devil. This is recorded in both Matthew 4 and Luke 4. Luke 4:5 is perhaps the more descriptive: “And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.”

A very careful reading of the passage is called for here. Compare the passage in Luke to the passage in Daniel. Concerning the tree, Nebuchadnezzar said, “the sight thereof to the end of all the earth.” But of the mountain, Luke says the Devil, “shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.” Do you see the difference? Like the tree in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, here the gospels mention a mountain seemingly so tall that one can see all the kingdoms of the earth from the top but the passage doesn't really say that, does it? It says that while on a mountain, the Devil “showed” Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

There was obviously something supernatural occurring. Notice how Jesus was at one moment in the wilderness (Luke 4:1), the next moment on a high mountain (Luke 4:5), and the next moment on the pinnacle of the temple (Luke 4:9). I believe the Devil and Jesus traveled supernaturally to some high mountain and against the back drop of such a spectacular view, the Devil supernaturally flashed images of the kingdoms of the world. Indeed, what else could it be? Surely the first century gospel writers would have noticed there are no especially high mountains in Jerusalem. Also, if anyone has ever been on a tall mountain, he would know you can't really see anything except miles of expanse. It's impossible to make out individual buildings. Why would the gospel writers have included such details?

Finally, consider how neither of these passages overtly say the world is flat. Critics point to them only because they could be viewed in a way that suggests the world is flat. I believe the plain reading of the words suggests otherwise.