Have you ever had a nagging question that nothing seemed to quench?
The prayer group I’m involved with has been re-reading Genesis. I listen to an audio recording. As I’m listening to a daily reading I hear, “These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
KJV. I stop and do a double what the?
As Christians, we are taught that Jesus was the only perfect person to walk the face of the earth. Here we have Moses saying that Noah was perfect in his generation. What gives?
So I asked one very smart, highly educated preacher about this. His answer was you can’t bring Jesus down to Noah’s level. If you do, you are un-glorifying God. But? Yeah. Shrugged my shoulders, said okay and let it go. It really didn’t go.
Then my head when to, was Jesus really a man? Is that where the error in my thinking was? Noah was a man perfect in his generation. While Jesus was not a man? He looked and acted the part but really wasn’t.
As I ponder this with a new friend, I get a new view; “That what makes Jesus a great figure is exactly because of his humanity. His sacrifice becomes greater when you think of Jesus as a man who attains a perfection instead of an already-perfect man.”
Talk about getting the gray matter pumping. So now what?
He introduced me to the NRSVA = New Revised Standard Version Anglicised Edition of the Bible. For Genesis 6:9, it reads “These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.”
Blameless? Not perfect. What’s the difference?
“Blameless” in Hebrew is most commonly translated from the word tamim (תָּמִים) or its shorter form tam (תָּם). Rather than sinless perfection, it signifies being complete, whole, having integrity, or being without blemish, often used to describe moral uprightness, such as in the cases of Noah (Gen 6:9) and Job (Job 1:1). Google AI overview. If using all the resources available to me offends you, I will apologize upfront.
Blameless verses perfection. It’s amazing how one word cleaned up a mess in my mind. Noah was blameless. Jesus was perfect.
This isn’t the first time that learning more about a subject eased my questions. Read the work linked below.
Poetry & More 
Noah also got drunk, passed out and cursed his son for seeing his nakedness and not doing something to cover it- So I guess it’s all in the interpretation….
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks for the first laugh of the day. lol
LikeLiked by 2 people
Children are forever getting in trouble for something their parents did.
LikeLike
My pleasure!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yelp
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m learning a lot about that as well. I’m using I here because I struggle with a lot about the Bible. The things that I would question, such as Noah got drunk, how does this balance out ‘he was blameless in his generation’? From everything I’ve read, Noah was always faithful to God. He always put God first. Giving full honor to the first commandment.
As a human, I’d probably gotten drunk too if everyone I knew and loved (with the exception of my immediate family) had just been killed in a flood.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The part about that story that bothers me is instead of taking responsibility for getting drunk and passing out naked, he curses by way of his god- his son Ham for telling his brothers instead of covering him up. What kinda sideways logic makes that alright?
LikeLiked by 1 person
When you leave the comments open, after having written a little, your comment (working with the app) is gone. 😢
I’m by no means a Bible scholar. And have few answers. If any. Like you, the parent got drunk and blamed the child. Passing the buck, if you will. Some quick research, says that Shem was a little trouble maker. The footnotes with the 1559 GNV. I need to look that date up and make sure that’s right. There are a lot of things that we don’t know. And find it the things we don’t know very troubling. If Shem was a trouble maker, it would be nice to know. Instead of just a comment in the footnotes.
In a few weeks, I’m going to share a commentary on The Book of Ruth. A book I find troubling. And I’m hoping the community can help me find some insights.
LikeLike
1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)
LikeLike
Thanks for all your comments. This is great. 💕
LikeLike