12/12/19 Chloe Chong Period 8

Modern Mythology 2020

12/12/19 

Chloe Chong 

PD 8

Aim: How does the story of Noah’s Ark symbolically serve humanity?

D.N: What crimes are so heinous that God would require an Earth-wide purification?

(We started with a Vocab quiz- Unit 4

Ms. Fusaro was absent so Ms. Peterson subbed for her)

D.N.:

Losing the belief of God

• As seen through the book of revelation

God says the only sin that can’t be forgiven is not believing in God at all

A bunch of things

• Combination of 7 sins

Could also be an act of primal sins

• Ex. Adam and Eve

Ancient Floods

• Great flood story in almost every ancient culture
• Ex. Norse, Chinese, etc
• Water could be a purifying force
• Punishment by purification 

The fact that every culture has some sort of flood myth, we can deduce that something like this actually happened

• Epic of Gilgamesh: they also speak of a flood 

Nature Symbols

To what extent does the Judeo-Christian understanding of God controlling nature compare against the Greek mythology of mature?

• In Christian stories, there is only one God and he wills everything. In Greek stories, many times what happens in nature is due to their moods. 
• There is a lot more interactions between people and the Gods in Greek mythology. The God in Christianity would not interact with people as much and would only come in forms of forces such as floods. 
• Mythology is an explanation of stuff we don’t know
• Greek Mythology has a bunch of gods that take up smaller roles while in Judeo Christian understanding of God is an almighty figure 

The Ark

“And God said to bring two of every animal, seven pairs of clean animals, and one pairs of unclean animals”

What can be understood about the perspective of man compared to animals based on who/what was chosen to board the ark?

• Video

• Noah’s Ark replica 

• Clean vs Unclean- What do they mean?
• Clean: it is edible; Unclean: inedible (Peter)
• God is unfair in that there is an uneven amount of clean and unclean animals but they have an equal chance on the ark
• Balance must be maintained as there are both clean and unclean animals
• 7 is a number of perfection*
• Clean is Perfect but Unclean is Imperfect
• Carrion eater is unclean because they feast on things that are not alive 
• Antigone: Carrion birds are bird that eat dead things

Is humanity doomed?

Are we doomed for failure? Why make us imperfect if we’re destined to disappoint?

Self reflection

Today we uncovered Noah’s Ark. We started with exploring the wrongdoings of mankind and what would result in God wiping everything out with a flood. While we couldn’t pinpoint the exact for the flood, we relate back to yesterday’s lesson on the Book of Revelation and the 7 sins. We also connected Noah’s Ark to other cultures that utilized floods in their myths. I learned that the fact that every culture has a flood story must mean that a flood or something of that nature must have actually occurred. We made another connection when talking about the Judeo-Christian understanding of God versus the Greek’s understanding of Gods. I drew similarities between the nature and the Gods and related back to myths being an explanation of the things we don’t know. We then moved onto the Ark and discussed the meaning of clean and unclean. After much debate, we settled on the term unclean animals being animals that eat the dead. We also took a step back and looked at the themes of this myth. I learned that like other creation stories, balance is key. Even though the clean animals are “perfect”, there must be one unclean animal to balance it out. As mentioned by a classmate, the use of numbers plays a role in being meaningful. The number 7 is a “perfect” number as introduced in yesterday’s lesson. We ended with “is humanity doomed?” Though we didn’t have time to discuss, humanity, though flawed, is not doomed in my opinion. We have our faults but there is beauty in our flaws. We can learn from our mistakes and we have the potential to grow from them and become great. I definitely learned more about Judeo-Christianity as I’ve never really known much about it before. In the future, I will keep what I’ve learned in mind that everything happens for a reason even though it is not always fair. And a nice thing to always remember is to be a good person because whether no matter what we believe in whether it’s Heaven or Hell, the Afterlife, nothing, being a good person is the right thing to do.