Day 3: Genesis 6-8
The story of Noah (through the flood) is the subject of today's morning reading, Genesis 6-8.
The term Nephilim reminds me of some lore from the game Diablo II, talking about beings called the Nephalem. I'm starting to think that the creators of Diablo II derived a lot of their content from the Bible.
Who were the Nephilim?
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6:4 ESV)
The term Nephilim reminds me of some lore from the game Diablo II, talking about beings called the Nephalem. I'm starting to think that the creators of Diablo II derived a lot of their content from the Bible.
Maximum age of 120 years
Although the generations of man spanning from Adam to Noah seemed to enjoy long lives of several hundreds of years. But something, presumably the evil in man's heart, caused God to make an adjustment in favor of a shorter lifespan.
Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” (Genesis 6:3 ESV)
Does this mean that people today seeking to extend life beyond that limit are trying to test God's limits? I was one of those people, although half-jokingly at the time. Now the idea of immortality no longer seems to hold the same appeal it once did.
The beginning and the end of the flood
I never knew this, but what I'm reading in the Bible seems to indicate that February 17 and February 27 are two commemorative dates, or dates worth commemorating, which mark the beginning and end of the flood. Although in the Bible the time span was not 10 days but rather one year and ten days.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. (Genesis 7:11 ESV)
The New York Times reports some interesting historic events that happened on February 17 in various years past, notably to me the publication of Newsweek magazine in in 1933 (during the Great Depression), the instantiation of TSA for airport security in 2002 and the declaration of sovereignty by Kosovo in 2008.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any mention of the Bible or of Noah when I searched on Google for "February 17".
In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. (Genesis 8:13-14 ESV)
Searching for "February 27" yielded similarly non-biblical results. But the New York Times points out that in 2010, an "8.8 magnitude earthquake and tsunami killed 524 people in Chile caused $30 billion in damage and left over 200,000 homeless." I wasn't aware of this disaster and tragedy before, but now I know.