Was Noah Good?: Finding Favour in the Flood Narrative

by Carol M. Kaminski

The juxtaposition of 'favour' and 'righteousness' in the flood narrative raises an interpretative and theological problem: Is Noah chosen because of divine favour or because of his piety ? Source-critical scholars identify two different theologies by J and P: J understands Noah's election to be an act of grace whereas P emphasizes Noah's righteousness as the basis for his election. Scholars who interpret the flood narrative according to its final form argue that Noah is chosen because he is righteous. This view is problematic, however, since in the primaeval history grace is shown to the 'undeserving', thus it is characteristically unmerited.

This book entails an exegetical analysis of, and according to, the final form of the text, with particular attention being given to the meaning and function of these verses in the Toledot structure. Kaminski argues against the commonly held view that Noah finds favour because he is righteous, and seeks to demonstrate that divine favour is unmerited in accordance with the theme of grace in the primaeval history and in Genesis as a whole. Thus what sets the flood story in motion is not Noah's righteousness, but the divine favour he finds.

238 pages, Hardcover

First published February 14, 2013

Reviews

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kaminski asks a fascinating question - did God choose Noah because he was righteous, or was Noah righteous because he was chosen by God. It seems that, with this question, one's line of reasoning might be dictated by theological presupposition. It need not be, and with Kaminski, she did well to almost mask any preconceived ideas regarding the nature of grace and human righteousness apart from it. She sees righteousness as only attainable through the grace of God, and she argues that this is also the case with Noah.

But it seems to me that, in Scripture, there is more than one thing that can be described by the term "righteous," and that a person can be righteous in one sense and not another. Kaminski does not address this possibility much, and because of this, seems bent on convincing the reader that Noah could not have been regarded by God as "good" prior to being chosen. For the most part, I think her argument succeeds.

My two gripes are, 1) I think she spent too much time considering the documentary hypothesis, given that she does not hold to it. It might have made more sense to dispense witht he hypothesis early on, through some arguments as to why she does not hold to it, and then argue more exclusively for the "final form" of the text without the distraction of constant reference to redactions. 2) I think some of her arguments for the various narrative divisions in the story were a bit forced, and in my opinion, very unlikely to be in the mind of the author when the story was written.

Overall, the book was very helpful and the argument quite effective. Although I am a fairly conservative reader, I view righteousness in the OT in such a way that I'm not opposed at all to the possibility that Noah was chosen because of some value he possessed, and so I read this a bit differently than Kaminski, but her arguments are not simply special pleading. They have weight and are worth considering carefully.