Noah Primeval Quotes

“Noah realized a truth about human society: not everyone wanted freedom. When a people willingly or unwillingly become wards of their rulers, they eventually lose their capacity for self-determination. Like helpless children, they actually prefer security in exchange for their freedom. Better the misery they know while being taken care of than the misery they do not know being freely accountable for their own actions. Noah pitied them. They had lost their souls.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Their first goal was to eradicate Elohim from the minds of men and replace him with their own pantheon. They disseminated myths that supported their hierarchy of the four high gods reigning over the earth. The four were: Anu, father god of the heavens; his vice-regent Enlil, lord of the air, wind, and storm; Enki, god of water and Abyss; and Ninhursag, the earth goddess. Below them were the three that completed the “Seven who Decreed Fate”: Nanna the moon god; Utu the sun god; and Inanna, goddess of sex and war. The Sumerians called these and the other gods of the cities Anunnaki, which means “gods of royal seed.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Spiral pathways wound their way downward like a whirlpool in pursuit of copper, the life food of a new age begun by the discovery of bronze. Bronze was an alloy more durable than its copper predecessor, being used in everything from tools and decoration to weapons and armor. It was discovered by mixing tin with copper, which resulted in the harder bronze that would last longer and kill more efficiently in weaponry. For all those reasons, especially the last, gods and kings needed plenty of bronze to build their kingdoms. Extracting copper ore from the ground was laborious work. It required many men to unearth the volume demanded by such rulers. The necessary work force could be met by only one thing: Slaves, and lots of them.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“The temple prostitutes from Inanna’s district had come down to mingle in the streets, resulting in public copulations as some male citizens could not withhold their urges until they could find a tent. Spontaneous dancing broke out in the streets, led by the blue dancers and their traveling minstrels. The human dancers jerked and spasmed as if taken over by spirits. Their eyes turned upward, showing only the whites, and they uttered strange guttural sounds as if performed by a distant ventriloquist.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Almighty Elohim,” said Noah, “creator of heaven and earth. Forgive our sins. Hear our prayers. May we, your servants, be found acceptable in your sight. I have not always done what you have asked of me, and it has taken your heavy rod of chastisement to bring me back in line with your purposes. I do not ask for our survival, but for your will to be done.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Obedience to Elohim is not cowardice,” said Noah. He spoke with a new wisdom. “What has changed in you, father?” asked Japheth. “You have always been a man who would die for righteousness and freedom of your soul. But now…” “But now,” interrupted Noah, “I will live for the righteousness of Elohim and the freedom of future generations.” Methuselah, Tubal-cain, and Jubal knew exactly what Noah was talking about, and they knew he was right. They fully understood that the most selfless, most courageous thing for Noah to do, the only courageous thing to do would be to save himself for his bloodline to survive. He was the Chosen Seed of Havah, through whom would come the King of victory over the Seed of Nachash.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“She had taught him of Elohim as best she could with the few visits she could get through the years. But what chance did she have with a system of idolatry that controlled his every waking moment from the education he received to the entertainment he imbibed? Nevertheless, she knew he was in God’s image. She knew he had a conscience. He was Ham ben Noah. “We become the choices we make in this life, Ham. I pray you consider the choices you are making—and their consequences,” she whispered.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“how it had looked like Eden. He pondered what it was like for the Man and Woman to be in such communion with Elohim, their fellow creatures, and the world around them, full of splendor and glory. He wondered what it would be like to be in Elohim’s presence and the presence of his divine council of ten thousands of holy ones surrounding his throne and worshipping in the Garden that was his temple.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Of course they do, Shem. Clever disguise for clever abominations.” Noah’s eyes went wide. Those words were familiar; the name, the voice. He tried to get a better glimpse of his captor. “Shem? Shem ben Noah?” It confused the young warrior with the dagger. The archer’s surprise gave way to recognition. Noah looked up at the young man with arrow aimed at his heart. “Japheth?” he pleaded. Japheth, ever the impulsive one, responded first. “Father! I did not recognize you!” Shem lowered his dagger, and turned Noah around. They looked into each other’s eyes. No further doubt remained that they were father and son. “It has been so long.” Shem wrapped Noah in a big bear hug. Japheth dropped his bow, ran and jumped onto the two of them, and they tumbled to the ground in a family wrestling match.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Her biggest influence in persuading Noah was in prayer. When Noah was blinded by his own stubbornness, she would ask Elohim to soften his heart. Elohim had a way of opening Noah’s eyes better than anyone else could. She did not believe that Elohim had abandoned them. She was sure he was planning something very significant to make his point. It would take something big to transform Noah to accomplish his calling. Elohim was like that.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Prayers always took her mind off herself and her impossibilities and onto Elohim and His possibilities.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Elohim was with him. He was with all of them, but not in a way that some might expect. Elohim obliged no man life or blessing. He dispensed his purposes as he wished and he did not owe an explanation for his ways. He was the potter and humanity was the clay, as their creation story explained. If Elohim chose to craft some of those vessels for destruction and others for glory, that was his prerogative. He was accomplishing his purposes for his people.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Emzara was the most submissive of women. She knew Elohim created woman out of man’s side to be his ezer, a helper beside him. But sometimes that meant speaking the truth that was hard for one’s beloved to hear. “My love, pride leads to a fall. It is faith that leads to freedom.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“All the heroes in the Hebrews Hall of Faith (Heb. 11) had sinful moments, lapses of obedience and even periods of running from God’s call or struggling with their Creator.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“a truth about human society: not everyone wanted freedom. When a people willingly or unwillingly become wards of their rulers, they eventually lose their capacity for self-determination. Like helpless children, they actually prefer security in exchange for their freedom. Better the misery they know while being taken care of than the misery they do not know being freely accountable for their own actions.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Do not be so sure that revenge is a meal that will satisfy your hunger. It is more like a disease that eats away your soul. As the years go on, bitterness turns you into the very thing you detest. You begin a blessed man. But when Elohim takes away that blessing, you begin to believe you deserved it in the first place. You blame him and eventually you end up an old bellyaching ingrate without the ability to appreciate the good in anything. And you realize that you are the reason for your misery. You have become your own enemy.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“It made him sick to his stomach. Yet he knew this depravity was not entirely alien to his own soul. Evil was inside all men, including him. Their inclinations had simply been fed and nurtured instead of suppressed and overcome by faith. This moral decadence was not as bizarre as it appeared. It took humility for Noah to recognize that what disgusted him also strangely drew him, and if he made choices that began simple and small and grew over time, he could end up like any of these deluded slaves of sin. Evil was not “other.” It was with him, within him.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Prayers always took her mind off herself and her impossibilities and onto Elohim and His possibilities. She”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Elohim obliged no man life or blessing. He dispensed his purposes as he wished and he did not owe an explanation for his ways. He”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“We have lived as slaves most of our lives. We do not know how to make choices”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“All the heroes in the Hebrews Hall of Faith (Heb. 11) had sinful moments, lapses of obedience and even periods of running from God’s call or struggling with their Creator. It would not be heresy to suggest that Noah may have had his own journey with God that began in fear and ended in faith. In fact, to say otherwise is to present a life inconsistent with the reality of every human being in history. To say one is a righteous person of faith is to say that the completed picture of his life is one of finishing the race set before him, not of having a perfect run without injuries or failures.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“One of the humorous ironies of this debate is that if the history of science is any judge, a thousand years from now, scientists will no doubt consider our current paradigm with which we judge the ancients to be itself fatally flawed. This is not to reduce reality to relativism, but rather to illustrate that all claims of empirical knowledge contain an inescapable element of human fallibility and finitude. A proper response should be a bit more humility and a bit less hubris regarding the use of our own scientific models as standards in judging theological meaning or purpose.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“The geocentric picture in Scripture is a depiction through man’s ancient perspective of God’s purpose and humankind’s significance. For a modern heliocentrist to attack that picture as falsifying the theology would be cultural imperialism. Reducing significance to physical location is simply a prejudice of material priority over spiritual purpose.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Biblical writers did not teach their cosmography as scientific doctrine revealed by God about the way the physical universe was materially structured, they assumed the popular cosmography to teach their doctrine about God’s purposes and intent. To critique the cosmic model carrying the message is to miss the meaning altogether, which is the message. God’s throne may not be physically above us in waters held back by a solid firmament, but he truly does rule “over” us and is king and sustainer of creation in whatever model man uses to depict that creation. The phrase “every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth” (Rev. 5:13) is equivalent in meaning to the modern concept of every particle and wave in every dimension of the Big Bang space-time continuum, as well as every person dead or alive in heaven or hell.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“As Seely explains,   It is precisely because ancient peoples were scientifically naive that they did not distinguish between the appearance of the sky and their scientific concept of the sky. They had no reason to doubt what their eyes told them was true, namely, that the stars above them were fixed in a solid dome and that the sky literally touched the earth at the horizon. So, they equated appearance with reality and concluded that the sky must be a solid physical part of the universe just as much as the earth itself.[109]”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Isa. 34:4 All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine.   Rev. 6:13-14 [An earthquake occurs] and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.   Matt. 24:29 “The stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”   Job 26:11 “The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astounded at His rebuke.   2Sam. 22:8 Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations of the heavens trembled and quaked.   Is. 13:13 Therefore I shall make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place at the wrath of the LORD of hosts.   Joel 2:10 The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Psa. 19:4 He has set a tent for the sun.   Psa. 104:2 Stretching out the heavens like a tent.   Isa. 45:12 It was my hands that stretched out the heavens,   Isa. 51:13 The LORD... who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth.   Jer. 10:12 It is he who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.   Jer. 51:15 “It is he who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“The Talmud describes rabbis debating over which remains fixed and which revolves, the constellations or the solid sky (Pesachim 94b),[106] as well as how to calculate the thickness of the firmament scientifically (Pesab. 49a) and Biblically (Genesis Rabbah 4.5.2).[107] While the Talmud is not the definitive interpretation of the Bible, it certainly illustrates how ancient Jews of that time period understood the term, which can be helpful in learning the Hebrew cultural context. When the Scriptures talk poetically of this vault of heaven it uses the same terminology of stretching out the solid surface of the heavens over the earth as it does of stretching out an ANE desert tent over the flat ground (Isa. 54:2; Jer. 10:20)—not like an expanding Einsteinian time-space”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Job 37:18 Can you, like him, spread out [raqia] the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror?   Ex. 24:10 And they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement [raqia] of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.   Ezek. 1:22-23 Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse [raqia], shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above their heads. And under the expanse [raqia] their wings were stretched out straight.   Prov. 8:27-28 When he established the heavens… when he made firm the skies above.   Job 22:14 He walks on the vault of heaven.   Amos 9:6 [God] builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth.”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval

“Seely shows how the modern scientific bias has guided the translators to render the word for “firmament” (raqia) as “expanse.” Raqia in the Bible consistently means a solid material such as a metal that is hammered out by a craftsman (Ex. 39:3; Isa. 40:19). And when raqia is used elsewhere in the Bible for the heavens, it clearly refers to a solid material, sometimes even metal!”
― Brian Godawa, Noah Primeval