A Creation Story; Plus Noah And The Flood

This week we discussed the Jewish story of the creation of the universe, which is the very beginning of the Torah. 

The students did a fantastic job of grappling with some of the deep questions raised by the story, including (1) why God chose to create certain animals before others, and (2) whether it's possible to believe in both religious and scientific stories about the origins of the universe.

Here's a helpful image that summarizes the story:

We also read the story of Noah's Ark, and I loved some of the questions that the students asked:

Joseph R.: I learned that the Torah lists the specific dimensions for the ark. Was it actually big enough to hold two of every animal species that existed? If not, which animals got left behind?

Ella Grace: The Tower of Babel story says that humans started making bad decisions, again, after the flood. If God is all-powerful and incredibly wise, then wouldn’t he have known that history would repeat itself?

Henry and Jake: According to the story, God was very angry with the humans and regretted creating them. What caused God to decide to give people a second chance?  Did he consider letting people go completely extinct?

Ethan: Why did God use a flood as the way to punish humans, rather than another kind of disaster?

Camila: Did the predators on the ark try to eat the other animals? If they didn't try to eat them, why not?

Lochlyn: Within Judaism and Christianity, do people believe different things about the "truth" of the Noah's Ark story? [This is a wonderful question, Lochlyn, and the answer is yes. A major theme of this class is that within each religion there is lots of diversity in terms of what people believe.]