Re-Creation to Abram (8-11)

2. Re-Creation to Abram (8-11)

The second half of the Primeval Story parallels the first half in its broad developments and details. Noah patterns after Adam in overseeing the earth coming to life. Both receive the divine injunction to "be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth." Both also were implicated in wrongdoing, though curiously, to a degree passively: Adam followed Eve's initiative and Noah's stupor became the occasion for Ham's indiscretion. In both phases the human population increased, as the genealogical witness attests, but sin also increased and prompted a divine reaction.
    So they seem to tell, in many ways, the same story: creation, transgression, crisis. The critical issue is this: What shall now become of God's bold human project? In the first phase, except for Noah and the boatload, all life perished because of disobedience. Will God respond in a similar manner now that humans again revealed a propensity toward perverse behavior?