Rob, I have a lot of similar questions. Genesis really just gets thrown in our faces with little or no explanation. I don't know what I'm supposed to learn from this. Tony has a great skill of pulling out that verse few and far between that might give us some motivation, but the majority of the writing seems devoid of practical meaning, but is so perplexing that it calls out for explanation. For me, this imbalance is causing a struggle on how I'm supposed to use the Bible. What if these are just Hebrew stories with generic lessons? I think my faith would be stronger if they were, but also feel a strong cultural/evangelical influence to take it all as literal truth, yet I don't really understand for myself why this is necessary or how it impacts me or my faith at all either way. It was easier for me with the writings of Paul, it gave me stuff to ruminate on, to chat with God about, to find practical revelation in. But this stuff is just odd. If in the 1000 years before the flood when God was out walking in the Garden man managed to screw things up so colossally that a total wipe was required, why were things better with Noah? And were they/are they better? How did people who are Imago Dei come to that point so quickly? When and why does God intervene in the course of human history where all evidence points to the fact that the story is almost all encompassed in the Bible as we never hear anything in the Bible outside this Mediterranean area but I presume there were people all over the earth. I guess with this limited timeline of events I'm getting a strange picture. My first temptation is to go to the web with some research, but something tells me that's going to be a wild ride. Plus, God gave us Genesis long before the internet right? I shouldn't need it to affirm my faith? I guess the end result of this rambling is that who knows really. The more wise I think I get the more foolish I become I think Paul would tell me. So here I go, moving onward and upward with faith that continually takes a beating. I still know in my soul this faith is worth hanging on to and that's enough for me.

Piggybacking on free will ideas from your posts, God left saving the earth to man. How easily could hips have just recreated the earth and tried again. He could have spared Noah and taken care of the animals all on his own. He could have made it simply that animals didn't need to have male and female. I did find myself asking God this week for an easy way out of a situation. I need to remember that for whatever reasons, Godso plan generally involves us doing a lot of hard work that God could do effortlessly.