The Rainbow Revolution: The Trauma of a Biblical Lockdown.

The deprivation of human companionship, the overreaction of revolution, a failure of leadership and the ultimate destruction of a man called Noah who was not much more than ‘good in his time.’

Re-populate to save the World.

A Jewish sage once said of the Torah, or five books of Moses, “turn it, turn it, for everything is in it.” And whilst not exactly fashionable these days, the Bible probably would not have stood the test of time in the way it has without there being some truth in that saying. We read everything these days through the lens of current, on-going events. So turn it, turn it, for everything is in it.

I began this piece with the intention of exploring the Tower of Babel story and its resonance for today. However, there was so much to think about with the account of the Flood that I have chosen to split the piece into two. Therefore, before I get to Babel, I want to have a look at Noah and what we can learn from that episode.

Flood for a Flood

The Biblical flood story tells of Noah, chosen by God as a righteous man of his time, to build an Ark in which to preserve himself, his family and animals. This was because God, seeing the corruption and violence on earth had decided to cause a great flood which would wipe out everything and everyone on earth. The story’s enduring image is one of the animals entering the Ark as the song goes, “two by two.” The idea of course is that once the great flood subsides, both the animals, and Noah’s family need to re-populate the earth.

However, the story is as much about the trauma of a lockdown, the deprivation of human companionship, the overreaction of revolution, a failure of leadership and the ultimate destruction of a man who was not much more than ‘good in his time’ as it is about a flood and a big boat. Despite its dark undertones the episode is a favourite amongst children with its themes of animals and brightly coloured rainbows. The rainbow is understood as a sign of hope in its covenantal renewal.

Setting aside the story’s likely origins in contemporaneous pagan mythology, the story is worth analysing for what it reveals about our current world. As Biblical scholar Yoram Hazony says, the Old Testament is not so much about what happens but what always happens.

De and Re-population

It is tempting to view Noah as an old ‘prepper’ figure, preparing for the storm to come. It must have taken some time to prepare for such a gargantuan task, all that building. All those animals. All that food! There are many in the present day who might resonate with the need to ‘prep.’ Legend has it that nobody believed Noah when he warned of the flood to come. How familiar does that also sound in today’s context? And how ironic does it seem in today’s world, to read about the necessity of re-populating the world given the current, unsubstantiated and frequent anxieties about over population? If we do not depopulate, so the narrative goes, the world will be destroyed! There is a residual fear amongst critical observers that the Malthusians are so desperate to play God that they have now assumed the right to re-enact His most destructive of actions towards a sizeable part of the human race. One might ask, how is it that so many seem to accept the assertion of overpopulation and the implicit horror of the proposed ‘solutions’ without any substantive evidence?

Noah’s story continues with the big depopulation project in Genesis. It is worth recalling that the Biblical story very soon reverts to the assertion that you need to re-populate in order to save the world. In the recently published book Superabundance (Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley) the argument is just that. More people means more ideas, more problems solved. Which means genuine progress. Even Elon Musk has asserted that falling birth rates and diminishing populations are the real problem in our world today.

Covenant

After the flood, God sets a rainbow in the sky to act as a visual reminder, a sign of a renewed covenant between God and man “for generations to come,” comprising new rules of engagement concerning appropriate food, sacrifices, and laws about the consequences for the killing of fellow humans. This is an explicit reflection upon the status of the human who is made in God’s image according to Alan Dershowitz. If even God subsequently senses that his actions were destructive, how much more should today’s elites understand that their fantasies about depopulation are wrong? I am mindful of the raging emotions and rumours swirling around about medical procedures being used to facilitate depopulation. Yet it is rather sobering to reflect upon this new Noahide rule coming as it does, right after a depopulation gone wrong. The new code is set by a God who now comprehends that a world without consistent rules, structure and law inevitably turns corrupt and evil. It is worth taking note. The deliberate killing of humans is considered to be so evil that God now requires that humans put to death those who kill other humans henceforth. And that includes animals.

Sexual Binaries

In a world fixated upon gender and sexual non-conformity, one can hardly miss that other irony of the Noah story which has to be the small matter that the animals are selected for their sexual binaries, male and female, without which, there would be little point in rescuing them from the impending flood. The inclusion of a rainbow adds to this irony, given the modern adoption of the rainbow as a symbol of gay, lesbian and ‘trans’ pride. Where once the rainbow was God’s sign of a new religious covenant, it is now a man-made emblem of its reversal.

Great Reset

Perhaps the strangest irony about the Noah story (and one that is easily overlooked) is the revolutionary approach to problem solving. God sees fit to destroy his creation due to a ‘flood’ of corruption and immorality. This ‘flood’ of evil is to be cleansed with a ‘flood’ of water. It is, in a sense, the reversal of the creation story. Unlike the opening verses of Genesis, God no longer sees his creation as ‘good’ and determines to destroy all but a select few and ‘start again.’ It is now down to Noah’s sons and their wives to continue the human race. And yet the destructive nature of this exercise in depopulation does not work; it does not achieve anything.

God realises this and says:

Even though everything they think or imagine is bent towards evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night. (Gen 8:22)

As we continue to ‘turn it,’ my own take is that this particular lesson is not a comfortable one. We all overreact form time to time. Yet violent revolution does not work.  How many times do we need to be warned about the dreaded idea of ‘starting again’ which can only ever be a euphemism for revolution. Or perhaps even a Great Reset?

If resets and revolutions do not work, then neither it would seem, do ‘lockdowns.’ And it can be argued that Noah and his family are placed in a lockdown of sorts, and one that is obviously designed for their ‘safety.’ As numerous commentators have repeatedly shown, the fallout from our own not so insignificant experiment in quarantining healthy people has been enormous. There are so many authors one could point to here. I would single out Toby Green and Thomas Fazi’s recent book The Covid Consensus as one that outlines the devastation wreaked upon millions of innocent lives worldwide due to lockdowns with a passionate sense of utter horror.

Noah’s family seem traumatised by their lockdown experience, being isolated from others and the world. The great rabbinical sage known as Rashi, gleaned that the order of the words used in the Biblical tale tells us something about God’s and Noah’s priorities. The family enter the ark, not with their respective partners, but are named as men and women separately. Rashi interprets this as meaning that they were not to indulge in sexual relations whilst the rest of the world was being destroyed. Yet on exiting the ark, the same word order remains. God then has to instruct Noah to be fruitful and multiply twice where previously he had told the world’s first couple only once. God’s plans will not work out if sexual reproduction fails to ensue.

Trauma of Lockdown

Biblical scholar Judy Klitsner explains Noah’s gloomy reaction as being due to him feeling rather bereft at the loss of fellow humanity (however wicked) and being somewhat disinclined to simply move on and resume sexual relations. Guilt for surviving surrounds Noah and his family. The situation is unbearable. He cannot forgive himself. There is a further reason for this which I will return to.

Noah’s priorities continue to be skewed when he finally gets to dry land, in his choosing to plant grapes rather than food crops. His vineyard provides the escapism into drunkenness which eventually proves to be his downfall.

I feel some sympathy with Noah on this point. Perhaps most obviously because of recent events. How many people succumbed to the illusory comforts of alcohol and the feelings of deep depression as a result of on-going isolation during so-called lockdowns? Additionally, how many people, like Noah, did as they were told without arguing or reflecting upon events? Noah was told that he and his family must isolate for forty days and forty nights, with a definite end in sight. And yet in many Western European nations today we were under house arrest for longer and still the madness lingers on in one form or another. In the way that Noah would be ‘safe’ in his ark, we were told that by staying at home (in an ‘ark’) we would be ‘safe.’ We were to do it for ‘others’ as Noah was required to do it for the future of the world. The analogies are uncanny, and continue.

Character

If we recall, Noah does not speak up to God about the proposed plan, nor did his family members speak up. They obeyed God. Yet in the present day those of us who tried to do just that were silenced. No wonder we can understand Noah as not being the best of leaders and recall that he is only ever described in the Bible as the best in his time. (Given that most people on earth were found to be severely wanting by God, this does not say much for Noah). Additionally, his lack of challenge to God contrasts greatly with the patriarch Abraham who, a little later in Genesis, argues with God over the destruction of Sodom.

As Klitsner argues, Noah could have been a great prophet had he questioned God and persuaded him to act differently (as Abraham will do). But he chose to just keep his head down, do as he was told and just get through and survive. Psychologically, he would have done well to ask questions and challenge on behalf of those who were weaker and innocent. There must have been some innocents around. As it happens the resulting disaster was enough trauma to turn Noah to alcoholism. How many people today are depressed not just because of ‘lockdowns’ and all that went with them, but because they went along with what they were told when they could have found some inner strength to speak up for what is right.

Noah may have escaped drowning by water in the flood, but he meets his demise through a different kind of flood, a drowning of sorts in wine. By the same token, those who succumbed to obedience  to authoritarian diktats supposedly borne of a virus, in the end failed to escape the virus and the many other consequences. Loneliness, spoiled friendships, lack of medical care, ruination, starvation and even death. As a result, all of us have suffered greatly in one form or another these past three years.  

One of the many lessons here is that we can never fully escape the results of our actions and choices and, in the end, character is everything. We may take heed of our master’s voice, but we should not fail to question it when its sounds are those of terror. Even for God there is no starting again. There can be no once and for all.

It is after the flood story’s violent revolution that the account of the city of Babel emerges (Genesis 11:1-9). In the second part of this essay, I focus on the individual over the collective in the Tower of Babel.

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