This week we move into the Noah sequence. Let me say a few things about the way I approach this text. This is a story, one that has important theological content, but a story none the less. I believe that having a Biblical faith does not require a literalist interpretation of these texts. I believe these texts resist such interpretation and therefor those who claim to be literalists are in fact selectivists (for more about this, consider reading this by Peter Gomes).
The Noah story gains meaning when moved from "history" to "myth." We can then consider what it is that the people who told this tale were trying to say about their God. Consider, briefly, another story about a world flood, the epic of Atrahasis. In this story the gods created humanity to do the labor the gods no longer wanted to do themselves. The people multiplied and became very noisy -- the gods could no longer sleep for all the ruckus. No matter what disaster the gods set upon the people in 1200 years they had shaken it off. The crankiest of the gods decides to flood where the humans live and kill them all, but a nicer god gives a heads up to a wise man to build a boat. When the flood commences the gods become frighten by the flood and hungry because the human sacrifices which had fed them were suddenly cut off. After the flood waters receded, the wise man emerges from his boat an offers a sacrifice. The gods are so happy with the meal that they make the man immortal. The decide they will never flood the world again, and are very cross with the god who did it in the first place, but to keep the human population in check they institute death in childbirth, barrenness, and infant mortality. What kind of gods are these? What kind of world does this story describe?
The Text:
Genesis 6:9 introduces the beginning of the priestly (p-source) flood narrative, and reintroduces us to Noah. We are told that he is a righteous man which would go along with what we learned about him in verse 8, that he had found favor in the sight of God. The world had become corrupt, even the earth was bent because humanity by-in-large was messed up. God resolved to wipe out the corruption of the earth and the people that caused it. God gives Noah precise instructions on making this ark. This boat would be roughly square or rectangular and would bear little resemblance to the stately craft this story usually calls to mind. God also gives clear instruction to preserve the multitude of creatures that God had created and declared "good." Now if you compare the instructional verses you will see what I mean about texts being resistant to literalism. 6:19 and 20 read, "And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive." If you read on into chapter 7 however you'll discover verses 2 and 3, "Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate; and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth." Noah gets the creatures and loads everybody onto the boat. Then the waters came and flooded the earth.
What theologically can we draw from this part of the Noah story? As compared to the world and deities described in the Atrahasis epic, this narrative tradition has a world that was created good and people that were created in the image of God and called very good. The God of these tales is one that demands justice and rectitude, and though corrective action needed to be taken (which caused God grief cf 6:6), planned ahead for the survival of life.
The Game:
Full Disclosure: I am not a boating person. I have lived in landlocked parts of the US my whole life and have only spent fleeting vacations on the shores of great bodies of water.
Recently I've been playing rather than DMing, and in a couple of the campaigns we've been playing long distances need to be traveled, sometimes by land and horse, and rarely the most efficient path took the party by boat. Mostly these trips were undertaken with the assistance of a loyal crew under hire, so role-playing decisions regarding the piloting of crafts was fairly limited. Once the party did have to sail a large pirate ship without NPC assist. The role playing sounded a bit like The Princess Bride, "Hurry up. Move the thing! Um ... that other thing. Move it!" Clearly we were not up to snuff on our nautical lingo, but I had a great time and I think these sessions were some of the most fun of that campaign.
I can't help but think of Noah when ever I look back on those sessions. Here is a man who (nominally) is living in what would later become Iran/Iraq; he was probably painted as a person engaged in desert climate subsistence agriculture. In this world there is precious little water, but one day God shows up and says I've decided that you should build a boat, fill it with animals, and sail it aimlessly for the better part of a year while I cover the face of the planet with water enough to drown all life. Of course you'd want to take on such an important "save the cheerleader" kind of mission for God, that doesn't mean that you know how.
One of the appeals of fantasy role-playing games is that through a group imaginative process people can take part in steering characters who can achieve and preform beyond the abilities of the players in their real lives. This means, in part, that the characters know things that the players don't. While this usually has little impact on game mechanics, it does hamper role playing from time to time. Players worry that they will be penalized for saying or doing the wrong thing because of their own ignorance. I would guess that most of our role playing groups do not have access to stores of naval information and marine strategy. So what do we as DM's do? Avoid ocean going adventures? Make sure there is always a crew hanging around? Here are a few humble suggestions:
- Go on and buy the book: Wizards of the Coast is like a benevolent, but demanding god. There are so many great resources out there, so many pretty books and tiles and miniatures. But they are so very costly to own. However, if you anticipate spending much time on boats, the Stormwrack resource may be a wise expenditure of thirty-five bucks. Share relevant passages with your group, learn new things...educational and fun!
- Cheat, a little: If the point is to challenge players to the point that they no longer want to play, by all means do exhaustive research into vessel construction and navigation and require that they come up with realistic role playing. If, on the other hand, the point is to have fun and enjoy one another's company, you may choose to let "Hurry up. Move the thing! Um ... that other thing. Move it!" suffice for genuine docking procedure.
- Give them the tools: I have long loved the folding boat, a wondrous item in the DMG. I'm gaga for mounts that can shrink to statuettes. What if there was an artifact level item that had some of the elements of the folding boat but was also crewed by departed sailors. An interesting plot twist would be if these sailors are there by some kind of evil magic, then using said vessel would carry some kind of karmic penalty. One the other hand, this might be a little like an afterlife for sailors faithful to a certain god who after death continue to sail in the god's service on behalf of special chosen types.
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