Old Testament Sunday School

[I.J. Reilly]

HFN, I now cordially invite you to the Sunday School class my wife and I teach for the 14/15 year-olds. I think you would enjoy it. I could care less about the physical or historical claims of the OT, at least in the sense of trying to "prove" or "know" anything about what happened then, and the kids seem to agree. We talk pretty much exclusively about how the stuff relates to our lives and the spiritual lessons we can pull out of our class to apply in our daily lives. I can't guarantee anything about the lessons on the weeks that we are off, though

I actually think that the manual, by using the Book of Moses to do the heavy lifting for the SS lessons (at least these first ones), lets you cut free from the literalism.

[SoonerCoug]

I've got to teach this to the 12/13 year olds next week -- anything good I can throw out there?

I need to think about it some more.

One approach would be to discuss genetic bottlenecks and the founder effect. I would love to give a Sunday School lesson on Mormon population genetics. I'd talk about how polygamy generated weird Mormon diseases like hereditary hemorrhagic telangectasia (Utah Mormons) or fumarase deficiency (FLDS).

Sometimes a species can survive something horrible, even something so traumatic that shrinks a population to a very small number of individuals. However, it's more common for a small population to go extinct. Genetic variation is important for survival. Every individual has a whole bunch of mutations that don't cause problems because every gene has two copies (one from mom and one from dad), and we usually end up with one good copy even if the other is mutated. If you increase the frequency of specific bad mutations by starting over with a just one male and one female, you end up with two bad copies, and the species often ends up screwed.

The other issue is that we need mutations to adapt. If a population lacks genetic variation, then it won't survive when challenged. For example, cystic fibrosis exists specifically because the cystic fiborsis mutation is good when a person gets sick with cholera. (One cystic fibrosis mutation allows survival in a cholera epidemic, while a pair of mutations results in cystic fibrosis.) If you have a small population without genetic variation, the species is more likely to be wiped out by disease.

Long story short: Even if Noah did fit all ~20,000 known vertebrate non-fish, non-bird species onto his little boat, many of them would have gone extinct after the flood.

[The_Tick]

TW and I are team teaching the 15-18 year olds. I wish they commented more.

I ended the lesson on Sunday with this..."Noah and the Ark...literal or figurative..." go home and discuss it with your folks and let me know about the discussion.

I just don't get class participation. Even from my kid.

We are only 2 weeks in though.

If any of you are in the Bakersfield area, you can attend my class as a special guest...

[PaloAltoCougar]

... Even if Noah did fit all ~20,000 known vertebrate non-fish, non-bird species onto his little boat, many of them would have gone extinct after the flood.

Is that number at least approximately accurate? I have no idea, but I'm certain it's huge. I intend to make use of it Sunday when I teach the Noah lesson. Since the number, whatever it is, has been proven, and the size of the Ark is known and thus incapable of holding anything close to that number, one must either deny the literal truth of the Flood story, or subscribe to a weird post-flood evolutionary theory, which is equally abhorrent to the literalists. Happily, few in my class are literalists, but I feel a need to address the few on occasion. Sunday will be fun.

[SoonerCoug]

Is that number at least approximately accurate? I have no idea, but I'm certain it's huge. I intend to make use of it Sunday when I teach the Noah lesson. Since the number, whatever it is, has been proven, and the size of the Ark is known and thus incapable of holding anything close to that number, one must either deny the literal truth of the Flood story, or subscribe to a weird post-flood evolutionary theory, which is equally abhorrent to the literalists. Happily, few in my class are literalists, but I feel a need to address the few on occasion. Sunday will be fun.

Yeah, it's pretty accurate. It includes amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. Some of those species are water-dwelling, so it's probably an overestimate. Even so, many of the water dwellers (including fish) could have only survived in fresh water.

[hopfrog]

This is interesting. I cannot believe that the mentions of "the waters of Noah" in the BoM and of the Ark in D&C are meant to be allegorical. Or that there is a mystical connotation in the "record" of Noah having lived 950 years. I love The Book of Job, yet it certainly seems organized as scriptural fable. The idea of the ark as God's Tardis (Doctor Who reference) certainly seems preposterous. One investigator, looking at the Gospel Doctrine illustration of Adam and Eve, muttered, "Well, they wouldn't look like that", referring to the historical evidence of Cro-Magnon remains. It sucks that faith too often results in having to put logic on hold.

[Coach McGuirk]

Right now I teach valiant 9 class and I struggle with what I am teaching. I don't think it is my duty to interpret what is in the manual and it is the parents duty to sort through the literal and allegorical dilemma. I do find it hard to teach that which I am not of strong belief myself. I struggle each sunday to figure out how I walk this fine line but always lean to just teaching straight out the manual and dealing with my problem.

[SuperGabers]

Long story short: Even if Noah did fit all ~20,000 known vertebrate non-fish, non-bird species onto his little boat, many of them would have gone extinct after the flood.

Hence: No unicorns.

[Art Vandelay]

Why did he bring the freaking rats. I hate those things... no I mean I REALLY hate those things. I bet Ham brought them along.

[TripletDaddy]

Why did he bring the freaking rats. I hate those things... no I mean I REALLY hate those things. I bet Ham brought them along.

Cain was swimming behind the boat....WAIT FOR ME!!!! WAIT UP!!!!