God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
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In this reading it is important to understand that “the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations” means every creature that has God’s breath of life within them - Man and animal. It is easy to think this is a covenant between God and Noah [thus Man only] to never again destroy humanity by a great flood [a universal inundation by water], but it includes “every living creature” that coexists on earth with Man. It says nothing about granting eternal life to all that breathe air upon the earth, as mortality was still in place [including fish that breathe in water, unaffected by floods, with their own lives naturally limited in scope]. Therefore, it is important to see the value of such a covenant that a great flood would not be repeated as a form of sacrifice separating a soul from its flesh.
Sacrifice must be seen as the issue of a covenant. God willed this sacrifice. It was not voluntary. Still, in light of Cain and Abel being priests who made sacrifices of other living things, where fire was the transformative symbolism of death that pleased God [or didn't, as far as plants being burned], those sacrifices were individual and yearly. The Great Flood was global and all-encompassing, brought about by the relationship between God the Father and Mother Earth, the two essences that were joined in all life forms possessing souls.
The key to this reading is the promise of a rainbow, such that God told Noah, “I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” The promise to Noah and the animals of the land and air is one between God and the earth. God promised to never again cause the earth to become submerged, as a way for flesh to be destroyed.
Here, the symbolism of flesh equals the essence of earth. The symbolism of water is emotional outpouring, in a physical sense. Water is the union of hydrogen (2 atoms) and oxygen (1 atom) - earth and ether, symbolizing body and spirit. God had become upset by the way His elohim corrupted the earth, causing monsters and giants to arise from the interbreeding of lesser gods with female human beings, which acted harshly as demigods towards the creatures God had commanded His gods to create: the living creatures that culminated with male and female Man.
This means the symbolism of the rainbow in the clouds must be seen as the life breath (souls) rising from those killed in the inundation, ascending from the earth, along with the evaporating molecules of water. The clouds were the same as the smoke from burning altars, but this was caused by God, thus reflected as evaporation being pierced by the light of God’s sun. The rainbow is then symbolic of sacrifice that is pleasing to God.
Relative to the Greek mythological goddess name Iris, who was the personification of the rainbow; she was a messenger of the elohim (gods).
According to Hesiod, she had the duty to carry a vessel of water from the River Styx [the river of the underworld] whenever a god had made a solemn oath. That water would be used [drank] if the god lied, rendering him or her unconscious for a year. [Source: Encyclopedia Britannica] Thus, from this mythology it can be seen that the beauty of a rainbow is a distraction, when the deeper meaning is it is both a symbol of death and a promise. The souls separated from their flesh in the Great Flood included many born of lesser gods, which had forced the earth to cover the world with floods to appease God the Father. Those demigods were forced into an oath of submission to YHWH, when born of fallen angels [a great lie].
When one sees this reading being paired with those for the first Sunday in Lent, in the Year B, the element of sacrifice must also be seen as the test of one's commitment to serve God eternally. The reading ends with Jesus immediately being driven into the wilderness for forty days and nights [the same duration of the Great Flood]. However, more than the test of an oath by the waters of death brought by Iris [the temptation of Satan], the deeper meaning comes from the creation of something pleasing to God - the formation in the sky that is the bow from earth to heaven.
In the accompanying Gospel selection from Mark is written, “as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove.” This can be seen as metaphor for the symbolism of Iris, the goddess of the earth - Iris the rainbow nymph. The words used to state “coming out of the water” [“euthys anabainōn ek tou hydatos”] are less about Jesus remaining in water and standing up [a statement of his flesh] and much more about “immediately ascending from the water” [a statement of his soul]. The soul of Jesus became a sacrifice from symbolic death [baptism] that immediately released his soul to God. The soul of Jesus became the stuff of rainbows.
The presence of Jesus in water, along with John, places focus on the Greek word "ebaptisthē," where the word states Jesus was "submerged" or "dipped underwater." His presence in water deep enough to be submerged in becomes metaphor for the Great Flood, when many souls were separated from their flesh. The presence of water also stands out as the element used in ritual cleansing by Jews. Sins were viewed as dirt upon the flesh that needed to be bathed away. The souls of Jews, however, still felt the presence of their sins, which led to John bringing forth baptism by water, to be symbolic of death of the old [the filthy from sins], so that soul [it an eternal elohim] has died of flesh with the promise never to sin again. The joy of baptism by water brought with it an oath to serve God with a renewed soul, which was the symbolism of a promise made at a time when overwhelmed with emotions [the rainbow’s appearance]. Baptism by John was then fulfilling God’s promise that destroying flood waters would never again separate a soul from its flesh [saying all animals that breathe air have souls], as true death; it was more symbolic death by dunking, creating a soul in need to realize a need to promise self-service to God, which must then be fulfilled.
It is here that one must realize that Noah, his family, and the selection of animals-in-pairs had all been spared the death of the Great Flood. While the rest of the earth was destroyed by water, with their souls rising from the flood waters creating a rainbow of future promise for the earth [having been rid of evil], the family of those who had already made oaths to serve God, symbolically dying of self-ego in advance of mortal death, which they fulfilled was a parallel in selectivity that must be seen in the Jews. They were a race of people descended from Noah, through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. John the Baptizer was a Jew, as was Jesus, both in this lineage of selected children of God. However, the promises of all those lines of Man, who were offered the covenant of forgiveness, through an oath to God in exchange for eternal life [a Covenant made with Moses], time and again they had failed on their oaths and were forced to drink from the River Styx and suffer death [symbolic sleep]. Thus, ritual washing away of sins had fallen to the state of misery that led people to form a line to the River Jordan for a more spiritually symbolic cleansing.
Jesus would enter those waters with John, which should be seen as a parallel to Peter writing "a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water." Just as Noah and his sons and family [with animals] were not souls in flesh that had failed in their oaths to God, so too were John and Jesus. While the Jews lining the shores of the Jordan were admitting their souls had failed to serve God wholly, both the souls of John and Jesus ascended at that time. As John baptized Jesus with water, Jesus baptized John with the Holy Spirit. So, the dove of God’s promise fell upon them both, like a peaceful symbol of land having been found amid the flood waters [an allusion to the dove bringing back a twig as a sign land had surfaced from the depths].
The impact of this selection from Genesis is that the first covenant between God and a line of selected children had been set. Previously, the Patriarchs, from Adam to Lamech, had lived among a sinful world that grew more and more sinful every year. The monsters of sin had to be sacrificed so the normal Man [male and female they were made] could be led by the priests that would be descended from the Patriarchs, without fear of monsters and giants seeming as powerful as the gods. The promise of God was that no more floods would come to destroy evil in the world. That promise meant Noah would serve God by beginning a lineage of priests who would henceforth lead mankind to the One God, in order for Man to find eternal life, each as an elohim [the storyline of the Holy Bible after the flood]. This means the rainbow was set as the symbol of God that death could truly become an oath of commitment that a soul would keep. However, the only way to keep that promise was by becoming one of the lineage of God, as more than a child of God.
Committing to the promise would evermore mean having one's soul ascend to being a Son of God [male and female He makes them].
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