“NOAH’S ARK” SERIES EXAMINED: A PEEP INTO MODERNIST COUNTERFEIT FORMATION.

 

Modernist scholarship in action... 
What a tragedy: trained to err in the name of the Church, and with confidence... a great disservice to Catholic biblical scholarship and pedagogy! 

Prologue: Recalling A “Catholic Instinct Activated Moment”. 

I wrote in “My Treasured Mistake”: 

“...when we were being taught that the creation story, the fall, the flood and the ark, etc. were taken from Ancient Near East myths to express religious truth, a colleague sitting next to me could not but express, in a whisper, how is that we will be expected to believe at the same time that the same Book of Genesis is inspired by the Holy Ghost. Perhaps not being unmindful of how destructive this is to faith in the inspiration of the Bible, the lecturer quickly added rather jokingly that the “fact” of these stories being, not historical facts, but adaptations from myths, should not be made a subject for sermon – in effect, let the common pious people keep believing that old story. While the whole class burst into laughter, I did not find that funny. Is it not often the case, that the common church-goer in the pew, who is taught to see the Vatican II institution as Catholic Church, is most often more pious than the so-called “priests?” The reason cannot be far-fetched!”. [Rev. Fr. Thomas Ayakana Ojeka, My Treasured Mistake, (Owerri, 2024) p. 198]

Yes, I witnessed Modernism in action, pseudo clerical cynicism disguised as scholarship, and the quiet betrayal of Scripture’s inspiration. 

Anyone with Catholic Common Sense would easily see that my refusal to laugh was not humorlessness. It was fidelity. That will to fidelity would lead me to walk out of the Modernist institution pretending to be Catholic. I abandoned a counterfeit church with it's formation already condemned by the Church I seek to serve. 

Recently, I saw a series of posts on “Noah's Ark” by someone, who, being a product of the modernist invalid 1968 episcopal ordinal, is a New order lay-robed agent taken for a Catholic Priest. By force of necessity, a glance of the content made me felt pity for the victim of Modernist counterfeit formation that he is. 

Imagine the tragedy: being trained to err in the name of the Church! His audience, and how many!, goes their way convinced that “the Church” teaches that Genesis copied the epic of Gilgamesh… that is a great disservice to Catholic biblical scholarship and pedagogy! 

It is hoped that this intervention proves edifying to some soul hungry for the nourishing manner of doctrinal clarity. 

Noah’s Ark Series Summary 

The four posts in the series can be summarized as follows: 

• A strictly literal, global-flood reading of Noah’s Ark is illogical and contradicts geography, biology, and history.
• A planet-wide flood would require impossible water volume; animal logistics make such a reading absurd.
• Human history (including ancient Africa) cannot fit a post-flood repopulation from Noah’s family alone.
• Flood stories existed long before Genesis, especially in Mesopotamia (e.g., the Epic of Gilgamesh).
• Genesis did not invent the flood story; it reworked an existing cultural narrative.
• The difference between Genesis and pagan myths is theological, not scientific: one moral God vs. capricious gods.
• Ancient authors did not think in global or scientific terms; “the whole earth” meant the known world.
• Scripture often uses universal language for regional realities (as seen elsewhere in the Bible).
• Archaeology confirms severe regional floods in Mesopotamia that would have felt like “the end of the world.”
• Genesis is theological literature, not a science textbook or journalist’s report.
• The flood symbolizes moral collapse; the ark symbolizes preservation; the covenant symbolizes mercy and restraint.
• The Church does not require belief in a literal global flood or total animal preservation.
• Proper interpretation considers literary genre, historical context, and authorial intent.
• Faith and reason do not contradict when Scripture is read correctly.
• Literalism harms faith by forcing Scripture to answer questions it was never meant to address.
• Read rightly, Noah’s story is not childish mythology but a profound reflection on sin, judgment, mercy, and hope.

Bottom line: Genesis tells the truth of meaning, not the mechanics of nature. Faith deepens when Scripture is understood as it was intended. 

What Rings True, What Slips, and Where Modernism Creeps In.

Giving way to justice, but allowing no room for naïvety, we must say that the series contains real insights long acknowledged by Catholic tradition, yet it also contains dangerous ambiguities that, if left unchecked, slide into Modernist method and conclusions condemned repeatedly by the Church before the Modernist Vatican Council.

We shall separate gold from dross.

I. WHAT SYNCHS WITH TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC TEACHING

1. Scripture Is Not a Science Manual

This principle is authentically Catholic, not a Modernist concession.

The Fathers unanimously held that Sacred Scripture teaches truth ordered to salvation, not technical explanations of the natural sciences.

St. Augustine states clearly:

“The Holy Spirit did not wish to teach men such things as would be of no avail for their salvation.” (De Genesi ad Litteram)

Thus, Genesis is not written to instruct men in geology, hydrology, or cosmology as modern disciplines define them. Rather, it teaches who created, why He created, how man fell, and how God saves.

However, and this is crucial; the Fathers never concluded from this that Scripture contains error. They maintained that Scripture is true in all it affirms, but its affirmations must be understood according to its own divine purpose, not forced into modern scientific categories unknown to its authors.

This is sound Catholic instinct, long before Vatican II.

2. Scripture Uses Phenomenological and Popular Language

This, again, is solid patristic doctrine.

St. John Chrysostom teaches:

"Scripture speaks to us in human fashion, accommodating itself to our weakness.”

St. Thomas Aquinas confirms:

“Sacred Scripture describes divine and natural things according to what appears to the senses.” (Summa Theologiae I, q.68, a.1)

Thus:

Scripture speaks as things appear, not as they would be described in technical abstraction.

Terms like “the whole earth” often signify the inhabited world, the moral totality of mankind, not a mathematically quantified globe.

Universal language is frequently moral and theological, expressing the reach of sin or judgment, rather than scientific measurement.

This is not allegorizing away history, but interpreting history as Scripture itself presents it.

3. The Flood Is Primarily Moral and Theological

This is entirely Catholic and explicitly Scriptural.

The Council of Trent affirms that Scripture teaches saving truth concerning:

• Sin
• Judgment
• Grace
• Covenant
• Redemption

The Flood narrative does precisely this.

St. Peter himself gives the authoritative interpretation:

“...wherein a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. Whereunto baptism, being of the like form, now saveth you also... (1 Peter 3:20–21)

Therefore, the Flood:

• Prefigures Baptism
• Condemns the universal moral corruption of mankind
• Reveals divine justice, restrained and perfected by mercy
• Establishes a covenant, not annihilation

The Fathers never denied the historicity of the Flood; they insisted that its primary meaning is salvific, not merely physical.

So? These principles are not Modernist, not Novus Ordo innovations, and not concessions to unbelief. They belong to the ancient Catholic method:

• to defend Scripture without flattening it into crude literalism,
• and to preserve history without emptying it of divine mystery.

To hold this balance is to stand with the Fathers, the Doctors, and the perennial Magisterium of the Church. 

II. THE GRAIN OF MODERNISM 

Modernism seldom denies doctrine openly. It works by reframing origins, weakening historicity, and relativizing revelation.

Instead of saying, “This is false,” it says, “This developed,” “This expresses experience,” or “This is symbolic.” Thus, events become narratives, facts become meanings, and revelation becomes a process rather than a divine act.

This is where caution is required. Once history is loosened, doctrine soon follows. 

If God did not truly act in time, then faith becomes interpretation, not reception.

Christianity stands or falls on this truth: God has spoken and acted in history.

III. THE CLAIM THAT GENESIS “COPIED” GILGAMESH 

THIS IS WHERE TRADITION SAYS: STOP.

1. Similarity IS NOT Dependence

The Church never taught that Genesis borrowed its substance from pagan myths.

Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus:

The sacred writers were not in error, nor did they borrow falsehoods from pagan sources.”

Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi:

Modernists “reduce revelation to a religious sentiment evolving from human experience.”

The Modernist error is not the recognition of similarities between Genesis and ancient flood accounts. The Church has never denied such parallels. The error lies in redefining those similarities as dependence; in claiming that Sacred Scripture is a theological remix of pagan myths rather than divinely inspired history expressed in accommodated language.

That thesis is explicitly condemned. It subordinates revelation to comparative religion, displaces God as principal author, and reduces inspiration to religious creativity. No one truly formed to think with the Church could confidently teach such a view, because it contradicts the perennial doctrine of inspiration, the patristic understanding of Genesis, and the Magisterium’s repeated rejection of mythological derivation.

To teach it boldly is therefore not Catholic maturity, but Modernist formation in action.

2. The Traditional Explanation: Common Memory, Not Copying

The Fathers gave a very different explanation.

St. Justin Martyr:

“Whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians.”

St. Augustine, City of God, Book XVIII:

Pagan myths contain distorted remnants of primeval truth handed down from Noah.

St. Irenaeus:

All nations preserve fragments of truth from the one original revelation, later corrupted.

What then is the Traditional position? Precisely this: 

• The Flood was a real historical event
• Knowledge of it spread among nations
• Pagan versions are corruptions, not sources
• Genesis preserves the true account, purified and divinely guided

So? 

• Genesis does not copy Gilgamesh
• Gilgamesh corrupts a memory of the Flood

This distinction is non-negotiable in Catholic tradition.

3. Saying “Genesis Reworked Pagan Stories” Is Not Neutral

That language belongs to Alfred Loisy, George Tyrrell, and the condemned Modernist school.

Pius X:

“They make dogma evolve from myth.”

Once Scripture is treated as:

• Theological reflection on borrowed myths
• Rather than divinely inspired historical revelation

…you have crossed a line.

Yes Even if unintended.

IV. ON THE HISTORICITY OF THE FLOOD 

We must note that Catholic Tradition Is careful; not skeptical. 

The Fathers disagreed on extent, but not on reality.

• St. Augustine: Flood was real; scope debated
• St. Thomas Aquinas: Flood was historical
• St. Ambrose: Defended universality morally, not cartographically

The Church never dogmatized:

• Exact water levels
• Animal mechanics
• Geographic measurements

But she never permitted:

• Reducing the Flood to symbolism alone
• Treating it as theological fiction

It is be reiterated that the Flood is:

• Historical in substance
• Theological in narration
• Typological in meaning

That precise balance must be preserved.

V. THE MODERNIST PATTERN TO AVOID

There is a clear trajectory that Catholic tradition warns against:

• Rejecting crude literalism; this is legitimate and often necessary.
• Emphasizing the theological meaning of Scripture; this is authentically Catholic.
• Minimizing or emptying historicity; here danger begins.
• Attributing biblical origins to pagan myth; this is explicitly condemned.
• Reducing Genesis to moral or symbolic storytelling; this is Modernism in full form.

The decisive error is not recognizing theology, but detaching theology from real events. Once Genesis is treated primarily as religious reflection rather than divinely inspired history, revelation is no longer something received but something constructed.

That final step marks the crossing of a line.It is Modernism, not Catholicism, because the faith of the Church rests on this principle:

God reveals truth by acting in history, not by borrowing myths and assigning them meaning afterward.

VI. The Pre-Modernist Catholic Position 

The traditional Catholic position, articulated long before Modernism, holds firmly that:

• A real Flood truly occurred in history.
• Its physical extent was likely regional, not by denying Scripture, but in recognition, already found in the Fathers; of accommodated language and the human perspective of the sacred author.
• The Flood is universal in moral judgment, revealing the corruption of mankind and the justice of God.
• The true and authoritative account is preserved in Genesis.
• Pagan flood stories are distorted remnants, not sources.
• Genesis was written under divine inspiration, free from error.
• It employs phenomenological and popular language, not scientific description.
• Its purpose is salvation, not natural science.

St. Augustine expresses this balance perfectly:

“The narrative is historical, yet the manner of narration is adapted to convey spiritual truths.”

This position safeguards both history and theology, avoiding crude literalism on one side and Modernist reduction on the other.

Scrutiny Of The Author's Formation 

What does the content of the “Noah's Ark” series reveal about it's author? This is a critical enquiry. 

The series reveals a mind shaped more by the modern academy than by the Fathers, more by critical method than by the Magisterium, and more by accommodation to contemporary reason than by the obedience of faith.

There is no evidence of malice. On the contrary, the author appears intelligent, earnest, and sincerely concerned to defend Scripture from ridicule. Yet the formation on display is incomplete; insufficiently rooted in the theological soil of Tradition.

This explains the internal tension of the series. The author rightly rejects crude literalism, but wrongly accounts for Scripture’s authority by appealing to “borrowed myths” rather than to divinely preserved and inspired truth. In doing so, the method eclipses the Church’s own interpretive principles.

What is revealed, then, is not a mind needing correction by force, but re-anchoring; not less intelligence, but deeper Tradition. The remedy is not novelty, but a return to the Fathers, the Doctors, and the perennial Magisterium; where reason is disciplined by faith, and Scripture is read as the Church has always read it. 

I once sat in a class where the principles he espouses and defends with arresting  boldness were being taught with no less audacity. It is pitiful to see such gifted brains at the service of modernist imposture! 

Summing Up 

The “Noah’s Ark” series is clearly the work of an intelligent mind.

The author’s rejection of crude, naïve literalism is justified, and his effort to shield faith from scientific ridicule is, in itself, commendable. Catholic tradition has never required believers to read Genesis as a laboratory report, nor has it feared the use of reason.

Yet the tradition of the Church is equally clear on this point: Scripture is not saved by demythologizing it. It is saved by right order; by rightly distinguishing history, theology, and inspiration, without dissolving any of them.

It must therefore be affirmed with vigor that, the Flood is:

• Not a fairy tale, invented for moral instruction alone;
• Not borrowed mythology, adapted from pagan sources;
• Not mere symbolism, emptied of historical substance.

It is real history, narrated under divine inspiration, expressed in accommodated language, and elevated by revelation to convey universal moral and salvific truth.

This is precisely the line held by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, above all St. Augustine, who affirmed both the historical reality of the Flood and the spiritual depth of its narration.

The Church herself confirmed this balance through the Pontifical Biblical Commission (1909), which authoritatively taught:

• Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch in substance;
• The historical reality of the early events of Genesis, including the Flood;
• The presence of legitimate figurative elements, while explicitly rejecting myth-reduction and purely symbolic interpretations.

To maintain this synthesis is to stand firmly with the Fathers, the pre-Modernist Magisterium, and the Catholic mind of all ages.

To abandon it; by reducing Genesis to theological reflection on borrowed myths; is to step onto the very slope down which Modernism slides, however refined or well-intentioned the language may be.

In short: History purified by inspiration, theology rooted in fact, and reason obedient to faith; this is the Catholic way. 

We cannot bemoan enough the reality of a generation of intellectually astute young men trained both to pose as Catholic Priests, though being lay-robed agents; and to err in the name of the Church, teaching in her name and authority what she has long condemned. Oh that the author of “Noah's Ark” series be rescued from this Modernist quicksand!