Are we descendants of Noah?

[Lampo]

My wife asked me this question the other evening and I didn't have a good answer. I told her the Church teaches that we are all descendants of our first parents, Adam and Eve. In Genesis, it says everything on the Earth perished in the Great Flood including mankind except for Noah, his family and all of the animals. What does the Church say about this? Are we all therefore descendants of Noah?

[inthecloud]

Actually most people descend of common ancestors.
About Noah some people says is symbolic, some people say it was really a regional flood (the dove in the Flood does bring a olive branch, so where was the tree if all was flooded?) and some people takes it literaly. The Church wisely prefers to point to the morals of the story and most people prefer the first two posibilities.

[Fidelis]

Originally Posted by Lampo

My wife asked me this question the other evening and I didn't have a good answer. I told her the Church teaches that we are all descendants of our first parents, Adam and Eve. In Genesis, it says everything on the Earth perished in the Great Flood including mankind except for Noah, his family and all of the animals. What does the Church say about this? Are we all therefore descendants of Noah?

The Church has defined that Adam and Eve were real persons and that all human-kind is descended from them inasmuch as we have all inherited their fallen condition.

The Church has not defined the historicity of the Flood narrative, Neither has she pronounced on it's NON-historicity, so we are free to believe as we choose either way, both skeptics and fundamentalists notwithstanding.

Therefore, if we presume the historicity Adam and Eve AND of Noah and the Flood, remember that Noah was descended from Adam and Eve. So for all intents and purposes, it works out that we all are descended from that first couple. Actually, that would be true even if one does not accept the historicity of the Flood narrative.

Works for me.

[MH84]

Yes, I think Fidelis is right. Even though the human race may have been wiped away, Noah would have been a descendant of Adam and Eve anyway.

Anyway, I dont think that God would have intending to break the line between Adam and Jesus. In Luke 3 (the genealogy of Jesus):

...36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

www.biblegateway.com

[inthecloud]

The Church has not defined the historicity of the Flood narrative, Neither has she pronounced on it's NON-historicity, so we are free to believe as we choose either way, both skeptics and fundamentalists notwithstanding

.
A wise move because the reality might be halfways.