Big words, but don't worry, the ideas behind them aren't that bad.
In the last blogs we have looked at the overall meaning of the story of Noah. It's one that we love to tell to children because it reflects a childlike understanding of who God is. It shows God as someone who makes mistakes, gets angry, and throws tantrums, but who is ultimately loving and kind to people, animals, and the world.
When you apply human characteristics to God this is called anthropomorphism. When we talk about Adam hearing God's footsteps in the Garden of Eden or God talking to Moses face to face that doesn't mean that God literally has feet or a face just like a human being. The Bible is using a storytelling technique to give us an image of God that we can understand. When the story of Noah talks about God making mistakes and losing his temper, it's the same thing. What we see in the story are made-up details to help us begin to understand God rather than a literal and accurate picture of all that God is.
As children grow up they begin to understand that God is not really like that. For one thing, God isn't someone we can see in the sense that we can see a human being. For another, God isn't limited to being in just one place the way human beings are. God is an invisible presence who is with us no matter where we go. God appears to the people of the Bible in many forms from a burning bush, to a man who comes to Abraham's tent to the small, quiet voice that called to Elijah.
God isn't a bush, of course, or a human being, or a quiet voice. These things are all symbols that God uses to reveal his presence. If we started worshipping the symbols, that would be worshipping something that isn't really God. That's something that the Second Commandment forbids, calling it idolatry.
This is the problem with taking the Bible literally: we end up mistaking the anthropomorphized (or humanized) version of God in the stories for the real thing. That can stunt our spiritual growth, and trap us in a very limited and childish view of God.
That's a shame whan it happens, because it blinds us to the deeper understanding of God we find in so many other places in scripture, and especially in the words of Jesus. It can even encourage us to be harsh, judgmental, and unloving ourselves.
The story of Noah, like many Bible stories, is wonderful and--if we understand it-- can provide a beautiful starting point for learning about God. But if misunderstood, if taken literally, it can stand in the way of our growing in the understanding of God.
To paraphrase a saying I've often seen in the United Church of Christ; we should take the Bible very seriously, but not literally.
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