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As a teenager, I was convinced that proof of Christianity was always just around the corner.
I was a very keen Christian, and I wanted to know that what I believed could stand up to scrutiny. So I read everything I could find. I followed philosophical arguments for the existence of God, devoured attempts to prove the resurrection, and disappeared down more than a few rabbit holes concerning the historical reliability of the stories surrounding Jesus.
Noah’s Ark was especially irresistible. Every so often, a photograph would appear of some strange boat-shaped object somewhere around Mount Ararat. There would be measurements, geological theories and calculations about how much water would have been required. I lapped it all up.
Part of me genuinely believed that sooner or later somebody would find the decisive piece of evidence. Perhaps archaeologists would uncover the Ark itself, or somebody would discover something connected with Jesus that nobody could explain away. Somewhere, I imagined, there was a fact waiting to be unearthed that would finally allow Christians to say,
There. Now you have to believe us.
Looking back, I can see why that appealed to me. Certainty felt safe. If Christianity could be proved, then faith would no longer feel quite so risky.
Then I began a theology degree, and I think it took about a week for the whole thing to become considerably more complicated.
One of the first subjects we studied was ancient Near Eastern flood traditions. Until then, I had largely encountered Noah’s flood as though Genesis existed in splendid isolation. Suddenly, we were reading about other ancient flood stories, including traditions preserved in Atrahasis and the Epic of Gilgamesh, with their own boats, survivors, animals, mountains and birds sent out to see whether the waters had receded.
I remember the uncomfortable realisation that this was much bigger than I had imagined. It did not destroy my faith, but it began to dismantle my expectation that faith would eventually become a collection of things I could prove.
