Was Noah absolutely blameless or relatively good?

Question

This is the line of Noah.—Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God.—Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness. When God saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth, God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth.—Genesis 6:11-13 (NJPS)

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For My part, I am about to bring the Flood—waters upon the earth—to destroy all flesh under the sky in which there is breath of life; everything on earth shall perish. But I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark, with your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives.—Genesis 6:17-18 (NJPS)

In this passage, it says "Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God." The phrase "blameless in his age" sounds as if we put him next to his contemporaries, he'd be the most ethic man in the bunch. But if you put in a group with righteous men of other ages, would Noah similarly stand out or was he merely good compared to the lawless men of his time?

Answer 1

If we look at verses beyond Genesis 6, we get more information on Noah's righteousness.

Eze 14:13 Son of man, if a country sins against Me by committing unfaithfulness, and I stretch out My hand against it, destroy its supply of bread, send famine against it and cut off from it both man and beast,

Eze 14:14 even though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves," declares the Lord GOD.

Eze 14:20 adds to 14 that they would not even be able to save their own sons and daughters by their own righteousness.

Noah also appears in the "Faith Hall of Fame" of Hebrews 11 along with Able, Enoch, and Abraham.

Heb 11:7 By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

In both Ezekiel and Hebrews, he is ranked next to men we know to be very righteous (not sinless, but righteous). His name is next to Daniel, Job, Able, Enoch, and Abraham. According to those, I'd say he would still stand out as righteous and faithful among any age.

Answer 2

The text tells us that he was both "a righteous man" and "blameless in his generation". The latter seems to be pretty clear that he was the best of that lot, as you comment in the question, but that still leaves us with "Noah was a righteous man". Also, he merited to be saved (with his family) when God could have wiped out everybody and restarted. So a close reading of the text suggests that he was righteous (whatever that means) and not just the least-evil of a bad lot (though that too).

Was he as righteous as the righteous of other ages? I don't think the text gives us enough information to say.

Answer 3

The Midrash (as quoted by Rashi) records a disagreement about exactly this topic. Either it means “he was relatively righteous for his generation” or it means “he was righteous even in his perverted generation”.

Note that the two explanations are not quite contradictory; and a case can be made that this ambiguity in language is deliberately implying both at once: Although he was righteous even “in his generation”, he was influenced by his surroundings to be far less so than he might have been, so his actual perfection was only relative to “his generation”. (This explanation is from Samson Raphael Hirsch’s commentary.)