Leon Kass describes Noah to be the first man to be born after Adam, hence be the first one with no contact with Adam and with no memory of the Garden of Eden and the prospect of immortal life. He doesn’t carry within him the possibility of immortal life existing and thus doesn’t have the anger and resentment that the rest of humans carry regarding this fact. In this account, Kass describes how man becomes very selfish and desires to possess more than he should. From the possession of things to the desire to possess women, man begins to step away from obeying and following God and begins to have their own desires. After the first sin, humans obtain the ability of free thinking and choosing, which leads to more selfishness from their part. This selfishness is tied to the desperate need for power and glory humans have. Just as the tree with the forbidden fruit is meant to represent temptation, now that humans have the knowledge of how they could be immortal, their thirst for more power keeps on growing. The first sin gave men the power of knowing that they could have immortality and hence they will not be satisfied till they have obtained it.
God tried to be merciful with humans by expelling them from the Promise land in order to make them avoid having the temptation of eating from the forbidden fruit. Yet God begins to regret his creation of mankind by looking at how self-centered humans became. People forget their own mortality and begin to obsess with behaving like God, which leads to even greater troubles and damage for the human race. Yet Noah, being a simple and less selfish man, gives God the hope on mankind and makes him want to continue with his creation. God realizes he must reorder things to make sure that mankind is on the right track and that they lower down on their selfishness. Noah serves as the man who goes back to what God initially intended for mankind to be before the first sin. The knowledge and free will that the first sin gave humans is what lead to their selfish behavior and to their insatiable thirst for power. The story of Noah shows how damaging this first sin is and how humans needed to step back from their selfishness and desire of power which is what made God sent the flood and wipe clean his creation to start over with a new generation of people that aren’t aware of the existence of their potential immortality.
Alegria Ubidia 
It is interesting that you draw a parallel between the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the first humans from the lineage of Cain, who are seen to be possessive, selfish, and in God’s eyes, destructive. Your approach that Noah represents the first time that God is able to “start over” in a way with regards to the creation of humanity is a different lens than I viewed the story through, but it your accounts of the first humans’ need for immortality and beautiful women highlight the reasons why God had thought that the creation of humans had gone awry.
Noah being a character who exhibits nothing but selflessness and care for God’s creation exhibits that no matter how much something can be overtaken by negative things or hostility, goodness can still exist. One of the most important themes so far seems to be time, as a new time for a different set of humans seems to be emerging, after the first humans realize that their time alive will stretch multiple centuries.
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I find it extremely interesting that you express the idea that the first humans are of Cain’s lineage. They are selfish and do not follow God, which sets the scene for Noah to save the day. I also think it is interesting that you say humans act this way as a direct result of original sin. It’s really cool how you also relate all aspects of human nature (greed, envy, etc.) to the original sin. One thing that I disagree with is the idea that God regrets creating humans, though it is very interesting. I do not believe that he necessarily regrets making humankind, but the corruption and sin present in the world at that time is something that definitely would upset Him.
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