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Excellent post Vance.
Maybe a sticky is in order?
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I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
I see Genesis as a metaphor for the transition from nomadic hunter gatherer to sedentary agriculturist.
Working the fields in one place takes a lot more hard work but it allows for the accumulation of possessions and knowledge. But once there are possessions there are things to fight over and brother turns against brother so to speak. Knowledge has a price.
__________________ From childhoods hour I have not been
as others were. I have not seen
as others saw. I could not bring
my passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
my sorrow. I could not awaken
my heart to joy at the same tone.
All I loved, I loved alone. Edgar Allen Poe
I think the centering on the writings of Augustine was a brilliant stroke. It totally destroys the idea that the position you take is a modern responce or a weakening accomidation.
The funny thing is that Augustine was right in that Genesis was not meant to be read in a literal way long before Darwin or Lemaitre made a nonliteral reading mandatory.
A 4 century northafrican had more common sense than many of todays creationists.
As an example, we can look at all the controversies, polemics and angst in the Creation/Evolution debate which ultimately (despite the Intelligent Design movement’s attempt to make it a scientific argument) arises out of our interpretation of Genesis.
You still spouting this rhetoric? Do you realize that the Allegorical Method was made popular by Plato, who wanted to marry Greek philosophy to Jewish Scripture? Do you realize that Egypt was off-limits to Old Testament Jews, and that the Allegorical Method stems from the Alexandrian school of thought?
And excellent (but difficult) read on this subject is Things to Come, by J. Dwight Pentecost, where he has several chapters comparing the Allegorical Method with the Literal Method.
He points out that in the Allegorical Method, the mind of the reader becomes the sole authority for authentication of a passage; whereas in the Literal Method, any independent third party (even a hostile third party) can verify a passage's interpretation.
By way of example, take the word "day" in Genesis 1; an allegorical interpretation yields several different interpretations, which makes the interpreter have to adjust subsequent passages of Scripture to fit the interpretation.
BUT, in a literal interpretation, even a child can understand what is being said - which is the way it is supposed to be.
Even professional writers of prose don't start their works out with allegory, unless they make it very clear that it's a parable. The Bible is no exception, as It almost always alerts the reader when a passage is to be taken allegorically.
By way of example, take the word "day" in Genesis 1; an allegorical interpretation yields several different interpretations, which makes the interpreter have to adjust subsequent passages of Scripture to fit the interpretation.
BUT, in a literal interpretation, even a child can understand what is being said - which is the way it is supposed to be.
As suspected creationism is always about Sola Scriptura and the need of using the brain to a minimum.
AV, this has nothing at all to do with the allegorical method.
This has to do with different literary genres for describing past events.
If you would like, I can explain the difference.
__________________ In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. - St. Augustine, in his analysis of Genesis.
No, thanks, Vance --- anything that disagrees with a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, past, present, or future, is wrong.
So, in Revelation, the dragon is a literal dragon?
So, the earth is literally fixed and unmoving in space?
So, you agree with the literalist geocentrists?
So, you completely disagree with Augustine?
__________________ In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. - St. Augustine, in his analysis of Genesis.
So, in Revelation, the dragon is a literal dragon?
So, the earth is literally fixed and unmoving in space?
So, you agree with the literalist geocentrists?
So, you completely disagree with Augustine?
I just knew someone was gonna bring up the exceptions. I make no qualms in saying the Bible is to be taken literally; and even though It has figurative passages in It, those passages are the exception, rather than the rule.
To answer your questions though:
Yes, the dragon is literal --- it was Lucifer's animal of choice to tempt eve.
No --- the passage in question was written in what is called the language of the observer; and makes it much easier to understand --- especially to a child.
I don't know Augustine that well, and really don't care to. He didn't go to my church, and no child should have to know what he espoused. Pelagian Theology, Semi-pelagian Theology, Traducean Theology; whatever it was he taught, I'm not really interested (except for the Traducean Theology).
In my opinion, the greatest secular preacher to ever walk this earth outside of the Bible was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and I don't even read his sermons.
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