A Creationist Speaks on the Nature of Science

[gluadys]

I may excuse myself from this conversation after this post, and give you the last word if you wish to respond; I find that this subject hits some hard walls even faster than debates about homosexuality and women's roles in the church!

I hope you will not leave. Yes there are some hard walls, but you make a valuable contribution to this forum and we appreciate that.

In fact, no one questioned that Christ was speaking in parables when he was. In fact, the problem is when they thought he was speaking allegorically when he wasn't (speaking about his death).

Yes, ironically (or not so, see later section of this post) it is moderns who have problems identifying some of the parables as parables. I have seen some people assert that there really was a Good Samaritan and that the Parable of Lazarus and Dives is not a parable.

There is no language to mark Genesis as allegory (or a parable). There is no explanation given to us, and the writers of other Bible books treat these "allegories" as if they were true history. I would think that I can do no better than to treat them the same way as Jesus and Paul.

There is no language to mark it as literal history either, nor any language that tells us the other books of the Bible are treating it as "true history". In fact the concept of "true history" in the sense of "an objective, unadorned, non-judgmental description of events and their political, sociological, economic causes" arose only with the application of scientific method to history. This is not what "true history" would even mean to the biblical authors.

I will come back to this point in a second, but first I want to deal with one of your misconceptions about evolution.

Given all that, I still will never see Macro Evolution as anything but an ugly process of death, bearing no mark of the wonderful works of a glorious and holy God.

Evolution is not a process of death. It does not require that death occur. It requires that reproduction occur and that it occur in a non-random fashion. That is, each variant in a species must have different reproductive success. It is the difference in reproductive success that changes the frequency of alleles from one generation to another.

It does not require that less reproductive success = no reproductive success. Even if there were a time when no non-human species suffered death, as long as there was differential reproductive success, each new generation would show a different balance of varietal forms with some becoming more common and others becoming less common.

Add in new variety produced by genetic changes and you have the potential for new species as well.

Now, as a matter of fact, there is no evidence that natural death has not always been a part of natural creation, so death has played a role in eliminating some species. But it plays no role in generating new varieties and new species. That is a function of reproduction, not death, and it would occur whether or not some species became extinct.


Now, back to literalism. I expect few young people today have ever heard of Northrop Frye
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display_rpo/edition/frye.html.

When I was an undergrad, his Anatomy of Criticism was required reading for students of English literature, not only in Canada but through much of the English speaking world.

The brief biography does not highlight one of his unique contributions to the study of literature: his course on the Bible and English Literature. I bold the word "and" because this was not a course on the Bible as literature. He invented the course because he was cognizant of the immense influence of the Bible on the shaping of Western culture. In his view, there could be no understanding of Western culture or its literature without a solid background of biblical knowledge. English literature even today is so replete with explicit references and implicit allusions to the Bible that to come to it without biblical knowledge is to miss what it is saying. So when he found by the late 1950s that more and more of his students lacked that background and could not follow his lectures because of that lack, he invented this course to supply this needed information. It proved very popular and continued for the rest of his career (over 30 years). Two of his books (The Great Code and Words of Power) are based on that course. More recently a slimmer volume The Double Vision summarizes the pertinent ideas of these two books. The following excepts come from The Double Vision.

On the phrase "literally true"

Ordinarily, we mean by "literally true" what is descriptively accurate. We read many books for the purpose of acquiring information about the world outside the books we are reading and we call what we read "true" if it seems to be a satisfactory verbal replica of the information we seek.​

He then goes on to show that this dispassionate, objective, descriptive language is specifically the language of science, and of history where the study of history follows the principles of scientific method. As such the idea of something being "literally true" is a modern concept that could only arise in a society impacted by the scientific paradigm. Trying to apply this concept to the bible just doesn't work because the bible was not written from within this paradigm.


He describes the result this way:

Unfortunately, there is as yet almost no understanding of what sacred history is, so the usual procedure is to try to squeeze everything possible into ordinary history with the bulges of the incredible smoothed out by a process called demythologizing. However, the Gospels are all myth and all bulge and the operation does not work.​

One of the consequences of the wide-spread acceptance of the "literally true" paradigm of scientific descriptive language has been the denigration of older forms of language as a means of truth-telling. We want "Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts." (Are reruns of Dragnet still shown on TV?)

But in a pre-scientific world, facts without meaning were not truth--certainly not significant truth. Ask a scientist why a rose is red and you will get a technical answer involving pigments and optics. But when an ancient or medieval philosopher asked why a rose was red, he was not interested in the mechanism of pigments or the reflection of light rays. He was interested in what it meant for humans that a rose was red--what the redness of the rose symbolized and how it revealed the glory of God and enriched human wisdom. Pigments and optics are "literally true" but they are not the truth the philosopher is seeking.

That is why the bible is written not in the language of science or history but in the language of literature, that is, in the language of myth and metaphor. In all literature,

the organizing principles are myth, that is story or narrative, and metaphor, that is figured language.​

Unfortunately, the primacy of the paradigm of the "literally true" description leads to a denigration of the fuller truth of story.

All through history there has run a distrust and contempt for imaginative language and the words for story or literary narrative--myth, fable, fiction--have all acquired a secondary sense of falsehood or something made up out of nothing. Overcoming this perversion of language takes time and thought.​

It is this misidentification of myth with falsehood or what is made up out of nothing that leads to dichtomizing myth and history as you have done when you say:

Narratives that are not true can be ultimately powerful, but not if the narrative is meant as true and we accept as allegory.

This assumes that "allegory" is "not true". And because it is "not true" ...

It may retain some of its ability to change us, but it loses significance and skews other interpretations.

But to quote Frye again:

Myth is neither historical nor anti-historical. It is counter-historical. Jesus is not presented as a historical figure, but as a figure who drops into history from another dimension of reality and thereby shows what the limitations of the historical perspective are.

And just as myth is not anti-historical but counter-historical, metaphor, the statement or implication that two things are identical though different, is neither logical nor illogical, but counter-logical. ... Metaphors are paradoxical and again we suspect that perhaps only in paradox are words doing the best they can for us.
​

Finally, on the differences between Biblical literature and ordinary imaginative literature:

It would be absurd to see the New Testament as only a work of literature: it is all the more important, therefore, to realize that it is written in the language of literature, the language of myth and metaphor.​

The literary language of the New Testament is not intended, like literature itself, to simply suspend judgment, but to convey a vision of spiritual life that continues to transform and expand our own. That is, its myths become, as purely literary myths cannot, myths to live by; its metaphors become, as purely literary metaphors cannot, metaphors to live in.​

Why does the Bible use myth and metaphor rather than scientific "literally true" description?

...because teaching by myth and metaphor is the only way of educating a free person in spiritual concerns. ... such language is the only one with the power to detach us from the world of facts and demonstrations which are excellent things as tools but are merely idols as objects of trust and reverence.​

Arctic Fox, you state that in your view

these kinds of arguments as the mere musings of worldly philosophers, nothing at all consistent with the Scriptural presentation of this information.

But to what extent is your view of scriptural presentation one derived from the scientific paradigm that is foreign to the scriptures? Maybe it is your modern perspective on literal truth that is really inconsistent with the scriptural presentation of information.

 

[ArcticFox]

I hope you will not leave. Yes there are some hard walls, but you make a valuable contribution to this forum and we appreciate that.

Thank you

But to what extent is your view of scriptural presentation one derived from the scientific paradigm that is foreign to the scriptures? Maybe it is your modern perspective on literal truth that is really inconsistent with the scriptural presentation of information.

I think you misunderstand me. I do not want "just the facts, ma'am," nor am I trying to force the Scriptures to fit any concept of an unbiased, ultra-literal concept of history. I recognize the meaning given to the history in the Scriptures, and that is useful for our growth as believers in Christ.

What I reject is making historical narratives into an allegory, because thus they no longer contain the historical truth they were originally meant to contain. Believing that the writers of the Scriptures did not use the same straight-forward facts-driven presentation of history that we use is one thing (and it is true); it is altogether an entirely separate thing to argue that the writers of the Scriptures just wrote big long myths and legends to emphasize spiritual truths. This destroys the basis of Christianity: truth!

You see, we worship Christ in spirit and in truth. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is not an allegory; he really existed as the gospels say he did. Likewise, so did Adam, who is compared and contrasted with Christ in Romans 5.

If we make Adam into some mythological character who never truly existed, then we have no reason not to do the same to Christ. You see, when there is no clear distinction of a passage as parable (allegory), we must assume that it is true. We can, however, make possible exceptions if the nature of the passage is so extreme as to demand an allegorical interpretation; they are few and far between, such cases.

I think it would do this conversation good if we could have a "liberal Christian" come into the discussion and "explain away" the gospels using this same logic. You see, I don't accept it from people who try to tell me that "Jesus didn't really mean what the gospels say he said." I also don't accept that Genesis isn't really saying what it is saying.

For the following reasons:

1) There is no textual reason to do so.

2) There is no contextual reason to do so.

3) There are theological reasons NOT to do so.

4) There are NO theological reasons to do so.

5) Other Bible writers treated Genesis as literal.

6) Christ treated Genesis as literal.

7) Such a treatment of Genesis resembles those tactics used by others to render all of the Scriptures impotent. *

*I realize #7 isn't a valid reason, but I believe it is useful to consider in the light of all of the other reasons.

Perhaps we will not agree on this point.

 

[shernren]

You are always welcome to correct any misconceptions I have of your beliefs. The last thing I want to do is to argue with someone who doesn't exist!

I may excuse myself from this conversation after this post, and give you the last word if you wish to respond; I find that this subject hits some hard walls even faster than debates about homosexuality and women's roles in the church!

Hard walls? I'm just being long-winded.

The parables are NOT true. However, they teach us truths; that is why they are parables, and they are clearly so. Jesus explains the meanings of several of his parables directly. In fact, no one questioned that Christ was speaking in parables when he was. In fact, the problem is when they thought he was speaking allegorically when he wasn't (speaking about his death).

Does Jesus explain many of His parables? I don't think so. In fact, the only incident I can specifically recall Jesus explaining a parable in is the Parable of the Sower, and right after the disciples said they didn't understand it. And the question I would have is how people understood that Jesus' parables were parables. After all, a lot of the best ones are told in straight narrative - Lazarus in his parable with the rich man is even named. The people of that time took the parables to be parables - so do we today, and yet I can call someone a "good Samaritan" without assuming that the said parable is literal-historical.

But you said it yourself: to you, even though "parables are NOT true, they teach us truths." That is how you distinguish between the "nice stories" of the Bible and the nice stories of other religions, or specifically the creation stories of the Bible and the creation stories of other religions. It may well be that none of them are true. The parables are "NOT true" and they are in the Bible, so nothing prevents Genesis 1 from being NOT true either. But does Genesis teach us truths? Plenty - and not just truths about a particular trivial scientific theory about earth and life and the universe, but fundamental truths about God's relationship with His creation. Over here I've listed some of those truths Genesis 1 teaches. No other creation story teaches the same thing. That is how we believe that the creation story of the Bible is more trustworthy than other creation stories - not necessarily as a scientifically accurate descriptor of the world (which the Bible never specifically claimed to be, anyway) but as a theologically accurate descriptor of God.

There is no language to mark Genesis as allegory (or a parable). There is no explanation given to us, and the writers of other Bible books treat these "allegories" as if they were true history. I would think that I can do no better than to treat them the same way as Jesus and Paul.

And I can call someone a good Samaritan, an Othello, a Shylock, or a Hector, without believing that any of those characters are historically real either.

As a convinced Calvinist (missing the Limited Atonement), I know what it is to have a God that just isn't as "clean and neat" as we would think he'd be. I know that God and the problem of evil is much bigger than we could imagine, and that God is perhaps closer to this situation than we would like to admit. However, I think we both agree that we know and are confident in God's goodness, love, and holiness.

Given all that, I still will never see Macro Evolution as anything but an ugly process of death, bearing no mark of the wonderful works of a glorious and holy God.

Your comments about Job are interesting, but I believe they are too obscure to carry to some full theological position. God's "parading" of these creatures does not require that death and suffering be a part of the world. God created mankind with the ability to know good and evil and to do both, but we were never ideally supposed to know evil or do it. Just the same, even if God makes the eagle capable of being an awesome predator, it does not mean that it was ever originally meant to be so (or to actually bring about suffering or death).

Just like many kings adorn their castles with swords that are never meant to be used (decorative), so God is not to be excluded from doing the same. After all, viewing this world purely through the lens of expediency robs you of the ability to see what the purpose of this world is: to make known the glory of God. With this as the purpose, there is no reason why God would purposefully make everything minimally "functional," as a view of Evolution might.

But the passages do not describe the mere possibility of loss and stubbornness and violence, they describe it actually happening. God takes responsibility and drags into court the actual event of nature red in tooth and claw. If you see macroevolution as nothing but ugly death, then you are forced to see the terror of the warhorse and the bloody predation of the hawk and eagle as the same ugly death - and God takes responsibility for the latter, so why can He not take responsibility for the former? (And believe me, these "obscure comments" have been carried to full theological positions before - Now I have seen You: Images of creation and evil in the book of Job by Robert S. Fyall.)

 

[Assyrian]

Fair enough. You have a valid point, and that I should account for the reasons others give. Although I disagree that your reason #4 is a valid reason, it was unfair not to list it as a reason that people believe is valid. Point well taken.

Cheers.

I would simply disagree here. However, I think that's how most of the rest of my reply to your post would go, so I think it'll be good for me to cease here on commenting on those verses. I think my treatment of them earlier was sufficient.

Death would have brought about mankind through Evolution (a process of mutation, birth and death).

If you want to look at it that way then it was death that rescued the Israelites from Egypt. But evolution is about successfully breeding rather than not dying.

I believe it's a metaphor because he did INDEED create us in similar fashion.

So how is the potter a metaphor for God's dealings with Israel in Jer 18? Did he really mould Israel on a giant wheel? What about Job? Job 10:9 Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust? Did God form Job from dust too?

We can say it is an "allegorical illustration," but it's not the same as interpreting the whole of a historical narrative as allegory. God frequently gives us examples. This I believe is a fallacy, to argue that because God gives us parables or metaphors at certain points, that therefore we can take historical narratives as allegory as well.

The problem is we are hard pressed to find references to Gen 1-3 in the rest of the bible that aren't interpreting it allegorically or figuratively.

Assyrian, we will simply disagree completely here. I do not view these Scriptures with an eye to allegory; I believe the reason why is because I have no need to adjust my interpretive framework for a scientific theory (I use the word theory because it claims to explain a process that can never be repeated).

Again you are falling into the same mistake you made earlier. There is no scientific reason God could not have sarted off with a man and a woman in a garden. Lots of TEs do believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I don't because I don't see the scriptural basis. Adam is Hebrew for Man. It is the story of all of us.

I specifically object to your treatment of Romans 5. Basically, you would have me believe that Adam is an allegorical figure while Christ is a real figure. Both figures are treated with the same language, but you turn one into an allegory and accept the other as historically real. Why? I just cannot do that with a clear conscience, nor can I do it and have any confidence that I study showing myself approved to God.

The Good Shepherd is an allegory for Jesus. On is real the other isn't. What is the problem? Paul tells us Adam is a figure of Christ and spends most of Romans 5 comparing Adam with Christ. Why not accept Paul's explanation of what he is doing?

As for your statement about 1 Timothy 2:15, we must be careful: the word "saved" here is not a loaded theological term like it is today. To Paul and the writers of the NT, the Greek word used here was not a special theological word, it was a regular word. Not every instance of the word "saved" is speaking of salvation from sin.

Yet Paul only seems to use the word in its non religious sense once, and that was to a non Christian when they were on the verge of a shipwreck. On the other hand Paul used the word theologically, well, religiously.

Are Christian women immune to the dangers of childbirth? Can we say that women who have difficult births or die in childbirth didn't have enough faith? No the non theological use does not make sense here either.

In the context, Paul was talking about Eve who had been promised that her seed would be the saviour. That is what Paul is talking about when he talks about women being saved through the birth of a child.

A lack of clarity, or difficulty in interpreting, is still not a valid reason to fall back on allegory.

No but it is a good indication that you current interpretation is off. I would also disagree with your depiction of allegory as a second class form of interpretation that we 'fall back on'. Allegory, symbolism, parable and metaphor are biblical means of communication

Your treatment of 1 Corinthians 15:45 is just silly. I believe your silly interpretation was invented purely to try to prove your point, but no one interprets in such a silly and obviously crazy manner. If you wish to convince me through interpretation, you'll have to use reasonable and realistic hermeneutics.

Paul is the one who tells us he interprets Adam as a figure of Christ. When we read in 1 Cor 15 Paul describing Adam and Christ as if they were the only two men in existence and that everybody who ever lived is 'in Adam' or 'in Christ'. I know it is a pretty mind blowing concept for someone used to literal interpretation, but remember Paul was a Jewish Rabbi. This kind of apocalyptic imagery was second nature to him.

Let me point out the biggest flaw. You tried to force this view that the words "first" and "second" mean the first man alive and the second man alive. This is entirely a foolish tactic. It is clear that Paul is speaking of two people, and he refers to the first person as the "first," and the second as the "second." It's simple use of language. There is absolutely no one I have ever met or read who ever used such a foolish and absurd interpretive algorithm. Surely you must see how silly it is?

It is certainly not literal to call Jesus the second man. But look back to verse 22. How is Paul talking historically and literally when he says 'in Adam all die'? How do we die in Adam today - Paul uses the present tense not the past. How are we 'in Adam' today? After all people cannot die 'in Adam' if they are not 'in Adam' right now.

Why this great fear of allegory? Paul tells us he uses allegory. He tells us he saw Adam as a figure. What is the problem in recognising when that great Rabbi might have been using allegory?

I think we'll simply disagree. My hope and prayer now is that God's people continue to have confidence that his Word is not mere allegory, but historical truth; God does not give us historical narratives and hope that we'll just figure out that he meant it allegorically.

Assuming it is a historical narrative to start with.

The parables and marked allegories are clearly that: clear. They are made obviously, even painfully clear, that they are not true stories.

If you only admit the parables and allegories that are labelled that way. Of course Jesus rarely explained when he told a parable, though the Gospel writers sometimes let us into the secret. The bible is full of passages that simply tell a story and it is up to us to figure out if they are literal or allegorical.

 

[gluadys]

I recognize the meaning given to the history in the Scriptures, and that is useful for our growth as believers in Christ.

That's good. But you might ask yourself, how do we give meaning to history? The biblical way to give meaning to history is to write it as a story, a narrative i.e. as a myth.

What I reject is making historical narratives into an allegory, because thus they no longer contain the historical truth they were originally meant to contain.

Again you are assuming that allegory/myth/metaphor is necessarily false or at least fiction. There is no reason a mythical narrative cannot be both figurative and historical. It simply cannot be "literally" historical because that is not the way it is being told. But it can contain both the history and the meaning of history, the latter being of prime importance to the biblical writers. As Frye says, myth is neither historical nor anti-historical. It is a way of telling about events that opens up their meaning in a way that a straightforward recounting of facts cannot.

You see, we worship Christ in spirit and in truth. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is not an allegory; he really existed as the gospels say he did.

Well, he is both as you just summarized. Metaphorically he is the way, the truth and the life. And that is just as true a statement as that he came from Nazareth. The fact that it is a metaphor doesn't make it untrue or unreal.

Likewise, so did Adam, who is compared and contrasted with Christ in Romans 5.

Maybe, but you certainly couldn't tell that from Romans 5. Indeed the whole thrust of the passage treats Christ as mythically as it does Adam. "Adam" is a transliteration of the Hebrew for "man" and is presented as the old/first "man" and Christ is presented as the new/second/last "man". It makes no sense to try and interpret this passage as anything other than figurative. But that does not mean it is either fiction or false. It is a figurative presentation of the contrast between the old and the new human reality.

If we make Adam into some mythological character who never truly existed,

Adam truly existed and truly exists today, for we are all Adam.

then we have no reason not to do the same to Christ.

And we are all called to become Christ, Jesus being the firstborn of many brothers and sisters who share/will share his resurrected being.

You see, when there is no clear distinction of a passage as parable (allegory), we must assume that it is true.

Again this is assuming that the allegory is not true or at least not historical. But allegory and history are not mutually exclusive terms. History recounted as allegory is still history.

I think it would do this conversation good if we could have a "liberal Christian" come into the discussion and "explain away" the gospels using this same logic.

You are talking to one (actually, I see liberalism as too moderate to describe me) and that is a smear on liberal Christians. There is no aim in liberal Christianity to "explain away" the gospels. The aim is to understand the gospels better so we can live them better.

You see, I don't accept it from people who try to tell me that "Jesus didn't really mean what the gospels say he said." I also don't accept that Genesis isn't really saying what it is saying.

I don't either.

1) There is no textual reason to do so.

Actually there is plenty of textual reason to do so. Just because the text doesn't explicitly label itself doesn't mean it is unrecognizable as myth/metaphor.

2) There is no contextual reason to do so.

Plenty of that too. In fact this way of interpreting scripture is called historical-contextual interpretation.

3) There are theological reasons NOT to do so.

4) There are NO theological reasons to do so.

Depends on what your theological commitments are.

5) Other Bible writers treated Genesis as literal.

6) Christ treated Genesis as literal.

We have no evidence of this. Ascribing a literal interpretation to later biblical references to Genesis is an exercise in mind-reading across historical and cultural divides. It is only a reflection of your prior assumptions.

7) Such a treatment of Genesis resembles those tactics used by others to render all of the Scriptures impotent. *

*I realize #7 isn't a valid reason, but I believe it is useful to consider in the light of all of the other reasons.

Actually, in my experience, those who try to render the bible impotent generally insist on a literalistic interpretation because that is the one that is easiest to make appear ridiculous.

Perhaps we will not agree on this point.

Perhaps not. It is not important that we agree. But I would ask you to try and understand. One of the keys to your apprehension about seeing the mythical/metaphorical nature of biblical narrative is the assumption that the acquired secondary meaning of these terms ("false, fiction") is the only relevant meaning.

If this were so, then the dichotomy between history/myth would be applicable. It would be an either-or choice. But that is a choice forced on us by the modern scientific paradigm. It is a choice that was not faced by the biblical writers and their audience.

So if we try to put ourselves in their shoes, we need to let go of what was -- to them-- a false dichotomy. We need to see that true history was told in the myth/metaphor format so that it could not be merely factual, but fully true in a way that "literally true" history can never be.

 

[ArcticFox]

The biblical way to give meaning to history is to write it as a story, a narrative i.e. as a myth.

Depends on what you mean here by myth. If you mean to say that the story is not truly history in the sense that it actually happened, then no, that's not true at all.

We have confidence in Christ because Christ was truly born of a virgin, truly lived a sinless life, truly and historically died on a cross, and historically and truly rose from the dead.

These are not merely myths that are meant to emphasize some spiritual truth, they are actual events that really occurred in space and time that are meant to teach us truth by not only their reality, but their meaning as well.

If Christ's death and resurrection is made into an allegory that didn't historically occur, we have NO hope in God and we are to be pitied more than anyone in the world. Without a literal death and resurrection of a literal, historical God-man (the Christ), we are without hope and have no salvation.

If God didn't bring his people up out of Egypt, than he is not a God who intervenes in history, and he is turned into another one of those "spirituality" gods who don't really do anything, but just talk about what they could or would do in myths and legends that never happened.

Metaphorically he is the way, the truth and the life. And that is just as true a statement as that he came from Nazareth. The fact that it is a metaphor doesn't make it untrue or unreal.

I would challenge you to prove that Jesus came from Nazareth isn't too a parable. You have no solid foundation for claiming the one and not the other, if you are willing to accept Genesis as allegory.

I once again present this challenge, and I hope for and desire a well-thought out answered: if you claim Genesis is an allegory, then by what foundation or argument do you accept the gospels (and the life of Christ) as historical? Why do you not see the gospels as fully allegory, speaking of men and women who never actually existed in time and space? It is not rhetorical, please do answer.

Most Hebrew names had clear meanings; does that mean that they are all allegorical characters that never existed, and they are all simply "code" for the meaning of their names? You say Adam is not a singular, historical individual because (among other reasons) his name means "man." You are probably aware of the meaning of Jesus' name (Yeshua), or that of Peter (Petra, Cephas). Do we convert these individuals into allegorical characters who are merely symbols?

Adam truly existed and truly exists today, for we are all Adam.

I mean this not purely to offend you (though I hope it does bother you enough to reconsider), but that sounds eerily like what the Mormons or Jehova's Witnesses teach. Using similar logic as this, they twist the words of Scripture to turn us all into gods, and make Christ out to be nothing special.

Again this is assuming that the allegory is not true or at least not historical. But allegory and history are not mutually exclusive terms.

These are convenient points of view for avoiding the real workings of a real God in real history. We accept these kinds of viewpoints because it is the result of post-enlightenment, post-modern thought. We see in the world how many people would write using myth and legend, and then we assume the same must be true of the writers of Scripture. We say this because we just can't bring ourselves to believe that it "really happened the way it says it did."

It is, in a way, a denial of the miraculous, of the supernatural; it begins the process of turning the god of the Scriptures into a deity of pure "spirituality," not having any true interaction in history beyond the "spiritual realm." However, thanks be to God, he does not let his Word be so twisted without the repercussions. He does not invent mere stories of creating the world; he actually does it! He doesn't create myths of how he conquered Pharaoh and the then most powerful nation on earth, he actually does it! Whether we make poetry about it or not, it is still history as it occurred.

I am not sorry to boldly proclaim that Genesis 1-3, although not a "scientific" or "modern" version of history as we would write it, is indeed historical narrative. We can debate about the ultimate meaning of yom (days), the exact order, etc., but I find no justifiable warrant to throw the whole thing into allegory.

I am also unashamed to say that Christ's life, death, and resurrection was no mere myth created to teach lessons. It was indeed a factual account of history. It does not take the modern form of historical narrative that we use (a more factual, supposedly "objective" approach); that does not disqualify it from actually, truly happening the way it says it did.

We can argue about the exact words Christ used, if they were recorded verbatim; we can argue about whether everything was writing in exactly chronological order; what we cannot argue about is whether Christ actually lived and died and rose again, because that is a fact of history. It has been happening, is happening now, and will continue to happen; that people try to "spiritualize" Christianity so that it loses its factual, historical relevance, and thus becomes just another religion in the marketplace of spiritual ideas. However, Christianity will not idly allow itself to be so misrepresented; it fights the battle through the lives of its citizens who proclaim that our history is more than merely spiritual, but real.

You are talking to one (actually, I see liberalism as too moderate to describe me) and that is a smear on liberal Christians. There is no aim in liberal Christianity to "explain away" the gospels. The aim is to understand the gospels better so we can live them better.

I cannot comment on the nature of another's salvation with true accuracy. I must, however, make a determination for myself if I believe another to be of the faith. This is required of me based on several facts, including the fact that I am to treat the brethren differently than I am to treat unbelievers; therefore, I must make such a determination. My best method is to use what evidence is provided in the Bible as evidence of the life of a believer (confession of Christ without denial, acceptance of the Word or instruction and rebuke, love for God, fruit of the Spirit, forgiveness for others, etc). Based on these standards and others, I cannot accept just anyone who names the name of "Christ" as a true brother or sister.

What I am saying is that, depending on your definition of "liberal Christian," I would not for my purposes view you as a believer. My concept of a liberal Christian is thus:

Liberal Christian definition at Wikipedia

The summary of this passage is that a liberal Christian will criticize God's Word, usually viewing certain parts as inaccurate or even completely false. A liberal Christian is free to dispense with sections of Scripture that don't fit his or her higher textual criticisms. Modern philosophy, history and biology take precedence in disqualifying certain Scriptural teachings or presentations of history. If modern philosophy and/or biology seem to support a position that is contrary to a certain section of Scripture, that section of Scripture can be considered "lesser" to the ideas of philosophy or biology.

Therefore, a liberal Christian is free to set his or her own beliefs based on what he or she wants to accept from the Scriptures. If a certain section of Scripture is troubling for any reason, it can be dispensed with. Thus, Scripture loses its significance for instruction and rebuke; how can I rebuke one who simply casts aside the Scripture that confronts their sin/disbelief?

In the end, depending on that particular liberal Christian's viewpoints (there is no set standard of views), they may or may not be a Christian to me. Whether they are in reality is not for me to decide, but I must choose whether to treat them as a sister or brother, or whether to treat them as an unbeliever. In general, I find more often than not that liberal Christians qualify to me as "unbelievers."

Liberal Christians will also have their own meanings for words. Like a Mormon, they may say that "Jesus is the Son of God." However, what they mean by this phrase is entirely contrary to the traditional and orthodox beliefs.

Actually there is plenty of textual reason to do so. Just because the text doesn't explicitly label itself doesn't mean it is unrecognizable as myth/metaphor.

Now you see why I often excuse myself. It comes down to me saying it isn't, and you saying it is. Basically, we are now in a very professional, courteous, high-level version of "Yes it is!" and "No it's not!"

Depends on what your theological commitments are.

Of course. But by that phrase I mean that it is contrary to other passages of Scripture. I'm not sure about your beliefs, but just because people disagree on the meaning of Scripture does NOT mean that I think it has many meanings, or that there is "no ultimate meaning." Quite the contrary, I believe that the Scriptures are like any other historical or contractual document: you interpret them with an eye to retrieving the original intent of the author to his original audience, using all your knowledge of the language, context, author's nature, history, etc. I read Romans the same way I read an argument from a philosopher who writes now-a-days: both might use allegory at times, but I don't turn the whole darn thing into a giant allegory. Same with Genesis, I look at it like I would a writing of history; it may have some different styles, but I don't put the whole darn thing in a "religious myth" category.

Now, a document like the Hindu Vedas? I see those as "spiritual mumbo-jumbo." I, in my limited ideas about Hinduism, imagine floating lotus-position bald men telling me that there "is no reality." If you have tried to read the Vedas, you would find that they are quite wishy-washy, spiritual floatiness. I am, of course, making up some of these words I am using as I go. Like floatiness .

Actually, in my experience, those who try to render the bible impotent generally insist on a literalistic interpretation because that is the one that is easiest to make appear ridiculous.

Although we could just say that it's an issue of rhetoric, that is known as an "ultra-literal" or "overly literal" interpretive algorithm. It is actually quite silly, because it doesn't take into account context, word-usage, and so forth. Therefore, it actually shouldn't be called "literal" at all, because it fails to see what is really there (which is the purpose of a "literal" hermeneutic).

For example, if I say that I have a "ton of work to do," would you jump on me and criticize me for lying about my work? Would you put all of my papers on a scale and show me how they don't add up to 907.18474 kilograms? Of course not! In like manner, people should not use such "ultra literal" hermeneutics to disqualify the Scriptures when they have such language.

If this were so, then the dichotomy between history/myth would be applicable. It would be an either-or choice. But that is a choice forced on us by the modern scientific paradigm. It is a choice that was not faced by the biblical writers and their audience.

I believe it is a choice forced on us by the writers of Scripture. Although there are certainly parables and allegories, it is quite a different thing to turn an otherwise historical narrative into an allegory because it doesn't fit modern scientific conceptions.

I hope we are using the word "myth" in the same manner. When I say myth, I mean the following:

4. A fictitious story, person, or thing

Now, myth can also be used in the sense of the word "legend." "He's a legend." However, I believe such use of the word myth has fallen out of common vernacular, and the word myth almost exclusively is used of a "fictitious story that never really happened." Myth is on par with any fictional novel you would read at your local bookstore. That is the myth that I am speaking of.

If that is what you mean, then I do not accept myth as a general form of literature in the Bible. Although occasional parables and metaphors/similes as used, these are generally of a different nature than a "myth." If I, in the middle of my argument, break into a metaphor or allegorical story, you typically wouldn't label that a "myth," nor would you ever label my whole argument a "myth." In like manner, I don't label the parables as myths, even though they could technically qualify as one (by the dictionaries definition).

I would see the Greek stories of heroes and gods, as well as the Roman stories of their gods as "myth;" they never existed, never happened, and are fiction. Even if a similar character did really exist, he didn't exist in that way nor lived in such a manner as would qualify the story as anything historically true.

So if we try to put ourselves in their shoes, we need to let go of what was -- to them-- a false dichotomy. We need to see that true history was told in the myth/metaphor format so that it could not be merely factual, but fully true in a way that "literally true" history can never be.

I see your point but disagree. I believe this is what sets the Scriptures apart from other competing "holy" documents; they are truth. Not just truth in the greater sense of teaching morals or higher spiritual truths, but that they teach us about the real lives of real people who have been directly impacted by God as he intervened in the real history of mankind on this, our real planet.

I agree that many ancient writers wrote in such a way. I disagree that this is what the biblical authors wrote. I agree that such a literary device was common; I disagree that applying it to the Scriptures is helpful, nor an accurate approach.

I do not wish to discuss it at length, but there is a plethora of evidence that I believe provides for historicity of the Scriptures as a whole. Although we understand that books were written separately (in general) by separate authors (though some authors wrote several books), they are a unique whole.

Some examples include, but are not limited to:

• Genealogies (real people with real ancestors/descendants)
• Populations
• Battle reports (sizes of armies, results, etc)
• Specifications for structures (tabernacle, ark)
• Contractual agreements between parties
• Lists of names and relationships of individuals involved
• Logical argumentation
• Sanitation
• Gruesome realities (rotting corpses, animals eating people, people eating people)

The list could go on. Many others could argue it better than I.

 

[shernren]

The summary of this passage is that a liberal Christian will criticize God's Word, usually viewing certain parts as inaccurate or even completely false. A liberal Christian is free to dispense with sections of Scripture that don't fit his or her higher textual criticisms. Modern philosophy, history and biology take precedence in disqualifying certain Scriptural teachings or presentations of history. If modern philosophy and/or biology seem to support a position that is contrary to a certain section of Scripture, that section of Scripture can be considered "lesser" to the ideas of philosophy or biology.

Therefore, a liberal Christian is free to set his or her own beliefs based on what he or she wants to accept from the Scriptures. If a certain section of Scripture is troubling for any reason, it can be dispensed with. Thus, Scripture loses its significance for instruction and rebuke; how can I rebuke one who simply casts aside the Scripture that confronts their sin/disbelief?

In the end, depending on that particular liberal Christian's viewpoints (there is no set standard of views), they may or may not be a Christian to me. Whether they are in reality is not for me to decide, but I must choose whether to treat them as a sister or brother, or whether to treat them as an unbeliever. In general, I find more often than not that liberal Christians qualify to me as "unbelievers."

And I've always found it peculiar that most Christians don't realize how figuratively they treat the Bible. It's doubly ironic that I notice this as a future scientist. Take for example Jesus' famous words, "If your hand or your leg causes you to sin, chop it off" (paraphrasing from memory). Do you know any Christians who take it literally? I don't.

==========

So I go up to my pastor and say "Pastor, I caught you speeding on the road. Your hands caused you to sin. Chop them off as Jesus Himself commanded."

"I've installed a device on my car that technologically prevents me from speeding since then. Jesus only meant that we should take any possible and reasonable measure we can to prevent ourselves from sinning. He never meant for us to go to the extreme of amputation, but He raised it as an example of the determination we should have."

"So you don't interpret it literally?"

"Of course! Why should I?"

"Pastor, you're being liberal! Look at what you're doing: if a certain section of Scripture is troubling for any reason, it can be dispensed with. Thus, Scripture loses its significance for instruction and rebuke; how can I rebuke one who simply casts aside the Scripture that confronts their sin/disbelief?"

=========

You see? I take the passage literally (or at least my story character does), while the pastor doesn't. And yet the pastor has lost absolutely nothing of the message of the passage. In fact in Jesus' day He rebuked the Pharisees for their literalism; to them He must have seemed like the ultimate Liberal Jew! Jesus frequently reinterpreted the Old Testament; He cut off all the literalistic excesses and went right to the heart of of the message.

I repeat my question: What do you learn from Genesis 1 about God if you treat it literally, that you lose if you treat it figuratively? I have been in both interpretive positions before and I see that I have not lost anything; in fact, I've gained more from putting the story in its place as a brilliant subversion of the stories of its time, than to try to anachronistically read it as a technical journal report on the Universe in six days of undetectably recent creation.

 

[Assyrian]

If Christ's death and resurrection is made into an allegory that didn't historically occur, we have NO hope in God and we are to be pitied more than anyone in the world. Without a literal death and resurrection of a literal, historical God-man (the Christ), we are without hope and have no salvation.

If God didn't bring his people up out of Egypt, than he is not a God who intervenes in history, and he is turned into another one of those "spirituality" gods who don't really do anything, but just talk about what they could or would do in myths and legends that never happened.

I would challenge you to prove that Jesus came from Nazareth isn't too a parable. You have no solid foundation for claiming the one and not the other, if you are willing to accept Genesis as allegory.

I once again present this challenge, and I hope for and desire a well-thought out answered: if you claim Genesis is an allegory, then by what foundation or argument do you accept the gospels (and the life of Christ) as historical? Why do you not see the gospels as fully allegory, speaking of men and women who never actually existed in time and space? It is not rhetorical, please do answer.

2Pet 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. The Gospels are presented as eyewitness testimony of the events they describe and according to the OT law an issue is settled by two or three witnesses.

Act 2:22 "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know--
23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
25 For David says concerning him, "'I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope.
27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.'
29 "Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne,
31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.
32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.

Luke 1:2 just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word,
3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
4 that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.

Luke is presenting carefully researched eyewitness testimonies here.

John 21:24 This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.

Who have we to tell us about a six day creation? Just one person. We have Moses who wrote and edited the books of Genesis and Exodus. Moses who wasn't there at the time, and who didn't even take God's days literally himself (Psalm 90).

Most Hebrew names had clear meanings; does that mean that they are all allegorical characters that never existed, and they are all simply "code" for the meaning of their names? You say Adam is not a singular, historical individual because (among other reasons) his name means "man." You are probably aware of the meaning of Jesus' name (Yeshua), or that of Peter (Petra, Cephas). Do we convert these individuals into allegorical characters who are merely symbols?

I might if the bible kept switching between the name and the meaning. If the Jews picked up Rocks to throw at Jesus but Peter Jumped out of their hands. With Adam we have such a constant switching between the name Adam, the meaning 'man' and mankind that no two translations agree where to say Adam and where to say 'man'. We have in descriptions of the creation, the name Adam being used, not for a single individual but for the people God created male and female, even the whole human race.
Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let us makethe Adam in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion.
Gen 5:2 male and female he created them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

Gen 6:1 When the Adam began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them,
2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of the Adam were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not abide in Adam forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years."
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of the Adam and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of the Adam was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made [asah] the Adam on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the LORD said, "I will blot out the Adam whom I have created [bara] from the face of the land, Adam and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them."

I mean this not purely to offend you (though I hope it does bother you enough to reconsider), but that sounds eerily like what the Mormons or Jehova's Witnesses teach. Using similar logic as this, they twist the words of Scripture to turn us all into gods, and make Christ out to be nothing special.

The people who drowned in the flood were all Adam. They were the Adam God created on the earth. What is wrong with saying we are Adam too?

But how do you go from saying we are Adam to saying we are gods? If you want a claim that sound eerily Mormon it is saying the Genealogy in Luke is completely literal, including presumably, the part that says Adam was the son of God.

Now, a document like the Hindu Vedas? I see those as "spiritual mumbo-jumbo." I, in my limited ideas about Hinduism, imagine floating lotus-position bald men telling me that there "is no reality." If you have tried to read the Vedas, you would find that they are quite wishy-washy, spiritual floatiness. I am, of course, making up some of these words I am using as I go. Like floatiness .

Actually I got 697 hits on Google of floatiness.

 

[gluadys]

I hope we are using the word "myth" in the same manner. When I say myth, I mean the following:

4. A fictitious story, person, or thing

Let's cut to the chase, because this is precisely the source of the problem in communication and of your dismay when people refer to mythology in the Bible.

This is not the meaning I give to the term "myth". As Northrop Frye, C.S. Lewis and many other experts in literature and theology have pointed out, this is a secondary, acquired meaning for the term.

I do not use this common but essentially perverted meaning. I use it with its original literary meaning, namely:

1. a A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth.
b Such stories considered as a group: the realm of myth.

or (not so much in reference to the bible, but more generally)

2. A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal: a star whose fame turned her into a myth; the pioneer myth of suburbia.


These meanings of myth (and other figurative terms such as allegory and metaphor) are not anti-historical. They do not imply that no such person ever existed or no such event ever occurred. They refer rather to how the story of that person or event is told. It is not told as a simple description, but in a way that unfolds the meaning of the person or event and turns it into a paradigm or world-view that gives meaning, purpose and fulfilment to our lives.

In telling the story in this way, it may be that some details are not what we would call factually accurate, but the meaning is still true as the author intended it. What we have to do is discern what that intended meaning was by relinquishing our modern preferences for factually accurate description and enter into the myth-oriented thinking of the biblical writers.

And it is not impossible or even rare that myth and history co-exist in the same story.

So when we go through your post, we can now say that here are ideas which IMO are not implied by "myth".

Depends on what you mean here by myth. If you mean to say that the story is not truly history in the sense that it actually happened, then no, that's not true at all.

No, I am not saying it is not history though I am saying that it may not be literal in every aspect.

These are not merely myths that are meant to emphasize some spiritual truth, they are actual events that really occurred in space and time that are meant to teach us truth by not only their reality, but their meaning as well.

Yes, we do have actual events. But they are not simply described in a literal way, but enfolded into a mythical narrative which reveals the meaning and purpose of the event. A literal description would leave out much of the meaning. If we had sent modern reporters to view these events, their training in "objectivity" would likely have obscured the meaning the biblical writers assigned to them, and would certainly have offered alternative explanations of them.

Consider the fate of the Assyrian army outside the walls of Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah. Would a modern "literally true" description have said anything more than that a mysterious plague had killed them off? Would there be any reference to angels or the intervening hand of God? And even if they commented on the Jewish attribution of the event to Yahweh, would they not also have sought out an Assyrian explanation that would put the event in a different light?

Or consider an event like the descent of the Holy Spirit at the time of Jesus' baptism. It is clear from the accounts that others present did not see what Jesus saw and insofar as they saw or heard anything at all gave a different interpretation to it.

It is because these things are not "literally true" but narrated mythologically that we have the biblical testimony to God's role in them.

If Christ's death and resurrection is made into an allegory that didn't historically occur,

And I think you see now that that is not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is that allegory and history is not an either-or choice. What we have often in the bible is history narrated as allegory, but the allegory does not cancel out the history.

What would it matter if we had only the history of Christ's resurrection? We might be astounded that a person rose from the dead, but what would it mean if we had no more than that information? We need both the factual event "Christ has risen" and the meaning of the event "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." By using the language of myth and metaphor, the bible gives us both.

But when, following our modern instincts, we over-literalize the biblical story, we lose the spirit in which it was told and end up with what Paul calls the letter that kills.

I would challenge you to prove that Jesus came from Nazareth isn't too a parable. You have no solid foundation for claiming the one and not the other, if you are willing to accept Genesis as allegory.

What you are really challenging me to do is to prove it is true Jesus came from Nazareth. But the lack of a means to prove that today doesn't make it a parable or allegory. The challenge rests on your definition of these terms as fiction/falsehood, and that is a definition I reject when dealing with scripture.

Why do you not see the gospels as fully allegory, speaking of men and women who never actually existed in time and space? It is not rhetorical, please do answer.

Again, this is the definition of allegory that I am rejecting. The mythical nature of gospel story-telling does not imply that the men and women spoken of never actually existed.

Do we convert these individuals into allegorical characters who are merely symbols?

Again, no. Adam is a special case because there is actually no place in the OT where it is clearly used as a name of an individual rather than as a designation of the species. Yes, that includes the genealogies, for ANE genealogies also had mythical purposes. So when the NT writers transliterate rather than translate the Hebrew into Greek, are we to understand that they have changed from the Hebrew meaning to a modern literal meaning? Or are they carrying the freight of the Hebrew concept of "the adam" into the Greek? Given Paul's use of the term, I rather suspect the latter.

I mean this not purely to offend you (though I hope it does bother you enough to reconsider), but that sounds eerily like what the Mormons or Jehova's Witnesses teach. Using similar logic as this, they twist the words of Scripture to turn us all into gods, and make Christ out to be nothing special.

I am very familiar with JW theology and have some acquaintance with that of Mormons. They would both soundly reject what I said. The Mormon view is that Adam was a literal historical individual who became (or will beome) a god, and that God was once, in some other world a literal, historical individual, another Adam. They do see the possibility for all of us to become gods, but they would not identify us all as Adam.

Nor is it correct to say JWs see Christ as nothing special. They are anti-Trinitarian and do not see him as existing eternally, but he is special, an incarnation, in fact, of the arch-angel Michael. They too would agree that Adam was a literal, historical individual.

These are convenient points of view for avoiding the real workings of a real God in real history. We accept these kinds of viewpoints because it is the result of post-enlightenment, post-modern thought. We see in the world how many people would write using myth and legend, and then we assume the same must be true of the writers of Scripture. We say this because we just can't bring ourselves to believe that it "really happened the way it says it did."

If you assume that "fiction/falsehood" is the only or primary meaning of "myth" that is a valid conclusion, but this definition is actually a secondary and derived one, and scholars are not using this definition but the primary one given above. So the conclusion is invalid.

Whether we make poetry about it or not, it is still history as it occurred.

And in this we agree. The same applies to myth.

I think we have enough along this line now to have clarified the issue.

.....continued in next post.

 

[gluadys]

What I am saying is that, depending on your definition of "liberal Christian," I would not for my purposes view you as a believer. My concept of a liberal Christian is thus:

Liberal Christian definition at Wikipedia

Judging by what you say below, I don't think your view coincides with the much fairer description from Wikipedia. I have also noted that I am not a classic liberal Christian. Few people are these days. As the article notes:

its influence in mainline churches waned in the late 20th century with the rise of the more moderate alternatives such as neo-orthodoxy, paleo-orthodoxy and postmodern Christianity; with more politically-minded liberation theology; and with the influence of more conservative movements such as neo-evangelicalism and the confessing movement[citation needed].​

I have been much more profoundly influenced by neo-orthodoxy, liberation theology and neo-evangelicalism than by liberal Christianity. And by a variety of theologies not mentioned here.

So I only accept the description "liberal" reluctantly as a way of saying I am not a conservative Christian. Too many conservative Christians IMO view theology in a false dichotomy of only liberal vs. conservative and have not really dealt with the fact that liberal Christianity is to all intents and purposes dead and that non-conservative Christians exemplify a wide and complex spectrum of beliefs. (Similarly, many non-conservative Christians do not appreciate the profound differences between classical evangelicals, neo-evangelicals, fundamentalists, etc.)

The summary of this passage is that a liberal Christian will criticize God's Word, usually viewing certain parts as inaccurate or even completely false. A liberal Christian is free to dispense with sections of Scripture that don't fit his or her higher textual criticisms. Modern philosophy, history and biology take precedence in disqualifying certain Scriptural teachings or presentations of history. If modern philosophy and/or biology seem to support a position that is contrary to a certain section of Scripture, that section of Scripture can be considered "lesser" to the ideas of philosophy or biology.

No, that is not a summary of the article at all. It is an exercise in character assassination by someone who is rejecting what he does not even understand. Most of those statements are false as descriptions of liberal theology (theologies) and the motives of those who embrace it (them).

Therefore, a liberal Christian is free to set his or her own beliefs based on what he or she wants to accept from the Scriptures.

Again this is simply false. Liberal theologies are not exercises in determining how much of scripture we no longer believe.

If a certain section of Scripture is troubling for any reason, it can be dispensed with.

Again false. NO scripture is DISPENSED with in any form of liberal theology.

So, basically, it is what you believe about non-conservative Christians, their methods and motives in studying scripture that is so far off the mark that it needs to be thoroughly revised before you can even understand it, much less critique it fairly.

Now you see why I often excuse myself. It comes down to me saying it isn't, and you saying it is. Basically, we are now in a very professional, courteous, high-level version of "Yes it is!" and "No it's not!"

That we are.

Of course. But by that phrase I mean that it is contrary to other passages of Scripture. I'm not sure about your beliefs, but just because people disagree on the meaning of Scripture does NOT mean that I think it has many meanings, or that there is "no ultimate meaning."

And in this we differ. I think scripture often has many meanings, and is intended to have many meanings. I don't think all biblical writers agreed with each other in all respects and I am not bothered by contradictions in scripture. I don't feel they need to be resolved or harmonized. Often, the truth lies in the paradox that both sides of the contradiction are true.

If you have tried to read the Vedas, you would find that they are quite wishy-washy, spiritual floatiness. I am, of course, making up some of these words I am using as I go. Like floatiness .

I have read a bit of the Vedas. I don't have the same impression of them.

I believe it is a choice forced on us by the writers of Scripture. Although there are certainly parables and allegories, it is quite a different thing to turn an otherwise historical narrative into an allegory because it doesn't fit modern scientific conceptions.

It is not a matter of turning it into an allegory, (actually myth--as an English teacher I tend to be fussy about the correct terminology, myth and allegory are not really the same thing) because it always has been. The problem is that in modern times we have tried to turn it into literal history and so distorted it.

However, I believe such use of the word myth has fallen out of common vernacular, and the word myth almost exclusively is used of a "fictitious story that never really happened."

In common parlance, all too true, just as in common parlance "theory" is just an off-the-cuff guess or opinion. But just as the common notion of "theory" is not the scientific definition of "theory", the common notion of "myth" is not the scholarly definition of "myth" in either literary or biblical studies. When I speak of biblical myths, I am using the term in the scholarly, not the common, sense.

Myth is on par with any fictional novel you would read at your local bookstore. That is the myth that I am speaking of.

If that is what you mean, then I do not accept myth as a general form of literature in the Bible.

On this we can agree.

I would see the Greek stories of heroes and gods, as well as the Roman stories of their gods as "myth;" they never existed, never happened, and are fiction.

But that was not the case when these myths originated. The original tellers believed they were speaking of real gods and real events in history. In fact, in part they were. There really was a Trojan war, and possibly several of the characters in Homer's Iliad were real historical individuals and possibly some of the events actually happened. But their story comes to us clothed in myth, not as undiluted history.

The only reason we now speak of these myths as false is that we no longer believe those gods ever existed. False beliefs create false myths just as true beliefs create true myths. The difference is not that one is myth and the other not, but that one myth is true and the other not.

 

[ArcticFox]

And I've always found it peculiar that most Christians don't realize how figuratively they treat the Bible. It's doubly ironic that I notice this as a future scientist. Take for example Jesus' famous words, "If your hand or your leg causes you to sin, chop it off" (paraphrasing from memory). Do you know any Christians who take it literally? I don't.

Thanks for the comments Shernren. I think you are missing a few points, however. Let me address a couple that I hope will set the record straight about what it is I believe, so that we can have a good discussion. It is useless to debate if we are debating figments of our imagination.

==========

So I go up to my pastor and say "Pastor, I caught you speeding on the road. Your hands caused you to sin. Chop them off as Jesus Himself commanded."

Certainly no one is denying the presence, value, and power of allegory in the Bible. That is not at question here. I am having difficulty in understanding why many posters are debating this as if someone is challenging the nature of allegory? I know of no Christian I have ever met who has denied the presence of allegory (in the form of parables, similes, metaphors, prophecy, etc). Why is this suddenly an issue of discussion here? Did someone challenge it? I am not aware of such a challenge.

You see? I take the passage literally (or at least my story character does), while the pastor doesn't.

Actually, I don't believe you do take the passage "literally." The word "literal" in the case of Bible hermeneutics does not mean that you take every word and sentence for their mere dictionary definitions, extracting meaning like it is a math algorithm. This kind of interpretive framework is called "ultra literalism" or "hyper-literalism." Although people do occasionally employ this technique to support their theological leanings, no one uniformly applies this hermeneutic. In fact, hardly anyone applies it even a fraction of the time.

For example, who really read "sunset" and "sunrise" and criticizes the Scriptures for claiming that the sun literally goes straight up and down? Who reads "the cattle on a thousand hills" and begins counting to see if there really is cattle on a thousand hills, and then wonders what about the other cattle on the other hills? No one does, of course, because we all understand the use of hyperbole.

Allegory, hyperbole, simile, metaphor, prophecy, parable -- none of these points is under contention in this post nor in any other post I've seen. If a particular passage of Scripture is challenged as "not being allegory," that does not mean that the challenger denies the very presence of such allegory in the Scriptures.

I repeat my question: What do you learn from Genesis 1 about God if you treat it literally, that you lose if you treat it figuratively? I have been in both interpretive positions before and I see that I have not lost anything;

It depends on the views that one extracts from it. It is hard to comment, but I know that if my words were taken figuratively when I didn't want them to be, I wouldn't be happy with the results (ultimately).

in fact, I've gained more from putting the story in its place as a brilliant subversion of the stories of its time, than to try to anachronistically read it as a technical journal report on the Universe in six days of undetectably recent creation.

I have not seen anyone here propose that Genesis is a technical journal. We are all aware (I hope) that Genesis is not a scientific manual, nor is it written from the perspective of teaching any scientific truth. Is that under contention, that Genesis is not written for the purpose of scientific instruction? If it is under contention, please point out who challenged it.

So it seems your two major points were not under contention anyway. What was it you were trying to say? Was your main point that nothing is "lost" if we view it as figurative versus literal?

 

[SuperSaint4GodDBZStyle]

No offense to anyone, but how many people actually sit at the computer reading all of these long posts? I mean, I don't have time for that. Sorry peeps. I read what I can and then go on and say my lil piece and move on.

 

[ArcticFox]

No offense to anyone, but how many people actually sit at the computer reading all of these long posts? I mean, I don't have time for that. Sorry peeps. I read what I can and then go on and say my lil piece and move on.

My posts have been especially long. In fact, I have to shorten them to fit the limit imposed by the CF server.

DBZ, God gives all of us different life situations. We all have differing amounts of "free time," and differing schedules. I happen to currently have a job where there are times where I am very free, and my choice of activities is restricted. I choose to study, read, clean up around the office, and also to use the internet for educational purposes.

We all have different situations, and different callings. It is a very convicting thing to think about how to make the most of our time for the sake of the kingdom, for the glory of our God. Your comments are well noted, though they were probably unnecessary. If you condense these posts down by eliminating quotations and formatting, You will find that they often amount to what would seem like a very small amount of text if placed on a standard American printer page in 12 point font. I would say at least half of newspaper articles are longer, if not more than half.

 

[ArcticFox]

Judging by what you say below, I don't think your view coincides with the much fairer description from Wikipedia.

My apologies, but I was also referencing another definition that I did not supply. Here it is a synopsis of it:

Liberals view Scripture through a critical lens, and are not afraid to challenge traditional assumptions and interpretations. They rely heavily on higher criticism of the Bible, which looks into the origin and composition of the biblical texts, revealing a great deal about the human aspect of Scripture. Modern philosophical, biological, and cosmological theories that are well supported by evidence, and reflect the true nature of the world around us, can also shape the way liberals interpret Scripture. Traditional Christian doctrines, such as the Virgin Birth, the Atonement, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the Resurrection, are sometimes given new interpretations by liberals.

"Liberal Christian Homepage" http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/2961/liberal.htm

This definition of "liberal Christian" is consistent with my biased presentation of it.

I have been much more profoundly influenced by neo-orthodoxy, liberation theology and neo-evangelicalism than by liberal Christianity.

You would probably not want the term "liberal Christian" applied to you then. The term for many can even mean such groups as the Unitarian Universalist churches. Liberal theology is equated with such things as the denial of the existence of hell (gehenna, etc)., a possible denial of a literal heaven, a disbelief in traditionally orthodox views on Christ's deity / the virgin birth / the death and resurrection / salvation / the Trinity. These variation on views can very easily allow a "liberal Christian" to have views similar to Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, groups most of us readily classify as heretical.

No, that is not a summary of the article at all. It is an exercise in character assassination by someone who is rejecting what he does not even understand.

You're right, my apologies. It is not "character assassination," since there are defendants who would even support such claims that parts of the Bible should be "dismissed."

What we now have to investigate is what YOU mean by "liberal Christian" and "liberal theology" and what *I* mean. This is no longer a "I'm wrong and you're right," but that we have different ideas of what these terms mean.

Please make sure to accurately define terms before making such sweeping accusations. I attempted to accurately define the term, but failed to accurately point to my source. I apologize for that failure on my part. My synopsis of how I view the movement stands regardless, for I still support the claim. It is definitely a biased presentation, because it puts a negative spin on the behavior; but it is what I firmly believe is the motive behind what I am calling "liberal Christianity."

Again this is simply false. Liberal theologies are not exercises in determining how much of scripture we no longer believe.

Many theologians exist who challenge the authority and authenticity of the Scriptures; this is what I would call "not believing the Scriptures." I would also classify them as "liberal Christians" (though it is a misnomer: they are generally not Christians for all intents and purposes).

Again false. NO scripture is DISPENSED with in any form of liberal theology.

Then we are talking about two different things. They may be linked in ways, but we are using the same term in different ways. People who claim the term for themselves have claimed these very things that you say are false.

So, basically, it is what you believe about non-conservative Christians, their methods and motives in studying scripture that is so far off the mark that it needs to be thoroughly revised before you can even understand it, much less critique it fairly.

Whoa, slow down there. When did I start talking about "non-conservative Christians?" That's a HUGE group of people. I was only talking about a group that I called "liberal Christians," and I gave a definition (albeit my own version of the definition). If a person does not fit that definition, they don't qualify as one.

Why are you suddenly extrapolating all my comments to apply to "non-conservative Christians?"

And in this we differ. I think scripture often has many meanings, and is intended to have many meanings. I don't think all biblical writers agreed with each other in all respects and I am not bothered by contradictions in scripture. I don't feel they need to be resolved or harmonized. Often, the truth lies in the paradox that both sides of the contradiction are true.

I believe it is a dangerous theological position. We mustn't be so cautiously logical that we attempt to explain away the mysteries of the gospel and of our Lord. On the other hand, we cannot start diving into the realm of relativism and post-modern ideas. It's a difficult battle to fight, because each sider wants everything its own way. We want to turn the Trinity into a formula, but we cannot. At the same time, we want to "spiritualize" the Scriptures so that they can mean all sorts of things, but it just doesn't work.

What Paul argues for, he argues for logically and reasonably. He does not mean for people to search his words to find deeper hidden meanings. The goal of Scripture interpretation is to discern the author's original intent to his original audience. Although rare exceptions exist where meaning can be found beyond this (prophecies in the Psalms), it is an exception rather than a rule. Although people may disagree with this hermeneutic paradigm, I believe any other form is dangerous and can put souls in jeopardy with its twisted versions of truth.

For example, my wife's parents believe in "spiritualizing" the Scriptures. By this I mean to say that they will sit down to read, and they will just let the Word "soak" into them. As they do it, they will just wait for some enlightenment to come "from the Spirit." When something "strikes them," they will take that away as the meaning of the passage for them at that moment (or sometimes as the meaning of the passage for everyone at every time). Because of this, they held some awkward beliefs for a while, and perhaps still do. These beliefs included the ability to cast out demons by blowing a trumpet, objects being possessed with evil spirits, if they are not convicted of sin then it is not a sin (whatever they do), etc.

If this type of hermeneutic, there are no rules. We have all known about people who have done or said some very crazy things, using Scripture as their support. However, when we look at the Scripture, we can't for the life of us imagine how they got that idea. This is the concept of "spiritualizing" the Scriptures to mean whatever comes to us at the moment. It is masked as the "work of the Spirit." If it is the work of a "spirit," I would be concerned for anyone listening to that kind of spirit.

It is not a matter of turning it into an allegory, (actually myth--as an English teacher I tend to be fussy about the correct terminology, myth and allegory are not really the same thing) because it always has been. The problem is that in modern times we have tried to turn it into literal history and so distorted it.

Actually, as an English teacher, you are probably trained to understand a form of English as "correct" and a form of English as "incorrect." Although I would tend to agree, it is not so simple. Language is what we make of, what we use it for. Language is living, as I'm sure you know, and it changes. It is a difficult thing to say with authority, "That is NOT correct English." We must define our authorities, and then people can still claim that they do not owe any allegiance to your supposed authority of English. After all, I assure you that the respected Real Academia Española (language authority of Spain) is not seen as an authority by the average Puerto Rican over their colloquial use of Spanish.

I tend to favor the use of words for their colloquial meaning, because that is how the majority of my hearers are hearing me. That is, very few people that I speak to on a regular basis hear my words academically and professionally.

Why believe that the gospels are literal history? It has been quoted that they are "eyewitness testimonies." That is true. However, why would you take those words as part of a "literally true story?" Why not assume that these claims to "eyewitness testimony" are themselves part of the great allegory, part of a huge parable?

I am not by any means challenging the historicity of the gospels; I believe them whole-heartedly. I understand that the writers didn't use all the modern standards of historical record keeping, but that is not a problem for us -- we accept them as they are written, with an eye to how they wrote.

However, this is what we all do. We have to make a determination which sections of Scripture are historical and which are allegory. I simply believe there is no reasonable or valid reason [for a Christian] for believing that the Genesis account is allegory. If you are an unbeliever, or you are a "liberal Christian" who denies that miracles can or do happen, then it is reasonable for you to make Genesis into an allegory. However, for an otherwise Bible believing Christian who knows that God is all powerful and works miracles in history, I will say that it is unreasonable to interpret Genesis as allegory.

Unless, of course, you have other pressing evidence that you believe demands that you do it. This evidence is not contained in Scripture, but in the realm of what we call "science." I believe the theory of Macro Evolution, more than anything else, has encouraged the allegorical interpretation of Genesis.

I should also, in fairness, say that some view the metaphorical use of Adam and Eve as evidence of an allegory of Genesis. I disagree completely. What we are essentially saying then is that Paul is using an allegory of an allegory to prove a logical point; that is unreasonable, especially in light of a logical argument. Paul's argument of A causes B and B causes C would be based on foolishness if he is speaking metaphorically of an allegory!

You see, Paul can make the simile that marriage is like Christ and the church because marriage exists, and so does Christ, and so does the church. If marriage were itself a non-existent story that was created as allegory to teach a principle, using it as part of the simile would seem ridiculous.

Again, Christ uses the example of chopping off hands and feet to stop sin because we actually have hands and feet. If hands and feet didn't exist, but were an allegorical concept, it would seem silly to use such hyperbole.

The only reason we now speak of these myths as false is that we no longer believe those gods ever existed. False beliefs create false myths just as true beliefs create true myths. The difference is not that one is myth and the other not, but that one myth is true and the other not.

I simply disagree that such use of myth is applicable to Genesis 1-3. As I mentioned before, I have numerous reasons for not believing this. I am not some staunch Bible-thumping "fundamentalist" (used in a negative sense). I do not view Genesis as a "technical journal." I do not deny that allegory exists.

I simply and strongly insist that Genesis is not allegory. I have provided numerous reasons. I don't think my audience here has read them and considered them unreasonable. I have not tried to support my claims with pseudo-science of any kind. My reasons for believing Genesis are not based on the science that man invents. We must remember that the whole concept of the scientific model may itself have a flaw that we are unable yet to realize. For countless thousands of years, mankind processed their information about the world mainly through religious concepts. Although they did indeed develop some advanced concepts of math and science, they never abandoned their insistence on religion as a means of understanding the natural world.

Why, today, do we suddenly believe that religion is best for spiritual concerns, but "science" (in its broadest sense) is best for the natural "real" world? This dichotomy is unbiblical, that we should pit the natural against the supernatural, not realizing that it is ALL in a sense supernatural. Who created this universe?

And furthermore, why does it rain? We think that the answer lies solely in studying the condensation cycle. We would be entirely wrong. The Scriptures make clear that God brings the rain and the sunshine. Just because he does it through means that we can observe does not make it any less the work of our God's hands. Perhaps we are missing the very point that when God does many of his "supernatural" things, he very may be using "natural" methods? Can God not direct the condensation cycle (clouds, temperature, winds, etc) to function so that they prevent rain, and thus bring about drought? Is it suddenly not a "miracle of God" because it can be observed scientifically? If God knows all things, and everything about the future, what prevents God from using the natural cycles of this planet to bring about a natural disaster 2000 years from now for his purposes? Maybe it's not such a "natural" disaster after all.

I speak here of "us" in general, but no one individual in particular.

Now, if you take Genesis 1-3 as a "myth" in the academic sense, fine. You must believe then that this myth teaches that God created the world. Next, that God did it six days. Where they literal days or figurative? Don't know, not important. You must also believe that he created the plants and animals in the order it says. Is it essentially important? Probably not, but it says it that way. You must also believe that humans were the crowning final creation, and that one man was created from the dust of the ground. Exactly how is not important.

However, if you take it as a "myth" that means that God just sort of generally created everything, but that life started with a primordial ooze that slowly developed into higher and higher level organisms over billions of years; well, that is just unreasonable a fit to this "myth" of Genesis 1-3. Such a myth wouldn't be based on truth, but more lie than anything else. It might just very well make Homer's Iliad to contain more historical truth than Genesis 1-3. No matter how you shake it, trying to fit Macro Evolution as the source of mankind into Genesis 1-3 is a long shot by far, if not just complete foolishness.

That would mean that the only true part of this "myth" of Genesis 1-3 is the general statement of "God created the heavens and the earth." And even that much is being brought into question by "Christians."

 

[shernren]

So it seems your two major points were not under contention anyway. What was it you were trying to say? Was your main point that nothing is "lost" if we view it as figurative versus literal?

Yes that was what I was pressing. But even when one acknowledges that there is allegory in the Bible nobody is willing to say that Genesis 1 is such an allegory (or more accurately simply a story - I have to start disciplining myself into using these powerful words properly!). "Sure parts of the Bible are fictional story. But not Genesis 1, nuh-uh!"

Your argument here:

Certainly no one is denying the presence, value, and power of allegory in the Bible. That is not at question here. I am having difficulty in understanding why many posters are debating this as if someone is challenging the nature of allegory? I know of no Christian I have ever met who has denied the presence of allegory (in the form of parables, similes, metaphors, prophecy, etc). Why is this suddenly an issue of discussion here? Did someone challenge it? I am not aware of such a challenge.

(emphasis added) has evolved considerably from what you said here:

They are nice stories that teach us lessons, but ultimately they are useless because they offer no more assurance than the nice stories that Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Shintoism can offer us. If they are merely stories, why not believe the stories of other religions? We have confidence in God because he does more than the other "gods" do; he isn't based in myths, nor do his followers offer us myths and legends with no truth. Instead, we are offered history as it really happened, the truth of God's work throughout the lives of his people and the rest of mankind.

(emphasis added) We're leading you down a slippery slope, you see. You started by saying that if Genesis is a myth then it is useless. We point to many other "myths"/stories/parables/allegories in the Bible which are not useless. You then back up and say "alright there are such things in the Bible, and they're not useless, but Genesis 1 isn't one of them!" Alright, but how do you know that?

Look at the passage:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
(Matthew 5:27-32 ESV)

Actually, I don't believe you do take the passage "literally." The word "literal" in the case of Bible hermeneutics does not mean that you take every word and sentence for their mere dictionary definitions, extracting meaning like it is a math algorithm. This kind of interpretive framework is called "ultra literalism" or "hyper-literalism." Although people do occasionally employ this technique to support their theological leanings, no one uniformly applies this hermeneutic. In fact, hardly anyone applies it even a fraction of the time.

The ironic thing is that "literal" literally means "to the letter", and many Christians defend their "literal" interpretation of Genesis 1 by whipping out dictionary definitions of yom and other things. But then again, why choose hyperbole? Why choose metaphor? Does the Bible really make it obvious when hyperbole is being used? To you sunset and sunrise are figurative terms. To Cardinal Bellarmine they were so real that denying their literalness was denying Scripture. What makes you different from him?

Allegory, hyperbole, simile, metaphor, prophecy, parable -- none of these points is under contention in this post nor in any other post I've seen. If a particular passage of Scripture is challenged as "not being allegory," that does not mean that the challenger denies the very presence of such allegory in the Scriptures.

My question would then be "If you know other parts of the Bible are to be taken figuratively and metaphorically how do you know which parts?" After all, fundamentalist Christians take many prophecies as being statements of historical import even though they are written in poetry, while statements couched in direct command and narrative like the parables and "amputate the offending limb" are treated non-literally. How do you decide?

The answer is of course by reference to the external world. You know, before reading the Bible, that the earth goes around the sun - hence any talk of "sunset" or "sunrise" or anything similarly geocentric must be passed off as accommodation or phenomenological language or observer-oriented or something such. You know there aren't a thousand hills. So you don't think it's literal either. You know that the Christian community has never implemented amputation for the treatment of temptation. So you don't take it at face value.

Well, we TEs have seen enough evidence for evolution and accept that it is true and that it is an accurate description of our natural reality. Therefore we interpret Scripture in that light. What is so wrong about that? You yourself say that:

We are all aware (I hope) that Genesis is not a scientific manual, nor is it written from the perspective of teaching any scientific truth. Is that under contention, that Genesis is not written for the purpose of scientific instruction? If it is under contention, please point out who challenged it.

If Genesis is not written for the purpose of scientific instruction, then it is open to reinterpretation over scientific information. If it does not dictate science then its interpretation ought to be dictated, or at least informed, by science. Right?

 

[shernren]

Why, today, do we suddenly believe that religion is best for spiritual concerns, but "science" (in its broadest sense) is best for the natural "real" world? This dichotomy is unbiblical, that we should pit the natural against the supernatural, not realizing that it is ALL in a sense supernatural. Who created this universe?

It is not a new realization.

This being granted, I think that in discussions of physical problems we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages but from sensory experiences and necessary demonstrations; for the holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the divine Word the former as the dictate of the Holy Ghost and the latter as the observant executrix of God's commands. It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned. But Nature, on the other hand, is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sensory experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words. For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature's actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible.

... the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.

Galileo Galilei, 1615.

And furthermore, why does it rain? We think that the answer lies solely in studying the condensation cycle. We would be entirely wrong. The Scriptures make clear that God brings the rain and the sunshine. Just because he does it through means that we can observe does not make it any less the work of our God's hands. Perhaps we are missing the very point that when God does many of his "supernatural" things, he very may be using "natural" methods? Can God not direct the condensation cycle (clouds, temperature, winds, etc) to function so that they prevent rain, and thus bring about drought? Is it suddenly not a "miracle of God" because it can be observed scientifically? If God knows all things, and everything about the future, what prevents God from using the natural cycles of this planet to bring about a natural disaster 2000 years from now for his purposes? Maybe it's not such a "natural" disaster after all.

Keep exploring the epistemology of science and religion, it's a fruitful field and I have gained much from considering precisely the question of how it is that God works in this world and in what sense can He be said to intervene.

Now, if you take Genesis 1-3 as a "myth" in the academic sense, fine. You must believe then that this myth teaches that God created the world. Next, that God did it six days. Where they literal days or figurative? Don't know, not important. You must also believe that he created the plants and animals in the order it says. Is it essentially important? Probably not, but it says it that way. You must also believe that humans were the crowning final creation, and that one man was created from the dust of the ground. Exactly how is not important.

However, if you take it as a "myth" that means that God just sort of generally created everything, but that life started with a primordial ooze that slowly developed into higher and higher level organisms over billions of years; well, that is just unreasonable a fit to this "myth" of Genesis 1-3. Such a myth wouldn't even be based on truth, but more lie than anything else. It might just very well make Homer's Iliad to contain more historical truth than Genesis 1-3. No matter how you shake it, trying to fit Macro Evolution as the source of mankind into Genesis 1-3 is a long short by far, if not just complete foolishness.

That would mean that the only true part of this "myth" of Genesis 1-3 is the general statement of "God created the heavens and the earth." And even that much is being brought into question by "Christians."

So your complaint is that we can't fit evolution into Genesis 1? Nobody ever tried to or said that we need to. But I think it's just as incongruous to try and fit meteorology into the Bible:

He fills his hands with lightning
and commands it to strike its mark.
(Job 36:32 NIV)


Listen! Listen to the roar of his voice,
to the rumbling that comes from his mouth.
He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven
and sends it to the ends of the earth.
After that comes the sound of his roar;
he thunders with his majestic voice.
When his voice resounds,
he holds nothing back.
(Job 37:2-4 NIV)

"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
(Job 38:22-23 NIV)

Don't these verses invalidate modern meteorology as much as Genesis 1 "invalidates" evolution?

 

[Assyrian]

I should also, in fairness, say that some view the metaphorical use of Adam and Eve as evidence of an allegory of Genesis. I disagree completely. What we are essentially saying then is that Paul is using an allegory of an allegory to prove a logical point; that is unreasonable, especially in light of a logical argument. Paul's argument of A causes B and B causes C would be based on foolishness if he is speaking metaphorically of an allegory!

Can't allegorical stories have a range of applications and meanings? Is the last supper a reenactment of Calvary with the broken bread representing Christ's body. Or does the bread represent the unity of the church, we who are many are one body? Does it represent Christ calling us to a meal of fellowship with him? Does it represent us feeding on Christ? This is not an allegory of an allegory as you put it, but shows the depth and range of meaning biblical symbolic language can have.

But I think you need to be careful assuming Paul is talking cause and effect. If it is a discussion of literal events then his language is A causes B and B causes C. But you can have very similar language discussing allegory 1Cor 10:17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Cause and effect or symbol and meaning?

You see, Paul can make the simile that marriage is like Christ and the church because marriage exists, and so does Christ, and so does the church. If marriage were itself a non-existent story that was created as allegory to teach a principle, using it as part of the simile would seem ridiculous.

For God to describe himself forming Israel as a potter form clay means potters must exist. It does not mean God ever had to actually make people out of clay.

Why, today, do we suddenly believe that religion is best for spiritual concerns, but "science" (in its broadest sense) is best for the natural "real" world? This dichotomy is unbiblical, that we should pit the natural against the supernatural, not realizing that it is ALL in a sense supernatural. Who created this universe?

I agree it is a false dichotomy. The problem comes when people, specifically our YEC friends, treat the bible as if it was simply a text book, forgetting the passages they treat as literal history and science may actually be teaching spiritual truth, or they may be describing history but in metaphorical terms.

Did God actually make Adam out of clay like a potter? The problem with our YEC friends assuming this is literal history is that there are about a dozen other where God as potter or making people out of clay is a metaphor. How can we tell that this occasion is the one time it is literal?

And furthermore, why does it rain? We think that the answer lies solely in studying the condensation cycle. We would be entirely wrong. The Scriptures make clear that God brings the rain and the sunshine. Just because he does it through means that we can observe does not make it any less the work of our God's hands. Perhaps we are missing the very point that when God does many of his "supernatural" things, he very may be using "natural" methods? Can God not direct the condensation cycle (clouds, temperature, winds, etc) to function so that they prevent rain, and thus bring about drought? Is it suddenly not a "miracle of God" because it can be observed scientifically? If God knows all things, and everything about the future, what prevents God from using the natural cycles of this planet to bring about a natural disaster 2000 years from now for his purposes? Maybe it's not such a "natural" disaster after all.

Agree totally. But it also means that when Genesis describes God commanding the earth to produce living creatures, the earth may have done just that and used natural processes to do it.

I speak here of "us" in general, but no one individual in particular.

Now, if you take Genesis 1-3 as a "myth" in the academic sense, fine. You must believe then that this myth teaches that God created the world. Next, that God did it six days. Where they literal days or figurative? Don't know, not important. You must also believe that he created the plants and animals in the order it says. Is it essentially important? Probably not, but it says it that way. You must also believe that humans were the crowning final creation, and that one man was created from the dust of the ground. Exactly how is not important.

However, if you take it as a "myth" that means that God just sort of generally created everything, but that life started with a primordial ooze that slowly developed into higher and higher level organisms over billions of years; well, that is just unreasonable a fit to this "myth" of Genesis 1-3. Such a myth wouldn't be based on truth, but more lie than anything else. It might just very well make Homer's Iliad to contain more historical truth than Genesis 1-3. No matter how you shake it, trying to fit Macro Evolution as the source of mankind into Genesis 1-3 is a long shot by far, if not just complete foolishness.

That would mean that the only true part of this "myth" of Genesis 1-3 is the general statement of "God created the heavens and the earth." And even that much is being brought into question by "Christians."

You problem does not seem to be on specifics, you don't have a problem with days not being literal. You don't like it but you are open to the possibility. The method of creating man and animals and plants may not be as literally described in the account. Your problem is how far the story is from reality. Maybe a better approach would be to look at what exactly a non literal Gen 1-3 would teach. Worth a new thread perhaps?

 

[ArcticFox]

Can't allegorical stories have a range of applications and meanings? Is the last supper a reenactment of Calvary with the broken bread representing Christ's body. Or does the bread represent the unity of the church, we who are many are one body? Does it represent Christ calling us to a meal of fellowship with him? ...

I would say that it means what Jesus said it meant, that it was his body broken for us. I don't like to add symbolic meaning where none is presented. Although we can gain "blessings" from such practices, they are at best conjectures.

For God to describe himself forming Israel as a potter form clay means potters must exist. It does not mean God ever had to actually make people out of clay.

But you see the point of view. I would say that it's because God did literally make us out of clay (the "dust" of Genesis 1). You would say that it's all a metaphor, including Genesis, right?

I agree it is a false dichotomy. The problem comes when people, specifically our YEC friends, treat the bible as if it was simply a text book, forgetting the passages they treat as literal history and science may actually be teaching spiritual truth, or they may be describing history but in metaphorical terms.

We indeed know that Genesis is not written from a scientific perspective in any way you look at it. However, I don't believe that gives us free reign to see the entire narrative as an allegory.

Did God actually make Adam out of clay like a potter? The problem with our YEC friends assuming this is literal history is that there are about a dozen other where God as potter or making people out of clay is a metaphor. How can we tell that this occasion is the one time it is literal?

A metaphor referring to a past event. He is calling us to account by reminding us of how we were formed. We are all "in Adam" in the sense that we are mankind, and in that sense we are all "formed out of clay." I believe it is the one time that is literal because it is the first time it occurs, and all subsequent uses seem to be reinforcing this creation account.

Agree totally. But it also means that when Genesis describes God commanding the earth to produce living creatures, the earth may have done just that and used natural processes to do it.

I would have trouble with that assertion on numerous grounds. If we were to pursue this particular issue, I would want to do more research and better formulate my thoughts before offering my reasons.

You problem does not seem to be on specifics, you don't have a problem with days not being literal. You don't like it but you are open to the possibility. The method of creating man and animals and plants may not be as literally described in the account. Your problem is how far the story is from reality. Maybe a better approach would be to look at what exactly a non literal Gen 1-3 would teach. Worth a new thread perhaps?

I would be interested in knowing what you and others with similar beliefs get out of a non-literal Genesis 1-3.

 

[ArcticFox]

Yes that was what I was pressing. But even when one acknowledges that there is allegory in the Bible nobody is willing to say that Genesis 1 is such an allegory (or more accurately simply a story - I have to start disciplining myself into using these powerful words properly!). "Sure parts of the Bible are fictional story. But not Genesis 1, nuh-uh!"

Why would you assume it to be allegory? You know that modern psychologists often talk about the whole presentation of sin as damaging to the psyche, and many modern biologists claim that homosexuality is natural and inherent, and psychologists say that speaking against homosexuality can be harmful for an individual with homosexual tendencies. Are we to throw all of these verses into "allegory" because they don't fit modern science, psychology, philosophy, etc?

Modern archeology once insisted that certain parts of the Bible were simply wrong. Later, "more modern" archeology would reveal that the Bible was indeed accurate. I'm sure it would have been tempting to turn those parts of the Bible into an allegory to try to better fit with modern conceptions of archeology.

If we were to call in someone who sees the gospels in an allegorical fashion, I can assure you that you would hit some of the same arguments presented here. Essentially, there is no simple answer. However, my solution for this problem is to simply never turn narratives into allegories unless there is clear evidence to do so (such as when Jesus makes it clear he is telling us a parable). Jesus' story about the Tower of Siloam does not have anything of the aura of a parable, and there is no mention of it being so by anyone, so I assume it to be historical.

That is exactly how I treat the entirety of the Bible, sparing only clearly prophetical passages (I don't dare try to interpret prophecy before it is fulfilled; I don't think that's our responsibility, but that's another issue).

Your argument here:
...
(emphasis added) has evolved considerably from what you said here:

I understand the confusion, and I apologize for not being more clear. Useless was too strong a word, but let me explain what I was saying (or at least trying to say).

If the narratives in the Bible are simply turned into figurative stories that never happened, then they are essentially useless in the sense that they offer us no assurance that God intervenes in the lives of real people in real history. I compared that to other religions that have their own myths, but offer no hope because they are not concrete; I was arguing for the concrete nature of the Scriptures in that a real god really works in the lives of real people in real history.

I did not mean to present an "evolving argument."

(emphasis added) We're leading you down a slippery slope, you see. You started by saying that if Genesis is a myth then it is useless. We point to many other "myths"/stories/parables/allegories in the Bible which are not useless. You then back up and say "alright there are such things in the Bible, and they're not useless, but Genesis 1 isn't one of them!" Alright, but how do you know that?

As I mentioned, there was no shift of my position. Perhaps I failed in explaining myself sufficiently. Do you really believe that I was surprised by the fact that other allegories exist, and then changed my position based on such "new" evidence? I am by no means a professional or expert, but I have been personally and corporately studying the Word of God since I've been a Christian (over 7 years). I have participated in numerous debates, both in person and on the internet. I have written numerous research papers and have been asked on several occasions to present my information. I've done two years of a " Bible in a year" program, including the New Testament twice each year. I have also read both OT and NT countless times during studies and devotional readings.

Trust me, I am not surprised by allegory.

The ironic thing is that "literal" literally means "to the letter", and many Christians defend their "literal" interpretation of Genesis 1 by whipping out dictionary definitions of yom and other things. But then again, why choose hyperbole? Why choose metaphor? Does the Bible really make it obvious when hyperbole is being used? To you sunset and sunrise are figurative terms. To Cardinal Bellarmine they were so real that denying their literalness was denying Scripture. What makes you different from him?

Be careful about using the etymology of words; they do NOT give us their modern meaning generally. The Spanish phrase ojalá que literally means "May Allah [grant]..." However, nothing of the original Muslim or religious meaning remains; it simply now means "I wish ..." or "Oh if only ..."

What makes me different from Cardinal Bellarmine? I'm not Catholic

My question would then be "If you know other parts of the Bible are to be taken figuratively and metaphorically how do you know which parts?" After all, fundamentalist Christians take many prophecies as being statements of historical import even though they are written in poetry, while statements couched in direct command and narrative like the parables and "amputate the offending limb" are treated non-literally. How do you decide?

Sorry Shernren, but I'm gonna pull a Christ-technique here and refuse to answer until you answer a question of mine: How do YOU know? You "reference to the external world" method only works if it is an allegory that involves some observable natural element, which most don't.

For example, you say that we know that we don't literally chop off limbs because the Christian church has no such practice. Since I am not Catholic, an argument from "the Church doesn't do..." won't work for me. I could simply argue that the church is not fulfilling this element of the Scriptures (and contrary to what my Catholic brothers say, it is a very common thing for God's chosen to disobey and receive punishment; that includes the Church, too).

Well, we TEs have seen enough evidence for evolution and accept that it is true and that it is an accurate description of our natural reality. Therefore we interpret Scripture in that light. What is so wrong about that?

I believe Evolution is contrary to some core teachings of the faith, including the creation of mankind, the beginning of life, the origin and nature of sin, and so forth. Although I cannot form a good written argument of the position now, I believe that Evolution as God's tool of creation is an unreasonable and unacceptable concept to ascribe to a god with the nature of the one true God.

If Genesis is not written for the purpose of scientific instruction, then it is open to reinterpretation over scientific information. If it does not dictate science then its interpretation ought to be dictated, or at least informed, by science. Right?

If I gave you my personal account of a car accident, but mentioned that it isn't an official accident report, would you take my whole narrative to be an allegory? Of course not! Just because it is not entirely professional or of the same caliber as the official report doesn't mean that it becomes a big allegorical story. I tell it from my perspective, so it is biased in that way.

Genesis 1-3 is biased in that the focus is on God and his relationship with his people, not on the exact mechanisms by which God is accomplishing creation. Nevertheless, this does not negate the historicity of the passage.

 

[vossler]

No offense to anyone, but how many people actually sit at the computer reading all of these long posts? I mean, I don't have time for that. Sorry peeps. I read what I can and then go on and say my lil piece and move on.

Just to interject and give an opposing view; I've actually found this thread and its content to be the most interesting and edifying one we've had here in OT in quite some time. I've read every word and haven't been in the slightest bored by any of it.

I personally wish to thank all participants for their cordial and well presented arguments. I especially wish to give ArcticFox further props for taking on the questions of three different posters and giving them each well thought out and timely answers. I would give you a rep but I ran into that dreaded "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ArcticFox again." dialog box. I guess I had better get busy with spreading some love.

As a side note, I now can see why I've had such difficultly conveying my own personal views here. I'm clearly just not good at it , at least not when compared with the clear, unemotional, effective and complete manner that ArcticFox has shown.

BTW, I can't think of anything he's said here that I in anyway dsagree with. I like the idea of being a spectator watching someone say what I'm thinking only saying it much better than I ever could.