[OPEN]If Genesis 1-3 is not meant literally, what does it mean?

[Assyrian]

What sort of lessons would a non literal Gen 1-3 be meant to teach is it is not describing literal history?

 

[shernren]

Some of us have done Genesis 1 here: http://www.christianforums.com/t5177272 ...

 

[busterdog]

The more controversial part of this passage is the six day sequence.

In some ways that dispute detracts from the concept of "God said".

Probably most of us can agree upon that. In fact, I am not sure it requires a literal/metaphorical dispute. Isn't our division more about how these things develop after God speaks?

Are there examples of God speaking and something taking thousands of years for the command to take effect? Obedience to what God speaks by free agents is something else. There are prophecies about the outworking of His purpose, but this is all in the context of a fallen world in which man has free will to screw up the plans of God. Jesus speaks and the effect would seem to be pretty immediate.

Obviously, I have brought us back to the timing dispute, but I think this needn't detract from the available points of agreement.

 

[gluadys]

Are there examples of God speaking and something taking thousands of years for the command to take effect?

Not quite thousands of years, but certainly illustrative of how long a "day" can be:

Gen. 2: 17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.

Gen. 5:5 Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

Then there is the description of Christ in the Book of Revelation which calls him "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" though he was only executed a little over 2,000 years ago, thousands of years after the foundation of the world even in a YE scenario.

 

[metherion]

Genesis 1 teaches that the world is good. Everything is good and God has judged it valuable, no matter how big or small a thing is. God made it all and judged it good.

Genesis 2-3 teaches that God made man specifically to be special. Furthermore, He made women specialy as well, to be a companion to man. Man used to be in God's good graces but fell out of them. Furthermore, man was good but was merely tricked. At the same time, it also explains why man has to till the soil, why nobody can find paradise (the garden of Eden) anymore, why childbirth hurts, and where clothes come from.

Metherion

 

[busterdog]

Not quite thousands of years, but certainly illustrative of how long a "day" can be:

Gen. 2: 17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.

Gen. 5:5 Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

Then there is the description of Christ in the Book of Revelation which calls him "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" though he was only executed a little over 2,000 years ago, thousands of years after the foundation of the world even in a YE scenario.

Two quotes that have me scratching my head without a good reply.

I am sure I could fire one off. But, I don't have enough understanding for it to be of much weight.

It does occur to me that salvation was "spoken" from before the foundation of the world. But, the bent time frame is unmistakeable -- and by bent I mean that it is clear that our way of counting time cannot stand to solve such problems. It is bent in the sense that Einstein said time is a stubbornly persistent illusion.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

The message of Genesis 1 is that God alone created the universe (and not a pantheon of Gods), that his creation was purposeful (and not an accident), that it is orderly (and not stemming from the chaos of Marduk's great primeval war), and not itself divine (ie, planets aren't gods). It is a great and beautiful message consonant with the major concerns of Israel contra it's Near Eastern neighbors.

And I think the message of Genesis 2 and 3 is that all people were and are created in the image of God, but we have all forsaken that image for idols of our own making (particurally our pride in our own abilities), and that this stems from an event in our shared past.

 

[jeffweeder]

Gen. 2: 17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.

Gen. 5:5 Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.

I see this as Adam dying spiritually on the day he ate.
Immediately their awareness was in the flesh and they clothed themselves.

They were in the spirit with no thought of their nakedness prior, then all of a sudden they lost that

 

[gluadys]

I see this as Adam dying spiritually on the day he ate.
Immediately their awareness was in the flesh and they clothed themselves.

They were in the spirit with no thought of their nakedness prior, then all of a sudden they lost that

So, you are applying a human interpretation to the text and not simply taking it "literally". Good for you.

If your interpretation is sound, and what is referred to in the first instance is spiritual death, then the fall need not be considered the beginning point of natural, biological death and there is no need to deny that this occurred prior to the fall.

I think there is another possible way of looking at the relationship of death and the fall. Note that the forbidden fruit came from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Could it be that the knowledge was the conscious knowledge of mortality? Animals die, but they do not have an awareness in the present that they will die in the future. (Even young humans, especially adolescents, have a hard time grasping that they will die. That is why they are able to take risks we seniors would not think of taking.)

Humans are the only animals who live with the conscious knowledge they will die one day. And this is both a good and an evil: good because it is part of our humanity, part of what lifts us above other animals as an image of God. But evil as well, for it causes us distress and anxiety, which in itself is a kind of spiritual death, a kind of dying before we die. Perhaps it is this acquiring of conscious awareness of mortality that Paul was referring to when he said that it was by man that death entered the world. Not that biological death did not exist before humankind, but that it was not known to exist until humans became aware of their mortality. So it was as if it did not exist in experience until humans became aware of it.

 

[jeffweeder]

God did say that in the day you eat you will surely die.
He didnt die that day physically, but he was cut off spiritually-from the tree of life that day and for good reason;

Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"—

Thank goodness he kicked us out of the garden when he did, otherwise in our fallen state and eating of the tree of life, and living forever in our fallen state--redemption would have not been possible for us. We would have lived forever with sin in our midst, and no way of fellowshipping with god-in his presence.

Jesus ,once he had atoned for the sins of the world ,threw the door open to Gods presence again.

 

[gluadys]

What sort of lessons would a non literal Gen 1-3 be meant to teach is it is not describing literal history?

Like others I will distinguish the first creation account (Genesis 1:1-2:4a) from the rest because it is clearly a separate unit told in a different style, with different vocabulary, structure and perspective.

1. God created all that is other than himself. God and God alone created, for there is no other God. Creation itself is in no way divine, nor is it an emanation of the divine (though God dwells in as well as beyond his creation). So creation has a reality proper to it, a reality that came from God and depends on God's sustaining power, but is not the reality of God. IOW God and Creation are distinct from each other. Creation is not simply the Creator looking at himself in various guises, as is the case in Hindu belief.

2. The powers of nature are not themselves divine, but are all created elements. This account of creation desacralizes, de-divinizes nature and declares it wholly creation, not in any sense a deity. This is what distinguishes this account from the creation accounts of Israel's pagan neighbours. At the same time, all of creation is proclaimed to be "good" and "very good". This means the material world is as good as the non-material world. This distinguishes the biblical perspective from all forms of Gnosticism which give moral priority to soul over body, spirit over matter. Christians should never denigrate the body or the material world or anything closely associated with the earth. They should not, as the Platonists did, consider the body a prison of the soul or earth a place of exile from God.

3. The world is a cosmos, that is to say, an ordered harmony, operating on the basis of fixed and predictable regularities which we have dubbed "laws of nature". This is part of the meaning of the structure of "days" in the first creation account. It is also derived from God speaking the world into existence, or as stated elsewhere in scripture, creation is a work of the Word of God. And the Word is the Logos, a Greek term that implies not only a meaningful sound for the purpose of communication, but also the reasoning mind (the orderly logic) which is expressed in communication.

4. Humanity has a special place within creation. We have often interpreted this to mean that the world was made for us. But it might be more accurate to say we were made for the sake of the world. We were given special powers in order to exercise dominion over all God's earthly creatures. But this was certainly not so that we could abuse and exploit them for our pleasure and greed, but rather, as images of God, to rule them in a manner consistent with God's own love and care for their welfare.

5. Contemplation is as important as activity in a full, human life. A sabbath is essential to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. This is the other meaning of the "days" in the account. The Sabbath (not humanity) is the crown of creation.

Next story
1. Again we have the identification of one and only one God as the creator of the earth and the heavens. But this time the Creator is identified not only impersonally as "God" but also personally, by name, Yahweh, the God of Israel.

2. Humanity is fully identified with the earth, "adam" formed from "adamah" or as one Jewish commentator notes, an "earthling" formed from "earth". Yet not only earth, but earth animated by Spirit/Breath: a living soul. I always like the Genesis perspective that we are souls, not possessors of souls. We are souls knitted of body and spirit together.

3. Also again, we have the implication that humanity is made for the earth. In this account, God does not plant a garden before he has secured a gardener to tend the garden and keep it. The task of tending the garden in this account is equivalent to having dominion over creation in the first account. This is our creation mandate, our role within creation, the purpose for which we were made. Dominion or rule is also implied in the man naming the animals, for in Hebrew culture (as generally in ANE culture) the one who bestows names is superior to the one who receives a name. Conferring a name represented having knowledge of and power over the one named.

4. Men and women are equal in creation and given the same tasks. This is implied in the first account by the simultaneous creation of the genders and by naming both of them "adam" and giving the commands to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion to both. It is seen here in the creation of woman from the very flesh of man and in the use of the man's rib as the source of the woman. As a Talmudic commentary goes, "Not from his head to be superior to him, nor from his foot to be trampled under by him, but from his rib, from under his arm and next to his heart, to be his equal and cherised companion." Woman is named man's "helper" and this is not a position of inferiority, since exactly the same term "ezer" is used of God as our helper.

5. Marriage is ordained of God, not only for reproduction, but for mutual aid and companionship. It is significant in a story from a patriarchal culture that it is the man who is to leave mother and father and cleave to his wife, for the social pattern was that a woman left her home and entered her husband's family, subjected principally to her mother-in-law. Often in such a culture, a man continues to ally himself primarily with his parents, isolating his wife alone in a new household. But the biblical injunction is that the man is to break the parental bonds (at least emotionally) to bond with his wife.

6. We are creatures of free will, for God's command does not bind us as it does other creatures. We are capable of acting against the command of our Maker.

7. We separate ourselves from God when we do not fully trust his benevolence toward us, but act on desires which we believe he will not satisfy. We assert our own agenda as equal to or even more important than God's will for us, thus aiming to be gods ourselves.

8. In alienating ourselves from God we fracture the harmony of creation, so that we no longer live in harmony with ourselves, with each other, or with the natural world in our care. The world ceases to be a paradise and becomes a hostile place, the relationship between the sexes is distorted by domination and lust, and we are exiled from the source of our life. Our only hope lies in God's willingness to heal and forgive. And in his promise to do so.

I might add that IMO, all this is literally true, so it is not just that Genesis 1-3 is using pretty stories to teach "lessons". Rather it is using mythological language to describe ontological, metaphysical realities that are just as genuine as physical, scientific facts.

 

[USincognito]

I was going to add my two cents, but after reading gluadys' post above, I don't see how I'll be adding even that megre amount. Suffice it for me to say, "what she said."

 

[shernren]

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

3. The world is a cosmos, that is to say, an ordered harmony, operating on the basis of fixed and predictable regularities which we have dubbed "laws of nature". This is part of the meaning of the structure of "days" in the first creation account. It is also derived from God speaking the world into existence, or as stated elsewhere in scripture, creation is a work of the Word of God. And the Word is the Logos, a Greek term that implies not only a meaningful sound for the purpose of communication, but also the reasoning mind (the orderly logic) which is expressed in communication.

The concept of order extends from the Genesis account outwards to inform Israel's sense of community and separateness. God, in ordering the universe, divides: night from day, deeps from skies, seas from lands. He fills each of these separations with their rightful inhabitants.

Then in the narrative of Israel's formation, we find that God is in the same business of dividing:

But I said to you, "You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey." I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations. " 'You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground--those which I have set apart as unclean for you. You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
(Leviticus 20:24-26 NIV)

(emphases added) The word for "set you apart" there is the same as these, for example:

And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.
(Genesis 1:6-7 NIV)

(emphases added).

Now, how precisely were their animals specified as clean and unclean? One principle was the natural separation of animals into their habitats:

'Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales--whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water--you are to detest.
(Leviticus 11:9-10 NIV)

'All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground. Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.
(Leviticus 11:20-23 NIV)

Only fish really "belong" in the water, and only birds really "belong" in the sky: everything else is out of order, and thus becomes unclean to the Israelites. Just as anything which crosses God's natural division becomes unclean to the Israelites, so also the Israelites themselves, should they cross God's natural divisions between themselves and the Gentiles, become unclean to God.

 

[busterdog]

God did say that in the day you eat you will surely die.
He didnt die that day physically, but he was cut off spiritually-from the tree of life that day and for good reason;


Thank goodness he kicked us out of the garden when he did, otherwise in our fallen state and eating of the tree of life, and living forever in our fallen state--redemption would have not been possible for us. We would have lived forever with sin in our midst, and no way of fellowshipping with god-in his presence.

Jesus ,once he had atoned for the sins of the world ,threw the door open to Gods presence again.

I think you are making the connection between spiritual and physical death. Mere "spiritual death", whatever that is, has never been a satisfying translation, IMHO. The passages seems to demand physical death. Apart from GOd's presence, there is dying.

See the following, which might help to resolve some of the isses.

> It also should not be assumed that the Christian tradition has uniformly
> taught that physical death for humans came about only through sin. In _On the
> Incarnation_ Athanasius seems to say (though he not explicit about it) that the first
> humans, if they had not sinned, would have experienced physical but not spiritual
> death on their way to their ultimate state of incorruption in heaven. Admittedly he
> was helped toward this view by the overly-literal Septuagint of Gen.2:17, which
> renders the emphatic Hebrew _moth tamuth_, "you shall surely die", as "dying you shall
> die". So he can say, "But by 'dying ye shall die,' what else could be meant than not
> dying merely, but also abiding ever in the corruption of death?"
> As this suggests, the overriding human problem for the Greek fathers, was
> not simply physical death but the "coming apart" involved in corruption. On this see
> my article "Time, Thermodynamics, and Theology" (Zygon 26, 359, 1991).

Interesting that the Greek father's saw decay as being worse than dying. I have been
stewing this over on the back burner as it were, and have wondered if there is a
connection between this literal meaning of Genesis 2:17 and Revelation 20:15 which speaks
of the 2nd death. This verse separates physical death, which ultimately destroyed or
defeated, from the 2nd death, the final separation from God. Is it too much to see in
this an echo of the literal meaning of Genesis 2:17, where the consequences of
disobedience is another death death in dying, or Genesis 2:17 a foreshadowing of
Revelation 2:15?

http://www.asa3.org/archive/ASA/200103/0012.html