The Historicity of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation

[DailyBlessings]

Is this a metaphor?

“And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. “And He said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?”--Mark 4:37-40​

Yes! This, whether or not it literally occurred, is a powerful metaphor for the church and the trials it undergoes. You missed that in your reading, I assume, but many have understood this, and have since long before the Enlightenment.

Is this a metaphor?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood[a] it. John 1:1-5​

How is this not a metaphor? Was Jesus made of pen and ink, or the physical soundwaves of God's speech, or what other literal/historical meaning can "Word of God" have? Can inanimate "darkness" literally understand or misunderstand something? Or does "darkness" refer to the world without Christ? If the concept of darkness is being used to represent another concept, the world, that is the textbook definition of a metaphor. Is this such a problem?

Does it make the passage less beautiful, or less meaningful? For a follower of one who taught us through parables, you seem to have a rather disrespectful attitude toward metaphor. Metaphors are neither evil nor false. They teach us sacred truth in a way that plain speech simply could not.

The Scriptures are very clear when it says God spoke:

Yes, God spoke. What does this mean? Quoting Henry and Wesley on their opinions is hardly a validation for your own.

Do I fathom God speaking the universe into existance ex nihilo? Not really

I'm confused, then, about your objection.

Do I accept the emergence and complexity of life from purely naturalistic causes as compatable with Genesis 1?

Absolutly not!

First, who says anything about purely naturalistic causes? Second, if God created nature, than why have such scorn for naturalistic causes? And third, why not?

 

[Assyrian]

God desides what is truth and it is up to use to believe it or not.

A rather strange view of reality You mean God could decide the moon was really made of cheese and suddenly the old Apollo photos would show Neil and Buzz snacking on Wensleydale?

 

[mark kennedy]

There is a lot more to interpretation than simply "literal, or mythical?" My favorite example is Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

If I asked different Christians (and Jews) what "the heavens" in this passage are, I would get markedly different answers.

Here and elsewhere it is a description of the physical heavens: (GE 1:1; PS 19:1; 50:6; 68:33; 89:29; 97:6; 103:11; 113:4; 115:16; JER 31:37; EZE 1:1; MT 24:29,30; AC 2:19,20)

An early Jew might tell me that the heavens are a cast solid dome over his head, colored blue by waters above it.
A Christian subscribing to the Ptolemaic cosmogony might say that it is the crystal spheres on which the Sun and other planets orbit the Earth.
A modern Christian will say that it is outer space.

It means sky, plain and simple because that is what the word used means. Youngs Literal Translation puts it this way:

"In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth"

Now what surprises me is that the modern Christian often then goes on to pretend that his view is the most obvious and plain view, and that the same principles he (knowingly or not) used can be confidently applied to produce a One True Interpretation (TM) of Scripture, often accompanied by a solemn warning that whosoever disagree-eth must be deficient in the Holy Spirit. Right! This ignores the fact that no Christian before 1700 and Torricelli would have thought that vacua (plural of vacuum) can exist with certainty, much less imagine that everything outside the earth's atmosphere is essentially vacuum. The "plain sense" was not at all plain to 17 centuries of Christians and another two millenia or more of Jews; those two words in that first verse smuggle in centuries of scientific discovery in the process of interpretation.

You said all of that without a single attempt as an interprutation.

And yet, modern Christians take it for granted that this interpretation is the right interpretation of Genesis 1 even though it was not at all "plain" to so many Christians. Why should they expect that the right interpretation of anything else in the Bible should be "plain" to them?

That is because the word is not that covoluted, it actually means lofty:

shamayim- 'Heaven' dual of an unused singular shameh {shaw-meh'}; from an unused root meaning to be lofty; the sky (as aloft; the dual perhaps alluding to the visible arch in which the clouds move, as well as to the higher ether where the celestial bodies revolve):--

Often translated as 'air' Gen 1:26, Gen 1:28, Gen 1:30, Gen 2:19, Gen 2:20, Gen 6:7, Gen 7:3, Gen 9:2, Deu 4:17, Deu 28:26, 1 Sam 17:44, 1 Sam 17:46, 2 Sam 21:10, 1 Ki 14:11, 1 Ki 16:4, 1 Ki 21:24, Job 12:7, Job 28:21, Psa 8:8, Prov 30:19, Eccl 10:20

Once as 'astrologers' Isa 47:13 (Strong's Dictionary and Concordance)​

I don't care much for how a Ptolemaic cosmologist interprutes Genesis, it was Moses who wrote it. Why can't heaven mean what it says here and elsewhere, the sky above us.

 

[mark kennedy]

Yes! This, whether or not it literally occurred, is a powerful metaphor for the church and the trials it undergoes. You missed that in your reading, I assume, but many have understood this, and have since long before the Enlightenment.

No, I have read a great deal of Liberal Theology and this whole mythic/metaphorical line of interpretation is flawed. You probably don't like the supernatural aspect which is why this interpretation as become so popular.

How is this not a metaphor? Was Jesus made of pen and ink, or the physical soundwaves of God's speech, or what other literal/historical meaning can "Word of God" have? Can inanimate "darkness" literally understand or misunderstand something? Or does "darkness" refer to the world without Christ? If the concept of darkness is being used to represent another concept, the world, that is the textbook definition of a metaphor. Is this such a problem?

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2Cor. 4:9)

Here it is used as both, there is the literal light of creation and the metaphor of the Gospel in the unbelieving heart. Context is everything when you are discerning the meaning of Scripture and nebulous semantics don't help much at all.

Does it make the passage less beautiful, or less meaningful? For a follower of one who taught us through parables, you seem to have a rather disrespectful attitude toward metaphor. Metaphors are neither evil nor false. They teach us sacred truth in a way that plain speech simply could not.

Parables like most metaphors are predicated by 'like' or 'as' as any Bible scholar will tell you. There is a major difference between a parable and Genesis 1 and I think the posters are aware of this.

Yes, God spoke. What does this mean? Quoting Henry and Wesley on their opinions is hardly a validation for your own.

They are not even helpfull if you don't even bother reading them.

I'm confused, then, about your objection.

Then maybe you should go back and read me in context, or Moses for that matter.

First, who says anything about purely naturalistic causes? Second, if God created nature, than why have such scorn for naturalistic causes? And third, why not?

First, evolutionists.
Second, two words for 'created' are used, bara and asah.
Third, the testimony of Scripture is prefered above a priori assumptions.

"The most obvious and straightforward reading of Genesis 1 provides a prima facie case that Moses, under the direction of God, intended to write a literal historic account of what God had revealed to him (or to his antecedents), and not a cryptic message with clues for the super-intelligent. In other words, if God had meant us to understand that there was a gap of billions of years between verses 1 and 2, involving so many details about Satan, sin, judgment, punishment, re-creation, etc., we might reasonably expect that He would have provided the author with at least some of these alleged details. He did not. Nor are they to be found anywhere else in the Bible."

From the beginning of the creation

 

[Assyrian]

Just as chapter three talks about a snake tempting Eve, without even a hint that it was really talking about a fallen angel instead of a reptile?

 

[Markus6]

The most obvious and straightforward reading of Genesis 1 provides a prima facie case that Moses,

Where does Genesis 1 even mention Moses? What makes you think Moses wrote it?

 

[mark kennedy]

Just as chapter three talks about a snake tempting Eve, without even a hint that it was really talking about a fallen angel instead of a reptile?

When Adam named the animals he looked at the serpent and said, 'shining one' and that was his name. Did you ever see a snake like a blue racer sunning himself? The word 'serpent is used, literally, from Genesis to Revelations to represent Satan:

"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (Rev. 12:9)

The Hebrew word rendered "serpent" in Gen. 3:1 is Nachash (from the root Nachash, to shine), and means a shining one. The same root word in another form can mean a piece of brass (nachash 5175) apparently passive participle of 'nachash' (5172) (perhaps in the sense of ringing, i.e. bell-metal; or from the red color of the throat of a serpent (5175, as denominative) when hissing); coppery, i.e. (figuratively) hard:--of brass.​

Do a little research, the word means more then 'snake'. Satan appears as an angel of light which is how he is describe throughout Scripture.

"But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." (2Cor.11:12-14)​

 

[mark kennedy]

Where does Genesis 1 even mention Moses? What makes you think Moses wrote it?

The Pentateuch claims in many places that Moses was the writer, e.g. Exodus 17:14; 24:4–7; 34:27; Numbers 33:2; Deuteronomy 31:9, 22, 24.

Many times in the rest of the Old Testament, Moses is said to have been the writer, e.g. Joshua 1:7–8; 8:32–34; Judges 3:4; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 14:6; 21:8; 2 Chronicles 25:4; Ezra 6:18; Nehemiah 8:1; 13:1; Daniel 9:11–13.

In the New Testament, Jesus frequently spoke of Moses’ writings or the Law of Moses, e.g. Matthew 8:4; 19:7–8; Mark 7:10; 12:26; Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:46–47; 7:19. Jesus said that those who ‘hear not [i.e. reject] Moses’ would not be persuaded ‘though one rose from the dead’ (Luke 16:31). Thus we see that those churches and seminaries which reject the historicity of Moses’ writings often also reject the literal bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Other New Testament speakers/writers said the same thing, e.g. John 1:17; Acts 6:14; 13:39; 15:5; 1 Corinthians 9:9; 2 Corinthians 3:15; Hebrews 10:28.​

Did Moses really write Genesis?


Do you really have any reason to think Moses didn't write Genesis?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Do you really have any reason to think Moses didn't write Genesis?

because he wasn't here.
because Gen 1 is not signed.
because Gen 1 is not linguistically the same as most of the Torah.
because no where does it say "Moses wrote Genesis or even Moses wrote Genesis 1"
but mostly because it bears the marks of a poetical hymn that was passed down orally for many generations before being reduced to written form, like most of Genesis does.

 

[Xaero]

..long ages claimed by evolutionary geologists..

Everyone not agreeing with their short ages is in their eyes "evolutionary"

But the truth is that the long ages ain't just a dogmatic assumption, sometimes evidence is at hand immediately without any further assumptions - just plain logic. Especially in geoscience you see that every layer, thrust, crack, and other formations tells a history of earth that fits perfectly within models of long ages. Believe in an old earth didn't start with evolutionary assumptions. Young earthers forget that the idea of an old earth came before evolution.

If this old-look would all just be artificial you may wonder who is creating such a deceiving world.

Just as chapter three talks about a snake tempting Eve, without even a hint that it was really talking about a fallen angel instead of a reptile?

yea, you must know through studying other parts of scripture that snake refers to satan. Isn't this the same with words "evening" "morning" and "day"?

When readers of Genesis must study other parts of scripture to find out that the snake in Garten Eden isn't an ordinary snake then
why should we ignore scriptural evidence that the days in Genesis 1 ain't ordinary days?

 

[shernren]

It means sky, plain and simple because that is what the word used means.

That is because the word is not that covoluted, it actually means lofty:

shamayim- 'Heaven' dual of an unused singular shameh {shaw-meh'}; from an unused root meaning to be lofty; the sky (as aloft; the dual perhaps alluding to the visible arch in which the clouds move, as well as to the higher ether where the celestial bodies revolve):--

Often translated as 'air' Gen 1:26, Gen 1:28, Gen 1:30, Gen 2:19, Gen 2:20, Gen 6:7, Gen 7:3, Gen 9:2, Deu 4:17, Deu 28:26, 1 Sam 17:44, 1 Sam 17:46, 2 Sam 21:10, 1 Ki 14:11, 1 Ki 16:4, 1 Ki 21:24, Job 12:7, Job 28:21, Psa 8:8, Prov 30:19, Eccl 10:20

Once as 'astrologers' Isa 47:13 (Strong's Dictionary and Concordance)​

I don't care much for how a Ptolemaic cosmologist interprutes Genesis, it was Moses who wrote it. Why can't heaven mean what it says here and elsewhere, the sky above us.

So, God didn't create outer space? (That's a pretty high price to pay for "redemptive history".)

 

[gluadys]

When Adam named the animals he looked at the serpent and said, 'shining one' and that was his name. Did you ever see a snake like a blue racer sunning himself? The word 'serpent is used, literally, from Genesis to Revelations to represent Satan:

"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (Rev. 12:9)

The Hebrew word rendered "serpent" in Gen. 3:1 is Nachash (from the root Nachash, to shine), and means a shining one. The same root word in another form can mean a piece of brass (nachash 5175) apparently passive participle of 'nachash' (5172) (perhaps in the sense of ringing, i.e. bell-metal; or from the red color of the throat of a serpent (5175, as denominative) when hissing); coppery, i.e. (figuratively) hard:--of brass.​

Do a little research, the word means more then 'snake'. Satan appears as an angel of light which is how he is describe throughout Scripture.

"But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." (2Cor.11:12-14)​

First, you are confusing etymology with meaning. That the Hebrew word for "serpent" or "snake" comes from a root that means "shining" doesn't make it mean "shining" any more than the fact that "hippopotamus" is derived from the Greek words for "river horse" means that a hippopotamus is a horse or that the Greeks ever thought it was.

In fact, as in many cases where new words are coined, the new word is itself a metaphor. Since they had no word for a hippopotamus, the Greeks used an analogy, a metaphor, that compared the beast to a horse. But it still means "hippopotamus" not "horse". (In a similar way, when first introduced to a railway engine, Native Americans coined the term "iron horse" to refer to it in their own languages. Yet they certainly understood that this new machine was not actually a horse.)

No doubt observing how the scales of a snake reflect the light played its part in the Hebrew naming of the animal. That is etymology. But the meaning is still "snake/serpent".

And in this sentence:

The word 'serpent is used, literally, from Genesis to Revelations to represent Satan:

you show that, like many literalists, you don't really understand what "literal" means.

The only thing that "serpent" can mean literally is "serpent" i.e. a reptile of the serpent order. Unless Satan is such a reptile, any time "serpent" is used to refer to Satan, it is, by definition, a metaphorical reference.

And note that in Genesis 3, there is no obvious indication that the word is being used metaphorically. That is another characteristic of metaphors. Unlike similes, they do not proclaim themselves with a flag word such as "like" or "as". You have to use more subtle cues to determine when a word is being used literally or metaphorically.

I think you have fallen into the trap of referring to a meaning as "literal" when what you really mean is "true". I don't doubt that when Genesis 3 is referring to the snake it is really and truly referring to Satan. But the fact remains that that is still a metaphorical meaning of "snake". What is true does not have to be stated in literal terms to make it true.


In another post you said:

Do I accept the emergance and complexity of life from purely naturalistic causes as compatable with Genesis 1?

Absolutly not!

Why not? Are you implying that God is absent from purely naturalistic causes? Is that what "purely naturalistic causes" means to you---that God is taking a break and remaining inert and inactive?

I can understand an atheist thinking along these lines, but why would a Christian adopt such a position?

Please correct me if I have misunderstood your intention.

 

[gluadys]

Here and elsewhere it is a description of the physical heavens: (GE 1:1; PS 19:1; 50:6; 68:33; 89:29; 97:6; 103:11; 113:4; 115:16; JER 31:37; EZE 1:1; MT 24:29,30; AC 2:19,20)



It means sky, plain and simple because that is what the word used means.

Ah, but what does "sky" mean? English is peculiar among European languages in having two words to refer to what is above the horizon: "sky" and "heaven". "Sky" comes from a nordic root; "heaven" from a Germanic root. Interestingly, the nordic term originally applied to clouds and was only later extended to the whole physical heaven. And the old Germanic "heofan" is related etymologically to a root meaning a "covering".

So, it would appear that an Old German who called what he saw above his head "heofan" thought of it just as an ancient Hebrew did--as a roof covering the world.

And in Elizabethan England, an educated person speaking of the "skies" would have in mind the crystal spheres of the Ptolomaic cosmos.

While in modern times, everyone "knows" that the "sky" is a boundless open space.

So it doesn't clarify anything to say "heavens" [shamayim] means "sky", since both words have undergone the same transformations of meaning over time.

What do you think "shamayim" meant to Moses?

 

[Assyrian]

When Adam named the animals he looked at the serpent and said, 'shining one' and that was his name. Did you ever see a snake like a blue racer sunning himself? The word 'serpent is used, literally, from Genesis to Revelations to represent Satan:

"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (Rev. 12:9)​

The Hebrew word rendered "serpent" in Gen. 3:1 is Nachash (from the root Nachash, to shine), and means a shining one. The same root word in another form can mean a piece of brass (nachash 5175) apparently passive participle of 'nachash' (5172) (perhaps in the sense of ringing, i.e. bell-metal; or from the red color of the throat of a serpent (5175, as denominative) when hissing); coppery, i.e. (figuratively) hard:--of brass.​

Do a little research, the word means more then 'snake'. Satan appears as an angel of light which is how he is describe throughout Scripture.

"But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." (2Cor.11:12-14)​

You are assuming that Adam spoke Hebrew aren't you? But snake skin is shiny, and a brown snake would look as if it was made of bronze. There is nothing in the name to suggest is it angelic.

Now throughout the rest of the bible people understood that the serpent in Eden was a fallen angel, that is why as you say, from Genesis to Revelation, or at least from Job to Revelation, the serpent is used to represent Satan. It is also quite possible the Hebrews understood what the serpent meant in the story because then were familiar with the serpent cults in the ANE.

But how the Israelites understood this metaphor is another matter, in the story itself there is no hint that the snake is a metaphor, or anything other than a reptile (who happened to be able to talk). The snake was wisest of all the beasts of the field, slithers on his belly and 'eats dust', it bites people's ankles and had a head that could be crushed by someones foot.

On the face of it, the story is literal. There is nothing in the text to suggest Eve was talking to anything other than a wild animal, a reptile. Instead we learn from the rest of the bible that it was meant to be interpreted metaphorically.

 

[Markus6]

The Pentateuch claims in many places that Moses was the writer, e.g. Exodus 17:14; 24:4–7; 34:27; Numbers 33:2; Deuteronomy 31:9, 22, 24.

None of those quotes claim that Moses wrote even the book it is written in. They all say "And God said to Moses, "Write this down..."". There is no reason to believe that Moses' writings at that time and the Pentateuch are the same thing. If they were would it not make more sense for it to be called 'The book of Moses' and have it say "then God told me to write this down and here it is, this book!" instead of always referring to himself in the third person.

Many times in the rest of the Old Testament, Moses is said to have been the writer, e.g. Joshua 1:7–8; 8:32–34; Judges 3:4; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 14:6; 21:8; 2 Chronicles 25:4; Ezra 6:18; Nehemiah 8:1; 13:1; Daniel 9:11–13.

All these verses talk about the writings Moses brought down from Sinai and give us no reason to believe that they are the same as the Pentateuch (how would the writings brought down from Sinai talk about the times AFTER Moses came down the mountain?).

Jesus said that those who ‘hear not [i.e. reject] Moses’ would not be persuaded ‘though one rose from the dead’ (Luke 16:31). Thus we see that those churches and seminaries which reject the historicity of Moses’ writings often also reject the literal bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I know of MANY churches who don't buy the Jewish tradition that Moses' wrote the first five books and still accept the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus so I'm going to call that out as 'baloney'. Have you got any evidence to back it up??

Do you really have any reason to think Moses didn't write Genesis?

Yes, rmwilliams covered them nicely. It's you who's making the claim though. The burden of proof is on you.

 

[mark kennedy]

A couple of observations since carefully prepared posts just get buried around here. There is a lot of talk about what the text actually means but no interest whatsoever in the original language. We have every reason to accept and no reason to doubt that the New Testament writers attributed the Pentetauch to Moses but so what?

I get it, let's just move on.

"The sabbath and marriage were two ordinances instituted in innocency, the former for the preservation of the church, the latter for the preservation of mankind. It appears by Matt. xix, 4, 5, that it was God himself who said here, a man must leave all his relations to cleave to his wife; but whether he spake it by Moses or by Adam who spake, ver. 23 is uncertain: It should seem they are the words of Adam in God's name, laying down this law to all his posterity. The virtue of a divine ordinance, and the bonds of it, are stronger even than those of nature. See how necessary it is that children should take their parents consent with them in their marriage; and how unjust they are to their parents, as well as undutiful, if they marry without it; for they rob them of their right to them, and interest in them, and alienate it to another fraudulently and unnaturally." (John Wesley's Study Notes)​

Two ordinances are established here and they are clearly not metaphors for something else. This is also the first use of the covenant name of God:

LORD - Jehovah - the special and significant name (not merely an appellative title such as Lord [adonai]) by which God revealed himself to the ancient Hebrews (Ex. 6:2, 3). This name, the Tetragrammaton of the Greeks, was held by the later Jews to be so sacred that it was never pronounced except by the high priest on the great Day of Atonement, when he entered into the most holy place. Whenever this name occurred in the sacred books they pronounced it, as they still do, "Adonai" (i.e., Lord), thus using another word in its stead. The Massorets gave to it the vowel-points appropriate to this word. This Jewish practice was founded on a false interpretation of Lev. 24:16. The meaning of the word appears from Ex. 3:14 to be "the unchanging, eternal, self-existent God," the "I am that I am," a covenant-keeping God. (Compare to Mal. 3:6; Hos. 12:5; Rev. 1:4, 8.) (Easton’s Bible Dictionary)​

I expect the same tangents will be pursued so I will just put the first marriage, sabbath and use of the covenant name of God on the table. You all seem rather unconcerned with what the Reformers thought of the Scriptures which is unfortunate. Had there not been a Protestant Reformation there would have been no scientific revolution.

"The design of Moses was deeply to impress upon our minds the origin of the heaven and the earth, which he designates by the word generation . For there have always been ungrateful and malignant men, who, either by feigning, that the world was eternal or by obliterating the memory of the creations would attempt to obscure the glory of God. Thus the devil, by his guile, turns those away from God who are more ingenious and skillful than others in order that each may become a god unto himself. Wherefore, it is not a superfluous repetition which inculcates the necessary fact, that the world existed only from the time when it was created since such knowledge directs us to its Architect and Author. Under the names of heaven and earth, the whole is, by the figure synecdochee , included. Some of the Hebrews thinks that the essential name of God is here at length expressed by Moses, because his majesty shines forth more clearly in the completed world. (John Calvin)​

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The sabbath and marriage
Two ordinances are established here and they are clearly not metaphors for something else.

they are both great, widespread and consistent metaphors in Scripture. Marriage is the metaphor of the relationship of the believer to Christ and of Christ to the church. The entire book of Hosea is an elaboration on the flip side of this, the church as the prostitute who shames marriage as the Israelites shame God by "awhoring" after other Gods.

The Sabbath as well is an enormous metaphor that teaches that man is reliant on God, that work will not feed you satisfactory, that God is important, that honoring God is important enough to require an entire day out of 7 to do it properly. etc.

You seem to think that because something is a metaphor it can not be "literally" or historically true. Literary elements build levels, you can certainly have a lower level of actual history, and several layers or levels built on top of it.

The interesting thing is that both of these great metaphors can have a historical level if you desire, but it is not necessary to make the point. The Sabbath especially is a rich and demanding set of ideas that doesn't require an anchor in a historically accessible recent Creation Week, in fact, i often present my case here that it can not be a recent historical event. If the Creation Week is a literary metaphor that Moses used to explain the Sabbath ordinance to the Israelites at Mt Sinai, it makes more sense that Jesus changed the day with the Resurrection than if the day is anchored in history as a Creation ordinance.

I think that a particular "marriage" (note there is nothing in the text of Genesis to indicate that Adam and EVe are married!!) of two physical people is likewise not really important if the point is intimacy. There have been lots of marriages, we don't need an example of a particular one to realize what marriage is.

A couple of observations since carefully prepared posts just get buried around here.
if you reference a particular post that you think buried, i for one will go back, reread it and reply to it, if necessary. thanks for pointing out these errors, it is not intentional but just overlooked.

 

[mark kennedy]

By the way, I have a general invitation on the Historicity of Scripture in the formal debate forum. It occured to me that some of you might take an interest. If you are interested just let me know.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[pastorkevin73]

all, every one of my epistemological filters kicked in with this posting, plus the "simple" ignited a few others....

i'm not sure there is any way to answer this statement.

all we have is opinions and interpretations, of what Scripture says, of what the universe is. None of us has access to God's Own Interpretation(GOI), there is always this "problem" that meaning exists in our minds, and is in part reliant on our experiences and education.

If God has communicated clearly, simply, and effectively to you, can you please tell me GOI for those few little divisive words: "this is my body"?

a second point is why should i believe you know GOI when i hear and see lots of people making this same claim and they say the verses mean different things than you do.

Who can i trust is really truely GOI's prophet?

"this is my body" was never meant to be divisive. In God there is perfect unity. This is what He wanted for the church. Problems arose when people in the church were more concerned about their opinion rather than what God wants. This problem occurs because of sin and/or lack of listening to the HS.

 

[pastorkevin73]

A rather strange view of reality You mean God could decide the moon was really made of cheese and suddenly the old Apollo photos would show Neil and Buzz snacking on Wensleydale?