Is the Bible reliable?

[BobRyan]

Some may want to crucify me for saying this, but the Bible did not simply fall from the heavens, it has been translated many times over, has been handled by a great many people for a great many centuries, does in fact have inserts added within it by the authority of papal Rome, and so on.

The Dead Sea scrolls provide a test case over many centuries showing that the Bible is not being butchered in the copy process.

Now, none of these things are wrong. Even as a protestant, it would be sort of redundant to be in arms about the additions of past popes, but when you look at it from a certain angle-
you may notice that you are putting near worship into 1000's of years old parchment.

Is it your claim that the Jews are asking the Popes to insert new ideas into Genesis and Exodus ???

The point to be made is that while God's teachings have immortal value, God's Spirit did not stop with scripture.
I think that there is such a thing as overly prioritizing scripture- something one can't do by accident because it is a hard to, but something that a lot of churches are nonetheless doing. It is evidenced when Christians become frightened that their Bibles may have adulteration in them- it doesn't really matter.

"They studied the scriptures daily to SEE IF those things spoken to them by Paul - were SO" Acts 17:11.

Mark 7:6-13 "In vain do they worship me teaching for doctrine the commandments of God".

The NT writers were a lot more "sola scriptura" in their doctrine than some people are comfortable with today - when it comes to testing all doctrine by the rule of scripture.

So then - Bible writers did not regard the Bible as mere fiction - poetic or not.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

[FONT=&quot]One leading Hebrew scholar is James Barr, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University and former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England. Although he does not believe in the historicity of Genesis 1, Dr. Barr does agree that the writer's intent was to narrate the actual history of primeval creation. Others also agree with him. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. [/FONT]

James Barr, letter to David Watson, 1984.

Indeed Scripture is quite clear that the departure of Jesus was necessary because it made possible the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ onto his Church.

I think it does matter that we strive to find the best and most authentic translations of Scripture as possible. Even if not about history, they are a record of the way that God's chosen have interacted with God throughout the last several thousand years.

And in the case above - the intent to declare history - a literal 7 day week, is seen in the text itself.

Whether you choose to accept the historicity (accuracy and reliability of the text) to be valid - is choice each one must make.

A number of Christians on CF tend to believe the Bible is reliable.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Historicus]

Mod Hat On

Since the thread has turned into a discussions of origins, staff has moved it from General Theology to Origins. Please keep forum rules in mind when posting.

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[elliott95]

The Bible is reliable for all the aspects that it claims to be reliable in.

But I have already said that.

 

[gluadys]

Many atheists today claim the Bible is not reliable. They claim it does not give a reliable historic record of the events in history that it "claims" to describe.

That is no surprise - after all - they are atheists.

What about Christians? should Christians join in making that charge against the Bible? Would it benefit Christianity to join the atheists in that little game of theirs?

A large section of Christianity in many different denominations unwittingly choose to join them -- at times.

for example -

===================================

The pope was addressing the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which gathered Monday at the Vatican to discuss "Evolving Concepts of Nature."
"When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so," Francis said.
"He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment."
Francis said the beginning of the world was not "a work of chaos" but created from a principle of love. He said sometimes competing beliefs in creation and evolution could co-exist.

Pope says evolution, Big Bang are real


Pope Francis tells an audience that the Big Bang does not contradict the "creative intervention of God". He says, "on the contrary, it requires it". Rough Cut (no reporter narration). Newslook"God is not a divine being or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life," the pope said. "Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve."


Unlike much of evangelical Protestantism in the U.S., Catholic teaching traditionally has not been at odds with evolution.
=========================================end quote


This is not a scientific debate - it is a question of "the text" of scripture itself.


How many miracles - how many acts of God can we throw out the window in services to an external agenda - one external to the text??


Nobody seriously thinks that Moses was out to preach darwinian-evolutionism.


And evolution is never stated in the form "for in six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth the seas and all that is in them" Ex 20:11.


If God is not "able" to create all life on earth in 6 days - then why does He present such false marketing in the Bible itself? That is a question atheists can rightfully ask if one tries to marry the Bible to the blind-faith-stories of evolutionism.


should we make the atheist's argument for them -by going down such a self-conflicted path? It is self-defeating to the gospel and to acceptance of the Bible as a reliable trustworthy record of the acts of God in sacred history, to cclaim that God is not able to do as He stated in His own historic account given to mankind by divine revelation.


Thoughts?


in Christ,


Bob

The problem with trying to narrow the focus to the text of scripture is that it leaves out the context; yet there is no text without context. A text without context is meaningless. We can't know what the text means without considering the context 1) in which it was written, 2) in which it was read by contemporaries of the writer, 3) in which it has been interpreted by the relevant religious communities since it was written and 4) in which a current reader is interpreting it. Every reader brings their own context to the text. Refusing to consider anything but the text is an attempt to deny the context you yourself bring to the text.

You are right to say no one seriously believes Moses was out to preach darwinian-evolutionism.

No one seriously believes that because they are aware that Moses wrote in a context where that idea (and the evidence to support it) was not accessible to him.

But, without announcing it, you bring in a new context--a belief that because Moses wrote as he did in his own context, a modern reader should take what Moses wrote as being scientifically and historically true in a context where evolution is known to be a fact.

That is the belief that requires exploration and justification. No amount of repitition of "this is what Moses wrote" deals with the issue of how to interpret what he wrote meaningfully in our time.

 

[gluadys]

Your stated position is absurd; one cannot both be reading a poem and a literal history. And even if one were reading a poem that related historical events then it is still wrong to call it a history. Homer's Iliad is a poem and it relates something that very likely took place in history but nobody thinks of the Iliad as a history.

Those who take a TE position generally reject a false dichotomy between "literal" and "true". We understand that a passage that is fictional and/or symbolic (such as the parables, or poetry or prophecy couched in symbols is just as true as anything literal.

There is another false dichotomy that gets less attention and that is the distinction between "literary" and "historical/actual". I mention it because even among TEs there is a tendency to associate "literal interpretation" with the view that when a passage is literal it must also be historically or scientifically factual.

But that is not really the case. The basic meaning of "literal" is not "real" or "true" or "actual" though it is frequently used as such. The basic meaning is "plain, ordinary, without any figurative intention". When we unpack this meaning, we can get back to something often lost in controversy--namely, that whatever else it is, the Bible is also a collection of literature and good hermeneutics should take its literary features into account.

Take a scriptural example: the snake (or serpent) in the garden of Eden. Was it literally a snake? Well, in a literary sense, of course it is. The most ordinary, common sense meaning of the word "snake" refers to the reptile of that name. And that is the way it is used in Genesis 3. There is no literary indication that the snake is anything other than a snake, and no literary indication that it is used as a symbol of something else.

Does it follow from this that we must believe it is a fact that an actual talking snake really spoke to an actual woman in an actual garden at some actual moment in real history? Not at all! "literary" is not equivalent to "actual/ historical/ real/ factual". In any literary composition, whether prose, poetry, drama, law, etc. a "literal" word or phrase simply means the ordinary non-figurative meaning is attached to the word irrespective of whether it has any connection with real, actual history or fact.

Interestingly, the whole business of "literal" interpretation was historically more about the literary sense than any dispute about the accuracy of biblical history. The Protestant Reformation occurred in a context in which bibles were first made readily available via printing press in the common languages of Europe and so accessible to anyone who could read. But many people did not feel competent to understand the bible. They wanted to know the "real" meaning of the text. And by "real" meaning, they meant an allegorical meaning, for all during the Middle Ages, the church had fostered allegorical interpretations of scripture. So it seemed that only a person well-educated in the traditional allegorical interpretations could open the meaning of scripture to the average person.

Out of this mix emerged the Common Sense school of biblical interpretation, especially in Scotland. The Common Sense school rejected allegorical interpretations except where they were clearly intended. Their motto, roughly paraphrased was "where the common sense makes good sense, seek no other sense." As one can imagine, this was a great encouragement to people reading the bible for the first time. They did not have to puzzle out a symbolic meaning for the parable of the Good Samaritan or Isaac's struggle to find a safe place to dig a well. They could be confident that what their own common sense told them it meant was what it meant.

The promoters of a Common Sense reading of scripture could not have anticipated the discoveries made in science and history which led to the term "literal" being removed from its literary application to supporting scripture as factual history or science even when that is clearly not the case.

 

[gluadys]

Just your opinion. Many of us believe Adam and Eve were real, we also believe that the story of creation is real, and so have many Scholars throughout the ages also believed this. Many also believe that the Lords supper is symbolic, it doesn't actually turn into flesh and blood. This is not unorthodox at all.

The issue is how systematic are we when we choose what to interpret as real and what to interpret as symbolic.

Some Christians make it a virtue to hold to a "literal" interpretation by which they mean both "free from symbolic meaning" and "real/factual/historical". In such a case one would have to ask, "if Adam and Eve were real persons, is not the consecrated bread really Christ's body and blood?" How could one possibly argue that one is real and the other symbolic?

Of course, if one does not consider defaulting to a so-called "literal" interpretation a necessity, then one can consider the bread as merely symbolic of Christ's body and blood. And one can also consider Adam and Eve to be symbolic of humanity as a whole.

Or one can choose to put them in separate categories according to what makes most sense to oneself, while recognizing that it is an arbitrary and subjective choice as to which is real and which is symbolic.

I expect a good many Catholics believe Adam is symbolic while Christ's body is really what they consume in communion. And a good many Protestants hold the reverse opinion.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Spurgeon said defending the Bible is like trying to defend a lion.

 

[gluadys]

The OP seems to be talking about Darwinism, im not sure why you say it has no business in this discussion. I join Bob's disapproval of Darwinism. Darwinism seems to steal Gods Glory, it doesn't give God glory because it denies creationism, and it denies Gods holy scriptures which say that God created all things.



Darwin quotes-


“I had gradually come by this time, [i.e. 1836 to 1839] to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos or the beliefs of any barbarian.”

Charles Darwin


“I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.”

Charles Darwin

What in the world is "Darwinism"? I don't believe any such thing exists outside the imagination of evolution-denying creationists.

And what is "creationism" other than the belief that it is essential to Christian faith to deny evolution?

I am a Christian who believes in creation. But I do not hold it is essential to reject evolution. So I believe in creation (that God is the Creator of all) but I reject creationism (that it is essential to deny evolution).

As for evolution, I accept that it is a natural process created by God whose end is to produce a diversity of creatures (including ourselves) to populate this planet. And I do not see any way in which this fails to give God glory.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Those who take a TE position generally reject a false dichotomy between "literal" and "true". We understand that a passage that is fictional and/or symbolic (such as the parables, or poetry or prophecy couched in symbols is just as true as anything literal.

There is another false dichotomy that gets less attention and that is the distinction between "literary" and "historical/actual". I mention it because even among TEs there is a tendency to associate "literal interpretation" with the view that when a passage is literal it must also be historically or scientifically factual.

But that is not really the case. The basic meaning of "literal" is not "real" or "true" or "actual" though it is frequently used as such. The basic meaning is "plain, ordinary, without any figurative intention". When we unpack this meaning, we can get back to something often lost in controversy--namely, that whatever else it is, the Bible is also a collection of literature and good hermeneutics should take its literary features into account.

Take a scriptural example: the snake (or serpent) in the garden of Eden. Was it literally a snake? Well, in a literary sense, of course it is. The most ordinary, common sense meaning of the word "snake" refers to the reptile of that name. And that is the way it is used in Genesis 3. There is no literary indication that the snake is anything other than a snake, and no literary indication that it is used as a symbol of something else.

Does it follow from this that we must believe it is a fact that an actual talking snake really spoke to an actual woman in an actual garden at some actual moment in real history? Not at all! "literary" is not equivalent to "actual/ historical/ real/ factual". In any literary composition, whether prose, poetry, drama, law, etc. a "literal" word or phrase simply means the ordinary non-figurative meaning is attached to the word irrespective of whether it has any connection with real, actual history or fact.

Interestingly, the whole business of "literal" interpretation was historically more about the literary sense than any dispute about the accuracy of biblical history. The Protestant Reformation occurred in a context in which bibles were first made readily available via printing press in the common languages of Europe and so accessible to anyone who could read. But many people did not feel competent to understand the bible. They wanted to know the "real" meaning of the text. And by "real" meaning, they meant an allegorical meaning, for all during the Middle Ages, the church had fostered allegorical interpretations of scripture. So it seemed that only a person well-educated in the traditional allegorical interpretations could open the meaning of scripture to the average person.

Out of this mix emerged the Common Sense school of biblical interpretation, especially in Scotland. The Common Sense school rejected allegorical interpretations except where they were clearly intended. Their motto, roughly paraphrased was "where the common sense makes good sense, seek no other sense." As one can imagine, this was a great encouragement to people reading the bible for the first time. They did not have to puzzle out a symbolic meaning for the parable of the Good Samaritan or Isaac's struggle to find a safe place to dig a well. They could be confident that what their own common sense told them it meant was what it meant.

The promoters of a Common Sense reading of scripture could not have anticipated the discoveries made in science and history which led to the term "literal" being removed from its literary application to supporting scripture as factual history or science even when that is clearly not the case.

During our Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program, about the third week in, we teach the catechumens and candidates (and any observers who come along without necessarily intending to become Catholics) that sacred scripture is to be read literarily (coining an adjective) but not literally. The difference we seek to instil in them is that literal reading which follows the words of the text without taking proper account of the kind of literature will mislead whenever the literature is anything other than a simple prose description. The moment the literary form becomes poetic, gospel, apocalyptic, moral-lesson story or any of a number of other forms common in sacred scripture a literal reading will not serve well.

We also spend time considering that we are not the first to read sacred scripture; there is a history of christian reading and contemplation, commentary and careful analysis, scholarly and devotional reading that we ought to use and benefit from. And even more significant there is the two thousand year long history of the church in which truth has been searched out and taught while error has been examined, weighed, and rejected with reasons stated and the faithful alerted to its presence. Without the elements of literary rather than literal reading, the benefits we obtain from the long history of interpretation, and the church's vigilance over truth and rejection of error one cannot read the scriptures and obtain the maximum benefit from so doing.

PS: If I take the serpent of Genesis chapter three as an example then I must differ with your stated view that there is nothing in the passage to indicate that the serpent is anything other than an ordinary serpent because first it is implied that it had legs, second it talks, third it reasoned and explained its position regarding the untruthfulness of God and these things are not what ordinary serpents do. No matter what way one reads the passage this serpent is clearly exceptional in many ways.

 

[BobRyan]

It's obvious that when your statements against the Catholic Church are shown to be false you move on to yet another set of smoke and mirrors distractions so that the falsification of your claim can be buried under a mass of irrelevant text.

How sad that you now turn upon the very text you claim to have interpreted for us as not speaking about a 7 day creation week - and the real 7 days.

How odd as well.

You ought to acknowledge that the claims you made about the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding sacred scripture (shown in bold text) were wrong (demonstrated in red bold text) but so far you have failed to do that.

You called it "poetic fiction"

I call the Bible "reliable".

Is this where you wish to address the question asked of you??

==================== in this post the two MC self-conflicted views are contrasted.

Clearly the magisterium of the Catholic church affirms without reservation that the scriptures have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. As well as stating that everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation. Therefore "all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind".

And by that --- you really mean...

Poetic mythology intended by God to teach us. What does it teach you?

Really?? fiction? myth? poetic-or-not. (and as Dr Barr points out in Genesis 1 - not).

What sort of double speak would that be??

=================================


how then is the text rendered that you consider to be sooo iirrelevant in one post while claiming to interpret the 7 day timeline out of it - in another?

[FONT=&quot]One leading Hebrew scholar is James Barr, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University and former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England. Although he does not believe in the historicity of Genesis 1, Dr. Barr does agree that the writer's intent was to narrate the actual history of primeval creation. Others also agree with him. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. [/FONT]

James Barr, letter to David Watson, 1984.

In the example given above it is the "kind of literature" that Dr. James Barr said - is the determining factor for Hebrew scholars in all world-class universities - with the result that he can say

"[FONT=&quot]Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. "


[/FONT]

During our Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program, about the third week in, we teach the catechumens and candidates (and any observers who come along without necessarily intending to become Catholics) that sacred scripture is to be read literarily (coining an adjective) but not literally. The difference we seek to instil in them is that literal reading which follows the words of the text without taking proper account of the kind of literature

Notice that MC appeals to the very point that is the basis for Dr. Barr's claim that "[FONT=&quot]no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament[/FONT]" in any "world-class university" doubts the intent of the author is to convey a literal 7 day creation week and a literal world wide flood from the way the content of the text and the "kind of literature" that it is -

The moment the literary form becomes poetic, gospel, apocalyptic, moral-lesson story or any of a number of other forms common in sacred scripture a literal reading will not serve well.

So much then for the virgin birth, the incarnation of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, his bodily ascension into heaven -- amazing the sweeping flaws some will toss into their reading of the Bible without realizing the damage it does.

What is amazing is that MC has found such a perfect solution to the Catholic-vs-Protestant question when he admits that ignoring the intent of the author is ok - and one can still call it doing honor to the Holy Spirit claimed to be the author of such historic accounts.

Genesis is not apocalyptic, not a poem, it is history as even Barr admits all the while he calls it failing in historicity yet admits the author's intent in the text - his a literal 24 hour day same as we have today - and the readers would have accepted it that way.

This means that if we reject the actual details in Catholic statements - in statements from Popes, and Ecumenical councils but just look for some more abstract higher principle - the RCC will consider that we are treating them as they themselves treat what they consider to be the work of the Holy Spirit!..

That ought to settle a LOT of differences that would otherwise be a problem. What a great solution!

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

We also spend time considering that we are not the first to read sacred scripture; there is a history of christian reading and contemplation, commentary and careful analysis, scholarly and devotional reading that we ought to use and benefit from. And even more significant there is the two thousand year long history of the church in which truth has been searched out and taught while error has been examined, weighed, and rejected with reasons stated and the faithful alerted to its presence.

Are you talking about the inquisition, burning people at the stake?? Praying to the dead? purgatory? Mary having the apostles "fly over to her" before she dies? Which of the dark-ages style superstitions are you talking about?

the long ages of history show that the prevailing understanding in the Christian church was always 7 real literal days (or even shorter period of time in the case of Augustine) -- but not long ages until late 18th and early 19th century or later.

As Dr James Barr notes regarding all world-class university Hebrew and OT scholars - they all accept that the intent of the writer of Gen 1-11 was to convey literal days, literal week, literal events, literal world wide flood.

They do not claim to believe in the historicity/accuracy/trust value of such writings - but they at least admit to the intent based on the "kind of literature" that it is.

PS: If I take the serpent of Genesis chapter three as an example then I must differ with your stated view that there is nothing in the passage to indicate that the serpent is anything other than an ordinary serpent because first it is implied that it had legs, second it talks, third it reasoned and explained its position regarding the untruthfulness of God and these things are not what ordinary serpents do. No matter what way one reads the passage this serpent is clearly exceptional in many ways.

The creation week is "exceptional in many ways".

The devil as the serpent in Eden is "Exceptional in many ways" as even Rev 12 declares him to be "the serpent of old".

The world wide flood is "exceptional in many ways".

The virgin birth is "exceptional in many ways".

The resurrection, the god-man result of the incarnation, the raising of Lazarus from the dead ... Baalam's tlaking donkey, God thundering the Ten Commandments from Sinai - and writing them with his own hand on stone .. "exceptional in many ways".

I think we can all agree to that.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

What in the world is "Darwinism"? I don't believe any such thing exists

It is the religion that Darwin chose over Christianity - with a "story" on origins completely contrary to the Bible account of the origin of all life on planet earth.

Obviously.

And what is "creationism" other than the belief that it is essential to Christian faith to deny evolution?

Belief and acceptance of the literal 7 day week of Genesis among Christians prevailed many centuries BEFORE blind faith evolutionism was ever imagined into its popular form today.

I am a Christian who believes in creation

You are a Christian that believes in evolutionism no matter that you stated that the Gen 1-2 text and Ex 20:8-11 text describe a literal 7 day creation origins statement - fully contrary to the long undefined ages of evolutionism.


in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

But that is not really the case. The basic meaning of "literal" is not "real" or "true" or "actual" though it is frequently used as such. The basic meaning is "plain, ordinary, without any figurative intention". When we unpack this meaning, we can get back to something often lost in controversy--namely, that whatever else it is, the Bible is also a collection of literature and good hermeneutics should take its literary features into account.

Take a scriptural example: the snake (or serpent) in the garden of Eden. Was it literally a snake? Well, in a literary sense, of course it is. The most ordinary, common sense meaning of the word "snake" refers to the reptile of that name. And that is the way it is used in Genesis 3. There is no literary indication that the snake is anything other than a snake, and no literary indication that it is used as a symbol of something else.

Agreed.

And as Dr. James Barr notes for Gen 1-11 this is true of all of the text. The author intends to convey the literal meaning and the reader accepted it that way -- including the uneducated shepherds, newly free egyptian slaves at sinai. They would have accepted the text as it reads and would not have found anything in text of the form "some spoke as if a serpent - to Eve" or "Eve had some thoughts as if a serpent in her brain were speaking to her"..

They would not have known that God cannot create the world and all life on it in a real 7 day week. The would not have know that something like Moses' staff cannot become a snake if God wills it etc or that the magicians and the devil in Eden could not do some "exceptional things" with snakes.

Does it follow from this that we must believe it is a fact that an actual talking snake really spoke to an actual woman in an actual garden at some actual moment in real history?

You point is echoed by James Barr. He and all those he mentions flatly reject the historicity of such literature - as well as atheist like Bart Ehrman.

Hence the title of this thread.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Just your opinion. Many of us believe Adam and Eve were real, we also believe that the story of creation is real, and so have many Scholars throughout the ages also believed this. Many also believe that the Lords supper is symbolic, it doesn't actually turn into flesh and blood. This is not unorthodox at all.

Very true.

A real 7 day creation week is what the author of Gen 1-11 is conveying to his readers and this is affirmed by all Hebrew and OT scholars of world-class universities according to Dr. James Barr of Harvard.

They typically deny the historicity of the Bible, the virgin birth, the incarnation, the resurrection, the 7 day creation week - but they admit that when comes down to "the kind of literature that it is" all of these accounts were intended by the authors to be taken as real literal historic events accurately reported.

hence the title of this thread.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

The issue is how systematic are we when we choose what to interpret as real and what to interpret as symbolic.

Some Christians make it a virtue to hold to a "literal" interpretation by which they mean both "free from symbolic meaning" and "real/factual/historical". In such a case one would have to ask, "if Adam and Eve were real persons, is not the consecrated bread really Christ's body and blood?" How could one possibly argue that one is real and the other symbolic?

By reading the Bible.

in the case of the bread - Jesus is sitting at the table - eating and drinking -- no blood is dripping from Christ into the cup and no disciple sees actual Blood in the cup - as even the RCC admits.

And in John 6 Jesus said "I AM the bread that CAME down out of heaven" - nobody there is a piece of bread talking to them and the text does not say they do.

James Barr and his fellow scholars would also not have the text speaking of a talking piece of bread in John 6 nor do they claim that the Gospels declare that Jesus turned into bread at the incarnation and fell as a manna on Mary.

Your appeal to the fallacy of absurdum does not work even with your fellow evolutionists like Barr.

In Matt 16 Christ condemns the disciples for failing to understand that the symbol of bread and leaven stand for the teaching of the Pharisees.

In John 6 Jesus states clearly "literal flesh is pointless it is my WORDS that have spirit and life" when talking about the symbol he just used of his being the BREAD of Life.

But there is no text in all of scripture that condemns anyone for thinking that Adam and Eve are real.

Paul argues doctrine and behavior on the "detail" that "Adam was first created then Eve" and that "Eve was first to sin" And that Adam was the first human to sin and that all humanity are subject to death only due to that ONE man's sin.

There is no text in all of scripture that condemns the idea that Adam and Eve were real.

Here again I think that argument that Barr makes is consistent with the literature. Even though he personally rejects the historicity of the Bible he still admits to the obvious details about the literature and the intended meaning of the text.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[gluadys]

Turns out - Darwin knew a thing or two about Darwinian evolutionism. And one thing he knew was that it is not compatible with the Bible as indeed is the case with evolutionism in general. At least if one is going to pay attention to the details 'in the text'.

And as a said - the idea of munging the text up to try and come-up with a Darwinized - evolution-friendly version of Genesis 1 was not popular at all within Christianity until after Darwin's 1844 manuscript actually got published.

that is not a coincidence - as it turns out.

in Christ,

Bob

I doubt Darwin knew anything at all about "Darwinian evolutionism" as he was not a follower of religion.

What he did know about was a theory of evolution, often called Darwinian evolution, since he came up with the theory, as well as gathering a great deal of information which the theory could well account for. Have you ever read his major opus? It is called Origin of Species and is easily available on line.

Would you like to discuss particular aspects of his observations and theory?

(There is no theology in the book to discuss, sorry.)

 

[BobRyan]

I doubt Darwin knew anything at all about "Darwinian evolutionism" as he was not a follower of religion.

He said he was in fact a Christian until his belief in evolutionism drove that out of him.

What he did know about was a theory of evolution, often called Darwinian evolution,

A distinction without a difference.

Would you like to discuss particular aspects of his observations and theory?

His idea that single celled life forms are nothing more complex than a glob of "protoplasm"???

His doctrine on origins?

The point of this thread is "the text" and whether or not "the text" is reliable.

There may be "some" in the GT section that would rather we not talk about that there - but here we should be free to discuss whether or not the Bible is reliable when it comes to Genesis 1:2-2:3 -- and Ex 20:8-11.



in Christ,

Bob

 

[gluadys]

It isn't the whole of Genesis that is under discussion. It is Genesis chapter one that is poetry and not history. The rest of the book has to be examined on a passage by passage basis some of it is poetry some prose etcetera.

Let's remember that there is no correlation between poetry vs. prose and imaginative vs historical. One can write history in poetic form and symbolic imaginative stories in prose. Genesis 2:4 ff is definitely prose but just as unhistoric as Gen. 1:1-2:3.

Yes, each passage needs to be examined on its own. There is no general rule on what in Genesis is history and what is not. Almost every story in Genesis contains both history and non-history in varying degrees--because no such distinction existed in early literature.

 

[gluadys]

The Jesus Seminar follows the trajectory of higher criticism to include the resurrection as poetry.

That is the elephant in the room that you failed to address in your reply.

So? There is nothing inherently unhistorical or untrue about poetry. Sometimes as MKJ (following Aristotle) suggests, poetry is a more effective vehicle for getting the truth across than more prosaic compositions.