If the beginnings of Genesis aren't literally true, then what way are they true?
- Thread starter Neogaia777
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Wrong, one doe not have to "reject God". Realizing that Genesis is merely a collection of morality stories is not "rejecting God". And yes, when it comes to scientific evidence, an evidence that was designed to remove bias, there is no evidence for the creation stories. Or the Ark story either.
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Young Earth Creationism and the modern literal interpretation of Genesis is most certainly at odds with the evidence we find in the universe around us. All one has to do is look at the Andromeda galaxy through a telescope to find evidence that contradicts YEC.
Of course, YEC is a human tradition and not necessary for being a Christian.
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If they use metaphor and allegory to relate truths, then if they can relate to truths, then there must be some real truth to it/them, don't you think?
Could you show me an example of what you mean from the beginnings of Genesis, an example of an allegory or metaphor?
God Bless!
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Up till when? Noah and the flood? When did it go from being symbolically/allegorically true to being a real history of our earth?
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No, I don't think that. Do I need to believe in the truth of foxes being able to talk about the ripeness of grapes in order to understand the truth that Aesop is trying to relate?
Talking serpents, human archetypes, fictional floods, . . . seems pretty apparent to me. It becomes even more apparent when you learn more about the Babylonian culture where Genesis first came together in a form that we would recognize it today. The authors of Genesis borrowed from the Babylonians. The story of Noah is almost an exact retelling of the story of Utnapishtim in the Enuma Elish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utnapishtim
It would be like me retelling the story of Romeo and Juliet in a more modern setting. Everyone would get it and know that it wasn't trying to tell a literal history.
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So, your telling me the Bible, as I know it, is false (literally), or an allegory...
But I have much personal, experiencial evidence of a spiritual presence, evidence of the unseen, so I believe in them, (and yes, it was multiples), so I have this evidence of numerous spirit beings, existing in a reality right next to or on top of this one, but reconciling the God I have come to know with especially the God of the OT is very difficult, and causes me to doubt...
I'm stuck, I find I have more than enough personal experiencial evidence to convince me of the unseen and God, but I have trouble believing the God of the Bible, especially the OT...
God Bless!
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How can it be false if it was never meant to be interpreted literally?
In my view, there is no such thing as personal evidence. As the old saying goes, you can have your own beliefs, but not your own facts.
Evidence is something that we can verify independently of the person making the claim. What you are describing does not meet that criteria.
As a middle ground, I would say that you find your experiences to be compelling and important.
That is a journey you will have to take on your own. My only advice is not to discount truths in allegory and myth simply because they clash with science. Human story telling was never meant to be a scientific treatise.
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eclipsenow
Scripture is God's word, Science is God's works
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I would turn it around. If it's a literal engineering list of what happened on what day, what does it MEAN? Diddley-squat to me! It's a boring, contradictory and arbitrary list. Other than the message "God made the place..." Genesis 1 is utterly boring if it's literal. (It isn't!)
Here is Dr John Dickson's paper on the ancient understanding of Genesis 1. It's theological gold! Genesis 1 has nothing to do with HOW God made the world, and everything to do with WHY! That is, an over-reaction to Darwin's theories has distorted the modern reading of Genesis and made people read it as some kind of dry, boring, arbitrary list of what-God-did when, when it's actually closer to a highly structured poem taking us on a tour of why God knit the world together in the particular *relationships* He has put together. It's theological, not scientific. And I personally feel sorry for modern day Creationists, not just because they have to live in such terrible fear of everything 'sciencey' that indicates an old earth, but because they're missing out on the theological GOLD that is in Gensis 1 because of their literalistic reading of it!
http://www.iscast.org/journal/articlespage/Dickson_J_2008-03_Genesis_Of_Everything
Here is Dr John Dickson's paper on the ancient understanding of Genesis 1. It's theological gold! Genesis 1 has nothing to do with HOW God made the world, and everything to do with WHY! That is, an over-reaction to Darwin's theories has distorted the modern reading of Genesis and made people read it as some kind of dry, boring, arbitrary list of what-God-did when, when it's actually closer to a highly structured poem taking us on a tour of why God knit the world together in the particular *relationships* He has put together. It's theological, not scientific. And I personally feel sorry for modern day Creationists, not just because they have to live in such terrible fear of everything 'sciencey' that indicates an old earth, but because they're missing out on the theological GOLD that is in Gensis 1 because of their literalistic reading of it!
http://www.iscast.org/journal/articlespage/Dickson_J_2008-03_Genesis_Of_Everything
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Up to what point? What's allegorical, and where does our literal history begin, from the Bible...
God Bless!
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Merlin
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But if the bible is true and man existed from Adam and Eve then the story of Noah need not be borrowed from any other religion.
Noah came first then the various accounts.
Since there were other civilizations who experienced the same flood and recorded it before Moses it makes since that they would have the same story.
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Merlin
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Great! I agree.
So please point me to the paper for the double blind controlled study and the papers repeating that study of where through natural forces such as radiation or electrical discharge where some life form was changed by addition of a chromosome so that you can show evolution can happen.
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Abiogenesis is the emergence of life from non-life. Evolution describes how life changed once life was already here.
We don't know how life started. Not knowing does not mean that it had to be God, just that we don't know. However, we have tons of evidence demonstrating how life changed once it was here.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v469/n7331/full/nature09687.html
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Most scholars agree that the Enuma Elish predates the Bible by several millennia.
Wouldn't they have drowned?
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I trust the Bible from the very first verse and take it as literal history. Otherwise, it means God used the cruel process of evolution to bring His creation to where it is now. Also, if that were really the case, what would be the meaning of sin and what would be the point of Jesus substituting Himself for us on the cross in order to make us righteous with God (despite our inevitable ongoing sin problem)? Despite what you will hear on this forum, the Bible's account can be defended. If you are unsure about that, I would recommend subscribing to Creation Magazine for a time in order to see the other side of the argument (the latest edition has just come out). I would also recommend the new DVD "Evolution's Achilles' Heels" and Spike Psarris's two DVDs "What you are not being told about astronomy parts one and two" (a further DVD in the series is due out soon I believe). If you prefer reading, there is the excellent book by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek called "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist". I've read it twice and given away several copies. I'm about to start reading it again as it happens. One other item you may find useful if Dr Gary Parker's personal testimony (on DVD) entitled "From Evolution to Creation." It basically tells about how he used to teach evolution, but gradually became convinced that it was a lie - "I now recognise that story [evolution] as the greatest lie I ever told." Don't compromise your faith in Scripture, just trying to encompass evolution - trust God that he meant what He said and said what He meant!
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