Should Genesis be taken literally?

[Speedwell]

Because the Bible makes claims that it is the only truth and the only authority. Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever used any other writing to proclaim truth. And neither did they tell us to use any other writings to find the truth. Other writings are fine as long as they don't undermine or contradict the inspired word of God.

The Bible is indeed authoritative " for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." But other works contemporaneous to scripture must be consulted to increase our knowledge of language and literary practices as an aid to interpretation. Knowledge gained about the history of the ANE through non-biblical sources and archaeology is also valuable to our understanding of the Bible.

 

[KWCrazy]

I think it is safe to say that everybody here believes that there are two creation accounts except you YECs.

It's safe to say that nobody who ever read Genesis two would think it was a creation account. It begins by saying that the creation s complete. Genesis two deals with the special formation of man, not the creation of anything else.

 

[Archivist]

It's safe to say that nobody who ever read Genesis two would think it was a creation account. It begins by saying that the creation s complete. Genesis two deals with the special formation of man, not the creation of anything else.

Actually anybody who has read Genesis 2 knows that the first three verses are the completion of the first creation account. The second creation account starts with verse four. Remember that the division of the Bible into chapters didn't occur until the 1200's.

 

[Archivist]

It's more than that. You not only have to believe in a six-day creation, you have to believe that the Bible is the literal, inerrant, perspicuous and self-interpreting product of plenary verbal inspiration. Just believing in a six-day creation is not enough, or a real Garden of Eden or a real flood. Many Christians do that much, who the YECs despise as "Bible haters.".

Then a great many Christians don't believe the Bible according to those requirements. Fortunately those aren't God's requirements, just those of the YEC's..

 

[Archivist]

The question at hand was marriage, and the first marriage was when God made Eve for Adam.

But the exact words were "at the beginning" not "on the sixth day."

 

[Archivist]

I think you're the only person here who actually believes there are two creation accounts, even after you've been proven wrong.

Speedwell has already proven you to be wrong.

 

[rjs330]

Sure there is. To start there are two creation accounts and they do not agree.

I'm guessing you got that idea from a liberal interpretation website on the internet rather than your own in-depth study. Because if you did your own in depth study you'd realize that what you just said is patently false.

 

[Archivist]

I'm guessing you got that idea from a liberal interpretation website on the internet rather than your own in-depth study. Because if you did your own in depth study you'd realize that what you just said is patently false.

"Patently false" only according to your interpretation. And no, I did not get that idea from some "liberal interpretation website." Scripture is clear. There are two stories and they do not agree. You are, of course, entitled to your own interpretation.

 

[rjs330]

So you have to believe in a literal six 24-hour day creation or you don't believe the Bible. Interesting.

If I believed in Jesus but don't believe in the Virgin birth do I believe the Bible? No I don't. It's the same with Genesis. The entire Bible has a LOT of writing that points to the reality of Genesis. So if you don't you are discarding a lot of the Bible as untrue and you don't believe it. Including God's words himself in Exodus where He says he did it in six days.

 

[Archivist]

If I believed in Jesus but don't believe in the Virgin birth do I believe the Bible? No I don't. It's the same with Genesis. The entire Bible has a LOT of writing that points to the reality of Genesis. So if you don't you are discarding a lot of the Bible as untrue and you don't believe it. Including God's words himself in Exodus where He says he did it in six days.

But I do believe the Genesis creation accounts. I believe that they are allegories. You are, of course, entitled to your own interpretation.

 

[expos4ever]

There is overwhelming scriptural evidence that evolution is wrong. I choose to believe God's word over man's science. ESPECIALLY a so called science that can't even test or reproduce it's own theory.

Are you intentionally distorting the truth? Or are you simply unaware that your "it's not testable" objection is unfounded. I (and perhaps others) have repeatedly explained this. Here it is again:

From Scientific American:

Creationist Claim: 3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created.

This blanket dismissal of evolution ignores important distinctions that divide the field into at least two broad areas: microevolution and macroevolution. Microevolution looks at changes within species over time--changes that may be preludes to speciation, the origin of new species. Macroevolution studies how taxonomic groups above the level of species change. Its evidence draws frequently from the fossil record and DNA comparisons to reconstruct how various organisms may be related.

These days even most creationists acknowledge that microevolution has been upheld by tests in the laboratory (as in studies of cells, plants and fruit flies) and in the field (as in Grant's studies of evolving beak shapes among Gal¿pagos finches). Natural selection and other mechanisms--such as chromosomal changes, symbiosis and hybridization--can drive profound changes in populations over time.

The historical nature of macroevolutionary study involves inference from fossils and DNA rather than direct observation. Yet in the historical sciences (which include astronomy, geology and archaeology, as well as evolutionary biology), hypotheses can still be tested by checking whether they accord with physical evidence and whether they lead to verifiable predictions about future discoveries. For instance, evolution implies that between the earliest-known ancestors of humans (roughly five million years old) and the appearance of anatomically modern humans (about 100,000 years ago), one should find a succession of hominid creatures with features progressively less apelike and more modern, which is indeed what the fossil record shows. But one should not--and does not--find modern human fossils embedded in strata from the Jurassic period (144 million years ago). Evolutionary biology routinely makes predictions far more refined and precise than this, and researchers test them constantly.

Evolution could be disproved in other ways, too. If we could document the spontaneous generation of just one complex life-form from inanimate matter, then at least a few creatures seen in the fossil record might have originated this way. If superintelligent aliens appeared and claimed credit for creating life on earth (or even particular species), the purely evolutionary explanation would be cast in doubt. But no one has yet produced such evidence.

It should be noted that the idea of falsifiability as the defining characteristic of science originated with philosopher Karl Popper in the 1930s. More recent elaborations on his thinking have expanded the narrowest interpretation of his principle precisely because it would eliminate too many branches of clearly scientific endeavor.

Your post also provides an example of item (1) from the following:

What does the creationist do. The old one-two punch of clearly wonky thinking:

1. Deny the mere possibility of the use of literary device in the creation account;
2. Reject the clear findings of highly trained scientists.

 

[Papias]

Mathew 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female,
AT the beginning, not day one. Day six is still the beginning.

hmmm...... wondering why you avoided the verse I gave, (Mark 10:6), and instead started talking about a different verse without saying why?

Let's look at them both. Mark 10:6
.......Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother........

Mt 19:4
....He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother........

The wider context shows that these are likely the same event, do you agree? Now, if so, either the writer of Mark added "of creation", or the writer of mt omitted it (or some other change). So which do you think is more likely? Since even Mt suggests "creation", and both say "at the beginning", I'll guess that mt shortened it, and that Mk gives the more full description (this is also supported by the scholarly understanding that Mt copied from Mk).

So Mk clarifies the statement, and it's talking about the beginning of creation, which - as pointed out more than once now, contradicts a literal interpretation of Genesis. Even the Mt description of "at the beginning" contradicts a literal reading of Genesis anyway, of course - because day 6 is not the beginning either way.

Secondly, he was talking about marriage, not about creation. He was talking about Adam and Eve.

The fact that he's talking about marriage only clarifies that he contradicts Genesis, since there was no marriage at "the beginning", but only after the creation was finished in the second creation account. He could well be talking about Adam and Eve - including Adam and Eve as transitional apes. But we can't know that since He doesn't say. I'm not about to make up things and claim they are in the Bibles- something that I see other creationists do all the time, as in this case.

You're joking, right?
You don't seriously believe this.

Of course I "seriously believe it". It's that Jesus says. It fits well that Jesus is reminding us not to read Genesis literally. As shown above and pointed out several times, the very verse you chose to bring up shows that Jesus himself didn't use a literal interpretation of Genesis.

It's safe to say that nobody who ever read Genesis two would think it was a creation account. It begins by saying that the creation s complete. Genesis two deals with the special formation of man, not the creation of anything else.

Wrong. Biblical scholars and a lot of other readers see that Genesis has two contradictory creation accounts. As pointed out before, the first creation story extends into "chapter" two. It's been pointed out to you that the "chapter" numbers were added by people over 1000 years after the scriptures were written - you accept that, right? Do you claim the "chapter" numbers are from God and not man?

Genesis two deals with the special formation of man, not the creation of anything else.

Again, I'm amazed that you make statements that blatantly contradict the scripture. There was plenty of creating going on in the second account of creation. Here is Genesis 2:4 - etc.

Another Account of the Creation
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—.... then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, .....Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil........So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and.........

Etc.​

If I believed in Jesus but don't believe in the Virgin birth do I believe the Bible? No I don't. It's the same with Genesis. The entire Bible has a LOT of writing that points to the reality of Genesis. So if you don't you are discarding a lot of the Bible as untrue and you don't believe it. Including God's words himself in Exodus where He says he did it in six days.

No, realizing that a section of scripture is best understood in a non-literal way doesn't mean one "disbelieves" the scripture. After all, a literal reading clearly shows a flat earth, under a hard dome - so is believing in a spherical earth "disbelieving" the scripture? What about the many other cases of non-literal interpretation? Ex. 19 says that God flew the Jews out of Egypt on giant eagles. You don't take that literally, right? When someone says the earth is spherical or that the God didn't fly the Jews out of Egypt on giant eagles you don't say:

If I believed in Jesus but don't believe in the Virgin birth do I believe the Bible? No I don't. It's the same with Genesis and Exodus. The entire Bible has a LOT of writing that points to the reality of Genesis and Exodus. So if you don't agree that the earth is flat and God flew the Jews out of Egypt on giant eagles, you are discarding a lot of the Bible as untrue and you don't believe it. Including God's words himself in Exodus where He says he flew the Jews out of Egypt on giant eagles.​

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Speedwell]

Oh stop with the nasty accusations. It's called passion of a debate. We are no more nasty than you or anyone else on your side of the debate. We've been called a lot of things as well. Neither side is innocent when it comes to being a little forceful at times. But when it come to passion of debate we should be able let a bit of it roll off our backs.

I'm not talking bout this thread or this forum. There's a whole world out there, remember? I've lived in the Bible Belt; I know what YECs can be like if they think they have the upper hand.

But my point was, that it is not necessary to believe that YEC Bible doctrine in order to believe in a six day creation. Many Christians manage it. Why can't you? What are you really defending?

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Another Account of the Creation
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—.... then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, .....Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil........So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and.........

But Papias, you are missing out a very important verse here that links the two accounts together...

Gen 2:8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. [emphasis added]

Notice that God had already created the Garden of Eden, as described in Chapter 1. He now continues with more detail in Chapter 2, so I don't agree that these are two separate accounts of creation.

including Adam and Eve as transitional apes

You can't be serious surely - an ape in the image of God! Is that how you see our creator?

Now let's put this thing about male and female being made at the beginning of creation into perspective. Let's say that the earth is 6,000 years old. There are 2,190,000 days in 6,000 years (excluding leap years), so man would have been made after 6/2190000 x 100% of time had elapsed = 0.00027%. Now, let's imagine that I'm going on my travels and I eventually reach my destination, 6000 miles away. 0.00027% of 6,000 miles is 28 yards. Let's just say I pick up a particularly impressive stone on my way, which just happens to be 28 yards from my starting point. Would I not regard that as being at the beginning of my journey, even though technically, I had travelled .00027% of my total journey? If someone asked me, where did you find that beautiful stone, would I not probably say, "I found it right by my house at the beginning of my long journey coming here."? So technically, you may be right to say man wasn't made at the beginning of creation (how could he be, God hadn't even formed the earth then?), but I think that is to use semantics in an unnatural way in order to try to avoid an obvious collision between God's account of what he did and man's assumptions about how things came to be.

 

[Archivist]

You can't be serious surely - an ape in the image of God! Is that how you see our creator?

Do you really think that our physical bodies are in God's image? Really? I think we are spiritually created in the image of God, but not physically created in His image.

 

[expos4ever]

You can't be serious surely - an ape in the image of God! Is that how you see our creator?

I know that you guys reject scientific findings out of hand (of course, what choice do you have to hold on to your position), but:

Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge found that our genes and those of the gorilla are 98 per cent identical, although we share around 99 per cent of our make-up with chimpanzees.

Now I want to talk about another view many fundamentalists hold that I believe is mistaken - the notion that somehow human beings are vastly superior to the animals. To the extent that one holds such a view, one will, as you appear to have done, respond with dismay at the thought of a close genetic kinship to monkeys, mice, and even fruitflies.

While it is true that God places man 'in charge' creation, this does not warrant the kind of prideful, dismissive, arrogance that arguably underlies the way many fundies bristle at the suggested that they have evolved from other animals.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge found that our genes and those of the gorilla are 98 per cent identical, although we share around 99 per cent of our make-up with chimpanzees.

I believe we also share 40+% of our genes with a banana. Can you identify many banana-like characteristics in yourself?

I know that you guys reject scientific findings out of hand

Wrong again. What we reject is the propaganda and unproven assumptions that are fed to a gullible public as fact. This is a fallacy that it's somehow religion v. science; it's not, it's biblically-biased scientific work v. secular-biased scientific work, both reaching different conclusions from the same evidence. The difference is, when creation scientists don't have an answer to something or if something doesn't make sense in the light of present knowledge (the origin of the universe being a prime example), they attribute it to God, whereas secular scientists make up all sorts of fudge factors (Dark Matter/Energy) in a vain attempt to keep their ideas alive and exclude God.

 

[rjs330]

Now they are not different and I can prove it to you. It has NOTHING to do with interpretation. It has everything to do with people wanting to make Genesis an allegory and using awful hermeneutic and exigetical standards to do so blatantly ignoring the details of the text in order to do so.

"Patently false" only according to your interpretation. And no, I did not get that idea from some "liberal interpretation website." Scripture is clear. There are two stories and they do not agree. You are, of course, entitled to your own interpretation.

 

[rjs330]

I know that you guys reject scientific findings out of hand (of course, what choice do you have to hold on to your position), but:

Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge found that our genes and those of the gorilla are 98 per cent identical, although we share around 99 per cent of our make-up with chimpanzees.

Now I want to talk about another view many fundamentalists hold that I believe is mistaken - the notion that somehow human beings are vastly superior to the animals. To the extent that one holds such a view, one will, as you appear to have done, respond with dismay at the thought of a close genetic kinship to monkeys, mice, and even fruitflies.

While it is true that God places man 'in charge' creation, this does not warrant the kind of prideful, dismissive, arrogance that arguably underlies the way many fundies bristle at the suggested that they have evolved from other animals.

It's easy, because the Bible says we didn't. Evolution is a lie and none of it can be proven. There is no real way to show we did evolve from a single organism. It's only in the fantasy land if assumption that evolution exists as reality. The genes you mention still show we are different. And they are evidence that we are different. Similarities are NOT evidence that we all came from the same creature.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Do you really think that our physical bodies are in God's image? Really? I think we are spiritually created in the image of God, but not physically created in His image.

Of course I don't, but honesty, don't you realise that the gulf between other life forms and humans is precisely because we have some of the spirit of God and that's why we can appreciate music, feel emotions like love, consider our destiny, gaze in wonder at the universe, be aware of our mortality, etc, etc. So no, I don't believe we have anything in common with ape-like creatures except a common designer/maker. To suggest that God had to start with some mythical lower creatures and then use the cruel and wasteful method of macro evolution to arrive at humans is in my opinion not to give God the credit he deserves, suggesting as it does that he couldn't get it right the first time. Actually, the whole idea of evolution is anti-God because it's supposed to be a totally random, misguided process, so that logically would mean that God wasn't even in control of the process that he was supposed to have initiated. The best definition of evolution is therefore "an anti-God religion of death" better known as "nonsense." But maybe it's just an allegory.