The Creation Story: Literal, or Figurative?

[Saint Steven]

... Most of the people I've encountered who hold the strongest to a literal six day creation have barely read Genesis except for at a Sunday school level. ...

I don't think that is a fair assessment of all literalists. Do you?

 

[Saint Steven]

How does it matter to you if it was figurative or literal?

I have encountered a lot of claims lately of a figurative view. I wanted to explore it.

Why couldn't God create everything in a literal six days?

I believe he could. He is God, after all. - lol

When Adam was one day old did he look like a one day old baby?

He seems to behave like a full grown man in the account.

If God did create everything less then 10,000 years ago, why might He want it to look like it was 14 billion years old?

No idea. Maybe it tracks with Adam being full grown? He needed a full grown universe to live in. - lol

 

[Saint Steven]

The solar day didn't begin until day 4. ...

That's a good point.

 

[Saint Steven]

Nah. High poetry.
One way or another, yeah. I don't presume to claim to know how God went about creating him.
Appearance? No. Poetry again.
Poetic, meant to be memorized and recited.
Of course.
I'll say yes, but if I find it was more poetry, fair play; I'be been wrong before.

How did you arrive at your view on this?

 

[Saint Steven]

Literal for the most part. The thing is, it doesn't tell us everything. The earth can literally be created in six days and billions of years old at the same time.

Yes. I grew up with the literal view. It's hard to wrap my head around the figurative view.

I can see problems with the literal view, but there are problems with a figurative view as well.

I can only conclude that God has done this to us. - lol
If it was all black and white, it wouldn't require faith to believe it.

 

[Saint Steven]

Jesus referring to Adam as a real person:
Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
(Matthew 19:3-6 NASB;

I like where you are going with this, but it's a bit weak. It doesn't use the name Adam.

However this does. How can the Fall of humankind be a real consequence for us if Adam is only figurative? Was the original sin a figurative act? Only symbolic? Maybe so.???

1 Corinthians 15:22
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

 

[chad kincham]

On most things in the Bible I'm more literal, but I'm an old Earth Creationist so that puts me on the more figurative side of things. There's a lot of reasons for this. Probably the biggest is God has given us the ability to figure things out. We can measure various things and count things like speed and distance and that is why we have things like radar, and other instruments that measure, distance, speed etc. So it would be weird for God to make something that would radically throw this off, when in general those things are usually reliable (barring things like radioactive isotopes or whatever, I'm talking about overall statically reliability. Without it those kinds of devices would be useless).

But this is important because one of the definitions of truth in the Bible is Alethia which is Truth in the objective and factual sense. Not to mention the general mandate of Genesis of God wanting Adam to "take Dominion" so the ability to figure out actual laws of nature, and accurate chronology could fit into that. And yes those Yoms could be ages of Creation.


Besides this there is the aspect of the Genesis narrative fitting into other narratives of the Near East, both because the Israelites were of that general culture but also as a polemic against some of those religions especially against the Anunaki. Michael Heiser has a lot to say about that and it quite educational.

And there are other reasons to. Historically speaking the Jews and Early Christians are literalists but there is no reason in terms of official Dogma etc. that would mandate that a person has to be a strict six day literal creationist, other than certain interpretations of Sola Scriptura seem to encourage it. But I think this is more a function of the ideology of the person than something that is inherent in the text or necessitated by the Faith. I mean the term, Adam was originally understood as being a word for "the man" rather than a person's first name, so that should tell you something.

If you’d ever read much by Professor Gary Parker, ex evolutionist who used to teach evolutionary theory, you’d know the games they play with radiometric dating, that he knows from once being an insider.

The earth is not 4.3 BYO, that’s the scenario used to claim the impossible can happen given enough deep time, and that ToE is a valid theory.

Jesus taught Adam and Eve as literal people, and God used to walk with Adam and Eve in the garden each evening - that’s specific information that precludes their being figurative people.

Scripture is specific that death didn’t exist before Adam and Eves sin put a curse on creation, and that is the reason we are born with a sin nature and need a savior.

Everything to do with our needing saved, and for Jesus to leave heaven and become the last Adam who takes back what the first Adam lost, shows that there’s no metaphor or figurative narrative in those scriptures.

Moses talked face to face with God, as a man speaks to a friend. Exodus 33:11.

Moses got his information directly from God, he didn’t copy from eastern mythology such as Sumerian texts.

Shalom.

 

[chad kincham]

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[throughfiierytrial]

The creation story: (Genesis)
- Was the universe created in six literal days?
- Was Adam the first human, a created being?
- Was Adam created in the image of God, after his likeness? (appearance)
- Is the Genesis account literal, or figurative?
- Was the Genesis account based on an oral tradition? (origins myth)
- In reference to Adam, is the conclusion of the genealogy of Jesus correct? (see below)

Luke 3:38 NIV
the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

True account...also Hebrews 11:3

 

[Swan7]

The Creation is literal, but God also does not say or write anything without purpose. Not even His Word. Everything said has meaning.

 

[trophy33]

What about Adam? Real man, or concept, or ???

Could be both, his representative, archetypal role is obvious, but it does not mean that there was no literal first man chosen by God to represent us before Him (serving as a priest).

His literal existence is not needed, though. Theological concepts would stay the same.

 

[trophy33]

How did you arrive at these views?

Thinking, examining, reading, listening, watching.

Normal information process.

 

[misput]

All scripture can be literal or figurative and may contain many other concepts that need to be factored in. I love the invitation God gave us when He said "come, let us reason together". He will reward us according to how seriously we take this invitation.

 

[adderbolt]

The Hebrew word for 'day'* used in the Genesis creation account. Does anyone here know (1) what that word is and (2) if that same word is used elsewhere in the OT and (3) how many times it is used in the OT and (4) is it used in the OT for anything other than a literal 24 hour day?

Thanks ...

*Day meaning a 24 hour "there was evening and there was morning" time period used in the Genesis account.

 

[misput]

Thinking, examining, reading, listening, watching.

Normal information process.

Most men now have lost their trust in women, media and government.

Good answer but you left yourself out of your tag line, we should not fully trust in anyone but God, right?

 

[misput]

The Hebrew word for 'day' used in the Genesis creation account. Does anyone here know (1) what that word is and (2) if that same word is used elsewhere in the OT and (3) how many times it is used in the OT and (4) is it used in the OT for anything other than a literal 24 hour day?

Thanks ...

One of the meanings for yom/day is age.

 

[adderbolt]

One of the meanings for yom/day is age.

So 'yom' is used for the English word 'day' in the Genesis account -- but used elsewhere in the OT used for the English word 'age'?

 

[Sabertooth]

"Sin nature" falls apart (and is undermined) without a literal first couple and a literal "fall."

If we were not born to them, in their sin, we would have no need for a Savior.

 

[adderbolt]

If we were not born to them, in their sin, we would have no need for a Savior.

Jesus spoke of the creation account as reality so in fact he would not be eligible to be a savior (sinless) if those words of his were 'not true' (lies).

 

[trophy33]

Most men now have lost their trust in women, media and government.

Good answer but you left yourself out of your tag line, we should not fully trust in anyone but God, right?

Its my signature, not an answer