Proof Genesis is not Literal in every sense...
- Thread starter versastyle
- Start date
T
The Seeker
Guest
If I said "Do x and you will die", would you assume I meant "you will die" or "you will die (spiritually)"? Spiritual death is an obviously metaphorical term.Oncedeceived said:
Upvote
0
Please read the whole thread. I had a long and detailed post on Pg. 3 which asked:Oncedeceived said:
The knowledge tree is a concept directly from the Bible as stated in the Original Post:UniversalAxis said:
Would anyone like to show how this is supposed to be interpreted literally?Original Post said:
Upvote
0
The Seeker said:
What we have here from Oncedeceived is a typical conflation of the meanings of "real" and "literal". "Real" or "true" is not the meaning, or at least not the primary meaning of "literal".
Literal:
1. Being in accordance with, conforming to, or upholding the exact or primary meaning of a word or words.
2. Word for word; verbatim: a literal translation.
3. Avoiding exaggeration, metaphor, or embellishment; factual; prosaic: a literal description; a literal mind.
4. Consisting of, using, or expressed by letters: literal notation.
5. Conforming or limited to the simplest, nonfigurative, or most obvious meaning of a word or words.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Literal
But creationists have been so brainwashed with the notion that anything real or true must be literal, they have come to equate the terms. And naturally this leads to the equally erroneous proposition that "metaphorical" = "imaginary, unreal, false, etc."
The primary meaning of "death" the simplest, most obvious, non-embellished, non-metaphorical, non-figurative, plain fact meaning is "physical death".
The primary, simplest, most obvious, etc. meaning of "day" is a period of time not exceeding 24 hours at the current rate of the earth's rotation.
So the plain, literal meaning of "In the day you eat of it you will die" is that Adam will die physically on the same day he eats the fruit.
Any interpretation of Gen. 3 which stretches "day" to 930 years and/or substitutes spiritual for physical death is, by definition, not a literal interpretation.
It can, however, be the true interpretation of what really happened.
Only a mind-set which is fixated on equating "true" with "literal" will have a problem with this.
Upvote
0
"When I woke up this morning Sigmund Frued was in medical school."
God (the Spirit inside George Burns)
God (the Spirit inside George Burns)
Upvote
0
why... yes. if "spritual death" was written, taken literally it would mean "spiritual death". and when death is written it means death. that's what's written in the bible. it just mentioned death, not spiritual death.Oncedeceived said:
Upvote
0
Man had all things. he could do what he wished except to eat the fruit of good and evil. without this tree free will could not be in place. why would a creator create something to love and not give it a way to prove it truely did love him. God did not want a robot. When God created the world he said it was good. there was nothing bad about the creation. Even after they ate of the tree it doesnt say there was evil. they just had guilt. and from guilt came the rest of the story. Cain kills Abel and the rest is history.UniversalAxis said:
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
We started dying from the day we were born... adam started dying from the day he ate the fruit.versastyle said:
On that day therefore he will surely die", means before that day he surely wouldn't die, but from that point onwards he was guarenteed to die.
Regardless of that... Genisis is clearly symbolic... it is designed for our spiritual growth, not our scientific knowledge.
Oh... and no bible scolars of today recognise the "1000 years for 1 days" thing. It doesn't hold up.
Upvote
0
jgnov99
Junior Member
Hi, Alchemist, & thanks for your reply...
grace and peace
If we base our theological principles only on scripture verbatim then many important precepts would not exist (the Trinity, for instance), not to mention the fact that translations would be even more troublesome than they are, if not impossible. I understand God to be saying to Adam that ,were he to obey (and he was given the choice to obey because a faith untested and therefore unproven wouldn't mean much...) his existence in the Garden would be eternal. By disobeying the whole reality of death (literal and figurative) was then introduced into Adam's world.Alchemist said:
Point taken, but let me explain. As an evangelical I'm constantly called to the floor over the radically errant precepts of "fellow" christians based on scriptural misunderstanding or abuse. The Word of God could not have any genuine contradictions in it if God is, as He says, perfect. The only way to find the answer to perceived contradictory passages is to compare scripture to scripture. That's not a biblical mandate, but studying the scripture is, and it's only common sense that studying only part of the Word will lead to an incomplete understanding. I don't know about you, but in my efforts to understand scripture,the Holy Spirit leads me to see supporting passages all the time (for example, Genesis 4 never really explains exactly why God did not accept Cain's sacrifice. Hebrews 11:4, however, does.)Alchemist said:
As to the first...forgive my poor choice of words. My objection is to the use of the Geologic Table as a reference point by which to date ANYTHING when the development of said table was NOT based on established facts, but on evidences which, however valid, were filtered through an extereme Anti-christian bias. If you will read the writings of the scientists and philosofers who were supporters of Darwin's ideas (read Thomas Huxley, for instance) the thing that they all share is a bent to remove God from the whole equasion. In my mind this makes the whole theory suspect. As to the last, in a word...yes.Alchemist said:
The "acceptable range" and "reliable reading" you mention are based on previously "established" data, no? This is as it should be within the structure of scientific method. But, if your previous (read: control) data is faulty (or unproven and suspect as is the Geologic Table) how can you posit your result as fact?Alchemist said:
I understand, in theory, what you say about disproving evolution. The problems are twofold. Efforts to disprove go against the grain of the scientific establishment (and you know that as long as research is funded by liberal foudations, specific interests, and co-opted by the government, there will be an establishment) though I'm very happy to see an evident groundswell of scientists and researchers that are now beginning to openly question the idea of evolution (read: macroevolution). Second is that proving evolution to be wrong would require incontrovertable evidence (even though evolutionary theory itself contains none) of creation (or some other explanation). Not likely to happen when no one here was around to witness it. Just for the record I'm not a YEC. I just don't accept macroevolution and I find it problematic that, in the whole of the scientific community and academia, the acceptance of this theory has become so entrenched. To me the theory of evolution raises many more questions than it answers.Alchemist said:
grace and peace
Upvote
0
jgnov99 said:
But this is historically inaccurate. The majority of scientists who established the existence of the geological column and the relative age of the geological strata were Christians. Many of them were clergy. About the farthest removed from Christianity was Louis Agassiz, who was a Deist---and also a life-long foe of evolution.
That the earth was probably at least several hundreds of millions of years old was an established scientific fact by 1840, well before the publication of Origin of Species. And it was established as fact without any reference to evolution.
You prove my point. Thomas Huxley was a promoter of evolution, not of the age of the earth. Of course, he accepted that the earth was old, but by the 1860s when he became "Darwin's bulldog" the antiquity of the earth was not controversial.
Radiometric dating is a 20th century discovery. It is based on physics, not on geology per se. The previously established data necessary to using radioactive materials as a dating tool is the constancy of radio-active decay. That was established without any reference to either evoluton or geology. So even if the geologic table were suspect (and it is not, at least not for the reasons you claim), that is not the fundamental basis of radiometric dating.
But are they scientific questions or theological questions?
Upvote
0
Similar threads
