Didaskomenos:
Do you think Jesus's earthly father, Joseph, literally descended from Adam in 60 or 74 generations? (depending on if you go by Matthew or Luke) (see
these lists of Bible genealogies) If so, then this means that Adam would be a historical person, unlike your example of Icarus.
In Jesus's parables everything he says seems to serve a purpose to make the message of the parable clearer. And it clearly says that Jesus was telling them a parable. Do you know of any place in the Bible that says that certain bits of Genesis are a parable?
What about those genealogies in Genesis? Are they non-literal writings that communicate some kind of message? If so, what is that message? In Jesus's parables and in the Icarus one, the message (or "moral of the story") is pretty clear.
Note that those long ages aren't just in early Genesis...
e.g. Genesis 25:7-8 says that Abraham lived to be 175.
And Job 42:16 says "Job lived 140 years after that, living to see four generations of his children and grandchildren."
Is that a historical fact?
What about Exodus 20:11a - "In six days I, the Lord, made the earth, the sky, the seas, and everything in them, but on the seventh day I rested...."
And Exodus 31:17b - "...I, the Lord, made heaven and earth in six days, and on the seventh day I stopped working and rested."
This is right in the middle of a serious set of commandments. I thought in that context God wouldn't be retelling unscientific stories.
So WHY did God keep on saying that he made the world in six days? If God wanted to say he made the earth, why didn't he just say that he made the earth?
Were Jesus' parables "lies" because they were fictional?
Well the characters and events in the stories weren't real.... but he wasn't really insisting that they were real - the gospels say things like "Jesus told them this parable" and "suppose there was a...".
On the other hand, those parts like long life-spans, the tower of Babel, Adam and Eve, etc, and interwoven throughout the Bible. e.g. Paul and Jesus seem to talk about Adam and Eve and the events described in Genesis were literal.
e.g. 2 Co 11:3 - "I am afraid that your minds will be corrupted and that you will abandon your full and pure devotion to Christin the same way that Eve was deceived by the snake's clever lies."
Since Adam was listed in Luke 3's genealogies, Adam is meant to be a historical character. And 1 Timothy 2:13-14 talks about Adam as well as Eve so Eve would also be a historical character - from the point of view of the Bible's writers. And 2 Co 11:3 is saying that she was deceived by the snake... i.e. that was a historical event... though I guess the snake could be a metaphor for something else (but I've got counter-arguments for that)
So here we have these historical characters, Adam and Eve. In Genesis 3:20 it says that Eve became the mother of all human beings. Is that scientifically true? If you look at the genealogies (including the one in Luke) she lived less than 6000 years ago. If it isn't scientifically true, then does that statement have some kind of "deeper" meaning? What might that be?
It's easy to just say "it's all a big parable" but it is another story to justify your claims.