Why the Ark?

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shernren

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given that we believe Jesus' parables despite the fact that they were not meant literally.

- What? You mean there wasn't actually a man who had two sons, whose younger son went to him one day and asked to have his inheritance?

How can I ever believe anything Jesus ever said or anything about him ever again?

ARGH! My faith!

:sorry:
 
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USincognito

a post by Alan Smithee
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As for the sabbath, it is key to the creation story. The first creation account makes it the crown of creation. And this is only the beginning. There is a lot more to the Sabbath than counting days. It is a major biblical theme and well worth a thorough study of its many ramifications.

I wasn't going to do this, but full disclosure to others, I am not a Christian...

Back in 1999 and 2000 I had a wonderful time financially (since I was working my way out of debt) working 12 hour days 6 or 7 days a week. I took every day of overtime I could. My dad tried to fight off lung cancer in 2000 and ultimately succumbed in Oct. 2001. I didn't see him until the end durng his battle because I was too concerned with my finances and too tired on my few days off.

The OT lasted into the 2000s when in '06 Hattie died and about that time I started appreciating time off more. The Iraq War was in full swing. It was nice to sit in my recliner with Scarlett, debt free and with the knowledge that I wouldn't be bombed that night, lose my house or livelyhood, sweat out my next phone bill or feel that if I weren't at work that night I was somehow failing.

A day of rest and contemplation does not have to come from God to make sense, but trying to transfer my 2006 self back to the 13th Century B.C. it's utter genius... regardless of whether the creation week ever happened or not.
 
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gluadys

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A day of rest and contemplation does not have to come from God to make sense, but trying to transfer my 2006 self back to the 13th Century B.C. it's utter genius... regardless of whether the creation week ever happened or not.

It is interesting that you came to this appreciation through an experience of overwork. And that said overwork was a consequence of being in debt. Both matters are important to the sabbath.

I said that the Sabbath was about more than counting days. It is also about more than taking some time to rest and contemplate and appreciate creation---although it is all that too.

But even more than taking time off, Sabbath is about giving time off. That is why the full command specifies that not only "you" but also "your ox, your ass, your handmaid, your bondservant" shall not work.

The Sabbath command is a protection for the vulnerable, that they shall not be forced into continual drudgery by demanding employers.

Sabbath is also about freedom and equality, including a fair distribution of economic resources.

For Sabbath also applies to years and cycles of years as well as the weekly cycle of days. So the land is also to be given rest every seven years. And that offers as well a year of rest to landless labourers and to the beasts used in pre-mechanized farming.

Interestingly, part of the Sabbath year command was also to release debtors from debt and debt-slaves from bondage. So Sabbath connects with the liberation of Exodus as well. (In the Deuteronomy version of the ten commandments, this is made clear, for instead of connecting Sabbath with creation, Sabbath is commanded in commemoration of the Exodus.)

The most complete and radical of the Sabbath provisions was the great Sabbath year known as the Jubilee, to be observed on completing seven cycles of Sabbath years i.e. one year in 50. In addition to rest for all, including release from debt and bondage, the jubilee year was to see the restoration of all land sold in the last 50 years back to the original owner or his heirs. This was a powerful provision against the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few while the many lacked access to the means of production.

Above all, Sabbath is about trust in God's provision for us. To abstain from planting and harvesting in a culture dependent on agriculture is a huge risk. What is the farmer to live on if he does not plant? How is the landless labourer to live if the farmer does not need planters and weeders and harvesters?

The biblical answer is simple. Trust that God will provide. In the non-Sabbath years God will provide the farmer enough to store and carry him through a Sabbath year. In the Sabbath year, the farmer is to open his gates and make his fields, vineyards and orchards available to the landless (and even to the wild animals) to gather what grows of itself, while he and his family eat from their stores.

Trust in God's provision is the antidote to the greed that says we must always be busy accumulating more wealth. And it is a salutary reminder that no wealth, no matter how hard we have worked for it, comes from our own effort alone, but from the natural resources provided by the Creator.
 
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Macca

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Macca said that "Believing in the flood and not believing it literally is a oxy-moron." But clearly, this is not the case, given that we believe Jesus' parables despite the fact that they were not meant literally. In the same way, we can still believe the Creation or Flood accounts without ever believing they happened as described in the Bible. Why? Because we know God accomodates for our intellectual, cultural, and temporal limitations. The message God is trying to communicate in these accounts is a spiritual one (would you expect anything else?), delivered in the vessel of ancient Near Eastern mythology, as was the custom of their time. Imposing a 21st century attitude on the Scriptures by assuming they were written to be scientifically sound is not the way the original biblical audience would have understood the text, as such an approach was foreign to them.
You're comparing apples with oranges.
Parables are designed to teach a truth about a situation. The Biblical account describing occurrences is a totally different case, meant to be taken literally.
The account that the parables were spoken is to be literally believed, with the understanding that the things described in the parables are not necessarily literal occurrences.
Big difference.
:preach:
 
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gluadys

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You're comparing apples with oranges.
Parables are designed to teach a truth about a situation. The Biblical account describing occurrences is a totally different case, meant to be taken literally.
The account that the parables were spoken is to be literally believed, with the understanding that the things described in the parables are not necessarily literal occurrences.
Big difference.
:preach:

Could you explain the nature of the difference? How does taking the flood as a story in any way impair the lessons the story is meant to teach any more than taking the Prodigal Son to be a teaching story?

What is the big difference?
 
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Macca

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Could you explain the nature of the difference? How does taking the flood as a story in any way impair the lessons the story is meant to teach any more than taking the Prodigal Son to be a teaching story?

What is the big difference?
Is it any wonder that unbelievers have trouble believing the Bible, when nominal Christians cannot take the Bible as literal truth--as it is intended to be.
Parables are fictitious stories told to point to a moral.
The parables are set out in the truth of the Bible.
:preach:
 
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USincognito

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Is it any wonder that unbelievers have trouble believing the Bible, when nominal Christians cannot take the Bible as literal truth--as it is intended to be.

I'd say most non-Christians have more trouble understanding how you can take Genesis literally than with how more discerning Christians believe in it.
 
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gluadys

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Is it any wonder that unbelievers have trouble believing the Bible, when nominal Christians cannot take the Bible as literal truth--as it is intended to be.
Parables are fictitious stories told to point to a moral.
The parables are set out in the truth of the Bible.
:preach:

Obviously.

Now, about that big difference you mentioned? What is it?

Btw, I am not a nominal Christian. I was not raised in a Christian home and I came to the faith by the grace of God. I have investigated many other faiths and still come back consistently to Christianity.

This is the second time you have made an unwarranted assumption about my character. I suggest you cease and desist.

I know of no basis for assuming the default interpretation of the bible is meant to be a literal interpretation. I accept a literal interpretation when I see a good justification for it, but not as a one-size-fits-all designation of the literary genres of scripture.

If you can provide any actual reason to opt for a literal interpretation, go for it. I am all ears.
 
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busterdog

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You're comparing apples with oranges.
Parables are designed to teach a truth about a situation. The Biblical account describing occurrences is a totally different case, meant to be taken literally.
The account that the parables were spoken is to be literally believed, with the understanding that the things described in the parables are not necessarily literal occurrences.
Big difference.
:preach:

They have been reminded many times that this is a red herring. No matter how much literary "science" one brings to the table on such matters, it is simply regarded as no reasonable explanation at all for the distinction.

I find the simplest approach is this. Remind the TEs that the gospels refer to a partcular historical reign of a particular Ceasar at the time of the nativity. Since that is meant as historical narrative, everything else is presumed to be historical fact in the Bible unless they prove otherwise.

Taking a single example of a literary device, like a parable, and saying that everything else is susceptible to being similarly non-literal is just as frivolous.
 
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shernren

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They have been reminded many times that this is a red herring. No matter how much literary "science" one brings to the table on such matters, it is simply regarded as no reasonable explanation at all for the distinction.

I find the simplest approach is this. Remind the TEs that the gospels refer to a partcular historical reign of a particular Ceasar at the time of the nativity. Since that is meant as historical narrative, everything else is presumed to be historical fact in the Bible unless they prove otherwise.

Taking a single example of a literary device, like a parable, and saying that everything else is susceptible to being similarly non-literal is just as frivolous.

So why is the Parable of the Prodigal Son a parable?

And why should I consider Genesis 1 any more historical than the Twelve Days of Christmas?
 
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artybloke

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They have been reminded many times that this is a red herring.

It's nothing of the sort. There is no historical information (name of Ceaser etc...) in the Genesis creation narratives, they are written according to poetic and story forms of the ancient near East not as modern historiography... Again, what is it about the narratives that makes them definitely historical?

The Gospels are a very particular literary form, entirely unlike anything in the rest of the Bible. They are partly historical, but also include stories and legends.
 
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gluadys

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I find the simplest approach is this. Remind the TEs that the gospels refer to a partcular historical reign of a particular Ceasar at the time of the nativity. Since that is meant as historical narrative, everything else is presumed to be historical fact in the Bible unless they prove otherwise.

Key word: presumed. It is an unwarranted presumption.
 
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shernren

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It's nothing of the sort. There is no historical information (name of Ceaser etc...) in the Genesis creation narratives ...

Nonsense! There is an important name in the Genesis creation narratives, and that's Adam! And Adam is closely related to the Hebrew word for "ground"! The fact that God names "Ground" a man He made from the ground shows that we are dealing with a historical narrative here which has no value if it is just taken as a myt- [liberals are evil babykillers!] -hological narrative!
 
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Mallon

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Parables are designed to teach a truth about a situation. The Biblical account describing occurrences is a totally different case, meant to be taken literally.
But whether the original audience of the Bible believed particular stories literally has no bearing on whether we should take them literally, too. There are many phenomena spoken of in the Scriptures that the ANE people understood literally, including a sun that revolved around the earth, a moon that procuded its own light, stars the size of pin points, an earth that sat on pillars, a solid dome that separated the waters above the earth from the waters beneath the earth, etc. And if you have any familiarity with the history of the Christian church, you will know this is true.
So does the fact that these things were also understood literally by the ANE people imply that we are wrong to not believe them as such today, too? Of course not! We know that God accomodates for our intellectual shortcomings, and is capable of delivering His spiritual message regardless of what century we live in, using the customs of our time. You will often hear people say that the Bible's cosmogony was written from man's point of view -- that is, it's a phenomenological telling -- and I would argue strongly that the Genesis creation account is no different, especially given that similar creation accounts were floating around at the time.
(And besides all that, there are many linguistic devices in both the Creation and Flood accounts that I would argue rule against interpreting these stories literally, including symbolism and chiasmic structure.)
 
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USincognito

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Parables are designed to teach a truth about a situation. The Biblical account describing occurrences is a totally different case, meant to be taken literally.

Care to cite any evidence that Genesis is descrbing "occurances" rather than stories meant to teach a truth?

And before you fall into the obvious rhetorical trap, Jesus delivered parables without giving some sort of caveat that they were meant to convey truth and not a literal event so there's no reason why he could not have referenced the Torah and not been exercising the same teaching method.

If you really want to press the issue then you run the risk of presenting the fact that God incarnate contradicted his own Creation which, as has already been pointed out to you, plays into the hands of the atheists.
 
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gluadys

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Nonsense! There is an important name in the Genesis creation narratives, and that's Adam! And Adam is closely related to the Hebrew word for "ground"! The fact that God names "Ground" a man He made from the ground shows that we are dealing with a historical narrative here which has no value if it is just taken as a myt- [liberals are evil babykillers!] -hological narrative!

I think this attempt at sarcasm may go over the heads of some.

Seriously, there is indeed an important noun in the creation narratives: the noun 'adam'.

But there is no place in the creation narratives where the meaning of this noun shifts unequivocally from the common meaning (man/earth) to a proper name.

Hence there is no necessity for it to be anymore than a mythological personification of humanity. Adam may have been a single individual, but the creation accounts do not make this conclusion a logical necessity.
 
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Macca

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Obviously.

Now, about that big difference you mentioned? What is it?

Btw, I am not a nominal Christian. I was not raised in a Christian home and I came to the faith by the grace of God. I have investigated many other faiths and still come back consistently to Christianity.

This is the second time you have made an unwarranted assumption about my character. I suggest you cease and desist.

I know of no basis for assuming the default interpretation of the bible is meant to be a literal interpretation. I accept a literal interpretation when I see a good justification for it, but not as a one-size-fits-all designation of the literary genres of scripture.

If you can provide any actual reason to opt for a literal interpretation, go for it. I am all ears.
I have made no assumptions about your character, simply your beliefs.
If Jesus spoke as though He believed the O.T. accounts,(and He did) then I see that as proof He believed them to be taken literally; that's good enough for me, I take them that way as well.
If you choose to not take these scriptures literally, it becomes possible to find much of the N.T. that cannot be taken literally.
For example; not taking Rom. 9,10, 11 literally.
Of course we must take these chapters literally, God has not given up on Israel, and the new Israel is not the church.
I am not saying you have said this; or even that you believe this; but there are many "Christians" who do believe these chapters refer to the church.
:preach:
 
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Macca

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Care to cite any evidence that Genesis is descrbing "occurances" rather than stories meant to teach a truth?

And before you fall into the obvious rhetorical trap, Jesus delivered parables without giving some sort of caveat that they were meant to convey truth and not a literal event so there's no reason why he could not have referenced the Torah and not been exercising the same teaching method.

If you really want to press the issue then you run the risk of presenting the fact that God incarnate contradicted his own Creation which, as has already been pointed out to you, plays into the hands of the atheists.
So, you suggest the historical accounts of Genesis are not true history?
Joseph and his family in Egypt for over 400 years. (Prophesied in Gen.15: 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years
Holy Bible : New Living Translation.
:preach:
 
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