Did God Really Say

God is always right, man is always wrong when it comes to God vs. Man.

What do you say to the idea that God's creation of the universe spanned many eons but that the creation of Man took place at the end of all of that and then the history occurring afterwards, as recorded in Scripture, is correct?

lifepsyop said:

Modern “science” says the book of Exodus was entirely mythological, and that there was never even a nation of Israel in Egypt. A completely false account.

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You've got a lot of strange misconceptions. Science isn't about history. Would it be too much trouble for you to go back and look at this stuff and get it straight in your mind, before you tell us about it?

Yes, creationists have fabricated stories, enlarging and revising scripture, but that's not science, either.

lifepsyop said:

And why do people fabricate stories, but to gain advantage. There is no advantage to be made in a world where God's judgment looms over us imminently. With the origin myth of Evolution, the world becomes our oyster. God is distant (or non-existent) and we are free to live on the world however we see fit.

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You've just opened a little window into the YE creationist mind for us.

lifepsyop said:

There is a sustained discord or disharmony in professing the accounts of the Gospel while denying the reality in which the Gospel exists, the world in which the Lord Jesus inhabited and acted in, and spoke of, and died and rose. We have totally surrendered the history and reality presented to us in scripture for a sufficiently godless, materialistic universe, an evolutionary or naturalistic cosmology, a history of the world that erases God’s presence and interaction with the world. This is what Evolution is, a history without God. No perfect creation with perfect creatures, no fall from eden, no babel, no flood, no exodus, and no conquest of the land.

Modern “science” says the book of Exodus was entirely mythological, and that there was never even a nation of Israel in Egypt. A completely false account.

“Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts the biblical Exodus account as history for a number of reasons. Most scholars agree that the Exodus stories were written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories.”
The Exodus - Wikipedia


Contrast this opinion with what Jesus said about the author and main figure of the book of Exodus.

“...For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.
But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
- John 5:46-47


Remember that the consensus view of our scientific, historic, archaeological institutions are that the biblical accounts of the Exodus are completely made up. A fable. A myth. They have high confidence and claim to have mountains of evidence supporting this view.

If what we believe matters at all, then you as a professing believer have to decide where you stand. With the written word of God, or with mainstream ‘science’ and the wisdom of men.


If the works of God in the Exodus are a myth, then there is a problem. God is continuously calling for himself to be praised for his marvelous works on the earth. If so much praise is being devoted towards the memory of an event that never happened, then there is a problem.

So much of the biblical account revolves around a God-commanded memorial of the Exodus events.


Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. - Exodus 13:3


Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
- Psalm 105:1-3

Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. - - Psalm 106:7

The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it.
- Acts 13:7


Yet the firm position of mainstream science, history, archeology, is that the Exodus events are almost entirely mythical. A denial of the miracles and plagues would be expected but mainstream academia consensus claims that a nation of Israel was never even in Egypt, that the migration event is totally fabricated.

So who is right? Man or God?


If we believe the book of Exodus then we must also realize that if the world community of supposed experts can fail so stunningly about events only thousands of years ago, why do we accept their views about events that supposedly happened millions of years ago? Why are we so willing to discard God's history revealed to us in order to get along with the teachings of the world?

Is it just simple pride? We hate to be thought of as an unenlightened or unintelligent person and so we reject biblical history as society demands of us.

Is it something in our hearts that put us at ease? To deny that our God judged us so severely by flooding the entire earth? To deny that God created the world and humans, perfectly and that we caused its destruction with our rebellion. These are the foundations of the entire universe that Jesus steps into and upholds as reality. If we are believing that this man has actually died and actually walked out of the tomb, that they are actual events and not symbolic… then perhaps we need to stop and question the wisdom of casting away two thirds of scripture as symbolic storytelling when they are accounts of God’s works and judgments.

What could this lack of belief be doing to us spiritually? What other confusion and doubt and evil are we allowing rule our lives if we do not even believe God did what he says he did… what he even commanded his people to remember and celebrate?


“Did God Really Say?” - the endless echoing of the serpent in the garden.


If we are really taking the future Day of the Lord and the final judgment seriously, as actual judgment upon the earth, then perhaps it’s time to finally surrender to the reality that the past judgments were real as well.

As according to the apostle Peter:


In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
...then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
- 2 Peter 2:3-6, 9-10

I think Peter had the modern world pegged. And why do people fabricate stories, but to gain advantage. There is no advantage to be made in a world where God's judgment looms over us imminently. With the origin myth of Evolution, the world becomes our oyster. God is distant (or non-existent) and we are free to live on the world however we see fit.

Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. - 2 Peter 3:3-7

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Christ's focus is not on the man Moses but the book of Moses. the character of Moses is actually not being addressed here which I know can be difficult to see past. One way we can identify between the book of Moses and "Moses the man" is that any events Moses did that are not in the book of Moses have no value to Christ's words here. He may have saved 100 kids from a fire, he may have had a beard that went all the way to his feet, or he may have had a hand with six fingers but if true none of those things matter to such a point that Moses outside of the book of Moses is a shadow and non-existent.

When Jesus says to look to Moses he means the book of Moses, not Moses himself (which would be an odd thing to say). If the book of Moses contains factual or non-factual events it doesn't really matter. If it is based on embellished oral culture or various figureheads that are mashed up into a giant legend named Moses none of that matters. it doesn't matter because it's the words Christ tells us to put faith in not the physical.

Is not God able to organize a collection of myths and legends to proclaim Christ or did he have to do this only through the literal? Judaism to this day is trapped looking at the physical and because of that is blinded to Christ because it is beyond the physical that points to Christ. Christ spoke to the masses through parables which are non-literal stories. He uses them to show his message in a way people can connect with, so if people connected with Moses or Abraham, Isacc, and Jacob its the message that transcends the people so we shouldn't be looking at the people to give us this truth because they will fail, we should be looking to the transcended or the esoteric message in the words.

lifepsyop said:

There is a sustained discord or disharmony in professing the accounts of the Gospel while denying the reality in which the Gospel exists, the world in which the Lord Jesus inhabited and acted in, and spoke of, and died and rose. We have totally surrendered the history and reality presented to us in scripture for a sufficiently godless, materialistic universe, an evolutionary or naturalistic cosmology, a history of the world that erases God’s presence and interaction with the world. This is what Evolution is, a history without God. No perfect creation with perfect creatures, no fall from eden, no babel, no flood, no exodus, and no conquest of the land.

Modern “science” says the book of Exodus was entirely mythological, and that there was never even a nation of Israel in Egypt. A completely false account.

“Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts the biblical Exodus account as history for a number of reasons. Most scholars agree that the Exodus stories were written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories.”
The Exodus - Wikipedia


Contrast this opinion with what Jesus said about the author and main figure of the book of Exodus.

“...For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.
But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
- John 5:46-47


Remember that the consensus view of our scientific, historic, archaeological institutions are that the biblical accounts of the Exodus are completely made up. A fable. A myth. They have high confidence and claim to have mountains of evidence supporting this view.

If what we believe matters at all, then you as a professing believer have to decide where you stand. With the written word of God, or with mainstream ‘science’ and the wisdom of men.


If the works of God in the Exodus are a myth, then there is a problem. God is continuously calling for himself to be praised for his marvelous works on the earth. If so much praise is being devoted towards the memory of an event that never happened, then there is a problem.

So much of the biblical account revolves around a God-commanded memorial of the Exodus events.


Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. - Exodus 13:3


Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
- Psalm 105:1-3

Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. - - Psalm 106:7

The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it.
- Acts 13:7


Yet the firm position of mainstream science, history, archeology, is that the Exodus events are almost entirely mythical. A denial of the miracles and plagues would be expected but mainstream academia consensus claims that a nation of Israel was never even in Egypt, that the migration event is totally fabricated.

So who is right? Man or God?


If we believe the book of Exodus then we must also realize that if the world community of supposed experts can fail so stunningly about events only thousands of years ago, why do we accept their views about events that supposedly happened millions of years ago? Why are we so willing to discard God's history revealed to us in order to get along with the teachings of the world?

Is it just simple pride? We hate to be thought of as an unenlightened or unintelligent person and so we reject biblical history as society demands of us.

Is it something in our hearts that put us at ease? To deny that our God judged us so severely by flooding the entire earth? To deny that God created the world and humans, perfectly and that we caused its destruction with our rebellion. These are the foundations of the entire universe that Jesus steps into and upholds as reality. If we are believing that this man has actually died and actually walked out of the tomb, that they are actual events and not symbolic… then perhaps we need to stop and question the wisdom of casting away two thirds of scripture as symbolic storytelling when they are accounts of God’s works and judgments.

What could this lack of belief be doing to us spiritually? What other confusion and doubt and evil are we allowing rule our lives if we do not even believe God did what he says he did… what he even commanded his people to remember and celebrate?


“Did God Really Say?” - the endless echoing of the serpent in the garden.


If we are really taking the future Day of the Lord and the final judgment seriously, as actual judgment upon the earth, then perhaps it’s time to finally surrender to the reality that the past judgments were real as well.

As according to the apostle Peter:


In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
...then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
- 2 Peter 2:3-6, 9-10

I think Peter had the modern world pegged. And why do people fabricate stories, but to gain advantage. There is no advantage to be made in a world where God's judgment looms over us imminently. With the origin myth of Evolution, the world becomes our oyster. God is distant (or non-existent) and we are free to live on the world however we see fit.

Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. - 2 Peter 3:3-7

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Y'know, I empathize with your frustration, but at the same time, I notice that just about all of your questions in the OP are focused on fellow people (Christian brethren?) and whether or not you think we're 'believing' well enough the Biblical accounts such as the Exodus.

However, I'm of a different mind. I tend to not worry too much if the so-called scholarly consensus is claiming one thing or another about the Bible at this moment. And the questions that are always on my mind aren't "why don't we believe the Bible or live it out better?," but rather "How are these so-called mainstream scholars of science constructing their arguments and conclusions? What are their methods?"

2PhiloVoid said:

However, I'm of a different mind. I tend to not worry too much if the so-called scholarly consensus is claiming one thing or another about the Bible at the moment. And the questions that are always on my mind isn't "why don't we believe the Bible or live it out better?," but rather "How are these so-called mainstream scholars of science constructing their arguments and conclusions? What are their methods?"

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Today's winner.

lifepsyop said:

You say it doesn't matter, yet scripture repeatedly commands Israel to remember and celebrate the work God did in bringing them out of Egypt through the Red Sea. Over and over again... "Remember how I brought your fathers out of Egypt through the Sea"...

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So an reference to a figurative passage in the Bible, converts it to a literal passage? Do you have any evidence for that?

lifepsyop said:

You could make the same argument for recasting the account of Jesus death and resurrection as pure symbolism. "Is not God able to save us through the myth of resurrection?", (popular Gnostic teaching) ... And if you're going to say nearly everything else in the Bible is a myth, then this interpretation naturally follows, unfortunately.

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Sorry, that excuse won't work, either. The crucifixion account clearly indicates precise dates and times, unlike earlier figurative accounts.

It is here we have the awkward dissonance of wanting to tie the flesh and blood historicity of Christ with nearly everything else in scripture as literal history. (when much of it doesn't even remotely read as such)

lifepsyop said:

I think Jesus' identified use of parables only highlights their contrast with the accounts in the Old Testament

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Hmm... so you're claiming that Jesus explicitly said that the Good Samaritan story is a parable? Got some scripture to back that up? Maybe that should be a clue?

These are the spiritual pits you're digging for yourself when you begin revising parables and allegories to make them literal history.

As I said, this isn't something you'll lose your salvation over unless you make an idol of it, and demand that other Christians must believe your revision.

lifepsyop said:

You say it doesn't matter, yet scripture repeatedly commands Israel to remember and celebrate the work God did in bringing them out of Egypt through the Red Sea. Over and over again... "Remember how I brought your fathers out of Egypt through the Sea"...

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the words matter, the memory matters but the literal events don't. what matters is the role they play showing Christ. The events plead to look away from them and to look at Christ so we need to honour their pleas and stop looking at them but instead look to what they point to.

lifepsyop said:

You could make the same argument for recasting the account of Jesus death and resurrection as pure symbolism. "Is not God able to save us through the myth of resurrection?", (popular Gnostic teaching) ... And if you're going to say nearly everything else in the Bible is a myth, then this interpretation naturally follows, unfortunately.

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Christ matters but Adam, Abraham and Moses don't and if you think they do they redirect that focus to Christ. You could spin whatever argument you want but in all the accounts a central figure shines forth through the words just how the first words of "Let there be light" shine Christ. Christ is where it all leads to and that is where our faith should be. Not in Moses or Adam but in Christ.

lifepsyop said:

I think Jesus' identified use of parables only highlights their contrast with the accounts in the Old Testament, which contain numerous specific names, genealogies, geographic details. They are clearly not written as parables or allegories, but as historical narrative, and repeatedly called to be remembered and praised as actual works of God.

There is no indication at all that either Jesus or the apostles viewed scripture as anything but real history. I think it's safe to say any one of them would have been mortified to step into the modern era and find professing believers teaching that the genealogical foundations of the faith are all myths and fables.

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Christ did nothing but challenge the old with a broad deemphasis of the phyiscal to the spiritual and the events are only meaningful when they reveal Christ and all other interpretations are meaningless. To me, the emphasis of the literal misses the point and robs the glory from Christ so when I hear scholars and historians show how the accounts and people are more legends and myth that's fine, they are less about themselves and point to Christ and give him glory over self.

DamianWarS said:

Christ did nothing but challenge the old with a broad deemphasis of the phyiscal to the spiritual and the events are only meaningful when they reveal Christ and all other interpretations are meaningless. To me, the emphasis of the literal misses the point and robs the glory from Christ so when I hear scholars and historians show how the accounts and people are more legends and myth that's fine, they are less about themselves and point to Christ and give him glory over self.

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Which is what, in Christianity, separates faith in Christ from religions. Jesus was constantly overturning rules, and emphasizing action and spirituality.

When criticized for breaking the Sabbath to heal a man, He pointed out that which should have been obvious to everyone:
Mark 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

lifepsyop said:

There is a sustained discord or disharmony in professing the accounts of the Gospel while denying the reality in which the Gospel exists, the world in which the Lord Jesus inhabited and acted in, and spoke of, and died and rose. We have totally surrendered the history and reality presented to us in scripture for a sufficiently godless, materialistic universe, an evolutionary or naturalistic cosmology, a history of the world that erases God’s presence and interaction with the world. This is what Evolution is, a history without God. No perfect creation with perfect creatures, no fall from eden, no babel, no flood, no exodus, and no conquest of the land.

Modern “science” says the book of Exodus was entirely mythological, and that there was never even a nation of Israel in Egypt. A completely false account.

“Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts the biblical Exodus account as history for a number of reasons. Most scholars agree that the Exodus stories were written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories.”
The Exodus - Wikipedia


Contrast this opinion with what Jesus said about the author and main figure of the book of Exodus.

“...For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.
But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
- John 5:46-47


Remember that the consensus view of our scientific, historic, archaeological institutions are that the biblical accounts of the Exodus are completely made up. A fable. A myth. They have high confidence and claim to have mountains of evidence supporting this view.

If what we believe matters at all, then you as a professing believer have to decide where you stand. With the written word of God, or with mainstream ‘science’ and the wisdom of men.


If the works of God in the Exodus are a myth, then there is a problem. God is continuously calling for himself to be praised for his marvelous works on the earth. If so much praise is being devoted towards the memory of an event that never happened, then there is a problem.

So much of the biblical account revolves around a God-commanded memorial of the Exodus events.


Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. - Exodus 13:3


Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
- Psalm 105:1-3

Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. - - Psalm 106:7

The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it.
- Acts 13:7


Yet the firm position of mainstream science, history, archeology, is that the Exodus events are almost entirely mythical. A denial of the miracles and plagues would be expected but mainstream academia consensus claims that a nation of Israel was never even in Egypt, that the migration event is totally fabricated.

So who is right? Man or God?


If we believe the book of Exodus then we must also realize that if the world community of supposed experts can fail so stunningly about events only thousands of years ago, why do we accept their views about events that supposedly happened millions of years ago? Why are we so willing to discard God's history revealed to us in order to get along with the teachings of the world?

Is it just simple pride? We hate to be thought of as an unenlightened or unintelligent person and so we reject biblical history as society demands of us.

Is it something in our hearts that put us at ease? To deny that our God judged us so severely by flooding the entire earth? To deny that God created the world and humans, perfectly and that we caused its destruction with our rebellion. These are the foundations of the entire universe that Jesus steps into and upholds as reality. If we are believing that this man has actually died and actually walked out of the tomb, that they are actual events and not symbolic… then perhaps we need to stop and question the wisdom of casting away two thirds of scripture as symbolic storytelling when they are accounts of God’s works and judgments.

What could this lack of belief be doing to us spiritually? What other confusion and doubt and evil are we allowing rule our lives if we do not even believe God did what he says he did… what he even commanded his people to remember and celebrate?


“Did God Really Say?” - the endless echoing of the serpent in the garden.


If we are really taking the future Day of the Lord and the final judgment seriously, as actual judgment upon the earth, then perhaps it’s time to finally surrender to the reality that the past judgments were real as well.

As according to the apostle Peter:


In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
...then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
- 2 Peter 2:3-6, 9-10

I think Peter had the modern world pegged. And why do people fabricate stories, but to gain advantage. There is no advantage to be made in a world where God's judgment looms over us imminently. With the origin myth of Evolution, the world becomes our oyster. God is distant (or non-existent) and we are free to live on the world however we see fit.

Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. - 2 Peter 3:3-7

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Dear brother/sister while I agree this is how the world is going please don't use the word 'we'. You make it sound as if those of us who uphold the literal creation do not!
God is always right and many of us uphold his word over science.
Unfortunately it is hard to find here on the creation board for I feel the name draws those who want to debate us and place science as being above scripture. If you only frequent this area you may feel as if all the church is following evolution and it is us who are the odd eggs but that isn't so. I recently had some interesting conversation in the end time area on here and one of my questions was that if they could state their stance on creation. The majority there are 6 day creation believers. I was surprised and heartened by it, even though it only added to my perplexity over end time matters since this gave me far more views to actually look at.

coffee4u said:

Dear brother/sister while I agree this is how the world is going please don't use the word 'we'. You make it sound as if those of us who uphold the literal creation do not!
God is always right and many of us uphold his word over science.
Unfortunately it is hard to find here on the creation board for I feel the name draws those who want to debate us and place science as being above scripture. If you only frequent this area you may feel as if all the church is following evolution and it is us who are the odd eggs but that isn't so. I recently had some interesting conversation in the end time area on here and one of my questions was that if they could state their stance on creation. The majority there are 6 day creation believers. I was surprised and heartened by it, even though it only added to my perplexity over end time matters since this gave me far more views to actually look at.

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It will help us all not to caricature each other's positions. Many of us on these boards - including me - look to external disciplines to improve our understanding of God's creation, not to supplant it. Linguistics, theology, history, anthropology, geology, biology, physics and so on. If our starting point is simply that the Bible tells us that God created the universe, then other things can hel those interested to understand how. That in no way diminishes the sovereignty of God. Quite the opposite. It reminds us mere humans that we are the creation, called into relationship with Almighty God. And it doesn't bother me one bit how God created me, or when He created the earth.

lifepsyop said:

Of course their ultimate purpose is that they point to Christ. The Old making way for the New. But how is Christ magnified by negating or diminishing these very things as unreal fictions?

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You think Christ's parables were "unreal fictions?" Allegories are often used in scripture to teach us things. That's what God uses them for. And I'm pretty sure He doesn't think of them as "unreal fictions."

lifepsyop said:

This is why the world worships "science" and especially when it comes to a proposed history of the universe, because it allows people freedom to deny the condemnation they are under.

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It has nothing whatever to do with man's fall from grace, or Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection to save us.

lifepsyop said:

Of course their ultimate purpose is that they point to Christ. The Old making way for the New. But how is Christ magnified by negating or diminishing these very things as unreal fictions?

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because it reveals the role of the patriarchs is only to show Christ and if we get an independent message from that then we are glorifying the patriarch over Christ.

lifepsyop said:

Are all the prophets fictional characters just like Moses?

What is the motivation and why is it so hard to just believe the scriptures as they are written, instead of forcing all of it into the realm of symbolism and allegory? Where does this desire come from?

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scriptures of course are not as they are written they are far deeper. if we cling to the surface we will always miss the point. I also don't claim all of scripture is symbolism and allegory which is the problem of this suggestion and I'm not so bold to say it didn't happen but rather that some accounts have no value in their literal features.

For example, if Adam and Eve never existed this doesn't collapse our faith because if we understand the goal in the account we can understand the deeper meaning and it's this meaning that is more important than the physical details. Adam and Eve show us that all humanity needs God and it accomplished this by showing all came from them and because of the fall all from them inherit the fall. the holes in the account of course are that if post-fall Adam and Even needed God does that mean pre-fall Adam and Eve did not need God or needed him less? What an absurd statement. Where in fact Adam and Eve needed God just as much pre-fall as they needed him post-fall and anything less gets into some bizzare understanding of what pre-fall man actually was. The account of the fall of man establishes our need for Christ and it can do this in through a literal message which an ancient thinking would connect with or it can do this with an abstract message by removing the physical. both accomplish the same thing and there is no added value in the physical.

lifepsyop said:

Christ did not deemphasize the physical into non-being, though. He never suggested that past events did not happen or that past persons did not exist. He showed that there was a spiritual reality much higher than the physical.

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"a spiritual reality much higher than the physical" is a deemphasise of the physical

lifepsyop said:

We are certainly saved by something much more powerful than the molecular properties of the blood on the cross, a spiritual sacrifice of the Son of God... but it would be completely heretical to then suggest the blood itself was never really there, or that the nails were not really driven through his flesh. It is all real, but there is something better than what we can perceive with our natural minds.

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the presence of the physical doesn't save us more, but you're conflating my words to include all Christ which is a common response when these ideas get presented but if so it misrepresents what I'm saying and is a strawman.

lifepsyop said:

If Christ's blood is our covenant and we accept this as real, what glory is given by calling God's past covenants mere fables? When those very covenants are described as real events guiding Israel forward to the truth and the light.

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Christ's literal blood is not our covenant it is far greater than that otherwise, we turn Christ's blood into some sort of object of power which is a pagan concept. Christ uses the physical to manifest power, which is undeniable, but they are vessels of power and not redemptive power in themselves, it is the message they proclaim not the vessels in themselves. otherwise, we begin to collect wooden chunks of crosses, and shrouds stained with his blood and look to those things as power which is a very pagan. soon we will begin to wear crosses around our neck so we may kiss it when we feel the need, or hold out our physical bibles against our enemies. We need to understand the role of the physical and be careful not to glorify them above Christ.

lifepsyop said:

The scriptures say that the nation of Israel was in the wilderness with the tabernacle, as part of an old covenant that was pointing to the new covenant in Christ. The scriptures go into painstaking detail on how this tabernacle was physically constructed, and the specific commands and rituals for Israel in setting up and breaking camp, and moving through the wilderness, not to mention all of the preparation and execution of the tabernacle priests. Procedures for dealing with death and uncleanness, hand-washing, disposing of excrement... none of this even remotely reads as symbolism. The whole point is that these real events on the earth were themselves acting as allegories for a spiritual truth beyond the natural world where these rituals took place.

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lifepsyop said:

The tabernacle of Moses was a real thing, made by human hands, as recorded in scripture in detail. These were real events happening in earth history, earthly events that were pointing to something even bigger.

Every time these are described or mentioned in the bible, it is always as real events and real history. There is no ambiguity about it. A tabernacle "made with hands" is not merely an allegory.

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The tabernacle itself is a symbol of the temporary and there's a sense of irony with that example. the events that surround the need for the tabernacle are in themselves unverifiable and evidence suggests those accounts are at best-embellished compilations that can be based on the historic fact. but why does this matter? it matters that it points to Christ, it matters that Christ is real (in case your continue to suggest I'm saying otherwise) but the physical actually doesn't hold as strong of weight as you are suggesting.

lifepsyop said:

... copies of the heavenly things.... a better sacrifice... holy places made with hands...

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heaven is of the spiritual not of the physical. heavily things would point to spiritual things and not of the metaphysical. We know this because God resides in heaven yet God is omnipresent so perhaps heaven is of that same realm where God can be omnipresent.

lifepsyop said:

But to return to your original point. Why does this matter? That is the question and the answer I think lies in the motive of the professing believer. Are you denying the historical accounts of the Old Testament out of a desire to be more closer to the truth of Christ? Is there something in the Word of God driving you towards a disbelief of the events presented in that Word?

Or is there a greater motivation to be regarded favorably by the world... to be seen as rational, reasonable, and enlightened by one's peers? What is the point of denying major biblical events other than getting along with the fashions of the world?

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I affirm and look to the the deeper meaning of these accounts not the literal events. I'm denying the glorification of the material when they clearly point away from themselves.

lifepsyop said:

The world is happy to hear talk of heaven and god, even the name of Jesus, but it does *not* want to hear about the reality the Bible presents to us. That we are fallen, judged, and waiting to be judged again. The cosmic curse of sin and the whole purpose of why Jesus went to the cross for us. The world does not want to hear of its condemnation.

This is why the world worships "science" and especially when it comes to a proposed history of the universe, because it allows people freedom to deny the condemnation they are under. This is the main reason people become so emotionally invested in the subject of Creation and Evolution. To accept Biblical history is to accept the certainty of one's own guilt and condemnation and the need for a savior.

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you speak of a motivation to reject the message and replace it with something else which is not what I've said at all, to a degree that it seems you're not even listening. It's difficult to think of progress in this discussion when you so easily reinterpret what I say to something that isn't at all what I say.

lifepsyop said:

You say it doesn't matter, yet scripture repeatedly commands Israel to remember and celebrate the work God did in bringing them out of Egypt through the Red Sea. Over and over again... "Remember how I brought your fathers out of Egypt through the Sea"...

You could make the same argument for recasting the account of Jesus death and resurrection as pure symbolism. "Is not God able to save us through the myth of resurrection?", (popular Gnostic teaching) ... And if you're going to say nearly everything else in the Bible is a myth, then this interpretation naturally follows, unfortunately.

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Other peoples had their foundation-myths - why shouldn’t the Israelites/Jews ?

As for the Resurrection of Christ, it can be a real event, without being an historical event. Christian belief is that God is real, or rather, Real; not that God is an old man somewhere in space, as in Star Trek V. To believe that God is Real, does not imply that God has a long white beard, hairs from which can be inspected under a microscope. God can be - and is - Real, without being manlike, and without being subject to the constraints of time & space.

The Reality of the Resurrection of Christ is not the invented reality of a myth; nor is it the limited reality of human existence on Earth. It is a super-natural Reality, inaccessible to human seeking, that can come only from God: IOW, it is in the strictest sense a miracle. It is an unmediated, unique, unrepeatable Act of God, which (unlike anything in history) has no causes, parallels, or precedents in history. It can seem to be historical, because it took place within a world that is affected by human history; yet it is not a result of anything in that world, but has its sole cause in God alone.

God is not an historical character - the God-man Jesus Christ is an historical character, only because He is fully human. The standard of reality, is not man, or human history, but God.

The Resurrection of Christ is therefore without any cause in anything human - IOW, it is totally, utterly, in every respect, an act of God’s initiative & grace. It comes, not from the will of man or the actions of natural causes, as historical things do, but purely from the Will of God.

However, the singular most important aspect of the Gospel is that Jesus the man literally and physically died on the cross and days later was raised from the dead. Without the actual physical, flesh and blood event, everything collapses.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. - 1 Corinthians 15:12-14

If the blood of the lamb in Egypt was a myth, why believe in the 'blood of the lamb' on the cross in 1st century Judea?

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Because the reality of the Blood of Christ is not dependent upon the reality of the blood of the lambs in Exodus. A literary comparison of two things, need not imply that both are equally real or unreal. Christ was a lamb only in a non-proper, figurative, specifically metaphorical sense. He did not bleat, gambol in the grass, or become a mutton chop, as a real lamb often does, because He is not a lamb in the real, proper, non-metaphorical sense. Nothing can be demonstrated by basing arguments on metaphors, because metaphors describe things, not as they are, but in a non-proper, figurative, sense.

It is here we have the awkward dissonance of wanting to preserve the flesh and blood historicity of Christ while casting nearly everything else in scripture as myth or allegory. (when none of it even remotely reads as such)

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There are far more alternatives than history, myth or allegory - for the Bible is made up of many different kinds of literature. Some overlap with (a kind of) history, & others do not. The prophecy of Obadiah, & the lament attributed to Jeremiah, both have the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC as their background.

Whether something in a writing is myth or allegory, is always, and sometimes entirely, a matter of literary analysis. Whether the text being studied is Genesis 3, Gulliver’s Travels, The Lord of the Rings, the Aeneid, the Akkadian Gilgamesh poem, the Resurrection narratives, Moby Dick, or a thousand others.

It would be absurd to argue that, because the LOTR refers to objects of familiar kinds such as roads, swords, travellers, mountains, rings & forests, it must therefore be intended as a genuinely historical narrative. Invented tales often mention familiar types of object - that is called verisimilitude, & is a literary technique for making the fiction plausible to the hearers or readers.

Proper functioning lightsabres are fictitous - swords are real & reasonably familiar, so lightsabres become imaginatively plausible because they are not entirely alien to the watchers of those films.
King Kong includes a sequence set in New York, which is a real, humanly accessible location - it does not follow that Kong’s climb of the Empire State Building, Kong himself, or Skull Island, are also real.

lifepsyop said:

If Word was made flesh and caused the real events of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, why would we assume the same Word of God was not driving real events of the past, that the same Word explicitly proclaims are real events and real works of God? The whole point is that the Word is working in the earth as God interacts with his people, protecting a lineage through Abraham and David that leads to Jesus, with the events of the Exodus and the Conquest of Canaan in between... what folly to mythologize all of this...

The Gospels and the New Testament also places enormous emphasis on God's future judgment and wrath upon the entire world. This judgment is always compared to past judgments upon the earth. If the past judgments were myths, what exactly is the reasoning to believe in the future judgments as real? Is there a real resurrection or is it just poetic language for becoming a better person and discovering your true potential? Is God to be feared at all or this all just creative storytelling?

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There are many acts of Divine judgement in works of mythology. Yet they are fictions. That a judgement is attributed to gods, or even to the True God, does not mean that the judgement actually occurred. In Book 1 of the Iliad, the god Apollo sends a devastating plague upon the Greeks encamped before Troy, in answer to the prayer of his priest Chryses, whose daughter Chryseis has been taken captive by the Greeks. The return of Chryseis to her father ends the plague and appeases the wrath of the god - & begins the animosity that is the main subject of the poem.

A judgement by a god or God, if it takes the form of an externally visible event, comes as an historical event: such as war, disease, famine, flood, plague or whatever. And there is no external means of distinguishing a Divine judgement from any other event. Anything in history can be regarded as a judgement - anything at all. The events referred to as judgements do not come with that label attached, so their significance - assuming that one regards them as having some significance - has to be guessed at.

Belief in the reality of God’s judgement does not require fictions to sustain it. I believe in it because it is repeatedly taught in the NT. And as Christ is the Universal Messiah-King, it makes perfect sense that He should judge all the nations on Earth; for judgement is a royal function. It is one of the ways in which kings show that they are legitimate & upright rulers who enjoy God’s favour.

These are the spiritual pits you're digging for yourself when you begin mythologizing God's established word.

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To mythologise something, is to make it a myth. To recognise that a text relating a myth is doing so, is not making something non-mythical a myth, but recognising its genuinely mythical status. If there is mythical material in the Bible - and there is - then saying so is a proper recognition of the character of parts of the Bible. If the Bible contains mythical material, the reader should accept that, and go from that recognition of what the Bible in fact contains, to a more accurate understanding both of that material, and of what it doing in the Bible. If every part of Scripture has God for its Author, then God is saying something through the mythological material, as much as through anything else in the Bible. That something is mythological, in no way makes it meaningless or useless.

I think Jesus' identified use of parables only highlights their contrast with the accounts in the Old Testament, which contain numerous specific names, genealogies, geographic details. They are clearly not written as parables or allegories, but as historical narrative, and repeatedly called to be remembered and praised as actual works of God.

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Greek mythology is full of specific names. Telemachus was the son of Odysseus, who was the son of Laertes, whose wife was Anticleia, who was the daughter of Autolycus, who was the son either of Daedalion or of the god Hermes, who was the son of Zeus. Cadmus, Pelops, Herakles, & many other characters, all have genealogies and geographical associations: Cadmus with Thebes, Pelops with Pisa in Elis, Herakles with Tiryns. Having a detailed genealogy, complete with geographic details, is (obviously) compatible with being a real historical person - but is equally compatible with being entirely fictitious.

There is no indication at all that either Jesus or the apostles viewed scripture as anything but real history. I think it's safe to say any one of them would have been mortified to step into the modern era and find professing believers teaching that the genealogical foundations of the faith are all myths and fables.

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The Gospels give us a Christ Whose knowledge is not infinite, but Who asks questions, and is capable of growing in knowledge. If He was “like us in all things - sin alone excepted”, that makes very good sense.

ISTM that, as He did not come to be an Answer Man on all matters of Scripture, its interpretation, and of Theology, it is unobjectionable to suggest that there were limits to His understanding of the Bible. I don’t think it is irreverent to say that. After all, no-one argues that because He was God Incarnate, He must therefore have been a greater composer than Mozart, a greater sculptor than Michelangelo, a greater polymath than Aristotle or Leonardo, a greater poet than Homer or Vergil, a greater athlete than Usain Bolt, a greater painter than Raphael or Rembrandt, and so on. IOW, people implicitly admit that He was in some respects subject to limitations.

That that He never undertook activity X, does not mean that others cannot undertake X, and do it supremely well. That He never wrote a history of the Ancient Near East, or drilled an oil-well, or taught Mathematics, does not make it impertinent for mere mortals to do so.

I think it was a consequence of the reality of the Incarnation, that there was a great deal about the OT He had no means of knowing, because nobody else could have known it, that has been learnt since then. If others could excel in activities which He never undertook, I don’t see why scholars of the Bible and its background cannot know more of it than He did.

If His knowledge was limited, so that men with greater material opportunities for learning than He had, came to know things He did not know, I think that is evidence of Divine Humility, not a flaw. Unless He knew absolutely everything that can ever be known, His knowledge must necessarily have been limited. The Gospels do not suggest that He was omniscient - they do emphasise His Teaching Authority, and by implication, His Wisdom. The Jesus of the Gospels is credibly human - not an infallible & omniscient superman with no human limitations. If He is admitted to have had other limitations before His Resurrection - why cannot His knowledge, even of the Bible, have had limitations ? It can even be argued that a Christ Who - before His Resurrection - is omniscient & infallible, is not the Christ through Whose human weakness God shows forth His Strength. Such a Christ is too Glorious, too early, & too unlike those whom He came to save.