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Sure. the bible uses numbers with symbolic days, look at Ezekiel's days. It can also use numbers with time periods in parables like the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, where the time measurement only has meaning within the narrative itself and don't symbolise any sort of time period when we look at the meaning of the parable.If the word for day in genesis is "Yom," and Yom carries a broader meaning than "day" in the strict 24 hour sense, but rather means something like 'a period of time,' then could it be that creation did not take place in a conventional week?
In Christ
If the word for day in genesis is "Yom," and Yom carries a broader meaning than "day" in the strict 24 hour sense, but rather means something like 'a period of time,' then could it be that creation did not take place in a conventional week?
In Christ
The Genesis account seems pretty clear that a 24 hour period was in mind "There was evening... there was morning .."
But it is not a story about 'how' and 'when' but 'why' earth was created. Science deals with the first two issues, Scripture with the last one. 'Day'' is possibly a literary device to frame the story.John
NZ
And because it hardly mentions "Why" at all, the bulk of it is "Who" and how.
No, id doen't mention when,
In another words you think God is a very slow speaker.If the word for day in genesis is "Yom," and Yom carries a broader meaning than "day" in the strict 24 hour sense, but rather means something like 'a period of time,' then could it be that creation did not take place in a conventional week?
In Christ
Genesis 1 is about the ordering of creation, three days of creating three days of filling in an abc-abc poetic structure. It stands in contrast to the ancient mythologies in many ways, where competing gods were involved.
Look up John Walton on Genesis 1 on You Tube for an excellent presentation of this viewpoint.
John
NZ
The Genesis account seems pretty clear that a 24 hour period was in mind "There was evening... there was morning .."
But it is not a story about 'how' and 'when' but 'why' earth was created. Science deals with the first two issues, Scripture with the last one. 'Day'' is possibly a literary device to frame the story.
John
NZ
God was just as real when he led the Israelites out of Egypt, he was there, and he wasn't silent, yet look at how he described the events You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself Exodus 19:4. This is who God really is and he loves to speak in parables and metaphors.I agree. The Book of Genesis was written as an historical record of events. It was not meant to be exhaustive or a scientific text-book. But it is an accurate history inspired by a Person who was right there to witness everything that happened. This person is the God who is really there and He is not silent. He communicated with Moses over his lifetime and inspired him to write the first five books of the Bible as an historical record of His nature and dealings with mankind.
God was just as real when he led the Israelites out of Egypt, he was there, and he wasn't silent, yet look at how he described the events You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself Exodus 19:4. This is who God really is and he loves to speak in parables and metaphors.
If you think I have a point, then why the all or nothing fallacy to start off with? Oscarr assumed that since Genesis is God speaking and God was there then Genesis must be literal, but Exodus 19:4 shows this is simply not the case. God is quite happy to describe real events in metaphor and parable, Look at Jerusalem and her sisters in Ezekiel 16, Oholah and Oholibah in Ezekiel 23, or the song of Jeshurun in Deuteronomy 32 & 33.Sounds like the rantings of Bishop Spong who mythologizes the entire Bible.
But I would suppose God loves to speak in all the various genres we find in the Bible.
...God is quite happy to describe real events in metaphor and parable.....
It doesn't mean everything is a metaphor....
Believing a misinterpretation is not believing God, it is misunderstanding him and abandoning a misinterpretation isn't refusing to believe God. Exodus is full of history and legal code, yet Exodus 19:4 isn't history it is metaphor. Just because you find historical narratives in Genesis, it doesn't mean all the narratives are literal history. If you have to resort to accusing those you disagree with of disbelieving God, you really don't have much of a basis for claiming the creation accounts must be literal.And He's happy to reveal history as in Genesis, which includes narratives, genealogies, including chronological genealogies. The problem is not God's communication, it's those that refuse to believe Him, preferring man's ideas about history instead.
No I haven't, because I wasn't claiming God can speak in metaphors so the creation account have to be metaphorical. The literal interpretation was a perfectly reasonable interpretation before we learned how old the earth was. But it wasn't the only interpretation and long before modern geology scripture scholars questioned how literally it was meant to be taken. But when there are different ways to interpret a text and you learn that one of the interpretation is wrong, why ever would you want to hold onto an interpretation that is shown to be wrong?Exactly, you just defeated your own reasoning.
Oscarr was wrong because he assumed that God who so often speaks in metaphor and parable must be speaking literally because he was there. God is everywhere. God was there when he led the Israelites out of Egypt. He did not use giant eagles, he described the history in metaphor.Oscar actually made a very good argument. God was there, and therefore is the most reliable witness we have for historical events.
Was the church doing a Spong when they changed their literal geocentric interpretation of Joshua's miracle because naturalistic astronomy showed them the sun doesn't go round the earth? I have never got an answer to this from Creationist. They claim the church was following science when it was geocentrist, or that Creationist are really the Galileo today. But they don't say whether the church was wrong to change their literal interpretation of Joshua when science showed it was wrong.But since God's testimony contradicts your naturalistic beliefs about history, you try to dismiss God's testimony as metaphor. This is exactly what Bishop Spong does, yet more consistently, classifying virtually all the Bible as metaphor wherever it contradicts his beliefs. It's an age old tactic. Don't believe something in the Bible. Call in metaphor.
If the word for day in genesis is "Yom," and Yom carries a broader meaning than "day" in the strict 24 hour sense, but rather means something like 'a period of time,' then could it be that creation did not take place in a conventional week?
In Christ
Believing a misinterpretation is not believing God, it is misunderstanding him and abandoning a misinterpretation isn't refusing to believe God. Exodus is full of history and legal code, yet Exodus 19:4 isn't history it is metaphor.
If you have to resort to accusing those you disagree with of disbelieving God, you really don't have much of a basis for claiming the creation accounts must be literal.
No I haven't, because I wasn't claiming God can speak in metaphors so the creation account have to be metaphorical. The literal interpretation was a perfectly reasonable interpretation before we learned how old the earth was. .....
Oscarr was wrong.....
Was the church doing a Spong when they changed their literal geocentric interpretation of Joshua's miracle because naturalistic astronomy showed them the sun doesn't go round the earth? I have never got an answer to this from Creationist. They claim the church was following science when it was geocentrist, or that Creationist are really the Galileo today. But they don't say whether the church was wrong to change their literal interpretation of Joshua when science showed it was wrong.
If the word for day in genesis is "Yom," and Yom carries a broader meaning than "day" in the strict 24 hour sense, but rather means something like 'a period of time,' then could it be that creation did not take place in a conventional week?
In Christ
With Spong there may be something deeper though I haven't read any of his work. With the literal and figurative interpretation of Genesis in the church history, it is simply an honest attempt to understand scripture and how God speaks to us through his word. With flat earth teachings of people like Cosmas Indicopleustes and Lactantius, which went against the scientific evidence of the earth being a sphere as well as the church's acceptance of the science, I'd say there was a large slice of arrogance and spiritual pride especially in accusing the rest of the church of 'supping at the table of demons' for accepting the scientific evidence he dismissed as 'Greek philosophy'.Indeed, and there are other metaphors all through scripture, including Genesis.
But I don't think this is an interpretation issue. Bishop Spong is not just merely misinterpreting God's word, but choosing man's ideas over God's. He's doing exactly what you're doing. Would you say he's merely got an innocent misinterpretation that he's getting wrong? Or is there something deeper?
And as long as you listen to the voice of the accuser of the brethren, you won't be able to honestly search the meaning of these scriptures, you will be too bound by legalistic fears to hear the voice of one who so often speak to us in metaphor and parable as well as through literal texts. How can you possibly search the scriptures to understand what God is saying if you have already decided every other interpretation is rebellion?Yes, I do feel that in a very real sense, denying Genesis 1-11 is rebellion. That's our nature, that's what we do. But I also believe Christ died for our sins, and therefore disbelieving Genesis is not a salvation issue (in and of itself). But you are missing a great blessing in rejecting God's truth in exchange for man's. You're not misinterpreting anything, you're choosing not to believe what is plainly written.
There's really no nicer way to say that. It's not personal, it's just what I firmly believe.
The eagles in Exodus tell us that God can describe historical events figuratively. It doesn't tell you that every time God doesn't speak literally, that it is obvious. It wasn't obvious the geocentric description in Joshua and Eccl 1:5 aren't literal. In fact it was so unclear no one challenged the literal meaning of the text until science showed us the sun doesn't go around the earth.Thank you. You just perfectly summed up my point. Man told you earth was old, so you relegated God's revelation to a metaphor. This is not merely an issue of interpretation. You didn't decide eagles were metaphorical because man told you something. This is an obvious figure of speech with a clear meaning.
I have shown you why he was wrong, simply claim he was right isn't an answer.Sorry, no he wasn't. He was right on the money.
If Aristotle never existed and there was no Greek science, do you seriously think the church would all have been heliocentrists? Do you seriously think everybody who saw the sun apparently move across the sky would realise of course that it was the world, so seemingly solid and immobile under their feet, that was spinning?Geocentrism was man's idea also, in particular the aristotelian philosophers (the scientists of that day). You have to understand, geocentrism is a historic scientific idea. The theistic naturalists of that day tried to read that modern science into scripture, but that doesn't make it God's Word.
God has lots of of different ways of speaking to us, not just literal or metaphor. What Joshua shows us is a literal interpretation that was shown by science to be wrong. And when they found out their literal interpretation was wrong, they needed to come up with a different interpretation. It didn't have to be a metaphorical interpretation, just a different interpretation that wasn't contradicted by science. When we learned the age of the earth and it showed us the literal interpretation of Genesis was wrong, we needed to come up with a better interpretation too. It didn't have to be the same interpretation. You need to go to the text to find another interpretation. The problem the church had with Joshua and heliocentrism showed we need to find a better interpretation when science overturns our traditional interpretation, it does not tell you what the new interpretation should be.Joshua was merely describing movement, and he described it literally. There's no metaphor to be found in the sun stopping in the sky. That is literal.
No it isn't a metaphor, it isn't literal either. The sun didn't stop. Joshua though it was the sun moving across the sky when it was really the earth rotating, they are not the same. The forces and acceleration behind the two descriptions are very different, and the geocentric model is simply wrong.Joshua was not saying the sunshine of this heart skipped a beat or anything silly like that. It was not a metaphor He reported that the sun stood still, and indeed it did stop in the sky. That is a literal fact. All movement is relative and must be described by points of references. Modern astrophysicists would have used the same terminology to describe the event standing on earth and looking up. Looking at the even from a satellite or space ship would require different terminology.
Again saying so doesn't make it true. Oscarr assumed because God was there he must have been speaking literally. God was there during the exodus but he didn't describe it literally in Exodus 19.So again, sorry, but Oscarr was correct.
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