allegorical genesis

RightWingGirl · Jan 17, 2006

In Luke 1;70 Zacharias, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said "As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began"

In Mark 10:6 Jesus said "From the beginning of the Creation he made them (humans) male and female"

gluadys · Jan 18, 2006

HairlessSimian said:
Or "mate" and "companion".

I've seen "help-meet" as a literal translation of what meant "wife".

While it is true that the suitable helper turned out to be a wife, the meaning of "meet" in KJV English was simply "suitable" "fitting".

Yes, I've heard "help-meet" or "help-mate" used to mean "wife" too. But it inverts the grammar. It turns "meet/mate" into a noun with the modifying adjective "help". But the intended meaning is for "help" to be the noun, modified by the adjective "meet".

gluadys · Jan 18, 2006

RightWingGirl said:
If it was allegorical than why did Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit imply that it is fact elsewhere in the Bible?

Where did that occur? What makes the reference imply that it is to a historical rather than a mythical event?

calidog · Jan 18, 2006

f U z ! o N said:
i got to thinking about Genesis the other day and what it means in an allegorical sense.

The allegorical message i get is this:

God created everything and rules over His creation

Adam and Eve represent all of humankind (the name Adam means Man)

We need Jesus due to the way we are, sinful desire

now this is thinking of Genesis as an allegory and not actual history.
what about the other parts though?

God tells the earth to bring forth life and such (evolution?)

Adam names all the animals could be considered to be a reference to scientists naming the animals of today

an even more wilder idea would be what if Noah's flood reprensented global warming and all the oceans rising which would flood areas all over the world? (just an idea) (don't take this as i actually meant it i was just thinking of symbolism and such)

what do you guys think?

na

FreezBee · Jan 18, 2006

That some things in the bible go a lot deeper than the surface level denotations of the terms that are used to communicate the story.

Ok, thanks for the clarification - and I agree with you

JRNetwork said:
Job 28:25
To establish a weight for the wind,
And apportion the waters by measure.

I dont think it has been very long since it has been discovered that air actually has weight.

Erock83 said:
Apparently you are not from tornado ally

And we might also look at another translation, e,g, the NIV:

Job 28
25 When he established the force of the wind
and measured out the waters,

26 when he made a decree for the rain
and a path for the thunderstorm,

27 then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;
he confirmed it and tested it.

V. 25 refers to the force, not the weight of the wind! Of course, you can feel the force of the wind without having any idea of air having weight. Please also notice v. 27, second line. God seems to be quite the scientist, doesn't he?

- FreezBee

RightWingGirl · Jan 19, 2006

gluadys said:
Where did that occur? What makes the reference imply that it is to a historical rather than a mythical event?

In Luke 1;70 Zacharias, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said "As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began"

In Mark 10:6 Jesus said "From the beginning of the Creation he made them (humans) male and female"

In Exodus 20:11 God himself wrote in stone "In six days the Lord made the heavens and earth, the sea, and all that is in them"

If you look at these verses in context there is no basis for the claim that they are meant as anything other than fact.

coyoteBR · Jan 19, 2006

RightWingGirl said:
If you look at these verses in context there is no basis for the claim that they are meant as anything other than fact.

Yes, RWG, a context people of the time would understand. Refering to what they hold truth. Furthermore, the Exodus and Luke passages can be viewed as figures of speech.

And about Jesus Quote... He Was Using the words, the background that people was ready to hear. He Had not much time to Teach.
What is more usefull to Jesus to Spend His Time with? To Teach:

"You learned the law of one eye for one eye, but I Say to you if you're slapped in the face, offer the other face"
OR
"You learned about the 6 day creation, but I Say to you it takes millions of years, and a conjunction of factors under the guidance of My Father that..."

II think He Knew what would be more usefull to people in all ages and what people would discover with time.

FreezBee · Jan 19, 2006

RightWingGirl said:
In Luke 1;70 Zacharias, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said "As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began"

Luke 1:70 (NIV)
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

Do you really mean that there were prophets since the world began? Who were they prophecying to?

RightWingGirl said:
In Mark 10:6 Jesus said "From the beginning of the Creation he made them (humans) male and female"

Mark 10
5 "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. 6 "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 7 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

Yes, you are right here, but it's not important for the message - what's important that marriage is a unification of two. Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, that required strict obedience of Mosaic Law, so he simply turns their own sayings against them.

RightWingGirl said:
In Exodus 20:11 God himself wrote in stone "In six days the Lord made the heavens and earth, the sea, and all that is in them"

Exodus 20
8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Yes, it's referring back to Genesis 1-2, but please not that we have a week every week, so maybe God has his creation week every week - it has not necessarily anything to do with a scientific facts.

RightWingGirl said:
If you look at these verses in context there is no basis for the claim that they are meant as anything other than fact.

Well, they are not meant as facts as in scientific evidence, they are "internal" evidence that has nothing to do with what in a scientific perspective happened long ago.

But you are very welcome to try to supply evidence that we are dealing with scientific facts, that is, facts that we could come by without special revelation

- FreezBee

Jan87676 · Jan 19, 2006

I do not think that I am literal. I don't think that the earth is literal. Life is an allegory,it's there to teach us how to face chanellegences(I spelled it wrong, and who cares? Life is all about having fun!) that face us. The allegory is there Al Gore.
I repeat and say life is nothing-no, nothing ever more.

Lord Emsworth · Jan 19, 2006

Buho said:
1. I can point you to a few Hebrew word studies on Genesis that would cast serious doubt onto what you wrote. Additionally, do you know of ancient commentaries that said as much? I don't know of any. The midrash doesn't count -- it's too new.

2. Your point two contradicts your point one. I'm confused.

No, it does not contradict his first point.

Buho said:
3a. The Judeo-Christian god is written about in the world's most copied and preserved ancient literature with phenominal accuracy unparalleled in other ancient writings.

The latter part is rather doubtful, to put it mildly.

Buho said:
3b. If you read the Judeo-Christian writings, you can illicit from them tremendous inerrancy, a lack of contradictions, and the dabbling of a hand greater than the authors who wrote it.

No, you can't.

Buho said:
3c. Thousands of years ago a savior was predicted to come and do a bunch of stuff.

There are certain predictions, granted.

Buho said:
Two thousand years ago, hundreds of years after the predictions, a dude fulfilled the prophecies.

Not really, no. You have a couple of texts telling stories about a dude. These stories and the dude were cobbled up out of bits and pieces of older texts.

Buho said:
The existance of this dude can be verified historically (via extrabiblical Roman accounts, archaeological digs, and multiple first-hand testimonies).

You can infer some Jesus on whom, in addition to the bits and pieces of Hebrew scripture, the storycharacter is based, although a mythological Christ (à la Doherty) is not out of question.

You extrabiblical Roman accounts are one Tacitus passage, and nothing much more. Archaeologically there is nothing wrt the dude himself. And first hand testimonies - well, well

Buho said:
Human meddling of text can be ruled out when evidence is inspected.

With the OT texts? Certainly, that can be ruled out.

Buho said:
This is strong evidence that the Judeo-Christian god exists, has some super-human ability to predict the future, and is able to manipulate this universe.

Your evidence is faulty.

Buho said:
3d. This same god of the Jews and Christians speaks of other gods and says they are false. When inspected and compared, non-Christian gods over the past 2000 years exhibit the same traits as the false gods that the Judeo-Christian god speaks of. This leads me to believe that that one is true and the others are being driven by the same personality that's been driving all the false gods, namely Satan, as described in these phenominal historical writings which are allegedly authored not by man but by a god.

Sounds much like Pot-Kettle-Black.

Buho said:
3e. This historical savior dude claims to have come from the one true God and condemns those that worship other gods. The amazing supernatural feats of this dude (for instance, his resurrection from death) can be verified historically, so this dude has some authority to say these things.

Or maybe it can not. Maybe one or the other miracle is just a rehash of older, OT stories featuring Moses, Noah (walking on water) and Elisha (multiplying food).

Buho said:
3f. If there are other gods, the god of this dude is greater than the others.

3g. The Judeo-Christian god is different from every other god in history, has more positive historical evidence for him than any other god, and can be seen changing the very face of this planet through the people living on it. Ultimately, it's a matter of faith, but belief in the Judeo-Christian god is far from a blind leap! If interested, check out a Lee Strobel book. I read that as a non-believer and found it decent (I didn't like some of his conclusions, but overall he did some decent work).

Strobel?

JRNetwork · Jan 19, 2006

Erock83 said:
Apparently you are not from tornado ally
One Love

Lol actually, yes I'm from Kansas. Recently as in the grand scale of things, it was actually about 300 years though. However I dont think they had tornados in Palestine...

Loudmouth · Jan 19, 2006

I think Genesis is best viewed in it's cultural context. Many scholars agree that Genesis was finalized while Israel was in Babylon. This explains the similarities between the mythos of Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Babylonians were pantheists, and each day of the Genesis creation week was meant to symbolize Israels God creating instead of separate gods. Noah's flood is much like the one found in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Given the animosity between the Hebrew people and their Sumerian captors, the "corrupt" people mentioned are most likely the Babylonians. Therefore, Noah's flood is also a story about how the Hebrew people will be freed from the Babylonians.

Genesis could be an allegory in the same sense that Thomas More's "Utopia" was an allegory for the mistreatment of different castes during his time. What the Hebrew people were trying to say is that their God created the Universe, not the Babylonian gods. Next, they say that the corrupt will be punished by God and the righteous will prevail.

Erock83 · Jan 19, 2006

JRNetwork said:
Lol actually, yes I'm from Kansas. Recently as in the grand scale of things, it was actually about 300 years though. However I dont think they had tornados in Palestine...

Well that is a crying shame they are fun to chase. Where from in Jayhawk land?

One Love.

JRNetwork · Jan 19, 2006

Garden City, its about 50 miles from the legendary Dodge City.

JRNetwork · Jan 19, 2006

Loudmouth said:
Noah's flood is much like the one found in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Given the animosity between the Hebrew people and their Sumerian captors, the "corrupt" people mentioned are most likely the Babylonians. Therefore, Noah's flood is also a story about how the Hebrew people will be freed from the Babylonians.

Core samples from the Tigris and Euphrates, cuneiform tablets from Babylon, and other archeological digs suggest that there actually was a historical flood of Mesopotamia. Which covered all of Iraq, alot of Syria and northern Arabia for about a week, although it lasted much longer in the area of what is now Kuwait, and it fits into the biblial timeline/range. Dont you peple watch the History channel???

Loudmouth · Jan 19, 2006

JRNetwork said:
Core samples from the Tigris and Euphrates, cuneiform tablets from Babylon, and other archeological digs suggest that there actually was a historical flood of Mesopotamia. Which covered all of Iraq, alot of Syria and northern Arabia for about a week, although it lasted much longer in the area of what is now Kuwait, and it fits into the biblial timeline/range. Dont you peple watch the History channel???

The Tigris and Euphrates flooded every year, which is why the area was so fertile. One extremely big flood would stick with people, and as humans often do it was exagerated over the years until it reached mythical proportions. This big flood was probably the source for the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Hebrew rewrite was meant to cast aspersions at the Babylonians (IMHO) and give the Hebrew people hope for a future deliverance from the captivity.

Every piece of evidence I have seen shows that the Genesis flood myth was produced well after the Epic of Gilgamesh. Noah's Flood would work as an allegory in that cultural context. The same sort of storytelling appears in American myths as well, such as the myth of George Washington cutting down a cherry tree or even Paul Bunyan. These are myths born of their time, their culture, and the ethos of the people. The real importance of these myths is the way they capture the morality and thoughts that solidified a culture.

RightWingGirl · Jan 19, 2006

FreezBee said:
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Luke 1:70 (NIV)
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

Do you really mean that there were prophets since the world began? Who were they prophecying to?

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Luke 1:70 kaqwV {ACCORDING AS} elalhsen {HE SPOKE} dia {BY [THE]} stomatoV twn {MOUTH} agiwn twn ap {HOLY} aiwnoV {SINCE TIME BEGAN} profhtwn {PROPHETS} autou {OF HIS;}

translates to "Since time began:" Some newer translations are a bit more PC, and say "from old" or "from the earliest times" but this is not accurate to the old texts. Adam would have been the first prophet, but Enoch, Methuselah and a few others were more major prophets.

Mar 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. Yes, you are right here, but it's not important for the message - what's important that marriage is a unification of two. Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, that required strict obedience of Mosaic Law, so he simply turns their own sayings against them.

Jesus is in this chapter condemning divorce. It was not necessary for him to bring up the Creation at all, and yet he did. Again the new version has some interesting discrepancies. The quote marks are no where found in the original Greek neither is there any evidence that this was merely a quote.

Exodus 20
8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Yes, it's referring back to Genesis 1-2, but please not that we have a week every week, so maybe God has his creation week every week - it has not necessarily anything to do with a scientific facts.

- FreezBee

What makes you think this was meant?

RightWingGirl · Jan 19, 2006

JRNetwork said:
Core samples from the Tigris and Euphrates, cuneiform tablets from Babylon, and other archeological digs suggest that there actually was a historical flood of Mesopotamia. Which covered all of Iraq, alot of Syria and northern Arabia for about a week, although it lasted much longer in the area of what is now Kuwait, and it fits into the biblial timeline/range. Dont you peple watch the History channel???

If the in Genesis flood was local, then in Genesis 9:11, when He said [BIBLE] "neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth." [/BIBLE] he meant that there would be no more local floods?

JRNetwork · Jan 19, 2006

As far as Noah knew, the Middle East was the world. Either that or you can take it for its litteral meaning, that another flood will never destroy the world. It doesnt necessarily have to mean that the previous flood destroyed the world.

gluadys · Jan 19, 2006

RightWingGirl said:
In Luke 1;70 Zacharias, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said "As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began"

And where does it say that the Holy Spirit and the prophets only speak of history and never of myth?

In Mark 10:6 Jesus said "From the beginning of the Creation he made them (humans) male and female".

Clearly Jesus is referring to the creation story. Where does it say he considers it history and not myth?

In Exodus 20:11 God himself wrote in stone "In six days the Lord made the heavens and earth, the sea, and all that is in them"

And where in the commandment does it say the days are history and not symbolic?

If you look at these verses in context there is no basis for the claim that they are meant as anything other than fact.

Part of looking at a text in context is checking out when the text was written, by whom and to whom and for what purpose. There are only two places in the OT where creation is said to have taken 6 days: Genesis 1 and the Sabbath commandment in Exodus 20. (Even the other version of the 10 Commandments in Deuteronomy does not mention the 6 days of creation.)

Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 were written by the same writer, a priest who probably lived during the Babylonian exile and was trying to provide his people with a reason to remain loyal to the covenant. By telling the story of creation as he did, and by re-iterating it in the command to keep the Sabbath holy, he encouraged them to stay true to God in a strange land where Jewish customs were mocked and despised.

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