Before the Flood.

[juvenissun]

No, serious allegory does not allow a symbol to mean whatever pops into your head. There's a logic to allegory that constrains the interpretation.

Hey, Glaudys, I am glad to hear that. I think I said that about an year ago when I argued about what a literal "interpretation" is.

Yes, if two descriptions have true logic relationship, then they are "literally" interpreting each other.

So, soil and "moons of Jupiter" may not be literally connected, unless we can confirm that there is soil on those moons.

 

[AV1611VET]

Hey, Glaudys, I am glad to hear that. I think I said that about an year ago when I argued about what a literal "interpretation" is.

The thing with Gluady's narrow view of allegory, is that it doesn't say who decides what the symbols stand for. Anyone professing to "having the keys to unlock their meanings" would then be placed on a pedestal; from there, he could start a denomination in which only they have the "truth"; and from there, it's only a matter of a short time before they separate the people into clergy and laity - [starting to sound familiar?].

 

[Melethiel]

The symbols are interpreted according to our knowledge of the culture in which they were written. Symbols generally have an accepted meaning within a culture. For example, we know that when driving, a red hexagon means "stop". This is the accepted meaning, and we can't just decide that it means "go as fast as you can."

Or to pull something from my own culture, in Easter egg painting, all the symbols we use have very exact meanings that are just generally known. It's more of a collective consciousness thing.

 

[Assyrian]

So, what does 'the heavens' in the rest of Genesis mean?

It means "everything not in this universe".

I don't think that works. Genesis talks of a lot of things in our universe as part of heavens.
Gen 1:26 And God said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens...
Gen 8:2 And the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were stopped, and the rain from the heavens was restrained...
Gen 22:17 that blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the shore of the sea...

 

[Assyrian]

The thing with Gluady's narrow view of allegory, is that it doesn't say who decides what the symbols stand for. Anyone professing to "having the keys to unlock their meanings" would then be placed on a pedestal; from there, he could start a denomination in which only they have the "truth"; and from there, it's only a matter of a short time before they separate the people into clergy and laity - [starting to sound familiar?].

I wonder how many denominations were started over an allegorical interpretation? Jesus taught all of his disciple how to understand metaphors and allegory, what make you think understanding God's word is the preserve of an elite?

Assyrian, just out of curiosity, what does it matter what he thinks it is? After all, if Genesis 1 is just an allegory, then "heaven" could mean a factory, and Adam is representative of a factory worker, or "heaven" could mean a store, and Adam be representative of capitalism, etc.

I think the plain text is very important, whether it is speaking literally or metaphorically. for the metaphorical to have any meaning it must be a picture painted by the plain meaning. But, and this is a constant source of amazement to me, in the hands of literalists, the plain text can really mean anything.

 

[juvenissun]

I don't think that works. Genesis talks of a lot of things in our universe as part of heavens.
Gen 1:26 And God said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens...
Gen 8:2 And the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were stopped, and the rain from the heavens was restrained...
Gen 22:17 that blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the shore of the sea...

OK, it does not quite work. Thanks for the time to find the verses.

 

[juvenissun]

I think the plain text is very important, whether it is speaking literally or metaphorically. for the metaphorical to have any meaning it must be a picture painted by the plain meaning. But, and this is a constant source of amazement to me, in the hands of literalists, the plain text can really mean anything.

The thinking of a literalist is guided by the apparent meaning of the plain text. Even the person could give you a surprising interpretation, you can not say it would lead to any interpretation. A surprise means new, but not random.

 

[gluadys]

The symbols are interpreted according to our knowledge of the culture in which they were written. Symbols generally have an accepted meaning within a culture. For example, we know that when driving, a red hexagon means "stop". This is the accepted meaning, and we can't just decide that it means "go as fast as you can."

Or to pull something from my own culture, in Easter egg painting, all the symbols we use have very exact meanings that are just generally known. It's more of a collective consciousness thing.

Yes, an allegory or myth or parable or any sort of symbolic reference would have no communicative power if readers did not share the references with the writer. Neither the writer nor the reader consciously invents the linkages between symbol and referent. It is part of the cultural heritage the writer uses.

In fact, some symbols are remarkably stable retaining their core meanings over millennia. Northrop Frye's book Words of Power takes a tour of biblical symbology that has been used in subsequent European art and literature right down to the present with very little change in the meaning of the symbol.

It is this stable quality of symbols that make figurative language ideal for conveying a message intended to be understood by many generations.

 

[AV1611VET]

Neither the writer nor the reader consciously invents the linkages between symbol and referent.

And which comes first --- symbol or referent?

 

[shernren]

And which comes first --- symbol or referent?

Which came first - the parable of the Sower or the meaning Jesus intended to communicate through it?

Such questions get us nowhere.

 

[AV1611VET]

Which came first - the parable of the Sower or the meaning Jesus intended to communicate through it?

Let me repeat Post 99:

Jesus' parables were true stories of actual events that He witnessed Himself.

 

[shernren]

Jesus' parables were true stories of actual events that He witnessed Himself.

You have no Scriptural evidence for this. Did Jesus ever see a merchant sell all he had for a single pearl or a treasure-laden field, or someone try to pull a speck out of a brother's eye with a plank lodged in his own?

Furthermore, even if Jesus was simply retelling an event He had witnessed, that doesn't change the fact that Jesus intended to communicate something other than the story itself in telling the story. Suppose you detained two disciples after Jesus had told the story and its explanation, and asked them what they had learned.

One says: "I learned that once, Jesus saw a farmer (and not a shepherd or a merchant) sow his seed on four kinds of soil (not three or five) with different outcomes."
Another says: "I learned that Jesus preaches to different kinds of people, and that the nature of their heart will determine their response to His words."

Who learned what Jesus wanted to say? Who completely missed the point? Was the point in the story or in its meaning?

 

[AV1611VET]

You have no Scriptural evidence for this. Did Jesus ever see a merchant sell all he had for a single pearl or a treasure-laden field, or someone try to pull a speck out of a brother's eye with a plank lodged in his own?

Furthermore, even if Jesus was simply retelling an event He had witnessed, that doesn't change the fact that Jesus intended to communicate something other than the story itself in telling the story. Suppose you detained two disciples after Jesus had told the story and its explanation, and asked them what they had learned.

One says: "I learned that once, Jesus saw a farmer (and not a shepherd or a merchant) sow his seed on four kinds of soil (not three or five) with different outcomes."
Another says: "I learned that Jesus preaches to different kinds of people, and that the nature of their heart will determine their response to His words."

Who learned what Jesus wanted to say? Who completely missed the point? Was the point in the story or in its meaning?

May I remind you of the question I was answering?

Which came first - the parable of the Sower or the meaning Jesus intended to communicate through it?

And the little dig that came with it?

Such questions get us nowhere.

 

[gluadys]

And which comes first --- symbol or referent?

The referent. But the referent may not be what you think it is. In the parable of the Sower, the referent is not the sower or the field or the seed---even if, as you contend, Jesus witnessed a farmer sowing. (He probably did at some time or other.)

The referent is God sending his message and how it is received. The parable is the allegory which refers to this symbolically.

 

[theFijian]

You have no Scriptural evidence for this.

Who need scripture when you have the KJV?

 

[Assyrian]

The thinking of a literalist is guided by the apparent meaning of the plain text. Even the person could give you a surprising interpretation, you can not say it would lead to any interpretation. A surprise means new, but not random.

If it is new, it means unintended by the writer. The literal meaning cannot be that flexible, yet literalists often turn the meaning upside down.

Hey, Glaudys, I am glad to hear that. I think I said that about an year ago when I argued about what a literal "interpretation" is.

Yes, if two descriptions have true logic relationship, then they are "literally" interpreting each other.

So, soil and "moons of Jupiter" may not be literally connected, unless we can confirm that there is soil on those moons.

I think you need to realise that the kind of interpretation you are doing is not literal interpretation, it is a very old form of interpretation, the second form in the Jewish Pardes scheme, called remez, or hint. Meanings hinted at in scripture that were not the intention of the writer.

p'[wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] - "simple" the plain meaning of the text including metaphors and allegories intended by the writer.
remez - "hint" the real meaning of why passover lamb's bones were not to be broken, what God was hinting at talking about the Exodus as 'out of Egypt I have called my son'.
drash - "search" aka midrash, allegorical meanings
sod - secret numerology and hidden codes.

Whether we are supposed to be looking for science hidden in scripture, and God actually hid scientific information there, is another question.

 

[gluadys]

If it is new, it means unintended by the writer. The literal meaning cannot be that flexible, yet literalists often turn the meaning upside down.


I think you need to realise that the kind of interpretation you are doing is not literal interpretation, it is a very old form of interpretation, the second form in the Jewish Pardes scheme, called remez, or hint. Meanings hinted at in scripture that were not the intention of the writer.

Ironically one thing a doctrinaire adherence to a "literal" interpretation has done is to obscure the very meaning of "literal"

Any and every sort of interpretation is called "literal" simply because the interpreter has been taught that only a "literal" meaning has value.

The word "literal" is now no more than a mantra that means whatever the "literalist" interpreter chooses it to mean. Only occasionally does the "literalist" interpreter literally mean "literal".

 

[Merlin]

The ages listed are observations of what is
not a mandate of what must be.

 

[marktheblake]

In the bible it says that people lived to be "hundreds" years old... What made people live that long then but not now...

Nobody seems to be talking about your question anymore so I'll give it a go.

Some people have put together a very convincing argument that before the flood the oxygen level was richer. This has some support with the scripture - ie the canopy theory, and is not negated. Note that this is not proof, and nobody suggests it is. but obviously scripture needs to support any possible theory or speculation.

Science proves that richer oxygen levels aid growth - look at what hyperbaric chambers can do. Vegetables grow large, sportsman use it to recover from injuries and so on.

Remember what genesis also said - "there were giants on the earth"

Now I understand (but have not seen evidence personally) that Dinosaurs had very small lungs for their size. If post flood the oxygen was lower, that made it difficult for them to survive.

Eating of meat, a supernatural influence all might have something to do with it to. We wont ever know but it is a fun topic to research.

 

[Mallon]

Some people have put together a very convincing argument that before the flood the oxygen level was richer. This has some support with the scripture - ie the canopy theory, and is not negated.

You should probably watch these informative videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvprBLhJx_o&feature=PlayList&p=AC3481305829426D&index=4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKdfeP1sGIg&feature=PlayList&p=AC3481305829426D&index=5