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Wasn't actually a snake, it was an angel, a guardian cherub (v 14). Jesus tells us the birds in the parable of the sower was Satan too Mark 4:15, but he wasn't telling us Satan was actually a flock of birds.
If you want to disparage Jesus' parables as fairy tales with morals. I certainly don't. I don't see what anyone who is a disciple of his would. Perhaps your adherence to the doctrine of literalism is more important to you than learning from him the importance of the stories from the Word of God.
Why not look at what the message could be rather than concocting what you think it can't. And don't think because you think it can't be one thing, that it can't mean anything else either. Why can't it be the story of everyman who has ever sinned, the whole human race? Why can't it be the story of how God first called the human race to follow him and we failed without there having to be two individuals called Adam and Eve? God told the story of Israel through the fictional story of Jershurun a child God found in the wilderness. Why can it be the story of a real Adam and Eve but told in metaphor? After all it wasn't a actual snake that tempted the human race, it was Satan. You need to learn to love Jesus' metaphor and parables before you can begin to understand the metaphors and parables throughout the rest of the bible.
What is so special about escaped slaves? Prehaps it was that god was with them, rescued them and called them according to his purpose.
I already answered you misunderstandings here.
Except the same word you think means 'the earth' can just as easily be translated 'the land' and simply refer to a flood covering the land Noah lived in.
Why not? He is God, he often asked people to do things that seemed strange. Read your bible.
Of course it does. A large boat was the easiest way to transport people and animals and their food and water.
Of course they do. But the way they describe those real things isn't itself real. Jesus wasn't a shepherd and he died for people , not sheep. Nor is there any reference to the Roman Occupation, Jewish unrest and the political tension between the Sanhedrin, Pilot, and Herods puppet kingdom, behind the plot to kill Jesus. But just because they are not mentioned in the parable, even metaphorically it doesn't mean the parable contradicts them. You really need to get an grasp of how parables and metaphors work.
No, as I said 'fairytale' is the way you despise the parables in the bible. Nor have I ever called Creation a metaphor. What I have done is called Genesis a metaphorical description of the Creation. Remember metaphors in the bible speak of things that are very real? You said it yourself. Creation is the very real thing the metaphors in Genesis describe.
That because Creationists haven't come up with anything that contradicts evolution.
Come up with the arguments first.
Did I claim geology was flawless?
Nah it really is a conspiracy theory.
If the idea was imaginary they would keep running into evidence that didn't fit. That is how science works.
Which remind me you never did explain how creationism can deal with the complete lack of unlinks, the chimeras cobbled together from different animals, while the fossil record is full of transitional forms on the evolutionary tree of life. All you have is rhetoric, actual the data fits evolution.
Wasn't actually a snake, it was an angel, a guardian cherub (v 14). Jesus tells us the birds in the parable of the sower was Satan too Mark 4:15, but he wasn't telling us Satan was actually a flock of birds.
Hi ptomwebster, welcome to the forum
And this is pretty irrelevant. No one could ever hope to understand the Bible if they had no clue of metaphors. I don't think any smart creationist would ever argue that the serpent in the Garden was actually a serpent, or that we are actual sheep, etc.,
God was showing his power. It wasn't just about the slaves. He wanted to separate the false gods from the true Him.
God sent all the animals to Noah. Noah built a gigantic ark and drifted in the flood for over a year.
How about I give you a list of all the extra-biblical, self-contradictory stuff you've come out with?
No, I don't see any guarantee of that in scripture, not before we meet the Lord face to face anyway. Certainly his disciples throughout church history have been unable to agree whether 'This is my body' is literal or not. If the knowing the difference between literal and parable is essential to salvation, then yes, the Holy Spirit will certainly guide us there.
Well the same word adm meant mankind too didn't it? Didn't Paul interpret Adam as including the whole human race 'in Adam all die'? Doesn't Genesis 5:2 say Adam was the name God gave the people he created, male and female? Doesn't Genesis 6 use the same word adm, for God wiping out everyone in the flood? Just because you think it was written to be understood as a historical narrative, doesn't men that it was.
Didn't start with the start with our interpretation of Genesis either, it goes back to heliocentrism and the church changing its interpretation of the geocentric passages because Copernicus's naturalistic model of the solar system, it goes back further to Augustine and Aquinas saying that is science shows an interpretation is wrong then it was never what scripture meant in the first place.
What requisite literary features? The bible doesn't give us a list of requirements for interpreting parables.
You will find he story of Jeshurun in Deuteronomy 32 & 33. Genesis calls him 'the serpent' which means the word serpent is being used as a description rather than a name. Jesus said the birds in the parable of the sower were Satan too, doesn't mean 'The Birds' is another proper name. Revelation certainly does tell us Satan was the ancient serpent who tempted the world, that doesn't mean it is 'literally' Satan, because Satan was an angel a guaardian cherub, not a reptile. What Revelation shows us is that the snake was Satan described in metaphor.
Didn't I say it was God who rescued them?
Just have a look in your concordance and see how often erets is translated land or country and how often it is translated earth. Or look in Exodus where the same language is used to describe the plague of locusts that covered the land of Egypt as was used to describe flood that covered the whole earth. Exodus 10:14 And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. 15 For they covered the face of the whole earth.
That is how theories are tested in science. You see if the evidence fits. It is not that science organises the fossils around the universal common descent, but science can organise the fossils that way, the fact that the fossils all fit, when a single unlink, an intermediate fossil where there shouldn't be one would blow the whole theory. But as Gruj has admitted, not a single unlink has been found. Not only can evolution explain the fossils, but creationism can't. It cannot explain why only intermediate forms that fit universal common descent have been found. There should either be no intermediate forms between separately created kinds, or if God really like to created chimeras, there should be a wide range of different intermediate forms, not just the one that fit universal common descent.
Have a look at what I said to Mark about heliocentrism. Science doesn't tell us how to interpret the bible, but if it shows us an interpretation is wrong, we need to go back to the bible and find a better interpretation from scripture.
Creationism is in the literal, interpretation and data. Christian Darwinists are known for picking literal passages to support their views. Also, physical science is secondary, though it also supports Creationism.
Darwinism cannot explain the fossil evidence when the mechanism itself has been shown to be impotent. Also, the fossil evidence does not conform to Darwinism's tree of life and Creationism can in fact explain it.
An "intermediate form" assumes common descent. You cannot find an intermediate form which doesn't conform to common descent since any fossil which does not conform to Darwinism will not be labeled as an "intermediate form" in the first place. For example. A Case for the Calaveras Skull
Actually there is a wide degree of diversity in creation. You simply draw arrows.
There is in fact a wide degree of diversity. Departing from contingency (specific systems dependent on each other), if all aquatic animals were defined as having gills, then when fish with lungs were set- chimera. So you back track say no no no, something else.
And I pointed out in that other thread that Paul already showed in Romans how Gentile who don't have the law of Moses show that they have God's law written in their hearts Rom 2:14&15. However you have not shown sin spread like a plague. If Romans describes anything spreading it was death, not sin, and death spread because all men sinned. Rom 5:12 and so death spread to all men because all sinned. So all men sinning is the cause of this spread of death. Paul give the sinfulness of mankind as the cause of Adam's death spreading not the result of Adam's sin.
How far back can an 'inherent sin nature' go (ignoring the fact the bible doesn't actually talk about sin nature). Look at a primitive primate with no moral concept at all, how can it have a sin nature? The mind must be developed enough for moral awareness, just as a child must be old enough to understand right and wrong before it can sin.
So you realise one of the main characters in the drama was a metaphor, but you don't think the story could be interpreted metaphorically? It doesn't matter that creationists can try to fit a metaphorical snake into the narrative, your problem here is thinking it is impossible to interpret the narrative metaphorically. Of course you will find it impossible to find a metaphorical interpretation if you keep holding on to your literalist interpretation, but that is not really searching for metaphorical interpretations that works, is it? And if you haven't actually looked properly, how can you possibly claim it can't be interpreted metaphorically?
Because Eve's conversation with a metaphorical snake and God cursing the metaphorical snake with snaky punishments it is evidence of the story being a metaphor.
You mean like the church reinterpreted all the geocentric passages when Copernicus Kepler and Newton showed the earth went round the sun? Do you think the church was wrong, that5 it should have kept its geocentric interpretation rather than make it fit the heliocentrist's suggestion the earth goes round the sun? If the sun didn't go round the earth then their geocentric interpretations were wrong and finding a better way to interpret the passages was hardly downplaying the text. On the other hand, your insistence that scriptural metaphor and parables are 'fairy tales' and 'fables' is downplaying the text, and unworthy of a follower of the greatest parable teller in history of the world.
So you asked what was special about Noah's flood, asked and answered. God was with them and delivered them.
No it is just very easy to misinterpret the details, like thinking it meant a global flood when the text can mean Noah's land was flooded. Finding the proper interpretation is not downplaying the details, not does reading more into a passage mean you are right. Catholics think the bread and wine are literally changed into Jesus body and blood. To them a symbolic interpretation is downplaying this amazing miracle. But thinking it is downplaying is not an argument that they are right.
Maybe God didn't want to do it that way, he is God, you can't second guess him. I think I have already addressed the difficulties of a migration, and the advantages both practically and as a symbol of going by boat.
No it's not the only reason. You really have to get out of the mindset of thinking the only explanation you can come up with is the only explanation there is. Other reasons include the fact the geological evidence says there wasn't a global flood, the biological evidence that there wasn't a genetic bottleneck among humans or animal in the last four thousand years,
Sure it is. Certainly if your whole argument is based on mistaking your understanding of God's reason for what God's reason really was. Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Yet you think your explanation of the ark contradicts any other interpretation of the flood where your explanation would not work. All that means is God did something you don't understand, and that is not argument against it.
Assuming God wanted to purge every creature on earth. You really need to get you head out of you own interpretation before you can seriously examine other ways to interpret the passages.
Assuming God wanted to purge every creature on earth.
Yes a global flood fit all your explanations of God reasons for a global flood.
And they would have to ignore all the evidence it didn't happen.
you mean the fossil lying in beds running through the mountains rather than sitting on top like they were washed there by a flood? Pity there is no evidence for tectonic plates moving and mountains rising where they collide. Oh wait, yes there is.
