Do Genesis literalists also take the rest of the Bible literally?

[verysincere]

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[verysincere]

This is the first time I have seen any one has explain "the evening and the morning" this way. I have to admit I always thought the terminology supported the intention that GEN1 was refering to 24 hour days. Interesting...

Obviously, these forums don't allow for anything approaching a scholarly presentation but there is a LOT that I could add (which I have published extensively in other venues) to illustrate just how much we do NOT know for sure about an ancient culture and a language no longer spoken. (Those who claim that modern Hebrew is so very similar to Biblical Hebrew are right and wrong at the same time----which basically means they are WRONG.) And we don't know how many languages/dialects (and cultures) the Genesis 1 account may have passed through orally before the Pentateuch was first written. But even if it was all in Hebrew from the beginning does NOT mean that the Hebrew of 2000 B.C. involved the same semantic domains, syntax, idioms, etc. etc. as the Hebrew of the Late Prophets 1500 years later.

So my point is that whenever you hear someone say that they know 100% for sure EXACTLY what Genesis 1 states in detail, they are simply illustrating Kruger-Dunning.

Yes, someone can read Genesis 1 in English and know what it means---and I will summarize it. "God created everything." and "God is superior to all of those pagan gods of the neighboring peoples." I could add other details but we MUST keep in mind that it is NOT meant to be a scientific treatise. It is a theological message to an ancient culture.

Here's an example of the kind of detail we do NOT know for sure: Is the SIX YOM account in Genesis 1 meant to be understood as a CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER TIMELINE of a historical sequence? I spent years as a Young Earth Creationist before being honest with the evidence of what the Hebrew text ACTUALLY states---and I don't know for sure the answer to that question. (If someone else knows, they are welcomed to explain what they know using EVIDENCE from the Hebrew text.) I am willing to say what I think are the most likely conclusions from the text but I would never be so ARROGANT as to claim that I have the final answers and be willing to put my favorite TRADITION into the text and put the words in God's mouth like many here are willing to do.

 

[KWCrazy]

This is the first time I have seen any one has explain "the evening and the morning" this way. I have to admit I always thought the terminology supported the intention that GEN1 was refering to 24 hour days. Interesting...

That's only because, as usual, VS is misrepresenting what is written.
Interestingly, the very first time the word is used, in Genesis 1:5, it is strictly defined as the light portion of a light/dark cycle as the earth rotated underneath a directional light source, producing day and night. It is also true that whenever "day" is modified by a number, like second day or six days, it can only mean a true solar day. There are no exceptions in Hebrew. Any uncertainty is resolved in the Ten Commandments as God commands us to work six days and rest one day just as He worked on the six creation days and rested on day seven.
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The Hebrew word for day yom can mean an indefinite period of time. In the context, as qualified by 'evening and morning' it can mean only one thing, namely the 24 hour day that we know today where the sun rises and sets. Even those who do not accept the view of Genesis 1 as being literal do assert that it means a 24 hour day, but they do not accept it as being true for evolutionary or other reasons. They thus are acknowledging what the writer intended to say as being literal 24 hour days but rejecting the facts presented by the author of Genesis.

If the days were meant to be longer, such as 7000 years, then that would mean that the Sabbath day of rest mentioned in Exodus 20:8-11, which alludes specifically to Genesis 1 would have required the Israelites to rest for 7000 years every sabbath, which is clearly not feasible and clearly illogical. 'Scripture interprets scripture' as a clear principle for rightly understanding the word of God, comes into play here.
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When Moses, under the inspiration of God, compiled the account of creation in Genesis 1, he used the Hebrew word yôm for ‘day’. He combined yôm with numbers (‘first day’, ‘second day’, ‘third day’, etc.) and with the words ‘evening and morning’, and the first time he employed it he carefully defined the meaning of yôm (used in this way) as being one night/day cycle. Thereafter, throughout the Bible, yôm used in this way always refers to a normal 24–hour day. There is thus a prima facie case that, when God used the word yôm in this way, He intended to convey that the days of creation were 24 hours long.

yôm combined with ‘light’ and ‘darkness’, would have signified ‘and it was a day of light and darkness’. This could be ambiguous because of the symbolic use of ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ elsewhere in the Old Testament. However, yôm with ‘evening and morning’, especially with a number preceding it, can never be ambiguous.
eth (‘time’) combined with ‘day’ and ‘night’ as in Jeremiah 33:20 and Zechariah 14:7 could have been ambiguous. Likewise eth combined with ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ (a theoretical construction). If any of these forms had been used, the length of the ‘days’ of creation would have been widely open for debate. However, God chose not to use any of these.

Professor James Barr, professor of Hebrew at Oxford University agrees that the words used in Genesis 1 refer to ‘a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience’, and he says that he knows of no professor of Hebrew at any leading university who would say otherwise.
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Exodus 20: 9-11
"Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, not thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

 

[CabVet]

The fact that you didn't recognise the dietary laws as being cultural makes me doubt that.

Oh, I did recognize that, the problem (and lack of consistency) is that Genesis is not put in the same social/cultural as those other passages by the average YEC folk.

 

[CabVet]

Sorry. I answered the OP before I read the rest of CabVet's posts.

I thought he was sincere but it looks like he just wants to bicker and belittle Christians.

I am neither bickering nor belittling anybody, if you have evidence for that, please put it forward. All I am trying to understand is why some passages of the Bible are put in the proper social and cultural context while others are not.

 

[verysincere]

KWCrazy mangles Hebrew exegesis as badly as he mangles radiometric dating, basic geology, and science in general. (And when it comes to logic, forget it.) He confuses what the Bible actually says with his favorite sect's TRADITIONS.

No. God is not a deceiver. Not a deceiver in his creation and not a deceiver in the Genesis text. (I seriously doubt that KWCrazy has ANY experience in Hebrew exegesis. His comments indicate NONE.)

 

[AV1611VET]

I seriously doubt that KWCrazy has ANY experience in Hebrew exegesis.

Should he have to have?

 

[CabVet]

No Christian I've ever met says that. Do you have data to support your hypothesis?

Really? Here:

Even some of the more ridiculous laws (such as not wearing clothes made of more than one material) make sense in historical context: the Canaanites, one of the Israelis most hated enemies, used to wear mixed clothing, and they were told not to imitate them. Today it would be a bit like asking the British army not to goose-step.

Historical context = cultural context.

I'd be lying if I said everything which was taught 2,000 years ago reflected the way we think today.

2,000 years ago = different culture.

Christians differ on whether it applies universally or only to a specific time and place.

Specific place and time = different culture.

Regarding Leviticus, as it has been pointed out many times there was no refrigeration back then, no knowledge of what caused trichinosis, no understanding of botulism etc. Beyond that, the laws were written for a besieged nation under constant threat of war.

No refrigeration, lack of knowledge = different culture.

How is that not related to culture and society back then?

And once again, I am perfectly fine with people dismissing those laws and saying that they apply only to the culture/society back then. What I don't understand is why they don't make the same with Genesis.

 

[Loudmouth]

People who don't understand science make the most unbelievable statements. Seriously, if you don't understand the limitations of sceince, then you don't understand anything about it.

Science can't explain miracles. Denying their existence doesn't make them go away. Denying God doesn't make Him go away.

So you think that calling something a miracle makes it so science can not investigate it? Do you really think that is how science works?

Fine then. Lightning is a miracle. Science is no longer qualified to study lightning. Diseases are a mircle, therefore all scientific research done on infectious diseases can stop right now and all of those scientists can go home. Atoms are a miracle. Time to close down the LHC. Stars are a miracle. I guess we can stop using the Hubble Telescope now.

Need I go on?

 

[verysincere]

Fine then. Lightning is a miracle. Science is no longer qualified to study lightning. Diseases are a mircle, therefore all scientific research done on infectious diseases can stop right now and all of those scientists can go home. Atoms are a miracle. Time to close down the LHC. Stars are a miracle. I guess we can stop using the Hubble Telescope now.

Need I go on?

No fair! You're using logic! (And everybody knows that logic comes from Satan. I can even provide irrelevant Bible texts which say so---because I say that they say so!)



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[keith99]

(My emphasis) If you've heard my interpretation before then it sound like you got an answer before.


I suspect you've read bits of it. If you'd read the whole thing (not easy, I know) you'd already know most of the answers to the points you listed in your OP.


Why doesn't what apply to Genesis? Also, evolution has nothing to do with our salvation - no more than understanding how volcanos works does. Contrary to popular belief, evolution is not some magic key which unlocks the door to enlightenment.

Actually it is, but only in a very limited scope. It does open the door to understanding of the structures and behaviors in some living beings.

 

[keith99]

If God blesses a hamster, you can eat a hamster.
If God blesses hemlock, you can drink hemlock.
If God blesses toadstools, you can eat toadstools.
If God blesses pork, shellfish, or anything else you can fit in your mouth, you can eat it.
Just as God blessed a few loaves and fishes and fed thousands, God will provide for His own. That was the message God gave to Peter.

Personally, I think it's rather disgusting when people attempt to use the Bible to discredit it by distorting what is written or taking it out of context. You bring this back to Genesis and attempt to say that the very clear, very specific statements and time frames that are spelled out there must be allegorical as well, but there is no ambiguity in "the evening and the morning." Everyone knows that defines a day. Everyone knows that water 15 cubits over a mountaintop means a global flood. You just refuse to accept anything that violates your molecules-to-man denial of Creation.

Bolding mine.

And morning is when the sun rises and evening when it sets.

Sort of a problem when for the first 2 or 3 days there is no sun!

Oops.

 

[verysincere]

Oh, I did recognize that, the problem (and lack of consistency) is that Genesis is not put in the same social/cultural as those other passages by the average YEC folk.

Frankly, because Young Earth Creationists (as just one example of a minority sect within the world's Christian community which obsesses on forcing their favorite TRADITIONS into the Biblical text as if they were the voice of God) have such a lack of knowledge of the Biblical text and the technical skills necessary for accurate translation and interpretation, I am not at all surprised that their inconsistencies would leave you perplexed about their beliefs.

One reason I posted the summary of the text critical, exegetical, hermeneutical, and APPLICATION aspects of the Biblical corpus was to empathize with you on this topic. Moreover, the GREATER shortcoming of so many of the fundamentalist groups who claim to know the one and only answer to every interpretive question is the Biblical teaching of HUMILITY. Christians should do a better job of separating what is CLEAR from the Genesis 1 text (e.g., "God created everything") from what is NOT CLEAR (e.g., "God created everything instantaneously and with embedded age.", which cannot be found in the text.)

I could go through each of the listed questions/contexts one by one---but I'm sure no one here would accept my answers even if I wrote each one of a length and copious detail suitable for publication in a theological journal. (And most would be baffled by the scholarly terminology and the Hebrew exegesis and even cognate language sources and clues.)

Even pastors with a basic M.Div. degree from a top graduate school spend a LOT of semester hours dealing with many of these topics. The fact that the average person finds these issues somewhat overwhelming is no more surprising than the fact that the average person finds topics like "global warming" overwhelming and confusing and wonders who they should believe. **

** Yes. I know very well the next question and statement which follows from my post above. But just as in astrophysics, just because the average person doesn't understand the evidence behind the Big Bang Theory, doesn't mean that nobody does. And it is NOT true that the Bible has to be understood completely by EVERYBODY in EVERY DETAIL in order to not be an ambiguous, irrelevant document (i.e., 66 books.)

 

[KWCrazy]

So you think that calling something a miracle makes it so science can not investigate it? Do you really think that is how science works?
Fine then. Lightning is a miracle. Science is no longer qualified to study lightning. Diseases are a mircle, therefore all scientific research done on infectious diseases can stop right now and all of those scientists can go home. Atoms are a miracle. Time to close down the LHC. Stars are a miracle. I guess we can stop using the Hubble Telescope now.
Need I go on?

No, but you DO neeed to make an intelligent argument.
Let's start with a very simple miracle. Jesus turned water into wine. Having personally made wine, I know this requires fruit, yeast, water and time. Jesus converted water into wine by speaking to it. Please show me the scientific process for re-creating this experiment.

Lightning is not a miracle, but a natural action which can be replicated easily enough. Try calming a storm by telling it to be still. Please explain how science can replicate the miracle. It can't, because miracles are violations of natural law. Science studies natural law and is limited by those the same limitations. If something can be explained away it may be an extreme coincidence, but it's not a miracle.

I'll give you an example of a modern miracle.

One Thursday afternoon I got a call informing me that my younger brother (I had four) was found dead in his apartment. He had been lying for 10 hours in 80 degree heat before they got him to the funeral home. His body was not viewable. One of my brothers who lived near him went there and was actually with him for over an hour before they came to take the body. Fortunately, he had been a paramedic and had seen far worse cases, but as he said the image will still haunt him. I drove back home to help make the arrangements.

Over the next day and a half I began to find out things about the person I thought that I had known for 37 years. As I helped to clean out his apartment, I discovered that I didn’t know the person who lived there, and I so very much wish I had.

My brother had juvenile onset diabetes. He spent his entire life in poor health, punctuated with seizures, low sugar reactions and other complications from the disease. He was unable to get much assistance from the state, declared ineligible for disability and unable to work in most fields. True, there were jobs he could have done, but after repeatedly being denied assistance while minorities in much greater health were given preferential treatment, he grew hateful and bitter. He had a mouth that would embarrass a pirate and hated, literally hated children because they were healthy and he never was.

He lived with various family members, but was such a negative influence on the children he simply wore out his welcome. We could not subject our children to abuse just to take care of someone who wouldn’t take care of himself. We loved him, but he refused to help himself and would not allow us to help him. In time he ended up at a rescue mission in Muskegon, Mich. I didn’t see him much, since I only get up there a couple of times per year. He was homeless and without hope. It was the most critical experience of his life.

One of the people who reached out to the homeless and the poor was a Reverend named Smith. He and my brother had some interesting conversations at first. He would talk about God and my brother would try and prove to him why God did not exist. Eventually my brother not only lost the argument, he began to stop wallowing in his self pity and look at the world around him. He was surrounded by people who were worse off than he was. He began to change.

My brother turned his life around, accepted Christ, was baptized, and became a deacon in the church. He lived in a low rent housing complex that was predominantly black. In the time that we were there, at least a dozen people came up to us and told us how much they loved him and things he had done for them. He loaded wheelchair-bound people in a van that barely ran and drove them to church. He went to the store for shut-ins and brought the correct change back. He oversaw the food pantry while his own cupboards were sparse. He spent hours helping the choir rehearse, videotaping the services and helping out any way he could. The profanity stopped. The pornography was erased from his computer hard drive and replaced by Bible study information. He developed a thirst for the knowledge of God and without fail always completed his Bible study assignments. The Reverend was black. Most of the congregation was black. Most of his neighbors were black. My brother, once among the most bigoted persons on the planet, loved and was loved by them all.

The change in my brother was profound. He was a lost soul who finally sought and found salvation. The change in him was so complete it could only be the work of Almighty God. Human personalities are not subject to such enormous change of their own accord. The Reverend said that he had no doubt when he first met my brother that he was NOT saved, and had no doubt when he died that he was.

So then, my feelings are very mixed with his passing. I wish I could have been with him, but he was where he needed to be; just as he is now where Christ promised he would be. His final days were spent in service to those who were less fortunate than himself. On the last day of his life, he walked over a mile in 80 degree heat to go to the store for a shut it. For his repentance his sins were forgiven and he was finally relieved of the suffering that was ever present during his lifetime. He was allowed to leave a word of pain and sickness and was welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven.

This was a true miracle of a loving God who refused to give up on a lost sinner.

 

[KWCrazy]

Bolding mine.
And morning is when the sun rises and evening when it sets.
Sort of a problem when for the first 2 or 3 days there is no sun!
Oops.

Not at all. There was light. And God separated the light from the darkness. This can only be done by blocking light. The only thing in the universe to block light was the earth, but if the earth was already in rotation you would have day and night anyway. So there was a source of light on the earth from the beginning, and the evening and the morning were the first day.

Now, how LONG was it? The distance of the light source to the earth is meaningless when figuring the duration of the days and nights. That is determined by the rotation of the earth. Science tells us that that rotation is slowling a little as time goes by, which would be expected. It's more likely that the days were less than 24 hours then that they were more; maybe by a few minutes; maybe by a few seconds.

On day four the source of light became the sun, moon and stars. This fits with the "Big Bang" theory with the exception that the earth was already formed.

There ARE questions that could be asked.
1. Adam and Eve were the first people God created. Were they the ONLY ones? When Cain "knew his wife," was she a sister or another created human? Was she a fallen angel?

2. Ouside of our galaxy are many other galaxies. Are they other worlds? Were they created first? Is the story of God in our world an exclusive story, or are there others out there?

There are questions that could be asked without taking anything away from the truth of Genesis. There are many things that science can tell us about our world that we wouldn't know otherwise. However, the evidence for God's existence is too strong and too personal to put any credence in molecules-to-man theories.

 

[verysincere]

This was a true miracle of a loving God who refused to give up on a lost sinner.

1) Yes. People can change for profound theological reasons. But (a) I doubt that anyone would deny that that happens, and (b) how is it relevant to the OP, a question about Biblical hermeneutics?

2) You emphasize miracles. OK. Consider this:

a) Scientists assume the same definition of "miracle" that everybody else uses: "that which is not explainable by natural processes"

b) The Bible assumes the same definition: "that which is not explainable by natural processes"
So where's the conflict here?

c) Science itself has nothing to say about "miracles" because (i) science can investigate only that which is associated with EVIDENCE. (ii) science is not the same thing as theology, so science does not evaluate statements about God and the supernatural. Science studies the natural world, things associated with evidence in the natural world. (iii) Likewise, theology is not science. And most of us think that theology was not MEANT to be science. So why confuse the two? [I said NOTHING about the relative merits of each nor how they may overlap and interact. But I am saying that they have very different methodologies and boundaries. For example, theology studies everything; science does not---because science can't study that for which there is no natural evidence or inference from same.]

So what is the point in arguing about miracles? (I'm not saying anybody here is arguing with you about miracles. I'm not even sure that miracles have much to do with the OP---because HOWEVER one interprets even the Biblical texts about miracles doesn't determine whether or not the reader will decide that the Biblical text is true and historical. People make that decision individually, regardless of what the text states or means.)

 

[Split Rock]

1) Yes. People can change for profound theological reasons. But (a) I doubt that anyone would deny that that happens, and (b) how is it relevant to the OP, a question about Biblical hermeneutics?

2) You emphasize miracles. OK. Consider this:

a) Scientists assume the same definition of "miracle" that everybody else uses: "that which is not explainable by natural processes"

b) The Bible assumes the same definition: "that which is not explainable by natural processes"
So where's the conflict here?

c) Science itself has nothing to say about "miracles" because (i) science can investigate only that which is associated with EVIDENCE. (ii) science is not the same thing as theology, so science does not evaluate statements about God and the supernatural. Science studies the natural world, things associated with evidence in the natural world. (iii) Likewise, theology is not science. And most of us think that theology was not MEANT to be science. So why confuse the two? [I said NOTHING about the relative merits of each nor how they may overlap and interact. But I am saying that they have very different methodologies and boundaries. For example, theology studies everything; science does not---because science can't study that for which there is no natural evidence or inference from same.]

So what is the point in arguing about miracles? (I'm not saying anybody here is arguing with you about miracles. I'm not even sure that miracles have much to do with the OP---because HOWEVER one interprets even the Biblical texts about miracles doesn't determine whether or not the reader will decide that the Biblical text is true and historical. People make that decision individually, regardless of what the text states or means.)

I think the point is that if the creation of the earth was a miracle, then science cannot be used to study the creation of the earth. Of course, that hardly precludes accessing its age, however.

 

[Papias]

The examples in the OP are mostly morally or otherwise ugly social examples. Perhaps it would be better to look at examples that contradict scientific evidence?

For instance, Ex 19:4 (God says he flew the Jews out of Egypt on Eagle's wings, like in The Hobbit), and so on. In Ex 19:4, if the whole section were exactly the same, and a few words were changed (to say "walked you out", say) then everyone would say it has to be interpreted literally. So it can't be due to context. The only objection is that from a scientific basis, it's difficult to transport a million people using eagles.

Another example is the flat earth/solid dome stuff- things that Christians have interpreted literally for centuries before the enlightenment.

Flat Earth-
Bible tells us that the earth is flat like a piece of clay stamped under a seal (Job 38:13-14), that it has edges as only a flat plane would (Job 38:13-14,.Psa 19:4), that it is a circular disk (Isa 40:22), and that its entire surface can be seen from a high tree (Dan 4:10-11) or mountain (Matt 4:8), which is impossible for a sphere, but possible for a flat disk. Taken literally, as the YECs insist we do, any one of these passages shows a flat earth. Taken together, they are even more clear.

We live in a Planetarium-
The Bible describes the sky (firmament -- literally "metal flattened by a hammer"- Gen 1:6-8, 1:14-17) as a solid dome, like a tent (Isa 40:22, Psa 19:4, 104:2), that is arched over the surface of the earth. It also has windows to let rain/snow in (Gen 7:11, 8:2, Deut 28:12, 2 Kings 7:2, Job 37:18, Mal 3:10, Rev 4:1). Ezekiel 1:22 and Job 37:18 even tell us that it's hard like bronze and sparkles like ice, that God walks on it (Job 22:14) and can be removed (Rev 6:14). Taken literally, as the YECs insist we do, these verses show a solid sky above us. And again, many Christians in history have interpreted it as such.

Papias

 

[Radagast]

Good bye science! Welcome to the united Taliban states of America!

Don't you think that's just a little extreme? Most Americans believed those things in the past, and there was no "Taliban" -- although there was a strong religiously-motivated anti-slavery movement.

 

[verysincere]

Don't you think that's just a little extreme? Most Americans believed those things in the past, and there was no "Taliban" -- although there was a strong religiously-motivated anti-slavery movement.

Yes, he has a tendency to get carried away when it comes to ignoring the FACTS OF HISTORY and pesky little things called EVIDENCE when he is ranting against his enemies. (He properly identifies the silliest posts but then he tends to go to the opposite extremes in trying to shoot them down. His heart is in the right place but it appears that he is young and a bit emotional to where his mind doesn't always catch up with him in restraining his zeal---and so he tends to go overboard into a similar "silly land.")