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Look Speedwell, I never said that everything is either 100% history or a lie. I just see it this way in Genesis, because the book is written as history whether you like it or not, so if it is not accurate history then I consider it a lie. Also, what's hostile sounding about me taking a firm stance on the truth of Genesis? You have yet to explain your reasoning for why you interpret Genesis 2-3 as fiction when the rest of the book was clearly written as non-fiction.
God wasn't setting a norm: He was setting a limit. Don't you think given our advancements in technology and medicine that we would be surviving much longer than that, though? It seems as though God may be squishing our pride.
Of course I keep telling you that the Garden story* is written as a legitimate form of historical narrative, not fiction, but you are not paying attention.
That's a good, common sense explanation. The vantage point of much of the OT was the Babylonian captivity. The devastation of yet another enslavement, the loss of the Temple and their nationalist pride, all this lead the Hebrew preist to recast their history into a "thriller" that would prop up the flagging faith of the scattered Israelites. It worked, in fact it's still working!
Whatever is not the truth is indeed a lie. Genesis is a historical account from start to finish: all one has to do is read it to understand it as such. You have yet to justify your confusing explanation.
And so the Doctrine of Perspicuity rears its ugly head. No--not unless you read biblical Hebrew fluently and are aware of the historical and cultural setting in which the text was written and the literary forms then in use, both in the Bible and in extra-biblical related literature.
And so the Doctrine of Ambiguity rears its ugly head. Good luck understanding Genesis my friend.
I certainly can't do it alone. A full understanding of scripture requires all of the scholarly resources we can bring to bear--literary scholars, linguists, historians, archaeologists, sociologists--the Word of God deserves no less.
I just read Genesis and believe what it says. I'm sure the prophets, apostles, and Jesus would have no problem with this.
I do all the time. they are a wonderful set of stories. Each time I read one thoughtfully I find something new in it, some different way of seeing it. Scholarship always helps though. Much of it doesn't come out in English translation--the puns in the Garden story, for example, or the selection of numbers for their numerological significance rather than factual accuracy.
Care to explain?
Do you read Genesis for entertainment, or do you read Genesis for truth and doctrine concerning the beginning of human history?
In other words, people could lie about the facts as much as they wanted to, but as long as the narrative structure was good it would be considered truth?
Within much wider limits than is considered good practice nowadays, yes. Even as late as the 1st century an educated Greek like St. Luke writing in an historical form with relatively narrow limits would consider it acceptable to reconstruct plausible quotes from documents he had not seen or conversations he had no access to witnesses of, practices which would completely discredit a modern historian.
The authors' spiritual acuity divinely enhanced. Of course, their perceptions of the natural world were not altered, so they wrote from their own perspectives in that respect.
