I would like to see some evidence that shows that Genesis is nothing but a fable or myth. It's fine if that is someone's interpretation, but all we have to appeal to is godless science. Isn't it idolatry to take man's opinion (science) and place it above God's Word? Apparently not, to the Christian Darwinists.
However, the problem is, the rest of scripture can easily be dismissed as stories, myths and fables too. Why stop at Genesis? Why not do the same with the gospels too? Why not dismiss any phrase or expression in the Bible we do not like as a mere myth and "not to be taken literally?" A literal resurrection? Nah. A literal crucifixion? Nope, just a metaphor for us dying to self. A literal Jesus? No. Just a metaphor for the Christ within us all (sounds strikingly New Age to me). A literal God? Nope; just an impersonal energy force, or the Universe itself. Where does it end?
If we're going to throw out the foundation of the Bible (Creation, sin, the Fall, the devil as a temptor), where do we stop? Why even bother stopping?
Evolution says there is no need for any supernatural entity to have caused the Big Bang, so why believe in a god at all - let alone the God of Christianity? Is fear of hell that strong? (What if hell's a myth and a metaphor for walking in spiritual darkness?) The list goes on.
These are questions for the Christian Darwinists I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer to. But then, science has never had the answers for me. I don't worship science. I worship the True God of heaven and earth. Amen.
You're mischaracterizing your opponents, and that's hardly living under God's Word, either.
Christians who adhere to theistic evolution take cues from science on how to interpret the Scriptures. However, one should never read the Scriptures in light of science of one's interpretation does violence to the text. That, however, is simply not the case with the biblical passages on human origins.
The modern evolutionary synthesis (the name of the scientific theory, not "Darwinism") demands an old universe as confirmed by astronomy and geology. It therefore suggests that the Scriptures would not present a contrary view if the Scriptures are indeed the revelation of the creator-God. As it so happens, the Scriptures demand neither a young universe (six-to-ten thousand years old) nor a literal six-day creation.
Genesis 1 presents itself as a poetic, literary framework (though not a poem
per se). The six days correspond to three dual realities. Days one, two, and three deal with the creation of realms that are inhabited by the creator-rulers of days four, five, and six.
Day one portrays the creation of light and dark, which are ruled over by the sun and the moon of day four.
Day two portrays the creation of sky and sea, which are ruled over by the birds and fish of day five.
Day three portrays the creation of land, which is ruled over by animals and man of day six.
Day seven, finally, is a capstone where all creation comes together in the Sabbath rest.
The Priestly account in Genesis ch. 1 thus emphasizes themes important to ancient Israel.
The creator-God, Yahweh, created our world on purpose. Other ancient Near Eastern creation-myths depicted creation rising out of the chopped up remains of gods killed in primordial battle or from the biological refuse ([bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]) of gods. Such a creation is accidental. In Genesis 1, the God of Israel, the creator-God, Yahweh, creates on purpose.
In a similar vein, creation is orderly. There is a specific parallelism between rulers (sun and moon, fish and birds, animals and humans) and realms (day and night, sky and sea, and dry land with the plants upon it). The nations surrounding Israel believed that creation was an accident, which happened in a disorderly fashion after a prehistorical war (or mating) of the gods. Genesis 1 emphasizes that creation is orderly (and thus leads into Genesis 2 and 3, where we, not Yahweh, are at fault for screwing it up).
Furthermore, Genesis 1 stresses that Yahweh alone is a god, the only God. It does this by stressing that the creature-rulers are created by Yahweh with their own purposes rather than divine beings. We should all know that the ancient polytheists worshiped the sun (Egyptian Ra), the moon (Arabian Allah), bird-gods (Egyptian Horus), fish-gods (Moabite Chemosh), lion-gods (Ishtar), or bull-gods (Marduk). The first chapter of Genesis is, perhaps more than anything else, a beautiful poetic polemic against that most-offensive of sins, polytheism.
Last, the triple parallel of the days of realms and creature-rulers is capped off by the non-parallel day of the Sabbath, where all creation finds its consummation and rest. Obviously, the Sabbath was central to ancient Israelite (and modern Jewish) identity.
And, of course, it even has a refrain: "And God say that it was good. And it was evening, and it was morning. The Xth day." I'm sorry but it is has a refrain, its poetic, and you should never, ever take the order of stanzas literally in a poem.
So there you have it. Genesis 1 is
not about our modern cosmological/scientific concerns, but about the concerns of the ancient Israelite community in which it was written. By taking it literally, you actually do damage to the text. You take away from the great themes of ancient Israel by using it in your own private war against science- a concern that has a lot more to do with finding counter-identity in a postmodern world than with affirming the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And speaking of the gospel of Jesus Christ...
However, the problem is, the rest of scripture can easily be dismissed as stories, myths and fables too. Why stop at Genesis? Why not do the same with the gospels too? Why not dismiss any phrase or expression in the Bible we do not like as a mere myth and "not to be taken literally?" A literal resurrection? Nah. A literal crucifixion? Nope, just a metaphor for us dying to self. A literal Jesus? No. Just a metaphor for the Christ within us all (sounds strikingly New Age to me). A literal God? Nope; just an impersonal energy force, or the Universe itself. Where does it end?
This is why your argument, an attempt at
reductio ad absurdum, fails miserably. Theistic evolutionists do not simply take Genesis 1 non-literally in order to accommodate science; they do so because the text itself prompts them to find its far more important themes in its poetic, Psalm-like structure specifically by taking it non-literally.
The same cannot be said to be true for the gospels. The gospels definitely have message in their structure, and the evangelists have certainly
ordered episodes in order to emphasize their four distinct themes (the three desert temptation narratives, for instance, occur in different orders in Matthew and Luke). However, all of them promote a single message that compels belief in a historical narrative wherein the problem of the exile and human sinfulness and God's covenant faithfulness are summed up in the historical crucifixion and historical resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The trouble with both your view and the view of someone who would make metaphors out of both is that instead of letting each individual text speak for itself and reveal itself in unique ways, you and the allegorist would rather have the text smashed into a single format. That simply doesn't do justice to the diverse forms and beauty contained within the literary heritage of Israel and the first Christians.
Boo ya.
