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It is also consistent with a symbolic understanding of the creation account. The difference is that TEs have the evidence found in God's creation on their side.
We apply the same accommodationist hermeneutic to the text that we apply when we read about the authors' belief in a flat-earth, geocentric solar system. If we're going to allow for man's limited perspective and understanding to enter into the Scripture's description of the universe, then to be consistent, we must also allow for man's limited perspective and understanding to enter into the Scripture's description of history, too.
Moses and Jesus explained the existential purpose of our existence, they didn't try to explain the natural mechanisms of our universe. Science does try to explain the natural mechanisms of our universe, and it does a very good job of it. Something science cannot do is explain the existential purpose of the universe.
This is an interesting passage. I think it is worth thinking about how you read it. Who is Paul talking to and addressing his point to? Clearly he is writing to the whole church in Corinth and by implication all of us too. But do we see it simply as warning each one individually: be on the look out, one of the first two people on earth was deceived by the serpent, we should each make sure we are not deceived?
Of course Paul also used Adam and Eve regularly to teach on marriage. He draws on them as God's model of what marriage should and shouldn't be. The question is, are Paul's teachings drawn from the literal implications of the text or from the allegorical symbolism? Why should who was oldest in the first marriage affect who had the leadership in marriages ever after regardless of whether husband or wife was older. It certainly doesn't follow from a simply historical consequence, but makes sense if Paul is treating it as a picture of God's plan for marriage. Again as simply historical consequence, how does it matter if Eve was the one who was deceived. 1Tim 2:14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. There is no shortage of men have been deceived since and no shortage of biblical characters who were deceived by women. I have yet to find a convincing literal explanation of the next verse.
How many parables are about the end of the world and the last judgement? Would Jesus compare real events with stories he made up? Well, yes he did it all the time.
It is hardly speaking historically if it has Noah, Daniel and Job living in the same country at the same time. but I think the bigger problem is as you mention theological, how could anyone deliver their own souls by their righteousness?
Don't confuse the idea of Creation being real with the descriptions of God creating it being literal. God could just as easily describe the creation and fall in a parable or allegory as Christ could the end of the world. And simply stating that the description in Genesis are no parables does not answer my point that if they were parables, it would not prevent Jesus using the stories to warn of coming judgement. Incidentally I do believe in a real flood, I just don't think the passages are describing a global one, certainly Jesus never said anything about the extent of Noah's flood.
Leaving aside your supposed insight into our motivation, simply calling on 'the preponderance of scripture' is not that great an argument. Each passage you claim supports a literal interpretation need to be examined and you can't simply take each one and say it interprets Genesis historically because the preponderance of the other scriptures are literal. That is simply begging the question.
Again you are calling on your interpretation of other passages to avoid dealing with the questions about this one. It is probably worth considering he question of mindset yourself, how many of the passages where you think Jesus or Paul are interpreting Genesis historically is this simply because that is how you interpret Genesis?
As we have seen from the responses, TEs are often much better at spotting when Jesus is not speaking literally than creationists who constrained by a commitment to literalism and will tend not to realise a passage is a metaphor or parable unless it explicitly says "The kingdom of heaven can be likened unto.." However they are in good company, one thing that struck me reading the gospel was how much trouble the disciples had getting to grips with Jesus metaphors and parables.
Did Jesus even mention Adam and Eve? What about Cain? We have already looked at how Jesus mentioned Abel in a phrase that is both a hyperbole and a metonymy for the whole Old Testament.
Seeing as we have all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, I am not sure what advantage there is thinking you know how and when the first sin happened.
I like light hearted, it is so much better than accusing people of closing their minds, choosing not to believe, dishonesty and being shallow. But blowing it all off? No we have given you in depth thoughtful responses to your claims.
I think Shernren has answered this pretty well, it is simply not how Paul uses the word saved. I am surprised at JBF claiming "Through, or by, is often so used to express not the means of her salvation, but the circumstances AMIDST which it has place." The preposition through dia, does have a range of meanings, but 1Cor 3:15 is the only passage in the NT where 'saved through' refers to circumstance, everywhere else salvation through refers to the means by which we are saved, we are saved through him, through grace, through the proclamation of the gospel, through the gospel, through faith, and through the washing of regeneration. There is no 'often', 1Cor 3:15 is the only time through refers to the circumstances. 1Cor 3:15 is also pretty distinct as Paul is not talking about being 'saved by', but being 'saved as if by', using the metaphor of escaping a burning building to describe how God tests our works. But even here Paul is describing the process by which God redeems us rather than using saved to describe being delivered or strengthened in the circumstances we go through.
And it is the anachronistic 'HAD' that takes this out of literal history into metaphor. Oddly you accuse me of shallowness yet you ignored the much bigger problem I mentioned which was theological, this passage is describing Noah, Job and Daniel saving themselves by their own righteousness. I see from you faith icon that you are a Baptist. I would have thought the idea of Noah, Job and Daniel saving themselves by their own righteousness, would set a Baptist's teeth on edge. Even if you take 'save' simply as being delivered from the trial, we have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory, Noah, Job and Daniel too. No one literally deserves being delivered from trials because of their own righteousness.
I used to be a creationist so I am pretty familiar with both sides and the fact is the evidence does support evolution no matter how much creationist organisation try to talk their way out of it.
Neither does the bible mention atoms, DNA, bacteria, relativity, the law of gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear power, Australia, America, a spherical earth or heliocentrism. Not being mentioned in the bible is not an argument against science. Nor does science contradicting your bible interpretation mean the science has to be wrong. For most of church history every one believed the bible taught us the earth was fixed in place and the sun went around the earth every day. From the early Church Fathers to Luther Calvin and the Pope and the Inquisition (ask Galileo about that one), this was how believers interpreted the bible. When science came along and showed it was actually the earth that went round the sun, Christian scholars had two very important questions to ask themselves, 1) is the science reliable, and 2) if it is, to find another way to understand the scripture that had interpreted literally.
I really don't know where the idea comes from that the default interpretation is literal and historical and in the absence of very strong evidence that a passage is not historical it must always be interpreted literally. I don't think it is a principle of interpretation you find in the bible, and it contradicts how people in the bible, how God speaking to us in his word, love to use parables and metaphor and will launch into into highly figurative language with the slightest hint that they are not being speaking literally. Often we will recognise and accept these as figurative without any problem because they are just plain silly to interpret literally, or they contradict what we know from other passages in scripture. Yet if creationists put half the amount of effort and faith into believing they were literal and historical as they do in defending a literal interpretation of Genesis they could easily manage to take these literally too.
Incidentally a lot of TEs take Adam and Eve as real people and their sin as a historical event. They just don't think all the descriptions of the events in Genesis are literal, the bible describes God making lots of different people out of clay or dust, but we don't take it literally, remember he is the potter and we are the clay.
I think the description in Chronicles is very interesting. While the Chronicler talks of who is whose son, and who begat who, after Noah, before that they are simply presented as a list of names without any comment or interpretation.
Another very interesting verse especially if you look at different translations. Job 31:33
Luke did describe the genealogy simply as what people 'supposed'. While Luke was recording what people said about Jesus, it is clear he did not buy it himself, he is as reticent here as the Chronicler was. Even as Jesus' supposed genealogy, it still cannot be taken literally. If the genealogy starts of listing a line of biological sons of other biological sons, at some stage it ceases to be a literal biological genealogy because even if you take Adam literally he was not God's biological son.
Yes the end of that very verse.
That is verse 22 in case people are looking them up. Easy typo to make when you quote v 45 later. Anyway, note the tense Paul uses in Adam all die. He is not talking about a historical death we died in a literal Adam long ago. He is using the present tense, we are in Adam today because Adam is the whole human race, he is the 'old man' we have to put off when we put on Christ. People are in Adam and all die in Adam because all sin. Not all died, describing a long past event, but all die describing something going on in Adam now.
Only if you think biblical apocalyptic imagery is empty and meaningless.
Dealt with in the other post.
Again like the chronicler, we don't get any interpretation of Enoch's connection to Adam. Seventh what? Seventh in the list in Genesis and chronicles? Seventh consecutive biological generation? Seventh patriarch? We are not told, just that Enoch was seventh from Adam, and we are not told this to teach us about Adam but to show the importance of Enoch. Actually, my biggest problem with Jude is not that he mentions Adam, but that he quotes the apocryphal Book of Enoch as if it were actually written by Enoch from Genesis 5.
