Genesis doesn't seem figurative

[JohnB445]

God created the Universe, Heavens, and Earth. Time of this is not specified. What was the Earth like long long ago? Maybe God had another creation in the past like Dinosaurs and such then destroyed them and started over like he did with Noah's Flood. Its interesting but not really relevant to God's plan.

God fashioned the Earth in 6 days, set up the seasons, day and night. Fashioned the land and seas, creatures, then Humans. First ones being Adam and Eve. I believe this was recent and this Era of creation is the most important and relevant to us since we live in it. They disobeyed God in the Garden and were banished, now we have suffering and plagues in this world. It got really bad during the first 1000 years of humanity, with fallen angels mating with humans producing giants, that God had to hit the reset button and create the flood to start over again with a clean slate starting with Noah.

The Flood is proven by archeology, there is a lot of ancient evidence of humans being visted by fallen angels which people mistake them as aliens. Giant skeletons have been found.

How can this be figurative?

 

[ewq1938]

Does a tree of the knowledge of good and evil sound literal to you?

 

[Neogaia777]

I like to think of them as stories of "creations" or cycles that, after the fall, repeat themselves in some form or fashion in the creations after or following it/them... How I think God knows some things about the future, and the end from the beginning, and the beginning from the end, ect, is by knowing that or those common threads in "creations" or systems of things or whatever, life cycles maybe, "creations"...

God Bless!

 

[SkyWriting]

God created the Universe, Heavens, and Earth. Time of this is not specified. What was the Earth like long long ago? Maybe God had another creation in the past like Dinosaurs and such then destroyed them and started over like he did with Noah's Flood. Its interesting but not really relevant to God's plan.

God fashioned the Earth in 6 days, set up the seasons, day and night. Fashioned the land and seas, creatures, then Humans. First ones being Adam and Eve. I believe this was recent and this Era of creation is the most important and relevant to us since we live in it. They disobeyed God in the Garden and were banished, now we have suffering and plagues in this world. It got really bad during the first 1000 years of humanity, with fallen angels mating with humans producing giants, that God had to hit the reset button and create the flood to start over again with a clean slate starting with Noah.

The Flood is proven by archeology, there is a lot of ancient evidence of humans being visted by fallen angels which people mistake them as aliens. Giant skeletons have been found.

How can this be figurative?

Science can provide evidence in an orderly manner.
Science never proves anything.
Flood geology was a fashion for a time, but has not been shown to be a valid predictive model.
No giant skeletons are found in museums, (where we would keep giant skeletons.)

Genesis likely refers to the setting up of Paradise where Adam walked beside God in the garden. If you don't see God walking around, then scripture is likey correct that man was banished from Paradise and this is not that place. It doesn't seem like that place, with the unusual trees mentioned.

Genesis 3:22-24
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

 

[trophy33]

Maybe God had another creation in the past like Dinosaurs and such then destroyed them and started over

Why is satan referred to as "ancient dragon" (dinosaur)? Or ruler of this earth? Why does he hate and fight against the children of Adam?

Maybe, there are some connections. And maybe not. ;-)

 

[Rubiks]

The stories in Genesis seem to be based off a primitive understanding of God. God is portrayed in very anthropomorphic terms, with some even suggesting God lacks complete knowledge (e.g. Gen 22:12) Later Old Testament writers show more developed understanding of God. I think such language would make even the most theologically conservative Christians cautious at taking the first 11 chapters of Genesis at face value.

God doesn't change, but our understanding of him does.

 

[Rubiks]

Does a tree of the knowledge of good and evil sound literal to you?

I think that has more to do with personal opinion rather than objective fact.

 

[RDKirk]

I think Genesis displays what would be an accurate reporting of a vision of the scientific theory of the creation from the Big Bang to the Bronze Age extremely time-lapsed into an unnarrated vision (as was the Lord's usual method) over the course of six nights.

It's what a person would see and how he'd interpret that time-lapsed vision. Of course, lacking Superman's telescopic and microscopic vision, he'd see nothing of what was happening at either the cosmic or microscopic levels. He wouldn't see what was happening undersea until something broke the surface. If you've seen a time-lapse of seed germination, he's just see things suddenly appearing.

But the order we see in Genesis is pretty much the order he'd see things appear in this massive time-lapse.

 

[Tolworth John]

How can this be figurative?

It isn't.

 

[ewq1938]

I think that has more to do with personal opinion rather than objective fact.

No literal tree has fruit that gives knowledge of good and evil. It's symbolism.

 

[Roidecoeur78]

I think Genesis displays what would be an accurate reporting of a vision of the scientific theory of the creation from the Big Bang to the Bronze Age extremely time-lapsed into an unnarrated vision

I knew someone else had been shown this truth.

 

[Roidecoeur78]

"Creationism Vs. Darwinism"

I think I had a thought or two God gave me about this, and they go something like this:

That a day to the eternal One is not a 24 hour earth day. It's as long as He decides it is, because a million years is no time at all to Someone that exists outside of time. "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."-2Peter3:8
And 1000 is likely used because it's a number that was near the upper limit of human understanding at the time of the epistle being written.

That evolution is the process of creation, and so creation is done through the process of elemental and consequent biological evolution.

***Run-on sentence warning***

That the sequence of creation, as illustrated in Genesis, has more or less been verified by the scientific theory of evolution. (i.e. first a void with only a single Being, then space and elements, then environments of varying natures[wet, dry, hot,cold] then simple lives like bacteria and plants filling those places, then more complex lives created by compiling the preexisting simpler systems [grasses, to flowering plants, flowering plants to shrubs, shrubs to trees, etc], by this way every niche gets filled, the seas fill up with creatures that will become fish, fish become every type of fish according to the niche they're filling, some fish will lead to lungfish and mudskipper-types, that lead to amphibians, amphibians lead to reptiles, reptiles lead to both birds and small mammals, reptiles get as big as they will until God sends their walking papers(big boom). The small and or airborne reptiles and mammals survive because they are more mobile, and require less sustenance to carry on their mojos. As the ecological state re-stabilizes they become every type of mammal, reptile, and bird, according to the ecological niche they're filling. Eventually a mammalian body currently called a homo sapiens is created, thus agreeing with Genesis that mankind was the last created being of note on record and so also, according to the evolutionists, the most recent newcomer on the scene.

So there is an obvious direction, which would imply intent; from inanimate elements to animate ones, simple systems to complex ones compiled of the simple ones, from the Singular come the many and diverse, through the rough edged imperfections of nature and its impulses comes the perfection of Jesus Christ's example of what the Father, in Whom all these things live and breathe and have their existence, expects from His children. Not the world's children, for a homo sapiens is only a collection of biological functions, but His children, meaning those whom He wills to awaken to human-being-hood (more than just the instinctual monkey-suit they are wearing). And it was all, is all, and will always be deliberate. And none of it has ever or will ever happen by chance. And never did a leaf or will a leaf fall from a tree, or the number of hairs on anyone's head be unknown to He in whom, by whom, through whom all these wonders come into, endure for a time, and then leave, existence. What it is, it was, and ever shall be.

Just because a homo sapiens named Charles Darwin was created, and was given the faculties and the revelation that would come to elucidate the process of creation, doesn't mean God could or would ever stop existing. It means that those predestined to only see the material, superficial workings of creation will barely be able to comprehend and prove those, so the odds of their coming to understand, know, or believe on He that is working invisibly behind the surface are slim and none.

Praise, Glory, and blessedness be to God in the highest, for He is all, does all, and wills all.

 

[St_Worm2]

...a day to the eternal One is not a 24 hour earth day. It's as long as He decides it is......

Genesis 5
27 All the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died.​

Man, Methuselah must have been one OLD dude when he finally died
.

 

[Roidecoeur78]

Genesis 5
27 All the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died.​

Man, Methuselah must have been one OLD dude when he finally died
.

"Beloved, do not let this one thing escape your notice: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." 2Pet 3:8

And it's likely that 1000 was thought to be a number at the upper end of most people's understanding of the time.

 

[St_Worm2]

"Beloved, do not let this one thing escape your notice: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." 2Pet 3:8

Genesis 1
5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day million years(?)​

Skipping over the 2 Peter reference for the moment, if a day in Genesis 1 is a thousand or a million years long instead of 24 hours, at what point in the Bible do you believe that it clearly becomes 24 hours again (and why)? Thanks!

And it's likely that 1000 was thought to be a number at the upper end of most people's understanding of the time.

There is this to consider:

Genesis 24
60 They blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.​

--David

 

[DaDad]

Does a tree of the knowledge of good and evil sound literal to you?

Ummmmmm, not all things are literal, and not all things are figurative. Jesus spoke in parables so that the religious wouldn't perceive what HE was saying. So the question for you is: What is the "tree" that is spoken of? The answer is not some random conjecture, but more of an association.

But having said what should be obvious for those who have insight, -- the depiction of how Eve was created evades me. And so we should always pursue the deeper things of GOD:

Jeremiah 33:3 Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things which you have not known.

​

Thanks,
DaDad

 

[Roidecoeur78]

Skipping over the 2 Peter reference for the moment, if a day in Genesis 1 is a thousand or a million years long instead of 24 hours, at what point in the Bible do you believe that it clearly becomes 24 hours again (and why)? Thanks!

At whichever point He so pleases, but I would, and could only, guess; that when an Infinite being does something that is and will be beyond the comprehension of most, if not all, of His children, He will give a very simplified explanation of it so the majority of them can argue over it according to their meager understanding, rather than seek to accept and obey His ways and their station in life. The mortal, who is a vapor, with his very temporary perspective, will think Methuselah must have been very old. Relative to Him that is, and was, and will be Forever, Methuselah wasn't even a day old when he died.

Skipping over the likelihood that when we start skipping over passages in the bible we are likely ignoring something we are not either interested in understanding, or unwilling/unable to understand, here is another passage:
"The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual." 1Cor15:46

The animal nature arrives first, then the spiritual

 

[NobleMouse]

No literal tree has fruit that gives knowledge of good and evil. It's symbolism.

Isn't this an assumption that every tree today is representative of every tree that ever existed, including trees that would have existed in the Garden of Eden? If God can make Moses' staff become a serpent then turn it back into a staff, then can he not create a tree that is unlike any other tree today? Was that event also symbolic?

 

[Neogaia777]

Isn't this an assumption that every tree today is representative of every tree that ever existed, including trees that would have existed in the Garden of Eden? If God can make Moses' staff become a serpent then turn it back into a staff, then can he not create a tree that is unlike any other tree today? Was that event also symbolic?

Might not be what "we call "literal"...? (yet)...

God Bless!

 

[Doveaman]

Does a tree of the knowledge of good and evil sound literal to you?

Yes.

Literal things can be use to represent something symbolically.

The literal Satan is called a serpent because he behaves like a serpent.

Satan's intent is to deceive and destroy just like a rattle snake.