Genesis, Flood and Noah: Allegory or Literal

rmwilliamsll said:

It appears that Scripture, as a whole, is to be accepted for what it is, without attempting to "parse out" either the naughty bits or those parts we fail to understand or even those parts that seem a bit redundant since they are repeated.

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Classic solid statement! I agree totally and absolutely.

chaoschristian said:

I think I am familiar enough with you to say that you view the Bible as The Bible, a book, written by God through the divine inspiration of men who unfailingly wrote his words, to be the fulfilled and complete inerrant history, both salvation and natural, of Creation, that serves to describe the definitive boundary of what is and is not prescribed and proscribed Christian theology and ethic.

All pieces form a whole that cannot be broken or divided without violating the boundaries.

Am I correct and accurate in this?

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I think Vossler and I share a pretty common view here. This is pretty close. Offhand, the only thing I might quibble with is "complete" natural history. The Scriptures are complete in that they have said everything that God wants said to us in them. That does not mean He does not also speak to us in other ways - yes, even through His creation. It also does not mean that they contain all possible history - for example there is no record of Chinese empires, etc. They contain the complete history relevant to God's incredible redemptive plans.

chaoschristian said:

I think I am familiar enough with you to say that you view the Bible as The Bible, a book, written by God through the divine inspiration of men who unfailingly wrote his words, to be the fulfilled and complete inerrant history, both salvation and natural, of Creation, that serves to describe the definitive boundary of what is and is not prescribed and proscribed Christian theology and ethic.

All pieces form a whole that cannot be broken or divided without violating the boundaries.

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Laptoppop did an excellent job summarizing my complete feelings on this. Thanks again, laptoppop. Like I said before you're more than welcome to become my spokesperson, you do such a good job of it.

I view scripture as a collection of stories created over time, written by people who were inspired by the divine and through whose works divine authority speaks to the reader (regardless of time or place), actuated by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

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Up till here I don't have anything to quibble about.

I view scripture as primarily literary works that are specific to time, place and culture, that nevertheless convey the divine despite the medium.

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Now here you seem to contradict the previous statement. Am I missing something. Is Scripture timeless or something specific to time, place and culture?

I view scripture as a collection of stories that suffer from unfortunate formatting that provides the illusion of many pieces being formed into a whole, that is not entirely complete or comprehensive, and certainly does not serve as the definitive boundary for Christian theology or ethic, and that must be reconciled with the other revelations that God provides of himself.

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Quite interesting!

From your point of, if I have accurately captured it, there is no means by which any part of scripture can be individually tested and judged against the cross, as it all serves to point to the cross.

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Not quite, although there is a lot truth to that because it is, ultimately all about the cross. However, that doesn't mean that every story should be reconciled unto it, no some stories are lessons that stand completely on their own and as far as I know don't have anything to do with the cross, at least not in any immediate way.

From my point of view the cross was unknown to the OT authors, otherwise scripture would speak differently than it does. Therefore, each individual piece must be judged and the question asked: is this important? And each one us must individually respond to that question, for each of us comes to the cross individually. Not as families, not as churches, not as societies or cultures or ages, but as lowly individuals.

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In general I don't really have a problem with this approach, each piece should be judged individually but also as a part of the whole.

It's not always the case of either/or as you seem to keep framing.

Perhaps its a case of and/both.

Starforsaken said:

As I read through all this I don't really see any answers to what I asked just, explainations on how a word can be used. I read a post one guy saying all scripture is myth, some other posts which really didn't solve anything. Is genesis a literal account of things that actually took place at some point in earths history, or is it myth/allegory, whatever word youd like to use; is it there to demonstrate a point or lesson, an aspect of the nature of God? I'm asking these questions not only to you but myself also, I already have what I believe to be the truth but I want to see if others can present some information that I may not be aware of. I'm nearly convinced that there was no global flood, there was no garden of eden, or adam and eve. My problem with the people in the stories being also fictional is with noah and enoch. Did enoch not right a book? Can a fictional person write a book?

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I would say Gen 2&3 are a parable and things like the tree of life and the serpent are treated as though they were figurative in the rest of the bible.

The story of the flood is a bit different. It is as chaos say 'specific to time, place and culture'. The problem with its time, place and culture for us is that we tend to read it as if it was talking about the globe, whereas the concept of the earth as a globe was thousands of years away from the writer. It simply did not cross his mind. YECs will argue that God understood the earth was a globe, and either that it was God speaking through the writer, or more to the point, that some of the passages describe God speaking.

However God was speaking to neolithic man, using neolithic man's language, and words whose meanings were those of the neolithic hearers, not the 21st century. What was meant by erets, was it the whole planet, or did it mean as it did so often in Genesis and the OT, simply the land Noah lived in? What did 'under the whole heaven' mean? Does it describe the atmosphere, and space surrounding our oblate spheroid planet? Or did it simply refer to the sky above their heads, and mean from horizon to horizon. Certainly the phrase is used that way elsewhere in the bible.

From our perspective in the 21st century we read the account as a global flood, and interpret it either as a literal history of a global deluge, or because there is no evidence a global flood ever happened in 600 million years, that it is a myth. However Genesis doesn't describe a global flood. The writer is describing a devastating flood where everything was submerged as far as the eye could see, a local flood.

I think the story of Adam and Eve is a parable of the fall of mankind, but that is another issue. I was not saying that the flood account is simply describing what they thought was the whole world, but that the globe was not something they would even think of or try to describe. If we read it that way we misunderstand what they are saying.

But the key point was the word used for 'earth' erets also meant a land, it is translated this way much more often than it is 'earth'. So the phrase kol erets which is translated 'whole earth' in Gen 8:9, and sounds very global to modern ears, is used in Exodus 10:15 to describe locusts covering the 'whole land', not the whole earth, just Egypt.

The bible says the erets was filled with violence and destroyed everything living in the erets. That is pretty judgmental. As to the why did God save Noah and the animals that way, well just ask him when you meet him. He has a habit of doing things differently to what we would expect. Just ask Ezekiel or Jonah. But I don't think the bible actually says Noah took 120 years to build the ark. I also think a boat was probably the simplest way to carry all the food needed and a much easier way to move cats.

laptoppop said:

The entire book of Genesis is historical/literal -- but it also contains a multitude of spiritual lessons.

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This sums up my belief perfectly.

Starforsaken said:

If god was punishing man, why a local flood? Why bring animals on an ark when he supposedly had over 100 years to build it. More than enough time to migrate far far away. If noahs flood is literal in an "entire world" meaning entire world known to them kinda way; is the story of adam and eve also true?

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Saw the aftereffects of the Boxing Day tsunami? And heard the preachers say this was God's judgment on Java for being a predominantly-Muslim region?

Even today survivors still talk of their world having been torn apart.

Try this link out for a literal world wide flood and evidence for Noah's existance. Also I have posted a number of things in Biblical Archology on Noah Ark check there.

http://dialogue.adventist.org/articles/09_1_shea_e.htm

http://dialogue.adventist.org/articles/17_3_shea_e.htm

Genesis, Flood and Noah: Allegory or Literal


It "Did" happen!!

flood = literal

EturnaL said:

flood = literal

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Christian scientists disproved that a century ago. You're a little late to the party.

EturnaL said:

flood = literal

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I thought:

flood = lots of water*



*where it shouldn't be