If Genesis is LITERAL then where do birds and animals come from?

[Late_Cretaceous]

Where exactly do animals and birds come from according to a literal interpretation of genesis. I am not asking if it is "true" or not, just according to a literal reading which one is it the land or the water?

No non-literal interpretations allowed.

Genesis 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.


Genesis 2:19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/2.html#19

 

[Mallon]

Maybe a creation research study could distinguish between the two by identifying which element a bird's biochemical make-up is closest to?

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Well, birds are 70% water.

 

[Mallon]

Well, birds are 70% water.

Can't be. The apologeticist in me says that they must be 50% water/50% dirt; that way, both Genesis passages can be considered "correct".

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

I am suprised nobody has accused me of attacking / doubting / questioning the bible yet (neither of which I am doing)>

 

[PaladinValer]

Birds are evil, so Satan must have created them

 

[HypnoToad]

Where exactly do animals and birds come from according to a literal interpretation of genesis. I am not asking if it is "true" or not, just according to a literal reading which one is it the land or the water?

No non-literal interpretations allowed.

Genesis 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.


Genesis 2:19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

The problem is poor translation.

V.20 is better rendered as "let the waters teem with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth ...." The Hebrew does not suggest birds were made from the water, which removes the apparent contradiction in your translation.

 

[ebia]

The problem is poor translation.

V.20 is better rendered as "let the waters teem with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth ...."

That is pretty much how the NJB translates it.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

So much for inerrancy then.

 

[ebia]

So much for inerrancy then.

I'm no fan of "inerrancy", but I've met very few people who claim that any translations are inerrant, let alone all translations.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

I think that gets at the crux of the whole literalist/non literalist debate. If a book is supposed to be 100% literally true, then a single error could invalidate the whole thing. A non literal interpretation would be more flexible when dealing with translation errors.

I have actually heard some literalists claim that there are no errors whatsoever in any translation because the scribes were "guided by the spirit". I think we have to realize that scribes in the early centuries of Chrisianity were humans and prone to mistakes - especially when writting on parchment, with poor lighting, with primitive pens, in languages that were not the vernacular, and they did not put spaces between the words, or use punctuation. Have you ever seen an actual text from the second century ?




Try copying stuff like that without making a mistake. I once read about a page of text like this where the scribe had accidently recopied 30 lines of text without realizing it. In those 2 sets of 30 lines of text on the same page there wre more then 30 discrepancies.

No if the text is ment at allegory the message can still come through because not everything is black and white one meaning only.

 

[Remus]

The majority claim inerrancy in the original autographs, not in manuscripts or translations.

 

[PaladinValer]

No original autographs are known

 

[Remus]

That's why it's a statement of faith.

 

[HypnoToad]

No original autographs are known

Ultimately, as Remus stated, it is a statement of faith, but it is not a blind faith.

Inerrancy of the autographs is supported by the vast number of transcripts that let us determine with very high probably what the autographs contained, and inerrancy is a logical deduction from what Scripture claims about its inspiration.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Maybe it's inerrant in the sense that the message gets through despite all the tampering, editing, and screw ups that happened over the ages.

 

[Remus]

Maybe it's inerrant in the sense that the message gets through despite all the tampering, editing, and screw ups that happened over the ages.

Before you could speculate on this, you'd first have to establish that "all the tampering, editing, and screw ups that happened over the ages" actually exists and to what degree.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

I would suggest reading some of the following books



Lost Scriptures : Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament by Bart D. Ehrman (2003)

Lost Christianities : The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew by Bart D. Ehrman (2005)

I haven't read the following ones myself yet.

Misquoting Jesus : The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart Ehrman (2005)

When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome by Richard E. Rubenstein

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture : The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament by Bart D. Ehrman



Dr. Ehrman is not some athiest out to discredit christianity either. He is the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at North Carolina University (Chapel Hill)

 

[AngCath]

If Genesis is LITERAL then where do birds and animals come from?

Since it isn't, then you need not worry and know they came from God.

 

[Remus]

I would suggest reading some of the following books

I would in turn suggest reading some of these:

The Canon of Scripture by F. F. Bruce

The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F. F. Bruce

The late F. F. Bruce was the Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester in England.

There are many others by him that you can read as well.

The Birth Of Christianity: The First Twenty Years (After Jesus)

Is the New Testament Reliable?: A Look at the Historical Evidence

etc...

Paul Barnett is a teaching fellow at Regent College in Vancouvr, BC, and Moore Theolgical College in Sydney.

The list goes on...