Is the creation story in Geneses a literal or figurative story?

[Scotishfury09]

I can't say I know of every single argument against the creation being 6 literal days, but I think I've heard quite a few. Out of these that I've heard, I haven't heard a single one that can reason why Genesis says that God had created the Earth and plants on the 3rd day, but the Sun and Moon on the 4th day. I don't see how you can make that work figuratively. If there are some arguments I haven't heard, please, explain. But as for now, I don't see any other way of being anything but 6 literal days.

 

[gluadys]

I can't say I know of every single argument against the creation being 6 literal days, but I think I've heard quite a few. Out of these that I've heard, I haven't heard a single one that can reason why Genesis says that God had created the Earth and plants on the 3rd day, but the Sun and Moon on the 4th day. I don't see how you can make that work figuratively.

How can you make it work except figuratively?

Honest question.

What do you see as the problem?

To me the shoe is on the other foot. This sequence is a prime reason for not taking it literally.

 

[Scotishfury09]

My point is that Genesis says plants before the sun, day 3 before day 4. How can you explain that days could mean millions of years in this case?

 

[gluadys]

My point is that Genesis says plants before the sun, day 3 before day 4. How can you explain that days could mean millions of years in this case?

I don't. I don't subscribe to Day-Age interpretation. And as far as I know, even those who do don't suggest plants lived without sun for millions of years.

This is the problem with literalistic thinking. It even treats figurative interpretations literally. In a figurative approach, your question doesn't make any sense.

 

[Scotishfury09]

As I said, I guess I don't know every argument. Please, tell me what you interpret those verses to mean.

 

[artybloke]

As I said, I guess I don't know every argument. Please, tell me what you interpret those verses to mean.

First of all, it's not just one verse out of many that is figurative. It's the whole story as related in Genesis 1 that is figurative.

One of the reasons why I've never liked the term "allegory" in reference to Genesis 1 is that in allegory, specific things tend to refer to specific qualities. So, in allegory, if we have a character called John Faith, he will represent "faith" as a quality. Or a particular plant, like Honesty, could represent a quality ("honesty", obviously.)

So in trying to interpret particular verses, I think you're onto a loser. It doesn't mean anything without the rest of the story. The whole story tells us something about God as the creator of the universe: that there is only one God, that what God created was good, the universe is separate from God, that God created human beings etc... The word Adam may have a symbolic meaning as it is the word for man, but is also related to words for "blood" and "hearth" for instance; but it is best to take the message of the passage as a whole, rather than using this cut & paste method of "what does this verse mean when wrenched from its context?"

So why did the writer do it this way around? Well, firstly, you have to remember that the writer was not a scientist; if anything he was a poet, certainly a scribe. He's not interested in 20th/21st century notions of absolute scientific accuracy; he's telling a story. If a storyteller says something historically or scientifically inaccurate, most of us don't mind as long as the story is good. Most of his original hearers wouldn't even have been able to read, so it's unlikely that they would have cared about scientific accuracy. What they wanted to hear was a story with truth in it.

The detail of the plants before the sun is just a detail in the overall story, just as in a story, someone enters a room, someone gets in a car. It doesn't have meaning in isolation from the rest of the story.

If you want to know the truth of Genesis 1, you have to read the story whole. Verses are very convenient for dividing up the Bible into liturgically readable units, but for not much else, frankly.

 

[crawfish]

I can't say I know of every single argument against the creation being 6 literal days, but I think I've heard quite a few. Out of these that I've heard, I haven't heard a single one that can reason why Genesis says that God had created the Earth and plants on the 3rd day, but the Sun and Moon on the 4th day. I don't see how you can make that work figuratively. If there are some arguments I haven't heard, please, explain. But as for now, I don't see any other way of being anything but 6 literal days.

The issue would be that you're taking the order of creation in Genesis as literal. More likely, the order represented something to the original audience - perhaps it worked its way down a pantheon of foreign gods, placing God above them one by one? I'm not sure as I haven't studied this aspect, but I do believe that the important part of the creation story is NOT creation itself...

 

[Scotishfury09]

First of all, it's not just one verse out of many that is figurative. It's the whole story as related in Genesis 1 that is figurative.

One of the reasons why I've never liked the term "allegory" in reference to Genesis 1 is that in allegory, specific things tend to refer to specific qualities. So, in allegory, if we have a character called John Faith, he will represent "faith" as a quality. Or a particular plant, like Honesty, could represent a quality ("honesty", obviously.)

So in trying to interpret particular verses, I think you're onto a loser. It doesn't mean anything without the rest of the story. The whole story tells us something about God as the creator of the universe: that there is only one God, that what God created was good, the universe is separate from God, that God created human beings etc... The word Adam may have a symbolic meaning as it is the word for man, but is also related to words for "blood" and "hearth" for instance; but it is best to take the message of the passage as a whole, rather than using this cut & paste method of "what does this verse mean when wrenched from its context?"

So why did the writer do it this way around? Well, firstly, you have to remember that the writer was not a scientist; if anything he was a poet, certainly a scribe. He's not interested in 20th/21st century notions of absolute scientific accuracy; he's telling a story. If a storyteller says something historically or scientifically inaccurate, most of us don't mind as long as the story is good. Most of his original hearers wouldn't even have been able to read, so it's unlikely that they would have cared about scientific accuracy. What they wanted to hear was a story with truth in it.

The detail of the plants before the sun is just a detail in the overall story, just as in a story, someone enters a room, someone gets in a car. It doesn't have meaning in isolation from the rest of the story.

If you want to know the truth of Genesis 1, you have to read the story whole. Verses are very convenient for dividing up the Bible into liturgically readable units, but for not much else, frankly.

Thank you, artybloke, for your post.

I see the points you are trying to make. For the sake of argument I will attempt to look at this as nothing more than a story; however, I still find that an integral part of the story is the fact that it's because Adam(or man) disobeyed God that there is sin in the world. I don't see any way of seeing anything differently about that point. Where does it fit into the TE view that sin could have only come into the world through man, when man didn't come on the scene until long after millions upon millions of animals died?

Also, do you take the entire book of Genesis as strictly a story? What about the Table of Nations that was made after the flood? It's regarded as an incredibly accurate document with relation to the names of people that populated the world and what countries they formed. (i.e. Japheth translating as Iapetos, the father of the Greeks and Iyapeti, the ancestor of the Aryans in India. Meschech and Tubal in Russia. Mizraim as being the ancestor of Egypt etc.) Is this another story?

Where do you say what is and isn't a story? I don't mean to sound rude or offense, I'm just inquisitive.


p.s. Not that it's of much importance anymore, but I believe even as a shepherd in that day, Moses would have understood the importance of the sun to plants. He obviously wouldn't have known the intricate workings of photosynthesis, but he would have known that a plant needs sunlight to live.

 

[gluadys]

What artybloke and crawfish said.

In part the Genesis account is a demytholization, a desacralizing of nature in that it places all the gods and goddesses of paganism (which are by and large personifications of some aspect of nature) under God and makes them creatures, not deities. Some have argued that the order is set by the order of precedence of these deities. For example, days 1 & 2 deal with the primordial deities of heaven and earth, light and dark. In Babylonian mythology, protocol would place their chief god Marduk next in order, and Marduk among other attributes was the god of fertility and vegetation. Hence the writer of Genesis subdues vegetation to God before going on to the gods of the sun, moon and stars, then the god of the ocean, and finally of the beasts of field and forest.

Another aspect of the story is the emphasis given to the sabbath as the crown of creation. (We should really speak of a seven-day creation, not a six-day creation. We are badly served by the scribe who placed a chapter ending at the completion of the sixth day when the story is incomplete until the end of the sabbath day.)

These two approaches, (and one might add the framework thesis as well), are not mutually exclusive. The writer could well have had both purposes in mind.

 

[artybloke]

nothing more than a story

Sorry to say this, but I think this shows that you're just reflecting the idea that somehow a story is "less truthful" than something that is factual. That represents contemporary scientism, not the status of the truth that the story represents.

As for Adam, I don't think that there needs to be a historical Adam for me personally to be a sinner in need of salvation; but I guess someone had to commit the first sin...

What about the Table of Nations that was made after the flood? It's regarded as an incredibly accurate document

Who by? Any really serious historians take it as an accurate account? Sounds more like the kind of nonsense I used to read from the likes of Hal Lindsay than anything else...

 

[Scotishfury09]

A quote from William F. Albright: "It stands absolutely alone in ancient literature, without a remote parallel, even among the Greeks, where we find the closest approach to a distribution of peoples in genealogical framework."

I never said anything about it being any less true as a story, I was just trying to implicate the fact that I was trying to open minded.

Genesis 2:4-5 "When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. The Lord God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil."

This obviously goes on to explain the story of Adam's creation, but I would like you to explain to my why Moses would put this in here? No storyteller puts information into such a concise story without some sort of a reason. There must be some reason as to why Moses would speculate that there were no wild plants or grains. There's no reason as to why Moses would say there was no rain up until that point. Why does he assume these things? He has no basis to do so unless he actually knew.

Please don't give me the excuse that I'm taking this literally, because it is important that he phrases it this way.

 

[artybloke]

No storyteller puts information into such a concise story without some sort of a reason.

Giving colour to an otherwise dry story is as good a reason as anything to do with its meaning. Remember that the writer (not Moses, but a much later scribe) would have written this for an audience of listeners, not readers (most people wouldn't have been able to read at the time.) If it makes the story more exciting to the listener, then why shouldn't he?

Also, as gluadys says, it could have had a symbolic meaning to the early audience that we've now lost.

 

[gluadys]

I still find that an integral part of the story is the fact that it's because Adam(or man) disobeyed God that there is sin in the world. I don't see any way of seeing anything differently about that point. Where does it fit into the TE view that sin could have only come into the world through man, when man didn't come on the scene until long after millions upon millions of animals died?

It is clear that plants and animals died long before humans existed, but this does not contradict scripture since the pertinent texts always speak about death in the context of human death. Even then, it may refer primarily to spiritual rather than biological death. Note for example that although God had said Adam and Eve would die the very day they ate of the forbidden fruit, they continued to live physically for a long time afterwards, to have and raise a family. Yet they were certainly, as we all are without Christ, dead in their sins, cut off from God the source of life.

As for sin, that only comes into the world through humanity, because only humanity was given the capacity to be a moral agent who could make a genuine choice between doing right or wrong, good or evil. Animals may perform the same actions that we would call sin in humans (e.g. cannibalism) but we take that to be instinct in them, not a contravention of God's will.

Also, do you take the entire book of Genesis as strictly a story? What about the Table of Nations that was made after the flood? It's regarded as an incredibly accurate document with relation to the names of people that populated the world and what countries they formed. (i.e. Japheth translating as Iapetos, the father of the Greeks and Iyapeti, the ancestor of the Aryans in India. Meschech and Tubal in Russia. Mizraim as being the ancestor of Egypt etc.) Is this another story?

As many stories. Genesis is not a simple book. As we have it today it is a compilation of several independent writings which were brought together and edited probably during the Babylonian exile. Each of those writings in turn was probably dependent both on oral traditions and earlier writings, now lost. The second creation story in Genesis was not written by the same person as the story in Genesis 1. It was, in fact, written much earlier than the story in Genesis 1, but the final redactor placed the more recent story first, possibly because of its focus on God as Creator, rather than on the human characters of the other story.

There is no reason why the Table of Nations should not be an accurate reflection of the peoples and countries familiar to the Israelites. The Hebrew name for Egypt is Mizraim and it would be natural for them to call the ancestor of the people of Mizraim by the same name.

Where do you say what is and isn't a story? I don't mean to sound rude or offense, I'm just inquisitive.

In a sense, everything is story. That is because ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, did not draw a hard and fast distinction between story and history, between fact and teaching. They had little interest in history as a chronicle of events. They were interested in the meaning and purpose of events. What happened was far less important than why it happened. So even history was passed on as story, and little to no effort was made to define or label which stories had historical elements and which did not. For this reason it is really not possible to say for sure (apart from archeological confirmation) where story ends and history begins. The two are intermingled throughout the whole bible. Rather frustrating to the modern mind, but that is just an indication of how priorities differed between then and now.

The important thing is that both story and history convey truth and support each other in the truths scripture was written to teach.

 

[gluadys]

Genesis 2:4-5 "When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. The Lord God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil."

This obviously goes on to explain the story of Adam's creation, but I would like you to explain to my why Moses would put this in here? No storyteller puts information into such a concise story without some sort of a reason.

Don't tell that to a teacher of literature. Or to a skilled author of short stories. There is no reason why a concise story needs to be vague or lacking in detail. The story may, in fact, turn on such a detail. Even a concise story needs a setting and introduction to frame its main purpose. That is what we have here: an introduction to a story of the creation of humanity.

PS one of the reasons for not taking either creation story literally are the blatant contradictions. In Genesis 1 we begin with a watery abyss from which dry land emerges. Plants are the first living things created and humans the last. In Genesis 2 we begin with a parched earth in which nothing grows yet and a man is made first, followed by plants and animals.

Why does he assume these things? He has no basis to do so unless he actually knew.

The author is assuming nothing. He is telling a story.

 

[Scotishfury09]

Artybloke: I don't really buy that it's just color. Color might have been talking about the different types of plants or animals, not the fact that there were no wild plants and no rain. Putting something in that was completely different to the world of the writer would have had more weight than just color. That's a lot of speculation for something that seems pretty clear to me.

Gluadys: Thank you for your response, but I don't think you can necessarily say that when God said, "you shall surely die," it meant right that instant; however, even if there was death before the fall, there would to have been a human before the person, who originally committed the first sin (who I'll just refer to as Adam), that had died. Evolution shows us that Adam had to be the predecessor of someone, unless he was created from the dirt like it mentions in Genesis. In which case why is that literal and the rest not?

Now, if Adam is not the first human, were all of Adam's ancestors sinless? Why weren't these previous humans sinful? How did the first one to disobey God actually disobey Him?

To the Table of Nations: I understand that the fact that the Hebrew word for Egypt is Mizraim makes sense that they would call Mizraim their ancestor, but that doesn't cover the rest of the names on the table. I'm not asking you to actually give me a list of all the names and why, I'm just saying.

The history and story intertwined into scripture is very frustrating. Although I still believe in YEC, I very much appreciate your insight into the Hebrew culture.

 

[Scotishfury09]

Gluadys, you expect me to assume that he really didn't have meaning other than setting by saying those things? I can't possibly imagine that something so foreign to the writer was just something he thought up and thought it would be good to put in. There is no reason to say something like that. Why would the writer put that as his setting when he had no idea if it was really like that or even why.

 

[gluadys]

Gluadys: Thank you for your response, but I don't think you can necessarily say that when God said, "you shall surely die," it meant right that instant;

No, it doesn't say right that instant. But it does say "in the day you eat of it you will surely die" Yet Adam and Eve lived long enough to raise Cain, Abel, Seth and many other sons and daughters.

So, in what sense did they die in the day they ate the fruit?

however, even if there was death before the fall, there would to have been a human before the person, who originally committed the first sin (who I'll just refer to as Adam), that had died. Evolution shows us that Adam had to be the predecessor of someone, unless he was created from the dirt like it mentions in Genesis. In which case why is that literal and the rest not?

If we think of Adam as an individual, he was the predecessor of Cain and Seth and ultimately of Noah and all his descendants including us. If "Adam" is representative of the first human population, he was still the predecessor of all subsequent human beings.

Do you mean perhaps that Adam (in either sense) had to have a predecessor of whom he was the descendant? Of course, but since by definition Adam (in either sense) was the first human, his predecessor was not. So his predecessor was not capable of sin or subject to death due to sin, only to natural biological death.

Now, if Adam is not the first human, were all of Adam's ancestors sinless? Why weren't these previous humans sinful?

Yes, they were sinless. Because they weren't human yet. Maybe they were human biologically, but not yet spiritually and so not theologically or morally fully human.

How did the first one to disobey God actually disobey Him?

Can't be specific, of course, but I don't think it relevant to know the form of the first sin. Suffice it to say that it was an action the person knew to be contrary to the will of God, an action which induced in them feelings of guilt and shame.

I'm not asking you to actually give me a list of all the names and why, I'm just saying.

Good, it was just an example, where I happened to know the Hebrew term. I can't speak or read Hebrew, so I couldn't complete such an analysis.

Gluadys, you expect me to assume that he really didn't have meaning other than setting by saying those things? I can't possibly imagine that something so foreign to the writer was just something he thought up and thought it would be good to put in.

Why underestimate the power of the writer's imagination? Humans dream up unknown scenarios all the time, some many stranger than this.

And why do you imagine that it is "so foreign" to the author? There is a lot of desert in Egypt and the Middle East to show people what a world without water would look like.

 

[artybloke]

Artybloke: I don't really buy that it's just color. Color might have been talking about the different types of plants or animals, not the fact that there were no wild plants and no rain.

What is colour (note the proper English spelling of the word not the Yankee perversion ) to the author and what is colour to you may well be very different things... and remember that this is meant to be recited to an audience not read privately! Too much detail would bore an audience, too little would also bore an audience.

Incidentally, I read a chapter of a book on Genesis' writing style once that spoke of its use of simple declarative sentences, repetition of words and the fact that the language used was even at the time slightly old-fashioned - it wasn't, if you like, street Hebrew, it was a more high-falutin' almost liturgical language, like you might hear in an Episcopal church service.

Genesis 1 especially seems to have been written with worship in mind.

Putting something in that was completely different to the world of the writer would have had more weight than just color.

Your're possibly right, it might do; but that has nothing to do with whether it was "factual": and we might not be able to recover the exact meaning of this image for the original hearers. These passages are around 2500 years old.

I suspect that going back to the sources from which some of these images and stories derive in ancient Assyrian, Babylonian, even Sumerian myths and poetry might illuminate it. The Genesis stories were written in response to, as alternatives too, those stories; not in response to scientific questions that they couldn't possible have even known about.

I think there is this tendency among many Biblical literalists not to see the wood for the trees: they concentrate on tiny little details whilst missing the main picture. Hence the cut-and-paste proof text method of hermeneutics, which to me does real violence to the text of the Bible, and is ultimately disrespectful to the message of the scriptures.

The authors of these passages probably laboured, as poets do, over every little detail of these passages (I am a poet, by the way, I know what I'm talking about!) Unfortunately, we read their words 2500 years later in very different circumstances and with very different questions to ask of the text. Were they to come back and look at what we made of their writings they would probably be astonished and bemused.

 

[Assyrian]

Genesis 2:4-5 "When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. The Lord God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil."

This obviously goes on to explain the story of Adam's creation, but I would like you to explain to my why Moses would put this in here? No storyteller puts information into such a concise story without some sort of a reason. There must be some reason as to why Moses would speculate that there were no wild plants or grains. There's no reason as to why Moses would say there was no rain up until that point. Why does he assume these things? He has no basis to do so unless he actually knew.

Actually he says much more than that.

The version you are quoting is a strange one. It seems to be NLT, but most copies of the NLT I have seen online say this slightly differently:

When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. For the Lord God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil.

The writer is telling us why there were no wild plants. It was because there was no rain and no people, literally no adam, to cultivate the soil. This is adding major colour to the story. We know plants need water, but they don't need people. Both statements if read literally contradict a literal interpretation of Gen 1, where the soil had been covered in water not long before plants grew and they grew quite happily without any people there.

I think we are being told about man's place in creation here, not a literal description of the order of creation.

 

[busterdog]

Artybloke: I don't really buy that it's just color. Color might have been talking about the different types of plants or animals, not the fact that there were no wild plants and no rain. Putting something in that was completely different to the world of the writer would have had more weight than just color. That's a lot of speculation for something that seems pretty clear to me.

Gluadys: Thank you for your response, but I don't think you can necessarily say that when God said, "you shall surely die," it meant right that instant; however, even if there was death before the fall, there would to have been a human before the person, who originally committed the first sin (who I'll just refer to as Adam), that had died. Evolution shows us that Adam had to be the predecessor of someone, unless he was created from the dirt like it mentions in Genesis. In which case why is that literal and the rest not?

Now, if Adam is not the first human, were all of Adam's ancestors sinless? Why weren't these previous humans sinful? How did the first one to disobey God actually disobey Him?

To the Table of Nations: I understand that the fact that the Hebrew word for Egypt is Mizraim makes sense that they would call Mizraim their ancestor, but that doesn't cover the rest of the names on the table. I'm not asking you to actually give me a list of all the names and why, I'm just saying.

The history and story intertwined into scripture is very frustrating. Although I still believe in YEC, I very much appreciate your insight into the Hebrew culture.

Well said.