Levels of EvC belief

[AV1611VET]

You're still forgetting the fact that Biblical and Jewish scholars were advocating for non-literal interpretations long before any knowledge of cosmic evolution came about, and how their arguments were based on the text itself, rather than an effort to appease science.

So?

Biblical and Jewish scholars were just as wrong back then, as they are today.

 

[River Jordan]

So?

So? It means the idea that non-literal interpretations of Genesis have something to do with "cosmic evolution" isn't accurate. The text itself gives justification.

Biblical and Jewish scholars were just as wrong back then, as they are today.

So you believe.

 

[AV1611VET]

So? It means the idea that non-literal interpretations of Genesis have something to do with "cosmic evolution" isn't accurate.

Where do you get this idea from?

Cosmic evolution is about as non-literal as you can get.

Literal days become literal eons.

God literally speaking becomes nature literally producing.

A literal Genesis 1 speaks of completed processes.

A literal cosmic evolution speaks of continuing progress.

 

[River Jordan]

Where do you get this idea from?

I told you. From the fact that Rabbinical and Biblical scholars were advocating non-literal interpretations of Genesis long before science had said anything about "cosmic evolution".

Which renders the rest of your post moot.

 

[AV1611VET]

I told you. From the fact that Rabbinical and Biblical scholars were advocating non-literal interpretations of Genesis long before science had said anything about "cosmic evolution".

Which renders the rest of your post moot.

What's academia's excuse today for not believing in a literal Genesis 1?

I assume it's because they believe in a literal cosmic evolution.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[River Jordan]

What's academia's excuse today for not believing in a literal Genesis 1?

I assume it's because they believe in a literal cosmic evolution.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Huh? Are you really under the impression that not only is there a singular entity called "academia", but that it also has a singular stated position on the interpretation of Genesis?

Where did you get that from?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

What's academia's excuse today for not believing in a literal Genesis 1?

I assume it's because they believe in a literal cosmic evolution.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

In my case, you are partly correct, brother AV. But there's more to why I don't read Genesis 1 literally than simply that "cosmic" evolution seems rationally palatable to me.

 

[AV1611VET]

Huh? Are you really under the impression that not only is there a singular entity called "academia", but that it also has a singular stated position on the interpretation of Genesis?

Where did you get that from?

Have a good day, River.

 

[AV1611VET]

In my case, you are partly correct, brother AV. But there's more to why I don't read Genesis 1 literally than simply that "cosmic" evolution seems rationally palatable to me.

But wouldn't you agree that a literal Genesis 1 and a literal cosmic evolution are polar opposites?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

But wouldn't you agree that a literal Genesis 1 and a literal cosmic evolution are polar opposites?

No. Because from the angle of History, Historiography, Geology, Archaeology, Anthropology, Philology and Linguistics and some aspects of study from other various fields, an ancient, foreign religious document such as what we have with Genesis 1 isn't something I assume I can understood on a prima facie level like I would when reading something from another 21st century English speaker.

What's more, when I break open the Hebrew readings of Genesis 1:1-8, I find there are some additional contextual elements that 'permit' me to entertain my evolutionary understanding of the universe and the earth while also holding Genesis 1 as a prophetic, Hebrew document with Divine inspiration.

So, I read Genesis 1 prophetically and phenomenologically rather than "literally" in a modern sense. But that's me reading, and I don't hold it over anyone else's faith for differing on our respective interpretations.

Same goes for the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

 

[AV1611VET]

No.

Wow.

Let's try pictures.

Are these two polar opposites?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Wow.

Let's try pictures.

Are these two polar opposites?

View attachment 360989

View attachment 360990

That depends on identifying the semiotics at play in the original Genesis account. Is the Hebrew account meant to be typological, chronological, cosmological/cosmogonic, poetic and polemical in form and purpose? The answers to each of these qualifiers might be yes, no, or "it varies." There are also some critical issues that have to be dealt with when handling our reading of the biblical books, especially with Genesis.

In my view of human history, all human writing is representational, with each book of the Bible being a literary entity unto itself that has to be studied historiographically, and I especially see the first few chapters of Genesis being somewhat typological.

In fact, it's difficult even for Jewish Rabbis to say for sure with consensus what the full nature of this ancient Hebrew writing is other than, "These are Holy and Sacred writings inspired by the Lord." Again, I take Genesis 1 mainly as being prophetic in nature more than anything else and the message was one that was written in such a way as to correct the erroneous myths that were remnants from the past, even in Moses' day.

And that's my basic, (over) simplified understanding of this topic.

 

[AV1611VET]

That depends on identifying the semiotics at play in the original Genesis account. Is the Hebrew account meant to be typological, chronological, cosmological/cosmogonic, poetic and polemical in form and purpose?

Hold on.

Let me ask my wife.

She said, "None of the above. It was meant to be literal."

 

[Aaron112]

Divine!

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hold on.

Let me ask my wife.

She said, "None of the above. It was meant to be literal."

Yes, I'm sure that Genesis 1 was intended to be taken as a literal inverting of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Ugaritic myths, and in that intention, I think it quite succeeds. Literally.

And may both our wives be blessed in that knowledge ........................... in the meantime, I also entertain my own additional "cosmic interpolation" [...since it's not really an interpretation] of Genesis 1:1-8.

The Lord is a Genius!

 

[AV1611VET]

The Lord is a Genius!

Interesting how the moon gets credit for possibly creating life on Earth, when all the moon did was cause our tides.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Interesting how the moon gets credit for possibly creating life on Earth, when all the moon did was cause our tides.

Who says that God wasn't there with it, doing it? Directing it. Shaping it. Not I. And not Moses.

But that's my interpolation. I don't expect anyone else to sign on with it; all that matters is that we have faith in Jesus Christ.

 

[AV1611VET]

Who says that God wasn't there with it, doing it? Directing it. Shaping it. Not I. And not Moses.

If I go hunting with my hunting dog, and I shoot a pheasant, and my hunting dog retrieves it for me, who furnished the meal on my plate?

I, or the dog?

If God ordered the moon to create tides on the earth, who created life on the earth?

God, or the moon?

According to your video, it was the moon.

Look at the title of the video:

Did the Moon Create Life on Earth?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

If I go hunting with my hunting dog, and I shoot a pheasant, and my hunting dog retrieves it for me, who furnished the meal on my plate?

I, or the dog?

If God ordered the moon to create tides on the earth, who created life on the earth?

God, or the moon?

According to your video, it was the moon.

Look at the title of the video:

Did the Moon Create Life on Earth?

You didn't really listen carefully to what was actually said in the video, AV, and what you apparently thought you heard, you're taking literally.

But that's ok. My point in using the 'Moon Video' is to show how I interpolate a compatibility between Genesis 1:1-8 and the Hadean and Archean Eons. This loose compatibility isn't an account of "causation" insinuated between the two, because there isn't any. However, my affirmation of this compatibility is to infer that I, like Moses, reject the other, more ancient alternatives such as the following Egyptian creation myth of Nun.

... and I imagine Moses knew something about this; I'm surmising he knew something "BETTER" about this than Pharaoh did:

The sciences, like myths, and even with our reading of the Bible, all have a level of interpretation at play within the decoding of the meaning. However, where the Hadean and the Archean Eons are concerned from a modern scientific point of view, there is no clearly discernible religious 'decoding' that can be done as there can be with the alternative, ancient Creation Myths.