Literal Genesis

[theotherguy]

Speaking as a Creationist, I'm struggling to understand how evolution can fit with the Bible. If you take the Creation as metarphoic doesn't that mean you can take pretty much anything as metarphohic and twist the Bible into anything you want? It makes the whole veiwpoint look dangerous. I don't have too much of a problem with slow creation if it runs on design but I don't see how evolution fits with the 6 day creation without calling God a lier

 

[Didaskomenos]

I'll warrant you don't take the Gospels as apocalyptic literature. You probably don't even consider the book of Acts poetry. If you're really bright, you may have figured out that the book of Proverbs isn't a historical narrative - even the part about Wisdom crying out in the streets. Our approach is simple: interpret the Bible as it was written, within the confines of the literary genre each particular author chose. The Genesis account does not read as a scientific historian's view of the creation of the world - it reads as an instructional, non-historical type of narrative called mythology. The only people who believe Genesis 1-12 reads like history are those to whom it was presented as history, or those who believe, "God does what is best. History is better than mythology; therefore, Genesis is history" (my apologies to C. S. Lewis).

It's only because of the post-Enlightenment enamour with a scientific, detailed, objective description of the facts of history that so many Christians despise mythology as a genre and evaluate it as not true, or "a lie." The truths presented in mythology can be done regardless of historical data. God did not revise the Israelites' cosmology, except in theological areas: God is the creator, not those other gods. We were created to serve him, not them. Now tell me, does the Genesis creation account accomplish this? If so, it is true and right.

 

[grmorton]

Speaking as a Creationist, I'm struggling to understand how evolution can fit with the Bible. If you take the Creation as metarphoic doesn't that mean you can take pretty much anything as metarphohic and twist the Bible into anything you want? It makes the whole veiwpoint look dangerous. I don't have too much of a problem with slow creation if it runs on design but I don't see how evolution fits with the 6 day creation without calling God a lier

Evolution fits in this way: Genesis 1:24--
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature...

What was it that brought the creature forth? The earth is what the bible clearly says. And I beleive that the way the earth did it was via evolution.

 

[Vance]

theotherguy,

You are falling victim to the fallacy of the "slippery slope". Just because one Scripture is read non-literally, that does not mean all Scripture should be. Your position would seem to be "we had best read it all literally for fear of reading the wrong thing non-literally." The problem with this is that if something is meant to be read non-literally, we had better do so! We are called to "rightly divide the word of truth" rather than just sit at the top of the slope and hold to a strict literalism in fear of going "too far".

Another problem is that no Christian reads everything in the Bible literally. Some text is very easily seen as non-literal (parables, poetry in Psalms, etc), but it is not so cut-and-dry as many literalists would like to make it. For example, does your church teach that Song of Solomon should be read as an allegory for Christ and the Church? Why? There is absolutely no literary reasons for doing this. There is nothing in the text which suggests this should be the proper reading. And yet, it may very well be intended that way, or it may be intended to be read literally, as a sensual love poem.

So, if anyone tells you that it is always obvious within Scripture whether it should be read literally or not is not correct.

Now, as for the Genesis creation account, it actually has many indications of its non-literal nature. This has been covered in many threads in this forum, so rather than restate all those points (literary structure, historical/cultural background, the actual phrasing, etc), I will ask you to scan through the thread titles over the last couple of months and you will find it, I'm sure.

Then, of course, there are those who DO accept Genesis literally and think evolution fits in fine, like Glenn Morton, above.

 

[Vance]

Here are two interesting discussions of the literal/nonliteral issue:

http://www.wcg.org/lit/bible/OT/sixday.htm

http://www.wcg.org/lit/booklets/science/genesis_1.htm

 

[Vance]

Here is another very interesting article describing why Genesis 1 should be read non-literally.

What makes it interesting is that it is written by someone that obviously is opposed to Darwinism.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Bible-Science/6-02Watts.html#Making%20Sense%20of%20Genesis%201

 

[United]

Speaking as a Creationist, I'm struggling to understand how evolution can fit with the Bible. If you take the Creation as metarphoic doesn't that mean you can take pretty much anything as metarphohic and twist the Bible into anything you want? It makes the whole veiwpoint look dangerous. I don't have too much of a problem with slow creation if it runs on design but I don't see how evolution fits with the 6 day creation without calling God a lier

Hi theotherguy

Your question is a good one & shows you are prepared to consider both sides. I think there are a couple of items to be examined here:

1. Does evolution in fact contradict a literal reading of Genesis?
2. Is a literal reading the only reasonable one? If it is non literal, how do you know other sections of the bible are literal?

On the first point, I think it is possible to have a generally literal interpretation and believe in evolution. Further discussion on this item really requires working through each of the apparent contradictions in detail. I will start with one – I have read YEC books which insist the verses like “God created … [birds etc] … according to their kinds” rule out evolution. Yet the verses do not say that animals shall REPRODUCE according to their kinds. And there is no reason why would it anyway - Genesis 1 was not intended as a science book.
Can you list out each of your issues so we can discuss them. I have been working through the issues myself and would welcome a detailed discussion - even if you can identify items I haven't previously considered.

As Vance suggested, I also think it is important to genuinely consider other non literal interpretations & understand if this can be done without negating other sections of the bible. I am in the process of this myself and have yet to fully make up my mind. At this stage I think a generally literal interpretation is more logical (particularly for Genesis 2), but do not rule out a non literal view.


A note to TE’s:

I believe TE’s should concentrate more on explaining this area – the other TE arguments will have more impact once creationalists better understand the different TE perspectives on Genesis. I also think the choice of words is important – the use of words like “mythology” may make sense to you, but when it is used in a sentence (even with an explanation), it still reads like “blah blah blah.. the bible is wrong .. blah blah” to a creationalist.

 

[United]

Dragars quote from the origins forum is particularly relevant here:

May I make a small suggestion?

Theistic evolutionists are the greatest weapon evolutionists have to get through to creationists. But the focus really needs to be upon 'how we interpret the Bible', not 'here is how science contradicts your interpretation'.

Until you shake away their premise - that the Bible as interpreted by them is infallible - they will never accept evolution, because under that premise it must be wrong.

Dragar

 

[Vance]

Actually, on this forum (as opposed to the Creation and Evolution forum), the majority of the discussion is not on the scientific issues at all, but on the theology, the interpretation, etc. I agree that this is where the hang up is, and not with the science (where the evidence is really just completely one-sided).

 

[artybloke]

the use of words like “mythology” may make sense to you, but when it is used in a sentence (even with an explanation), it still reads like “blah blah blah.. the bible is wrong .. blah blah” to a creationalist.

Good point - that's why I try and remember to call it "poetry" - which I think everyone will agree is generally a "non-literal" form but with a large measure of truth in it. The creation narrative in Gen 1 actually does have a poetic structure anyway; rather more, in fact, than is usual in the most OT texts (a lot of which are constructed as narratives poems, rather than prose.)

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I believe TE’s should concentrate more on explaining this area – the other TE arguments will have more impact once creationalists better understand the different TE perspectives on Genesis. I also think the choice of words is important – the use of words like “mythology” may make sense to you, but when it is used in a sentence (even with an explanation), it still reads like “blah blah blah.. the bible is wrong .. blah blah” to a creationalist.

i agree, but i don't know how to do this.
Just looking at Gen 1, i don't really have good words to describe the continuum of ways people interpret it. I dislike the terms literal and figurative, or even logos and mythos, as they really describe the far endpoints, the extremes. Everything else in between is combinations of the literal and figurative.

I tried once to imagine a continuum that expressed the high scientific and historicity on the right, and the high story tellingness on the left.
It was trying to explain the eyewitness problem, how no one agrees to what happened at a crime scene.

on the extreme right you have a professional police report, next to it a newspaperman's account. both have high historicity content. Their purposes and motivations govern the form and structure of their accounts. Just the facts, madaam....
Along the continuum we get history textbooks, 1st hand accounts, then slowly it shades into the world of fiction with historical novel and finally ends up with art, poetry and highly figurative accounts.

It is this kind of analysis we need to find for Genesis, where we can see how people far on the continuum of how they interpret Gen 1 especially. Just using the terms literal and figurative as some sort of absolute label is just downright wrongheaded, for it is the nuances of the spectrum that are interesting and will probably help lead us to a persuasive understanding of what God intends for us to take home from these chapters.

the genesis(*grin*) of this was in a thesis i wrote including the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti. My primary source turned out to be Sinclair's historical novel --- Boston. It was to these sorts of spectrum/continuum i turned my efforts to in order to understand the problem of eyewitnesses.

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post posting edit

Good point - that's why I try and remember to call it "poetry" - which I think everyone will agree is generally a "non-literal" form but with a large measure of truth in it. The creation narrative in Gen 1 actually does have a poetic structure anyway; rather more, in fact, than is usual in the most OT texts (a lot of which are constructed as narratives poems, rather than prose.)

it is this kind of thinking that i wish to be able to capture with a continuum type of analysis. exactly how much 'poetry' and how much 'history and science' does Gen 1 contain?

i'd like to encourage everyone to read the link we were offered above at:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Bible-Science/6-02Watts.html#Making Sense of Genesis 1

What might we conclude about the truth claims and significance of Genesis 1? Given its genre—a highly stylized form and unrealistic content—I would suggest that it is not to be taken "literally" in the popular modern Western sense as a blow-by-blow, chronologically accurate, account of creation. No one in the ancient world, apart from the isolated account of the time taken to build Baal’s palace, seems particularly concerned with these kinds of questions. Our chronos-fixated age measures things in nanoseconds and smaller—but not theirs. Rather, the pattern of days probably derives from the ancients’ understanding of the structure of their world—day/night, above/below, and land/sea—this being conceptualized in terms of the deity’s construction of his palace-temple as he gives it form and fills it. The fundamental issue is that it is Yahweh, Israel’s God, a God who cares for slaves, non-entities, and even non-Israelites (cf. the mixed multitude who are also delivered from Pharaoh’s genocidal proclivities; Exod 12:38), who brought order to the world, not the failed deities of oppressive Egypt nor, to a lesser degree, those of Canaan or Mesopotamia. And in doing so, it uses the language and imagery to which that world, and particularly Egypt, was accustomed. This is hardly suprising.

On this reading the twenty-four hour periods, or more accurately dawn-to-dusk days, probably reflect the notion of the customary daily periods of work. Yahweh is the builder, and each day he speaks and thus by divine fiat builds or fills a discrete part of his realm. Consequently, the injunction to keep Sabbath is less intent on imitating six literal twenty-four-hour days of creation than it is a summons for Israel to live out her creation story—structured as it is in the nature of the case by six days with a seventh to rest—and so to declare herself to be Yahweh’s "son," imitating him in continuing his creation work of bringing order with the ultimate goal of Sabbath rest.

this offers good hermeneutical reasons for moving the slider on the continuum away from the hyper literal, the police report towards the poetry side, it looks a lot like a historical novel. Using history as the structure it fills it with more typically mythos ideas. Like the image of a temple, it can have physical structure here in our world/space/time, but we understand that it is a temple not built with hands in the heavenly places. This pulls it out of our time and space but in doing so doesn't make it false as some would believe.

 

[theotherguy]

I didn't quite mean it like that. In most scripture that isn't taken litery by the majority poems etc, the difference between the factal and the poetic is pretty clear cut, ie, the accounts of Jesus are factal (other than those moral stories, the name of which evades me) but palms is largely a celebration of God. Both of those cases are pretty obiously one or the other and as far as I can see Genesis reads more like a gospel than a piece of poetry. That is basis for me to believe the account should be taken litery. Also there seems to be alot of evidance against evolution that seems to get ignored

www.answersingenesis.com or .co.uk

Not that I'm saying evolution is a destoried therory but there seems to be a heck of alot stacked against it. Quite frankly the subject has been so distorted by both sides it is probaly going to be impossible to find solid evidance that someone can undermine for either side.

Let the whole world praise him...

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

I didn't quite mean it like that. In most scripture that isn't taken litery by the majority poems etc, the difference between the factal and the poetic is pretty clear cut, ie, the accounts of Jesus are factal (other than those moral stories, the name of which evades me) but palms is largely a celebration of God. Both of those cases are pretty obiously one or the other and as far as I can see Genesis reads more like a gospel than a piece of poetry. That is basis for me to believe the account should be taken litery. Also there seems to be alot of evidance against evolution that seems to get ignored

www.answersingenesis.com or .co.uk

Not that I'm saying evolution is a destoried therory but there seems to be a heck of alot stacked against it. Quite frankly the subject has been so distorted by both sides it is probaly going to be impossible to find solid evidance that someone can undermine for either side.

Let the whole world praise him...

It doesn't get ignored; it is weighed in the balance and found wanting. If you want to post a particular line of evidence you think is particularly "against" evolution, then please do so and we'll see if it holds water. So far, none of them do.

The question being asked in the open forum is pertinent here - if there's so much evidence against evolution, do 99%+ of scientists accept it because:

(a) it's a conspiracy
(b) they're stupid?

It must be one of the two.

 

[United]

Also there seems to be alot of evidance against evolution that seems to get ignored

www.answersingenesis.com or .co.uk

Not that I'm saying evolution is a destoried therory but there seems to be a heck of alot stacked against it. Quite frankly the subject has been so distorted by both sides it is probaly going to be impossible to find solid evidance that someone can undermine for either side.

Let the whole world praise him...

Hi theotherguy,

I personally have some major concerns with evolution. I think the evidence in some areas is strong, but in other areas I find it very lacking - particularly in it's proposed mechanism (natural selection, punctuated equilibrium etc). This causes me a struggle with mainstream evolution.

However, I have come to realise that almost all of my issues are irrelevant to thesistic evolution. God could have provided the mechanism. I'm not saying thesistic evolution is perfectly correct, but it does deserve alot more consideration then AIG gives it.

 

[Vance]

Also the literal/non-literal is not always so clear-cut. Look at Song of Solomon.

 

[artybloke]

In most scripture that isn't taken litery by the majority poems etc, the difference between the factal and the poetic is pretty clear cut

That's not true in the Old Testament - the historical books are as poetical in form as the actual poems themselves - and are best thought of as conflations of history, story and poetry, not as one or the other.

 

[Gold Dragon]

I the difference between the factal and the poetic is pretty clear cut, ie, the accounts of Jesus are factal (other than those moral stories, the name of which evades me) but palms is largely a celebration of God.

Just because the psalms were poetic, does that mean the things talked about in Psalms were false, wrong, didn't happen, "myth"?

 

[gluadys]

It doesn't get ignored; it is weighed in the balance and found wanting. If you want to post a particular line of evidence you think is particularly "against" evolution, then please do so and we'll see if it holds water. So far, none of them do.

The question being asked in the open forum is pertinent here - if there's so much evidence against evolution, do 99%+ of scientists accept it because:

(a) it's a conspiracy
(b) they're stupid?

It must be one of the two.

It's a question to be taken seriously. My first acquaintance with concepts of evolution came from creationists, and I saw no reason to doubt their version at the time.

It was when I found myself asking "How could scientists be so stupid?" that I suddenly realized: Hey, you don't get to be a scientist by being stupid.

That's when I began asking, "Why do smart people like scientists take evolution seriously?" It didn't take long to find out all the things creationist sources were NOT telling me.

 

[artybloke]

Just because the psalms were poetic, does that mean the things talked about in Psalms were false, wrong, didn't happen, "myth"?

Not as such; Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade is a poem about a real event. On the other hand, his The Idylls of the King are about King Arthur, and are largely mythical. Same with the Psalms: some may be based on historical events, some may be based on myths.

However, the feelings expressed, the ideas explored, the human attributes, the spiritual yearnings described are real, or the poetry wouldn't be as effective. Poetry and fiction tell truths, they don't have to be factual to be true, and even if based on real events they don't have to be 100% accurate. That's why God blessed us with an imagination: so we could imagine.

The writers of the Bible were blessed with imaginations, and they used them to seek the truth about God and our relationship with him.

 

[theotherguy]

If you could show me real proof of our origns, evolution or otherwise I would believe you. Until that time however I will continue to believe the reading of Genesis that best makes sense to me.