My Symbolic Challenge

[Hans Blaster]

It's good to know you're still open to learning, despite your disinclination to care about it.

Understanding what ancient people believed helps in our understanding of their behaviors and motivations. I do find it particularly interesting the ways in which what is feared or opposed enters in to polemics and the like.

But yeah, I personally think the spiritual value of the books of the Bible is in their prophetic nature of "forth-telling" more than anything else, and this of course applies to Genesis 1.

Unlike most parts of the Christian Bible, I've read Gen 1 a few times and heard it many more. There is no "forth-telling" in it, but a recitation of the "days of creation".

The most interesting thing to me is that Genesis 1, despite its depiction of God being present and presiding over the processes of "creation," presents an inverted narrative which leans more toward our modern, naturalized understanding of the world's formation, in contra-distinction to the mythical notions of that formation held by the Mesopotamians and Egyptians.

I am familiar with most of the natural things paralleled in Gen 1, and it bears no resemblance to to the scientifically reconstructed past. What it lacks are the god/monster battles and various acts of procreation found in other such myths. It is a very thin vapor to hang one's hat on.

But if your point still stands, just know that I'm more than ready and able to argue about it. ......Or rather, my sources are.

I'm busy now, gone campaigning in S.C. (I know what they fear for I have read their literature.)

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Understanding what ancient people believed helps in our understanding of their behaviors and motivations. I do find it particularly interesting the ways in which what is feared or opposed enters in to polemics and the like.

Unlike most parts of the Christian Bible, I've read Gen 1 a few times and heard it many more. There is no "forth-telling" in it, but a recitation of the "days of creation".

I am familiar with most of the natural things paralleled in Gen 1, and it bears no resemblance to to the scientifically reconstructed past. What it lacks are the god/monster battles and various acts of procreation found in other such myths. It is a very thin vapor to hang one's hat on.

I'm busy now, gone campaigning in S.C. (I know what they fear for I have read their literature.)

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[Hans Blaster]

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Is the meaning encoded in the number of dots?

 

[AveChristusRex]

Simple YES or NO question:

Is Genesis 1 reduced to symbols so that a literal teaching of creation can be replaced with a literal teaching of evolution?

(Please note that I'm not looking for two feet of text. I'm looking for a single word: YES or NO.)

No.

 

[AV1611VET]

No.

I can't, for the life of me, understand why an evolutionist would say NO.

Other than to save face.

 

[AveChristusRex]

I can't, for the life of me, understand why an evolutionist would say NO.

Other than to save face.

I believe it is a way of coping with the literal creation, while also spouting nonsense in the same breath.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I can't, for the life of me, understand why an evolutionist would say NO.

Other than to save face.

AV, I need to ask this question: when you say replace 'a literal teaching of creation with a literal teaching of evolution'... what the heck do you actually mean?! And don't just respond with a BS AI definition, I, and very much others too, want to know exactly what you yourself mean.

 

[AV1611VET]

I believe it is a way of coping with the literal creation, while also spouting nonsense in the same breath.

I agree.

How does academia cope with the literal creation narrative?

By simply saying it is non-literal.

 

[AV1611VET]

AV, I need to ask this question: when you say replace 'a literal teaching of creation with a literal teaching of evolution'... what the heck do you actually mean?!

C'mon, Warden.

You're not that dense.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

C'mon, Warden.

You're not that dense.

Would I be asking the question if I wasn't? Seriously.

Your comment makes no sense. Along with virtually a thousand other things you say.

 

[BCP1928]

It is quite a beautiful story. It is not a story intended to give us "facts about creation." In Hebrew, it's a song, and a literal reading of a non-lyrical English translation tells us almost nothing about it. It's framed around the seven day week with a Sabbath which had already become traditional at the time it was written. The first line "In the beginning God created heaven and Earth" is seven words in Hebrew. and the best sense of the Hebrew is, "To start with, God created the heavens above us and the ground beneath our feet." It is not a cosmological statement at all. The big takeaway is that God created it all. In that is a striking theological departure from the dualist creation stories of surrounding cultures, and theirein lies it's significance. Fundamentalists go to great lengths to try to "harmonize" it with the Garden story, a much older story with different authorship, a different literary genre and a different intention. It is clear that the editors who assembled the book of Genesis saw no need to attempt it. For those who beiieve that the scriptures are divinely inspired it is clear that God saw no need to do so either.

 

[AveChristusRex]

I agree.

How does academia cope with the literal creation narrative?

By simply saying it is non-literal.

Exactly, the scramble for legitimacy has either led them to "simulation theory" or non-literal creation.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Exactly, the scramble for legitimacy has either led them to "simulation theory" or non-literal creation.

So... what is the point of all of recorded history then? The geological column, the fossil record? What's the point of it all if the world was created 6000 years ago in a six day period?

 

[AV1611VET]

In Hebrew, it's a song,

Nice.

What is it in Swahili? a dance?

If it's made to say anything other than what the KJB says it is, it can take a hike.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Nice.

What is it in Swahili? a dance?

If it's made to say anything other than what the KJB says it is, it can take a hike.

Your idolatry of the KJB is noted.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Is the meaning encoded in the number of dots?

I could explain it to you, but that would take precious time away from my reading of other Jewish authors we all know and love.

You'll just have to fend for yourself. ..............I did.

 

[AV1611VET]

Exactly, the scramble for legitimacy has either led them to "simulation theory" or non-literal creation.

Agreed.

And while its legitimacy is built in -- (after all, its author is God, and that makes it automatically legit) -- it has been rendered illegitimate by those who are now scrambling to give it legitimacy.

Go figure.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Agreed.

And while its legitimacy is built in -- (after all, its author is God, that makes it automatically legit) -- it has been rendered illegitimate by those who are now scrambling to give it legitimacy.

Go figure.

And you do such a good job at rendering it illegitimate with every thing you say about it.

 

[AV1611VET]

So... what is the point of all of recorded history then? The geological column, the fossil record? What's the point of it all if the world was created 6000 years ago in a six day period?

Good question.

Or, as is found in:

Luke 24:5b Why seek ye the living among the dead?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Good question.

Or, as is found in:

Luke 24:5b Why seek ye the living among the dead?

Luke 24:4 - 6
4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:

5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

6 He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,

Your continued desire to misquote the Bible does you no credit whatsoever.