Question to those who don't take Genesis literally?

[Willtor]

(Emphasis mine.) RJF, thank you for your post, I have some questions. I am not sure that "guidance of the Holy Spirit" is an accurate translation method.

I know there are some people very attuned to the Holy Spirit's guidance, but I don't think it's so common that everyone can just go around relying on it all the time. I don't mean to sound harsh.

It's just that my life experiences have lead me to question past times I thought I was "hearing" or "feeling" the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Take for instance, from early child hood I was raised in fundamental YEC teachings. Considering that evolution might be true felt very, very "wrong" to me, and even sinfull.

There are many other deeper reasons I have to wonder when I've really "heard" Him at all. *shrugs*

I agree, and I'd even take it a step further. The Holy Spirit isn't identified by a particular feeling we get, or a voice in our heads. The Holy Spirit manifests Himself in the Church. This is my primary opposition to a personal interpretation of Scripture. Not that the Church is always right, but that it is a function of the Church to do this. This becomes very difficult when the Church is factioned, but it is the role of the Church (throughout the world and time) to do this. One cannot say, "Athanasius was wrong because I feel the Holy Spirit leading me to believe this other thing."

Identifying the work of the Holy Spirit, almost universally, has been something that was identified in hindsight, and it had little to do with people feeling it to be so.

 

[Caissie]

The gospel of Luke has Jesus' genealogy all the way back to Adam. Plus The New Testament refers to Adam many times,

Romans 5:14
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

1 Corinthians 15:22
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

1 Timothy 2:13
For Adam was first formed, then Eve.


1 Timothy 2:14
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Plus Peter mentions the world wide flood.

2 Peter 3:3-6
3Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

4And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

5For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

6Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

It looks like Jesus' disciples also believed in Adam and Eve and the flood story.

Again....No Adam and Eve....No Noah....Means No Jesus and No credibility to the New Testament.

 

[LoG]

I agree, and I'd even take it a step further. The Holy Spirit isn't identified by a particular feeling we get, or a voice in our heads. The Holy Spirit manifests Himself in the Church. This is my primary opposition to a personal interpretation of Scripture.

Then you really ought to do a study of the scriptures that relate to how the Spirit has and continues to speak and manifest himself to individual believers. It is an interesting and fruitful study if approached with an open mind and heart. It is through this avenue that we mature and learn to discern the Will of God for our lives.

 

[gluadys]

The work of Velikovski in Ages in Chaos first started looking into this disrepancy and from him many others have started to study it also and see that there is a correlation between the bible and egyptian chronology when certain events are matched up properly.
This link points out where the 2 line up quite well although study still continues.

A New Chronology

I read Velikovsky years ago. I think there is good reason archeologists ignore him.

 

[DragnGT]

[tiny rant]

I don't see how a Christian can view the 10 commandments as literal. And the account of creation as interpretive. You either believe everything written in the Bible or none at all. You don't get to pick and choose what you want.

[/tiny rant]

 

[Willtor]

Then you really ought to do a study of the scriptures that relate to how the Spirit has and continues to speak and manifest himself to individual believers. It is an interesting and fruitful study if approached with an open mind and heart. It is through this avenue that we mature and learn to discern the Will of God for our lives.

I know how He manifests Himself in the Scriptures in that sometimes He makes Himself known explicitly. But in the Scriptures this looks to be the exception rather than the rule. He makes men prophecy, He explicitly manifests Himself in tongues and in visions, etc. But most of the spiritual gifts He gives are not so visible, and His guiding of the Church has been equally invisible. Typically, it is only in hindsight that people realize that a thing was the work of the Holy Spirit.

 

[gluadys]

[tiny rant]

I don't see how a Christian can view the 10 commandments as literal. And the account of creation as interpretive. You either believe everything written in the Bible or none at all. You don't get to pick and choose what you want.

[/tiny rant]

So who is disagreeing with believing everything in the bible? Or are you insinuating that a non-literal interpretation is equivalent to non-belief?

 

[DragnGT]

So who is disagreeing with believing everything in the bible? Or are you insinuating that a non-literal interpretation is equivalent to non-belief?

Close. We are told not to add to nor take anything away from the Bible. If God separated light from darkness and called the light day and the darkness night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. That sounds like His definition of a day to me.

 

[Pats]

Then you really ought to do a study of the scriptures that relate to how the Spirit has and continues to speak and manifest himself to individual believers. It is an interesting and fruitful study if approached with an open mind and heart. It is through this avenue that we mature and learn to discern the Will of God for our lives.

LoG, this is where we can take real life observations and compare them with scripture and find the truth.

I have studied this from the fundamentalist perspective that you are describing. Yeah.... see, that nearly drove me out of the church because I thought I had been fooled since I wasn't "hearing the Holy Spirit" correctly, when I thought I had and had done everything I was supposed to do.

We should take a poll and ask how many people can discern the Will of God for their lives through the Holy Spirit, and then find out how that "will of God" differs and conflicts with one another... Yeah... then the fundamentalists will point and say the others aren't doing it right... Yeah, that draws people closer to God.[/sarcasm]

 

[Pats]

sorry, accidental double post edited out

 

[Willtor]

Close. We are told not to add to nor take anything away from the Bible. If God separated light from darkness and called the light day and the darkness night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. That sounds like His definition of a day to me.

We are told not to add to or remove from the Apocalypse of John. It is a good idea not to add to or remove from any of the other Scriptural texts, lest we alter the content.

As to definitions of day and such, you haven't addressed why this means that the passage is literal. You would say 24 hours, and I'd say 16 hours but even then I would still say that we are not meant to take the passage as a factual narrative.

 

[DragnGT]

Right, that came from Revelations.

As for the actual time, is it 24, 18, 16hrs? etc... I'm not trying to get that specific. I am however, saying that for most of the world, our day consists of a morning, afternoon, evening and night. Just as it did according to God when He created it. Since Genesis says that the Spirit of God was on the face of the waters of the earth, it's safe to say that He was present in/on/around the earth while he created it all. So his viewpoint of time, evening and the morning were the first day, was from earth.

 

[Mling]

But...People did not just suddenly figure out the idea of idioms and metaphores during the 20th century; Hebrew and Greek had them too. To insist that a particular passage be taken literally, when the original speaker or author did not mean it that way, is just as dishonest as insisting that a literal passage be interpreted symbolically. Both corrupt the original and true meaning of the scripture.

It isn't "picking and choosing" to study the background of a text and try to understand what was meant; it is honest and intelligent reading.

 

[Tonks]

Right, that came from Revelations.

As for the actual time, is it 24, 18, 16hrs? etc... I'm not trying to get that specific. I am however, saying that for most of the world, our day consists of a morning, afternoon, evening and night. Just as it did according to God when He created it. Since Genesis says that the Spirit of God was on the face of the waters of the earth, it's safe to say that He was present in/on/around the earth while he created it all. So his viewpoint of time, evening and the morning were the first day, was from earth.

This presupposes that "way back in the day," as it were, people had the same linear concept of time - including past, present, and future - that we do. Beyond the fact that we can debate the literal day or the "day is like a 1000 years" bit any actual historical study of ancient societies - particularly in the area of the world where Christianity was birthed - will show a cyclical understanding of time. The concept of past, present, and future was entirely different back then.

 

[gluadys]

Close. We are told not to add to nor take anything away from the Bible. If God separated light from darkness and called the light day and the darkness night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. That sounds like His definition of a day to me.

No problem with the definition. I would agree that the author intends the days of Genesis to be understood as stated. But to me they are still days in a story, not days in the calendar of earth's history.

 

[LoG]

I read Velikovsky years ago. I think there is good reason archeologists ignore him.

Lol, that doesn't surprise me. His cosmonoly gave a good solid explanation of the Earth's history by taking not only the bible as literal history but also that of "mythological" writings of many other civilizations. He thoroughly debunked Uniformatism and predicted what we would find on the various planets in our solar system. To rub salt in the wound, a number of his predictions were proven to be correct well after his death by various NASA probes.

It is unfortunate that YEC's don't look closer at his books because he is a lot closer to the truth with his outlook than the standard Flood geology theory.
Imo anyway.

 

[DragnGT]

But...People did not just suddenly figure out the idea of idioms and metaphores during the 20th century; Hebrew and Greek had them too. To insist that a particular passage be taken literally, when the original speaker or author did not mean it that way, is just as dishonest as insisting that a literal passage be interpreted symbolically. Both corrupt the original and true meaning of the scripture.

It isn't "picking and choosing" to study the background of a text and try to understand what was meant; it is honest and intelligent reading.

Explain to me how a list and explanation of events hints that we are to interpret it differently than what is listed. The sentences are not subjective. They state how A, B & C happened on day 1, 2, 3…. It’s humans who want to second guess God and his ability to create the universe in 6 days and to further define a ‘day’.

Let me ask this another way. Moses wrote the book of Genesis. I think we can all agree that Moses was obedient to God. Wouldn’t Moses write Genesis the way God would want it to be written? If he didn’t understand God’s meaning and definition of a ‘day’ wouldn’t he have written it in a more understanding form? Moses wrote four other books. We don’t second guess his use of the term day in them. So why do some only doubt the meaning of a ‘day’ when we speak of creation?

The concept of past, present, and future was entirely different back then.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Does this sound like one day to you? What is there to question?

 

[Peaceful Dove]

What parts are literal to you? and what if allegory?

If you view the story of Creation and Noah as figurative, how do you view the story of Moses and Pharoh? the plauges of Egypt?

What about stories like Joseph?

Where do you draw the line between historcal documents in the OT and allegorical stories?

Thanks,
Pats

There are other writing styles besides allegorical that are not literal. Many used down through Salvation history.
So, I may not believe a certain thing to be literal but not necessarily say it is allegoracal. Or something in Genesis might be one and not the other.

 

[LoG]

LoG, this is where we can take real life observations and compare them with scripture and find the truth.

I have studied this from the fundamentalist perspective that you are describing. Yeah.... see, that nearly drove me out of the church because I thought I had been fooled since I wasn't "hearing the Holy Spirit" correctly, when I thought I had and had done everything I was supposed to do.

I guess that depends a lot on what results you are expecting when you are hearing from the Holy Spirit. Learning to follow the Spirit has cost me emotional pain, financial loss, time and energy. I always received a blessing but not always in the way I was hoping. Some have told me that because of those negative aspects I must have been hearing wrong, but the scriptures say that is how God purifies us. That isn't to say I hear perfectly because that isn't true. There have been times that I heard right but the timing was wrong, other times that my "wants" were what I was hearing, not the Holy Spirit. It is not an exact science but a process where we learn to discern His voice in the various ways it may come.

We should take a poll and ask how many people can discern the Will of God for their lives through the Holy Spirit, and then find out how that "will of God" differs and conflicts with one another... Yeah... then the fundamentalists will point and say the others aren't doing it right... Yeah, that draws people closer to God.[/sarcasm]

I can relate to that type of situation Pat. I went through a relationship a few years ago where the differences and conflicts in our perceptions of God's Will was a factor in the breakup. It was a struggle to accept at first but eventually I did realize that there were positive benefits for both of us being in the relationship but there were also positive benefits in the breakup. I have found that it's not a good idea to compare my life with that of others. God has a plan for me that seems to differ from what some consider normal. I can choose to accept that and find a measure of peace and contentment with the situation or I can "kick against the goads" and be envious and resentful. The choice is clear but requires work on self to attain.

 

[juggernaut]

www dot CreationOnTheWeb dot com

I believe in a literal 6 day creation.

Here is what the Creation magazine says about creation:

Could the days of creation week have lasted for millions of years? Answer: NO!​

1. The plain and obvious meaning of Genesis is that the days were days! God was not writing in code nor giving us a riddle to solve. He was telling us in simple and straightforward language that He took six ordinary days to create everything. What better what could He have told us that He took six real days than what He said in Genesis?
2. In the Bible, the word 'day' with a number always means a real day, like 'third day'. In the same way, Jonah was three days inside the great sea creature (Jonah 1:17), not three million years!
3. In the Bible, the words 'evening' and 'morning' always refer to a real day.
4. Many plants are pollinated by birds or bees, but these creatures were not made until the fifth day. If the days lasted for millions of years, how could there plants have reproduced and survived?
5. If God had wanted to tell us that He took millions or billions of years, He certainly could have used words that would have told us this. But He didn't!
6. Some people try to squeeze billions of years in the Bible account. They say the days of Creation were long ages, or that there's a 'gap' between the first two verses of Genesis. But everything we read in the Bible disagrees with man's ideas about the universe being billions of years old. The universe is only about 6,000 years old.

The timeframe of Creation Week matters to God​

God Himself wrote the 10 Commandments with His finger. The 4th one is:

"Remeber the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God."

​

The reason He gave is:

"For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day."

​

Clearly the time frame is important, otherwise this Commandment is meaningless. And if the creation days were really long periods of time, then logically the days of the working week would have be as well. But "Work for six billion years and rest for one billion years" doesn't quite have the same ring to it ...