Questions of TE

[Mallon]

Is there a close relationship between TE and literal/figurative interpretation of Bible? Is TE and literal reading of Bible incompatible? That means, if we read the Bible literally, then TE will not be valid.

To be honest, I think evolutionary creationists read the Bible in a more straightforward (even "literal") manner than any YEC. I accept the six, 24-hour day framework implied in Genesis, and unlike most YECs, I make no attempt to metaphorize the biblical descriptions of the flat earth, solid firmament, or geocentrism.
The difference, of course, is that we believe these outdated understandings of cosmology are merely incidental, serving as the vessel by which God delivered His timeless truths to the early Hebrews. So rather than saying evolutionary creationism is incompatible with a literal reading of the Bible, I would say that it is made plausible because of a literal or "plain" reading of the Bible.

 

[gluadys]

I would like to ask the second question before I go back to examine further on the idea of Theistic Evolution.

Is there a close relationship between TE and literal/figurative interpretation of Bible? Is TE and literal reading of Bible incompatible? That means, if we read the Bible literally, then TE will not be valid.

I would say "no". The fact is that no one reads scripture in a completely "literal" fashion. The most die -hard literalist does not take obvious figures of speech (e.g. hills dancing, mountains clapping their hands, etc.) literally.

Furthemore, the vast majority of today's literalists do not understand literally what the biblical writers assumed to be natural descriptions of the world (e.g. a solid firmament above a disc-shaped earth, an immobile earth and a mobile sun, etc.) Furthermore, it is not just TEs who are comfortable with an old age for the earth. Old-earth creationists also interpret the days of Genesis 1 as other than ordinary days in the calendar. Yet they hold to a very literal view of scripture generally.

So it is not a general problem of TE vs. literal, but rather a specific problem of where one decides what must be literal and what is not.

As Mallon has repeatedly pointed out, not even the biblical authors insisted on God's "days" being literal days. So choosing this particular point to defend the doctrine of literalism is especially weak.

Or, TE is not that much related to the way of Bible interpretation?

Not much. TEs come from a wide range of interpretive schools.

 

[crawfish]

I would like to ask the second question before I go back to examine further on the idea of Theistic Evolution.

Is there a close relationship between TE and literal/figurative interpretation of Bible? Is TE and literal reading of Bible incompatible? That means, if we read the Bible literally, then TE will not be valid.

It depends if you read it literally as an ancient Hebrew would, or read it literally as an educated, 21st-century person. If the latter, you tend to make implications from the wording of scripture that does not jibe with the original intent of the passage.

Or, TE is not that much related to the way of Bible interpretation?

TE's are not as tightly intertwined as some of the other OT disciplines. Our interpretations probably vary more than the various forms of creationists combined.

However, all TE's will agree that interpretation of scripture must be done in context of the author's race, environment and time he wrote it. We should not add meaning that wasn't intended.

Noticed that in this question, the scope of Bible interpretation is significantly wider than just the part which concerned biological evolution. It is possible that if we read the Bible literally, then the idea of TE will become faulty. But on the other hand, the truth of TE does not have to deny the literal reading of Bible in 100%. Is it possible that TE could read some Bible verses literally, and some critical verses (such as Gen:1) figuratively? Or is it necessary that because some verses of the Bible "have to" be read figurative, so that all ambiguous Bible verses should all be read figuratively?

Actually, as a TE I am very intent on pulling literal meaning out of scripture as much as possible. I believe the points that scripture makes tends to be obvious; even in the creation story, the purposes behind God's telling of the stories is quite obvious. All I would do is weed out the modern implications towards science and history; leave the spiritual literalness intact.

As an example, I pull this from the Genesis 1 account:

1) God created all things
2) Those things were good
3) Man was the pinnacle of God's creation
4) Man was put under God but over all of creation

The above is simplified, but functionally complete. It is a fully literal view of the text, adding nothing and deriving nothing.