armyingst, welcome to the forums!
You wrote:
You do know that a straightforward reading and a literal reading of a passage that is written in a Hebrew style that is not poetic, yet Hebrew does have a poetic style. Must be a reason why they did not use it here.
Um, they did use a poetic style here. That's shown by the clear 1-4, 2-5, 3-6 parallelism - a common construction in Hebrew poetry. Bible scholars recognize this, partly because they are reading this in the original Hebrew. Here are Hebrew Bible scholars:
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11902-parallelism-in-hebrew-poetry
Jesus did not reference the parable of the good Samaritan, He TOLD it, and everyone knows it was a story.
of course they know it's a story - and yet Jesus never said "this is a parable". Why not? Because he knew that stories, whether they are literally true or not, can convey deep spiritual meaning - as you yourself agree.
It is such that in some translations of the Bible it says so.
irrelevant. You and I both know that those words (headings, etc.) were added in modern times by people, and are not God's word.
The stories Jesus told were parables, which means they had deeper spiritual meaning.
EXACTLY. That's the main point - that symbolic speech is a powerful way to convey a deep spiritual meaning. That's why it's used in Genesis.
If the story of Creation was not true and only a story, why was it the underpinning of Jewish society?
Whoa, now you are contradicting yourself. You just agreed that symbolic speech can have a deeper spiritual meaning. That's the opposite of "not true and only a story". So you think Jesus' teachings are trash? They are "not true and only stories" after all. So we can't base a religion on Jesus' teachings because they are "not true and only stories"? Ouch.
if only a story... Their Ten Commandments include one that is based on Creation. Either God lied when He gave the Commandments, or He knows more than we do.
Oh, so that means that Jesus lied when he told his parables, because they are "not true and only stories"?
In Martin Luther's time, they were defending against people who basically believe God snapped His fingers and it was. (Actually, it was more it only took God one day.) Martin Luther defended 7 days against this, because the Bible said 7 days.
Martin Luther was a human being. He also wanted to remove the books of James, Hebrews and Rev from the Bible, and suggested that in Germany, the Jews should be rounded up, their possessions burned and then put them in forced labor camps. So those are correct too, right?
Magical fruit? Perhaps it is better to have a literal understanding of Genesis. Then you don't see magical fruit, you see a command of God backed up by a piece of fruit which had no power in and of itself other than to, by implication of breaking the Law of God, opening the eyes to good and evil.
Sounds like you are not taking the story literally. If you read the literal story, instead of repeating what you have been told, you'll see that their eyes were opened when they ate the fruit - that was the power of the fruit, it wasn't an act of God (heck, God didn't even know about it yet - he only figured it out later). That's magical fruit, if read literally.
You say death existed before rebellion, yet death is suffering and pain. So how can there be death if there is no suffering?
Who said there is no suffering? Again it sounds like you are making things up that are not scriptural. Please supply the verse that says there is no suffering.
How could a perfect world (I don't think God could create anything less than perfection) be so imperfect?
Is Satan perfect? God created Satan. The whole "perfect" thing is another anti-biblical idea of humans.
God explained it to them.
Verse please? Or is this another one of those ideas of humans that you are putting into the scripture? We went through a lot of this on this thread already. Did you not read earlier posts?
As for plants, even the Hebrew uses a different word in relation to life for plants and life for animals. Different words, because it is different. Plants were made to be food for all creation. It wasn't until after Noah's flood that animals became fully part of the food chain. (I do forget that a lot of people toss out most of Genesis.)
Different words are irrelevant. Are you denying that plants are alive? Simple question - are plants alive or not? (I do forget that a lot of people just change Genesis to say what they want.)
If Adam was not created by God, then Jesus death means nothing.
I agree that God made Adam. We just disagree as to how. You contend that he made Adam by performing mouth-to -nose breathing on a mudpie, while I stick to what Jesus said in Jn 5:17. as we still see today.
How is that eternal life? He is coming to restore things to the way they were before sin corrupted everything.
Genesis shows that this is wrong, by showing that Adam and Eve weren't immortal, because they could have gotten eternal life by eating from the other tree, and did not do so.
In Jesus' name-
Papias[/QUOTE]