The Deception of Genesis

[Outrider]

justified,

Be back Monday.

 

[Uphill Battle]

quite simply, an unforced reading of the text of Genesis states that God created the world in 6 days, resting on the 7th. It is someone who wants to justify Evolutionary theory into their beliefs, that has to do mental gymnastics to make it work.

 

[ebia]

quite simply, an unforced reading of the text of Genesis states that God created the world in 6 days, resting on the 7th.

But an unforced reading doesn't require it to be literally true.

 

[Uphill Battle]

But an unforced reading doesn't require it to be literally true.

no, I suppose not. You could read "the little engine that could" and assume what the author really meant was that he DIDN'T actually try to go up a hill, he was really trying to overcome something else entirely, such as bad karma, or social standing.

or, you could read it for what it is. your choice, I suppose.

(where's that rolling eyes smiley when you need it?)

 

[shernren]

quite simply, an unforced reading of the text of Genesis states that God created the world in 6 days, resting on the 7th. It is someone who wants to justify Evolutionary theory into their beliefs, that has to do mental gymnastics to make it work.

Oh, you should see the mental contortion that goes into YEC maya beliefs, the ones that say science is all wretched and just because we can see evidence of something happening doesn't mean it actually happened. That was what tipped me over into TEism.

The next step is to show where a spiritual life is lived in some ethereal realm and not on the solid matter of the earth and concerned with all that we are concerned with here, economy, politics, etc., etc.

O_O I've been one of the more militant anti-dualists on this board. What I described showed precisely this: that the worth of any spiritual idea / doctrine is in what implications it has on the solid matter of earth. The story of Creation implies certain obligations and relationships between man and the Creator, whether or not it actually happened. These relationships are worked out by the Torah governing both individual and social justice. Individual and social justice derive partly from the idea that God created the world ... not necessarily the idea that God created the world in 144 hours. (Nice number, come to think of it.)

God create man a spiritual/physical being.

Now that is gnostic soul/body dualism. PM me if you want to know more.

The Bible is indeed going to deal with our spiritual life AND the working out of that life in our attitudes, behavior, decisions and actions. In other words, the spiritual life is played out in the material world, ergo, the Bible is concerned for both, not just the one to the exclusion of the other. The view that spiritual is separate from the physical in the outworkings of man is the pedestal upon which gnosticism stands.

EXACTLY! The Bible isn't given simply for the sake of giving us creation theory. God did not give the Law for the sake of telling them how He made the world - He told them why He made the world, and what their behaviour and their relationship to them was to be like as a consequence of that.

Hence, reading the books of the Law (in which the book of Genesis is couched) we find God setting up a relationship between the moral outworkings of man and the condition of the earth (the crops, the herd, the land), which is as propositionally a part of the concerns of revelation as the spiritual stuff.

I agree. I believe in a literal historical Fall.

In other words, they're together and interpretations of Scripture that separates them are false interpretations that ignor the nature of revelation. Myths indeed tend to float around in a timeless, spaceless sort of existence. Not so the Scriptures. The spiritual truths are well grounded in physical reality and that is one thing that makes the revelation so unique in ancient literature, its realism and honesty.

The sort of realism in which all the plants of the world sprouted up overnight? Where there were days before there was a well-defined earth and sun? Where there is a layer of ice at the edge of the observable universe? (The waters above the firmament mean a very different thing when one considers ancient cosmology.)

I see nothing in any of your passages that instruct us not to use Scripture for any other usage than what is stated. Paul certainly doesn't follow your hermeneutic rules, nor does Christ, but both take Scripture out of its primary purpose and use Scripture in other ways. An excellent example is Jonah. David wrote the Psalms for what purpose? Songs and poetry? Jonah used the Psalms as prayers.

Actually, the Psalms are prayers. The psalmist described his state of life in the audience of God. If that is not praying I have never prayed before. But that is beside the point.

According to your method, he was wrong to do so. I think your hedging the purpose of revelation in order to protect your view from violation instead of dealing with a true biblical hermeneutic using the examples of Jesus, the prophets, the apostles, et al exhibited in Scripture. Books do not stay confined in certain categories as much as you imagine they do, but cross over into several kinds of usages. Besides, the Bible just doesn't behave accordingly. Throughout the Scriptures we find a mixture of types and categories. Prophecy has history and poetry, Psalms are theological and prophetic, the gospels are homiletic, theological, prophetic. It is the hand of an Author who is master of literary device, not of a slave to a single device as you seem to suggest.

But now you are conflating literary genre with literary purpose. What I said was that the Bible was given with the purpose of instructing us to live holy lives. It does so with numerous genres, and with much material that crosses back and forth between those genres. But it sticks to its purpose. You do not see Scripture, for example, teaching us how to isolate variables and test hypotheses, AFAIK. The closest thing to science there is in Scripture is not Genesis 1, but actually the "glorious creation" discourses of Job, especially in chs. 38-41. For this is where the Bible speaks of creation in itself as a glorifier of God, instead of creation as a backdrop to man and his relationship with God.

 

[ebia]

no, I suppose not. You could read "the little engine that could" and assume what the author really meant was that he DIDN'T actually try to go up a hill, he was really trying to overcome something else entirely, such as bad karma, or social standing.

That bears absolutely no resemblence to what anyone is saying.

 

[Uphill Battle]

That bears absolutely no resemblence to what anyone is saying.

sure it does. If you read any text, the FIRST assumption is not that something else is meant.

A good example is the Lord of the Rings. Christians worldwide claimed that it was allegorical. Tolkien, the author denied this.

 

[ebia]

sure it does.

What you wrote bears no resemblence to what people are saying. If you honestly think it does, you don't understand what people are saying.

 

[Uphill Battle]

What you wrote bears no resemblence to what people are saying. If you honestly think it does, you don't understand what people are saying.

good tactic. Ignore the point.

 

[ebia]

good tactic. Ignore the point.

I'm not ignoring the point that I am addressing. I'm not obliged to be distracted by your trying to change the subject.

 

[Uphill Battle]

I'm not ignoring the point that I am addressing. I'm not obliged to be distracted by your trying to change the subject.

I'm not changing the subject. It's about whether or not Genesis is literal or not, am I right?

The onus is on those who believe it not to be to prove their point. My example was merely stating that you don't take other works and twist them near so much as you do the bible. If you can twist it to fit your preconceived notions, or adaptation to fit TOE, then it is you who have to prove that God didn't do what he said he did.

 

[ebia]

I'm not changing the subject. It's about whether or not Genesis is literal or not, am I right?

You are evading the specific point that I am making - that what you wrote:

no, I suppose not. You could read "the little engine that could" and assume what the author really meant was that he DIDN'T actually try to go up a hill, he was really trying to overcome something else entirely, such as bad karma, or social standing.

bears no resemblence to what we are saying, so either:

• You are deliberately misrepresenting our position - trying to build a straw man.
• Don't understand our position in the first place or
• Too lazy to get it right.

 

[Uphill Battle]

You are evading the specific point that I am making - that what you wrote:

bears no resemblence to what we are saying, so either:

• You are deliberately misrepresenting our position - trying to build a straw man.
• Don't understand our position in the first place or
• Too lazy to get it right.

no, not trying to build a strawman. Maybe I should have phrased it as a question. Why would you go to such lengths to interpret Genesis as non literal?

 

[ebia]

no, not trying to build a strawman. Maybe I should have phrased it as a question. Why would you go to such lengths to interpret Genesis as non literal?

Why would you go to such lengths to interpret Genesis as literal?

 

[Uphill Battle]

Why would you go to such lengths to interpret Genesis as literal?

It takes no lengths or effort at all. I read it, I believe it. Two step process.

 

[ebia]

It takes no lengths or effort at all. I read it, I believe it. Two step process.

Ah. So you are happy to assume that the first meaning that jumps into your head (if any) is the (only) message God wants to convey to you. What a waste.

 

[Uphill Battle]

Ah. So you are happy to assume that the first meaning that jumps into your head (if any) is the (only) message God wants to convey to you. What a waste.

No, I'm happy to believe God did it exactly as he described he did.

 

[ebia]

No, I'm happy to believe God did it exactly as he described he did.

So you are happy to assume that the first meaning that jumps into your head is the correct and only one that God wants to convey to you. What a waste.

 

[Uphill Battle]

So you are happy to assume that the first meaning that jumps into your head is the correct and only one that God wants to convey to you. What a waste.

you find it a waste to take God at his word?

 

[ebia]

you find it a waste to take God at his word?

I think it's an unbelievable waste to assume that the first thing that springs into my head when I read the bible is the correct and only message God wishes to convey to me.