But, Tim, I have gone over many of the bases for my figurative reading from within the text in other discussions, but you act as if I am bringing this point up for the first time. I can go through them again, if you like, but I am not sure if you are asking for additional points, or just a restatement of those already given.
Also, while I came to the conclusion of a figurative reading before hearing the scientific evidence regarding the age of the earth and evolution, I definitly HAD read Augustine as well as most of the other Church Fathers and great theologians throughout history. When attending a Christian school, you read all of these texts from the very beginning, in addition to numerous classes on the NT and OT. So, while I was being taught in my church and even at my school a fundamentalist perspective, and believed that perspective while still young, I still was very aware that many great Christian Men of God believed that not all Scripture should be read that way. So, Augustine and the rest did, indeed, have an influence in that I knew that this was an alternate approach believed by Godly men. So, when I began to be puzzled by the inconsistencies between many of the various texts, when read literally, and completely unimpressed with the "workarounds" given by the literalists, this well-trod alternative immediately presented itself as a possibility. Then, as I got a bit more sophisticated in my discernment of literary styles, it simply became more and more obvious to me that structure and styles of the various texts making up the first chapters of Genesis had styles that lent themselves strongly to a non-historical style. This added to the fact that non-literal reading was simply a much more plausible explanation for the factual and chronological inconsistencies than the improbable workarounds I had been fed, and I became convinced that a non-literal reading, a figurative, symbolic and typological reading was almost assuredly what was intended. The fact that it ultimately had no negative effect whatsoever on Christian theology was, obviously, another absolute requirement that was easily met.
The knowledge that many, many other Christians throughout history also viewed Genesis this way did not create the choice of interpretation, but I freely admit that it gave me confidence that I was on the right track. The ultimate confidence, of course, came from the Holy Spirit, since I had a deep and abiding peace about this approach to Genesis.
Then, when I began to study ancient history, including ancient literature and how the ancients viewed and wrote about their past, this simply heaped additional evidence that I was reading it correctly.
The oddest thing about this spiritual and intellectual maturing process was that, even after coming to that point, I was STILL a YEC in the sense that this is what I had been taught and believed. In fact, I had been so indoctrinated that evolution was evil and atheistic, and that an old earth was just an accomodation to that atheistic naturalism, that even when I was reading Genesis figuratively, I was still assuming a YEC creation. One reason was that I had been told that all the evidence really pointed to a young earth, and that evolution had no real support from the evidence. I just accepted that because I had not done any independent research and had not attended a school which taught otherwise.
Once I did review the evidence more objectively (ie, not just from YEC sources), it was a revelation. It was not even a close call, the evidence was overwhelmingly in favor of an old earth (at which point I became an OEC), then I dug into the pros and cons of evolutionary development, and saw that it really was the best explanation for the development of species. And, since I already read Genesis figuratively, this was not a challenge to my interpretation of Scripture at all.
So, that's the story of at least this TE. Since you asked.
j/k
