Theistic Evolutionists - Interpretation versus Human Error

[Speedwell]

All of the Sci-Fi collections in the junior high library. Pure fanciful entertainment.
I don't recall even one lesson. I vividly recall early settlers on mars looking into
a stream and Dad points out the kids reflections in the water and says "THERE are
the Martians!" But that's the only bit I recall. (From Bradbury's Martian Chronicles.)

So nothing of a serious literary nature. That's OK, but be aware that many people are of the opinion that "fiction" is actually a better way of conveying certain kinds of truth than 100% factual text. Moreover, we arrived at that opinion independently of whatever interest in science we might have.

 

[Sanoy]

Evolution and abiogenesis belong to a different conceptual world than Genesis, whatever those texts are doing.

It is at least liturgical, although I don't know of any reason to think it was an actual liturgy. That tells us something about the function it served, but hardly everything: liturgies can serve many functions.

That all sounds quite reasonable, and not in any way contradictory to it serving as an expression of our individual experience. In reality, I think it's more a reflection of the experience of an entire community going into exile, but a text like this is unlikely to be only doing one thing. The imagery of the Garden is a potent one, and one that continues to echo. . .


Or in a very different key,

Yeah I think the author isn't going to be thinking about abiogenesis or Evolution, but as far as I understand TE, abiogenesis and evolution are empirically equivalent to God's general interaction in the unfolding of our present conditions.

The main reason I think it's liturgy comes from a short Journal article for OCABS.
Creation as Temple-Building and Work as Liturgy in Genesis 1-3

How can we take a narrative where the author has taken great steps to paint the location as a real place that his audience should recognize and allegorize it? It doesn't seem like the author is trying to create a vague existential foundation, it seems like he is trying to ground specific facts about what we are and why things are the way they are.

 

[sfs]

How can we take a narrative where the author has taken great steps to paint the location as a real place that his audience should recognize and allegorize it? It doesn't seem like the author is trying to create a vague existential foundation, it seems like he is trying to ground specific facts about what we are and why things are the way they are.

A narrative doesn't have to be strict allegory, or be about fictional places, in order for it to have significance that has nothing to do with its historical setting. Many great works of literature are narratives "about" real places, and often include real people, but that doesn't prevent them from saying important things about the world and the human experience of living in it.

Take Beowulf, for example. It's set in real places, among real people groups and even real people (and, like Genesis, incorporates mythical elements), but it's also a profound meditation on mortality and the power and futility of courage in facing it. Do you dismiss Hamlet as having nothing to say about the human condition because Shakespeare took pains to paint the location as a real place his audience would recognize?

The author of Genesis 2-3 wasn't creating a vague existential foundation. He or she was telling a story, which is usually how people express profound thoughts. Part of what that story does is address who we are as humans and as created beings.

 

[Sanoy]

A narrative doesn't have to be strict allegory, or be about fictional places, in order for it to have significance that has nothing to do with its historical setting. Many great works of literature are narratives "about" real places, and often include real people, but that doesn't prevent them from saying important things about the world and the human experience of living in it.

Take Beowulf, for example. It's set in real places, among real people groups and even real people (and, like Genesis, incorporates mythical elements), but it's also a profound meditation on mortality and the power and futility of courage in facing it. Do you dismiss Hamlet as having nothing to say about the human condition because Shakespeare took pains to paint the location as a real place his audience would recognize?

The author of Genesis 2-3 wasn't creating a vague existential foundation. He or she was telling a story, which is usually how people express profound thoughts. Part of what that story does is address who we are as humans and as created beings.

I think the difference here is that these are set locally with the audience. All narratives have to take place somewhere, whether they were fiction or non fiction. But fictional narratives don't tend to go to great lengths to describe distant lands except where it is required for the future of the story or series. Tolkien will go into great lengths to describe the terrain of middle earth because it's required for the narrative journey. There is no journey here though, there is exile, the description of where gold is mined isn't needed to further the narrative. It is meant to tie it as happening in that place, and it's a place that is considered to be real and themes considered to be real in ANE beliefs.

What message is the author trying to convey through the non literal allegory that would allow for TE to be consistent with this portion of Genesis? Because it seems to me the best way to convey the message that man is specially created is to write that God specially created man. And the best way to convey the message that mankind was not specially created from plants and creatures is to not create a story about man being specially created. So what is the allegory of? and does that make sense of what is in the text, and what we know from an ANE context? The most important thing to start with in my mind is that this is ANE context with themes taken to be a reality in the ANE and even parts of the Bible, like Ezekiel 28 that call us back to a real garden of Eden with the adversary in it.

 

[AV1611VET]

I'm a literalist, so this thread doesn't apply to me.

 

[hedrick]

I think the difference here is that these are set locally with the audience. All narratives have to take place somewhere, whether they were fiction or non fiction. But fictional narratives don't tend to go to great lengths to describe distant lands except where it is required for the future of the story or series.

I'm sorry. I'm missing something here. What real location are we talking about?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

I think the difference here is that these are set locally with the audience. All narratives have to take place somewhere, whether they were fiction or non fiction. But fictional narratives don't tend to go to great lengths to describe distant lands except where it is required for the future of the story or series. Tolkien will go into great lengths to describe the terrain of middle earth because it's required for the narrative journey. There is no journey here though, there is exile, the description of where gold is mined isn't needed to further the narrative. It is meant to tie it as happening in that place, and it's a place that is considered to be real and themes considered to be real in ANE beliefs.

What message is the author trying to convey through the non literal allegory that would allow for TE to be consistent with this portion of Genesis? Because it seems to me the best way to convey the message that man is specially created is to write that God specially created man. And the best way to convey the message that mankind was not specially created from plants and creatures is to not create a story about man being specially created. So what is the allegory of? and does that make sense of what is in the text, and what we know from an ANE context? The most important thing to start with in my mind is that this is ANE context with themes taken to be a reality in the ANE and even parts of the Bible, like Ezekiel 28 that call us back to a real garden of Eden with the adversary in it.

The Bible takes great pains to point out that every type of life was created distinct. Not just man. Since the same word for life, commonly but incorrectly interpreted as soul is also applied to the animals, we can assume the process was similar for them.

What is distinct is the knowledge one had over all others. This is the image that prevails, not any physical form or metaphysical soul.

But I agree had the Bible intended to imply man evolved from animals, it would have said so, not portrayed him as an independent creation.

 

[Sanoy]

I'm sorry. I'm missing something here. What real location are we talking about?

The location of Eden.

 

[hedrick]

The location of the Garden of Eden.

So we're to accept that the story is historical because it refers to a location that doesn't actually exist in the real world?

 

[Sanoy]

So we're to accept that the story is historical because it refers to a location that doesn't actually exist in the real world?

I didn't say we should accept everything here as historical because it refers to real locations. I am saying it's likely not allegory because of the detail it uses for the location, and it's parallels in the ANE. And if it's not allegory, or some other hypothesis, then I think TE must accept some errancy here. I think you may need to start with my beginning post in the chain.

 

[hedrick]

Of course it's not allegory. Allegory is a very specific literary form, and Gen 2-3 isn't it. Things like Kipling's where the camel got its hump aren't allegories but they also aren't historical. There are plenty of creation stories in world literature. It's hard to know whether they were viewed as history in the past, but people who tell them today probably don't view them that way. I maintain that in combining Gen 1 and Gen 2-3 the editor of Genesis showed us that he didn't view them as historical. I believe the editor saw his job as preserving all of the traditional material from the Jewish people. Presumably that's why he preserved things like two slightly different versions of the Noah story (one visible difference is the number of animals of each species). To me this demonstrates his care, not error.

 

[SkyWriting]

Do you ever read anything not 100% factual literal history? Why? What do you get our of it?

Another of the Martian Chronicles....after the first Mars landing fails, the Martians all die from Chicken Pox or the flue. The entire story is about an automated Martian house that continues to run on it's own, cleaning up dust and even stray animals. But after the family pet dies, the house cleans up the mess, then closes up like a flower petal and goes back to sleep. Fiction makes for engaging entertainment. I do still think about that automated house. Maybe I'll ask Alexa what year that story was written. They have new version just for us baby boomers.

 

[SkyWriting]

What it boils down to is that we don't have any of the original manuscripts.

~ The Dead Sea Scrolls ~
It was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that helped scholars to answer this question: “Does the Masoretic Text faithfully represent the Hebrew text as originally written by the authors of the Old Testament books?”

The first of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, in early 1947, in a cave by Bedouin shepherds, near an ancient site called Qumran. The cave, which became known as Cave 1, is located about a mile inland from the Western shore of the Dead Sea, about 13 miles east of Jerusalem. By 1956, a total of 11 caves had been discovered at Qumran, gifting the world with almost 1,050 scrolls written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Other scroll discoveries followed in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. Thus, when you hear the term “Dead Sea Scrolls,” it refers, collectively, to all scrolls found in the area, not just in the caves at Qumran.

The earliest scrolls found at Qumran date back to 250 BC, if not earlier. The latest scrolls were copied shortly before the destruction of the Qumran site by the Romans in AD 68. In total, scholars have identified nearly 300 biblical scrolls among the manuscripts discovered in the area.
Ancient Manuscripts That Validate the Bible’s Old Testament

 

[SkyWriting]

So nothing of a serious literary nature. That's OK, but be aware that many people are of the opinion that "fiction" is actually a better way of conveying certain kinds of truth than 100% factual text. Moreover, we arrived at that opinion independently of whatever interest in science we might have.

I've read Pride and Prejudice, Huckleberry finn, the invisible man, East of Eden, The Scarlet Letter, and Moby Dick, so far.
Pride and Prejudice reminds me of growing up in a lower middle class suburb with some rather poor people as neighbors as well as rich.

Pride and Prejudice
1984
The Great Gatsby
Jane Eyre
Crime and Punishment
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Lolita
Wuthering Heights
Of Mice and Men
The Count of Monte Cristo
Brave New World
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamazov
The Grapes of Wrath
Catch-22
Slaughterhouse-Five
A Tale of Two Cities
The Old Man and the Sea
War and Peace
Moby-Dick
Don Quixote
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
East of Eden
The Sound and the Fury
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Scarlet Letter
The Name of the Rose
Ulysses
The Master and Margarita
Candide
David Copperfield
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Catcher in the Rye
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Invisible Man

 

[Sanoy]

Wuthering Heights

-1 out of 10. I even hated the title. It gives me chills to even think about it. It's tied with Great Expectations, for "most traumatic memories" from my forced reading list.

 

[SkyWriting]

-1 out of 10. I even hated the title. It gives me chills to even think about it. It's tied with Great Expectations, for "most traumatic memories" from my forced reading list.

Well that's a list of "serious literature"
and "Speedy" says that we learn better
from stories like Huckleberry Finn.

Like how to convince others to paint
your fence for you. Stuff like that.

Oh I did learn that slang or street language
has no place in literature. It jus' luk stu-pid
on paper.

 

[SkyWriting]

The location of Eden.

From the story, it was not on Earth. Man is not allowed back in.

 

[SkyWriting]

So nothing of a serious literary nature. That's OK, but be aware that many people are of the opinion that "fiction" is actually a better way of conveying certain kinds of truth than 100% factual text. Moreover, we arrived at that opinion independently of whatever interest in science we might have.

I think Dickens is awesome, but just fun entertainment.

THE ONE THING NEEDFUL
‘Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders,—nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was,—all helped the emphasis.

p. 4‘In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!’

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/786/786-h/786-h.htm#page3

 

[Justatruthseeker]

So we're to accept that the story is historical because it refers to a location that doesn't actually exist in the real world?

Why would it still exist?

 

[DogmaHunter]

If you are going to acknowledge the catastrophe that wiped out the dinosaurs, presumably you are going to acknowledge the others major catastrophes for which there is equally sound evidence. In other words, you cannot acknowledge the demise of the dinosaurs without acknowledging the earlier ones. How do these earlier catastrophes fit into your reading of Genesis in the original Hebrew?

To be fair, I think the trick is to only acknowledge those things that can somehow, even only remotely, be shoehorned into a biblical narrative in some kind of rather juvenile attempt at defending bronze age tales.