Unsure what is correct?

[USincognito]

I don't know shern. Look at how big science has suppressed the discovery of Joshua's Long Day by NASA computers.

 

[shernren]

Wait, you mean they have? Why haven't I heard anything about this? This could overturn all my previously believably believed beliefs!

I can't trust anyone anymore (unless they agree with what I believe). I'll make sure I have my tinfoil hat next time I'm in uni. Especially when I'm around those darnded physicists. You never know what they're up to with their radiation.

 

[Assyrian]

Yes you do, you have proton detector.
Now if you could scan for the T.L.A.* theta waves





*generic Three Letter Acronym of course

 

[Hammster]

When Moses writes that God created Heaven and Earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days, and do not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were one day. But, if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are. For you are to deal with Scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God Himself says what is written. But since God is speaking, it is not fitting for you wantonly to turn His Word in the direction you wish to go.

Martin Luther

 

[USincognito]

Anectdotally, J.B.S. Haldane is reported to have responded to the question "what might we conclude about the Creator from the study of the Creation" with - "An inordinate fondness for beetles".

Whenever I read any post on this forum that either adopts a post-modernist philosophy (you interpret those mountains to be millions of years old, I interpret them to be 4,000 years old) or the Weltanschauung of an Eastern religion like Hinduism which cliams that reality is an illusion (ex. the Himalayas are Shiva's braided locks of hair, not a mountain range resultant from tectonic activity) I have to shake my head.

 

[Assyrian]

When Moses writes that God created Heaven and Earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days, and do not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were one day. But, if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are. For you are to deal with Scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God Himself says what is written. But since God is speaking, it is not fitting for you wantonly to turn His Word in the direction you wish to go.

Martin Luther

Great man Martin Luther, we owe him a lot. But he is not the best person to go to to learn about science. Did you read Mallon's post 16? Luther thought Copernicus was a fool and that his idea of heliocentrism contradicted scripture.

Incidentally Hammster, is that a typo in your profile or do you really dry trucks for a living?

 

[Hammster]

Typo.

Yeah, I guess we really shouldn't trust through Holy Spirit because of Martin Luther. Heck, let's throw out the Reformation because he was anti-semitic.

 

[USincognito]

And yet you're willing to throw out the advice of St. Augustin.

 

[Assyrian]

Typo.

All gone now.

Yeah, I guess we really shouldn't trust through Holy Spirit because of Martin Luther. Heck, let's throw out the Reformation because he was anti-semitic.

So the only alternative to Medieval Catholicism is to make Luther another Pope? He wasn't infallible.

The Holy Spirit revealed the truth of Salvation by Faith to Luther, it set his heart on fire, and set the church on fire. But not all of Luther's opinions are infallible revelations from the heart of God. God did not divinely inspire Luther's views on geocentrism, antisemitism, or six day creationism.

 

[Hammster]

I never meant to imply that Luther was infallible. I just happen to agree with his position that the Holy Spirit knew what He was talking about.

 

[Assyrian]

He was absolutely right saying the Holy Spirit knows what he is talking about. Luther's mistake was thinking that means everything in scripture is literal and should be taken literally because the Holy Spirit inspired it. I think Luther's problem was coming from a place where the medieval church went overboard allegorized everything. Luther in his inimitable way swung to the opposite extreme and developed a real dislike for allegory, but the fact is, scripture is full of metaphors, symbols parables and allegory the God uses to speak to us. The Holy Spirit knows what he is talking about when he uses metaphor too.

 

[Hammster]

While it is true that Scripture shouldn't be read in a wooden literal sense, but in the sense in which it is written, there is nothing in Genesis 1-11 that indicates poetry, metaphors, apocalyptic language, etc. It is written just like the rest of Genesis...a historical narrative.

 

[shernren]

On the first day of creation, God said
"Let there be light!"
And there was light and it was very good

On the second day of creation, God said
"Let there be sky!"
And the sky parted the waters
to beneath it and above
And there was light and it was all very good

On the third day of creation, God said
"Let there be land!"
And the land parted the waters
around it beneath the sky
And there was light* and it was all very good

*and waters above the sky, too, but not room enough to fit them in the verse

... hmm, that doesn't sound like poetry, metaphor, or a song at all. No sirree.

 

[Hammster]

Amen

 

[Assyrian]

While it is true that Scripture shouldn't be read in a wooden literal sense, but in the sense in which it is written, there is nothing in Genesis 1-11 that indicates poetry, metaphors, apocalyptic language, etc. It is written just like the rest of Genesis...a historical narrative.

Just like the rest of Genesis? Are you sure? Because I don't know a single chapter anything like Genesis 1, the nearest you get is in Psalms as shernren has pointed out. As for Genesis 2&3 there are a couple of sections in Genesis like it, chapter 6 where God speaks figuratively of wiping away the Adam he had created (wasn't Adam supposed to be dead?) or Genesis 49, but the nearest parallels to Gen 2&3 I can find are:
1) The talking trees in Judges 9 (you have both trees with mystical abilities unlike any natural tree, and creatures that should not be able to talk, the snake and the trees.
2) Revelation where we find the tree of life in the paradise of God again, the same ancient snake, a river flowing out from the tree of life for the nations, mankind finding its completion in two people Christ and his bride, oh and another wedding.

Anyway, why would you think parables and metaphors can't sound literal? The Jews following Jesus thought he really meant it when he told them they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Most of the church in the world today think he was being literal when he took the bread and said "This is my body". David took Nathan literally when he told him about the poor man who had his pet sheep stolen 1Sam 12. The same with the parable of the missing captive the prophet told Ahab 1Kings 20:35-43. Ahab though it was a literal narrative. The parable of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan sound like literal historical narratives. Have a look at Ezekiel 16, it reads like any historical narrative if we didn't know better.

 

[gluadys]

The parable of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan sound like literal historical narratives. Have a look at Ezekiel 16, it reads like any historical narrative if we didn't know better.

Yes, the equation of "narrative" with "historical" like the equation of "metaphor" with "poetry" is quite false.

Narratives come in all sorts of flavours: epic poems, ballads, fiction, historical fiction, legends, histories, fairy tales, and news reports. And metaphor is found in all of these.

Literary genre tells us nothing about the historicity of a narrative.

 

[Iosias]

So here I am a relatively new christian

In that case I would suggest you buy and read An Introduction to the Old Testament: Second Edition by Tremper Longman and Raymond B. Dillard.

On the book of Genesis, a simple introduction is The NIV Application Commentary Genesis by John H. Walton.

I would also suggest Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible by John H. Walton and The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament by John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas.

 

[marktheblake]

I can't recall the scriptural evidence (or the reasons to interpret this way) but the gist of it is that God is Light.

Hence there was light before the Sun, and there will be light after the sun is gone.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I think you ought to read "God is light" as metaphor. If you meant that God is literally light, then you've bound him to the physical properties of the universe--an unwise move, I should think. It sounds as if God created himself.

 

[juvenissun]

I think you ought to read "God is light" as metaphor. If you meant that God is literally light, then you've bound him to the physical properties of the universe--an unwise move, I should think. It sounds as if God created himself.

No.
God is light, God is ..., God is ...., and God is ... etc. etc. It is awkward. But it is good.
Get it?