And yet you haven't offered any rationale for why, in direct contradiction to the thinking of the writers of the Scripture who you say are inspired, you think Adam and Eve are a fiction. Are you content simply to dismiss the import of the biblical lineages as wrong? That hardly seems thoughtful or reasonable.
For one, and quite obviously, is science which proves that the world is much older and different from what the creation story/s allow. Which brings me on to my second point, which is that there appears to be two different stories written in different styles. The first is alot like a poem and the second is alot like a myth. Various problems come up because of these two stories if taken literally and also Genesis 2 and 3 don't naturally lead to Paul's understanding of them if you read them without knowledge of Paul.
Since when did science trump the authority of the Word of God among Christians? Are you aware of the interpreting that goes on with the facts of science? As often as not, the facts are not allowed to speak for themselves. Secular scientists typically intepret what the scientific method uncovers according to an agnostic or atheistic belief. Do the facts warrant such an interpretation, however? Not necessarily. When a Christian tries to synthesize the revelations of the Bible with naturalistic scientific “fact” inevitably he must either ignore or deny the assertions of Scripture, or reinterpret them to mean what they plainly do not mean in order to conform them to naturalistic science. When this happens the Word of God is relegated to a secondary position beneath the authority of Science. And when this occurs a steady erosion of the truths and power of the Bible begins. The story of Creation and the Fall of Man are only two of many events the Bible records that fly in the face of science. You see, mainstream science denies the idea of the miraculous and the divine; there are only impersonal, mechanical natural processes at work in the universe. Moses, then, could
not have parted the Red Sea; nor could the walls of Jericho have fallen as the Bible tells us they did. Certainly, Jesus could not have healed the sick, blind, and crippled and he most certainly could not have raised himself or anyone else from the dead. Science indicates to us that such things are impossible! What then of the Bible? If the Creation account is proven by science to be false, then all the other scientifically impossible things found in the Bible must also be false. Do you see the slippery slope that develops when science, interpreted by naturalistic philosophy, is the standard to which the Bible must conform?
Concerning your problem with the Genesis accounts, please consider the following:
Apologetics Press - Are There Two Creation Accounts in Genesis?
Back to evolution; do you think that Genesis would have the stories of the Big Bang and Evolution if they were true? I am pretty sure it wouldn't.
Nothing in Scripture contradicts the idea that the universe began suddenly at a finite point in the past as the Big Bang Theory suggests. The theory of evolution, however, cannot be reasonably reconciled to the record of Scripture at all.
The main point of the Bible isn't to give a science or even an exact history lesson, even though history is helpful to the overall point. It seems to me that the overall point of the Bible is to reveal God and bring us closer to God.
But this doesn't preclude the Bible speaking accurately about the physical universe, which it does.
The story of the Big Bang might tell us about a deist God but it doesn't tell us what we need to know. The Creation story does give us insight into God though and so I find that it makes most sense for the Bible to have a metaphorical story of creation in it if science is right.
This is the kind of capitulation to science that I described above. To be consistent in this surrender to science, you must hold
all that defies modern science in the Bible as mere metaphor – including the resurrection and the gospel. But this leaves the Bible as nothing more than a collection of preposterous myths and legends.
I think the spiritual truth is more real than the physical point being made. It would make sense that Paul knew the spiritual significance of Jesus reguardless of Adam, but Adam was a helpful way to help others understand what the sacrifice of Christ means to them.
Generally, the spiritual points the apostle Paul makes
rely on a phsyical reality. Consider, for example, the spiritual point Paul makes about the resurrection:
1 Corinthians 15:12-19
12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; you are yet in your sins.
18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
According to Paul, the entire Christian faith rests upon the actual,
physical resurrection of Christ. If that didn't happen, all of the spiritual truths that we hold to as Christians are
false. In light of this, I don't agree with you that the “spiritual truth is more real than the physical point being made.”
As for 1 Corinthians 15:45-47 I would say the primary point of that section is to say that we will have spiritual bodies after death. If Adam can be understood as a general representative of all humans it is still true that the natural comes first and the spiritual afterwards.
But this is irrelevant to whether or not Adam actually existed. All of what you have said here can be true even if Adam was a real person. And Paul gives no hint in his writing that he thought of Adam as anything other than a real person. To suggest otherwise is to be guilty of eisegesis.
Why is a curse necessary for Christ's death and resurrection to mean anything?
The curse of sin is the
cause of the death and the subsequent resurrection of Christ. His sacrificial death on the cross was made to lift the curse from mankind and his resurrection demonstrates the efficacy of his sacrifice.
Even if we didn't have a story about a man in a garden we would still sin and still be removed from God.
Its not just “a story about a man in a garden”; the Fall of Man in Eden is the beginning of the Story of Redemption that is the greatest theme in the Bible!
Romans 5:12
12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
It says that death is upon all men because all have sinned, not because of Adam. Adam may have brought it into the world, but he isn't the cause of each indivudals death. Even if there were no Adam our first sin would enter sin into our own lives and by sin also spiritual death and the need for a saviour.
But none of what you say here changes the fact that
Adam and Eve were the first to sin and thus
were the means by which sin and death entered the world.
This is a lie if Adam was just a fantasy. How could sin have come into the world through someone who never existed? The advent of sin into the world dissolves into confusion and mystery if Adam and Eve did not as real, living beings actually choose it.
For it to be a lie Paul would have had to have known he was wrong. I don't think he did. Even if he did I wouldn't say it was a lie. Many people change their beliefs when talking to certain people and say things they actually consider untrue for the sake of the overall point being made. For example I did it above on the with the assumption that sin causes death. I only clarified that I meant spiritual death because I thought it would cause problem in this discussion later on.
What
you may have done in our discussion and what you
assume Paul may have been doing by no means certifies that he was
actually doing it. Certainly, nothing in what Paul writes bears out your suspicions.
Romans 5:18-19
18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
If Adam did not exist, then how could "by one man's disobedience many be made sinners"?
Obviously the verses above are exaggerations though used to get the point across. If Adams sin condemned all and the free gift of Christ gives lifes then universal salvation is true reguardless of beliefs of actions.
Obviously? Obviously how? I don't think it is obvious that Paul is exaggerating and knows it. He gives absolutely no hint that he believes he is exaggerating.
The passage above is qualified and explained by other passages in the Bible which don't allow for the interpretation of universalism.
Some of my explanations may be too anti-infallibility for you, but I do believe you can believe the Bible is infallible and that the earth is very old at the same time. I did it.
I think your doing so makes you highly inconsistent in your approach to the Bible.
If Adam and his disobedience did not exist, then where did sin originate? And if neither Adam nor his sin truly existed, then why is Paul drawing a direct parallel between Adam's sin and Christ's righteousness? The parallel is meaningless if there was no Adam and his sin by which we are all cursed.
As I have said above, we are all are the originators of our own sin and Adam is the figure head for the human race. His fall represents what we all go through.
You didn't answer my questions.
Remember, "interpretation" means saying as exactly as possible what the writer wrote in one's own words. It is not giving a new, personal meaning to what a writer has written, which is what you seem to be trying to do.
Some common interpretations of the Bible don't give us the exact meaning that someone reading it in greek would. If they did then the Bible wouldn't flow properly and would make it more complecated for the average person. For example all the words for hell don't just mean hell but would mean different things to people at the time.
What you're describing is an issue of
translation, not interpretation.
Anyway, I think the main point that is being made is the most important one, not the others on the side which are just there to prop up the main point. For example, my main point in this discussion is that Adam wasn't real and this is based on science. The rest of the points I am making are only important so far as they help my main point. I am unsure about these side arguments, but my main argument (science) I am very sure of. The same could be true of Paul. He is very sure of the resurrection.... perhaps less so about Adams reality.
Yes, you could say this about Paul, but not everything one might say about him is necessarily true.As for your main point, refer to what I've already written above.
Could only the jews be saved before Christ? What about before Abraham? The 'good news' of God only seems to restrict salvation if conscious belief in a jewish man is necessary. I think it is fair to assume that before Abraham (at least) all people could be saved because Abraham was just one of the many people who existed on earth. Do the promises of God to one people become a curse to another? If salvation suddenly changes to needing certain beliefs then in many places in the world they had more hope to be saved before Christ (or Abraham) then after. I hope you see the point I am trying to make..... I am trying to do it in as few words as possible.
The people of the OT had a witness of God in the Israelite nation. And those pagans who embraced the God of the Israelites, like Rahab the harlot, were accepted by Him. Even before that we know that God had communicated His will to mankind. Cain and Abel, for example, knew to make sacrifices to God of a particular sort. The apostle Paul explains, however, that Creation itself declares God to humanity so that no one may stand before God and say, “I had no idea you even existed!” But although this witness of God in Creation is there, people suppress the knowledge of God given in that witness in order to serve themselves.
(Ro.1) As a result, even those who had no direct contact with the gospel are still held accountable for the knowledge of God they did have. If such people, motivated by what they understood of God in Creation, searched for Him with their whole heart, then we have the promise in Scripture that God would reveal Himself to them. Those who did not, even though they had never heard the Gospel, remained under God's judgment for ignoring and/or suppressing the witness of God in Creation.
Selah.
