"Hard to Believe"

[Scrawly]

SeanD has got the right approach to the earliest parts of Genisus.. The details are even better when understood correctly.. The great thing about interpritation is? is we're not judged by it so much unless we actually have the truth.. Then we have more to answer for.. Some should remain ignorant of its true meanings... It is a real event that was sang as a song or a Lyric.. Metaphors and allegories are used to express the spiritual characteriture.. Remeber its Gods words for his creation handed down to Man.. It uses human terms to describe something that God is hiding from us.. Tree's aren't tree's and serpents aren't serpents and Adam and Eve aren't the frist man and woman to exist.. They came into existance on the sixth day.. the story in the Garden is also in its entirty a prophecy..

Sorry. I didn't really understand what you wrote. However, the bolded portion of your post is something I would like to pick up on because I think there is a trend for modern Christian's to "metaphor-ize" the embarrassing parts of Scripture. That is not to say that there are no metaphors in Scripture, but I think a lot of the time we are simply ashamed of much of the OT so we forcefully interpret, say for example, the Tower of Babel as a metaphor expressing some deep spiritual truth and shy away from defending its historicity because it just seems like a primitive fable written by primitive men trying to understand their primitive world. We give-in to the pressures of a more modern worldview - the choice becomes choosing between a talking snake and forbidden tree guarded by angel with flaming sword, or an elegant natural evolutionary view of history devoid of any supernaturalism except in the primitive tales of our primitive ancestors. Although, I do think the rubber meets the road when the evidence for these fantastic events that ought to have left physical evidence is non-existent - flood, exodus, etc. and thus belief in the fantastic stories becomes an article of personal faith that has no place in the real world and deserves nothing short of scornful ridicule if anyone dares present it as a viable option concerning our origins. In other words, let us give up on supernatural explanations because they are by definition non-explanations. These are the presuppositions that drive the naturalistic worldview and I think many Christian's have succumbed to them and thus their Christianity becomes some lame liberalistic drivel about us following Jesus and not some book (the Bible).

[RBerman]

Right, I don't mean to be snarky here, but are you basically saying that no rational person is going to accept the apparent mythic-nature of these accounts unless God works in that individual?

That. And also what King's Gambit was saying about focusing on the core of the gospel rather than the peripherals.

[Otter]

• Edited by a Moderator •

[KingsGambit]

That. And also what King's Gambit was saying about focusing on the core of the gospel rather than the peripherals.

And to that, I might also add that this isn't just a modern issue with Christianity. Even people shortly after Jesus resurrected looked for naturalistic explanations for what happened, thus some of the Jews inventing a story about the disciples stealing the body. To believe that Jesus rose from the dead, simply put, we have to be open to the idea that miracles can occur - and if they can, then anything else described in Scripture is plausible. (If God can raise a man from the dead, he certainly has the power to make Balaam's donkey speak or whatever else you want to point to elsewhere in the Bible).

[Otter]

• Edited by a Moderator •

[Adrift]

Alright, I'm pretty much with you here, but can you give me a few examples on par with the fantastic accounts in the Bible cause' I'm drawing a blank.

I didn't have any specific examples in mind, but pick up or watch Ripley's Believe it or Not. I'm not sure if you'll find any examples as fantastic as the accounts in the Bible, but that wasn't my point. My point is that there are plenty of things that are hard to believe that are nonetheless true.

Right, but the universe popping into existence or evolutionary ethics doesn't really fit the same category as Samson killing 1000 people with a jaw bone, or a talking donkey. One category is a matter of scientific investigation while the other is in the category of "nice story, the stuff that fiction is made of".

This is why I think getting at and understanding presuppositions is important. I think the idea of a universe popping into existence out of nothing (or even eternally existing), and then, by chance, shuffling itself into a state of order to produce creatures of intelligence with no intrinsic purpose, and no destiny beyond the grave is (on the face of it) more incredible than believing a man could survive 3 days in the belly of a fish or that a man could kill many with the jaw of a donkey bone, both by divine intervention. The former may rely on naturalistic rationalizations, and the later may rely on metaphysical ones, but if we're going to reject one or the other because they sound absurd on the face of it, well... that just seems intellectually dishonest.

[oxmixmudd]

Sorry. I didn't really understand what you wrote. However, the bolded portion of your post is something I would like to pick up on because I think there is a trend for modern Christian's to "metaphor-ize" the embarrassing parts of Scripture. That is not to say that there are no metaphors in Scripture, but I think a lot of the time we are simply ashamed of much of the OT so we forcefully interpret, say for example, the Tower of Babel as a metaphor expressing some deep spiritual truth and shy away from defending its historicity because it just seems like a primitive fable written by primitive men trying to understand their primitive world. We give-in to the pressures of a more modern worldview - the choice becomes choosing between a talking snake and forbidden tree guarded by angel with flaming sword, or an elegant natural evolutionary view of history devoid of any supernaturalism except in the primitive tales of our primitive ancestors. Although, I do think the rubber meets the road when the evidence for these fantastic events that ought to have left physical evidence is non-existent - flood, exodus, etc. and thus belief in the fantastic stories becomes an article of personal faith that has no place in the real world and deserves nothing short of scornful ridicule if anyone dares present it as a viable option concerning our origins. In other words, let us give up on supernatural explanations because they are by definition non-explanations. These are the presuppositions that drive the naturalistic worldview and I think many Christian's have succumbed to them and thus their Christianity becomes some lame liberalistic drivel about us following Jesus and not some book (the Bible).

One of the things you've done here is mischaracterize the motivations behind what you are calling a 'modern trend for Christian's to "metaphor-ize" scripture'.

There is a good deal of evidence the text itself really was not intended to be the kind of hard literal history that modern readers tend to want to make it. This is I believe at least in part Otter's point. And even though he does not profess orthodox Christian faith, his point is still nonetheless valid. A good bit of the opening chapters of Genesis are patterned after and written in similar fashion to other ANE writings whose content is not hard literal history. Further, there is significant evidence that large sections of it, if interpreted as hard literal history, are in fact flawed or wrong. If we revere and trust in the inspiration and revealed nature of scripture, should we not then avoid interpretive paradigms whose end result is a conclusion which is provably wrong?

The issue of the supernatural vs. natural is also valid but there are caveats. For example, we should not dismiss the possibility that God could have literally submerged the Earth to a depth more than 30 feet about Mt. Everest - God can do anything. Yet we can observe that the Earth itself bears no record of that ever having actually taken place. It does bear record of a good many candidates for a massive local flood in the region, but nothing like what we tend to want to read the text to imply. So, do we ignore the evidence our interpretation is flawed? Are we so sure we necessarily know all that God was doing as He inspired scripture, or all the parameters around which Moses compiled these opening passages so that we can arrogantly proclaim that if one yields to the evidence on these issues one is necessarily compromising faith in the scriptures themselves?

From my perspective I see two extremes in approach. One is to declare any and all knowledge gained outside of scripture as fundamentally flawed and to be ignored if it even hints at something contradictory to what we think scripture is saying. Another is to cave to a mindset that is only 1 notch away from full fledged Materialistic Naturalism that effectively denies the supernatural with the possible exception of the Resurrection. And yet, there are a large number of rational and faithful positions between these two extremes. The extremes are 'safe'. We can park there and we don't have to do much work in understanding scripture or science. But the extremes are also dead ends. Harmful to faith. On the one end, we must hide from any and all information about our world, or worse, twist legitimate science and effectively lie to people about what the evidence really is. On the other end, we deny the power of God to answer prayer, even the entire history of His work in Israel in bringing them out of Egypt and establishing them as a nation through whom He would reveal Himself and His power, ultimately sending us the prophesied Messiah.

At those extremes, I feel there is not much we can say to the skeptic who raises the points which opened this op. But I feel that there are other approaches, rational, yet faithful approaches that can help such a fellow to see that yes, the God of scripture is indeed the living God who has made the universe and has also deigned to become one of us so that we could have a relationship with Him, be saved from our sin, and have eternal life.


Jim

[maudman]

Sorry. I didn't really understand what you wrote. However, the bolded portion of your post is something I would like to pick up on because I think there is a trend for modern Christian's to "metaphor-ize" the embarrassing parts of Scripture. That is not to say that there are no metaphors in Scripture, but I think a lot of the time we are simply ashamed of much of the OT so we forcefully interpret, say for example, the Tower of Babel as a metaphor expressing some deep spiritual truth and shy away from defending its historicity because it just seems like a primitive fable written by primitive men trying to understand their primitive world. We give-in to the pressures of a more modern worldview - the choice becomes choosing between a talking snake and forbidden tree guarded by angel with flaming sword, or an elegant natural evolutionary view of history devoid of any supernaturalism except in the primitive tales of our primitive ancestors. Although, I do think the rubber meets the road when the evidence for these fantastic events that ought to have left physical evidence is non-existent - flood, exodus, etc. and thus belief in the fantastic stories becomes an article of personal faith that has no place in the real world and deserves nothing short of scornful ridicule if anyone dares present it as a viable option concerning our origins. In other words, let us give up on supernatural explanations because they are by definition non-explanations. These are the presuppositions that drive the naturalistic worldview and I think many Christian's have succumbed to them and thus their Christianity becomes some lame liberalistic drivel about us following Jesus and not some book (the Bible).

Hee, Hee Sometimes I don't understand what I write... LoL.. Maybe I can be clearer...

The guist is that althought the Bible is refering to actual events and things? And We are actually reading the Lyrics to a Song in a way.. The stories are remembered in the way we remember songs.. Revelation as holy men spoke not wrote, before the written language.. Later transcribed to writing... Hence the allegorical and metaphorical nature of the Lyric.. Too there is a dual nature to the Holy writ.. and this also has other particular meaningful paradigms..
LikeThe story of the Flood is a Prophecy.. Althought it was a flood that was probably a local event at the time along the euphrates river.. Noah is a preacher of richeousness and he wouldn't be preaching to people he never met.. People didn't even know the earth was round.. The is a condition because how people read today in newly aquired info or knowledge.. They were mostly if not all members of the flat earth society in that time...

You think God is trying to save animals in the Ark? It's not animals going onto the ARK but peoples.. Clean and Unclean.. How do you think the referance to clean and unclean in the story got there when no such thing had been told till God commands Israel to not eat or touch this or that because it is unclean.. This is much later than the Flood story would have happened... Centuries later or generations later..

I can be very specific about what those metaphorical and alligorical paradigms actually refer to, but I dought I will tell.. It helps when you have a good understanding of the RCC faith.. Then it all becomes transparent.. Not easily at first but as time goes by there isn't anything written that is so much a mystery in certain aspects.. Some details oare a little gray butmostly its easy when certain basics are understood..

Peace and Godbless..

[seanD]

Ok - and so we agree on the intent and fulfillment of the prophecy, and we disagree on the kind of creature described as a serpent or whether the story is meant to convey and 'explanation' for why snakes don't have legs. My thoughts on you reasons this is not a snake:

Snakes created previously: creepeth upon the Earth may or may not include snakes without legs. It is not specific. A snake with legs would creepeth on the earth too. Creepeth here is more a differentiation between the large land beasts and the smaller ones, not a designation for snakes.

Satan is identified with a serpent because that is what he was first identified with in the garden is just as likely as the reverse you have postulated.

'eating dirt' is likely a metaphor for crawling along the ground, it may also be a cultural perception specific to snakes, which would mean the author intended to imply this creature was in fact a snake.

"Thy seed and her seed" refers prophetically not to the general offspring but to the specific 'seed' of women, Jesus Christ, the only man born of a virgin.

non-prophetically, the curse is to Eve and on women. So it seem likely would refer to female offspring in that sense.


jim

Though Genesis is not specific, it does classify all the general classifications of species. Genesis 1:20-21 describes the sea creatures and fowl. Genesis 1:24-25 describes all the land species. The Hebrew word remes is distinct from bĕhemah (four-footed animals). So, you are correct, remes would be distinguishing smaller species -- rodents, reptiles and insects -- including snakes since this was covering “every living” (chay) species that moves on the land. There’s no reason at all to exclude snakes in this category, other than to force an interpretation that snakes came about in Genesis 3.

Satan was not identified as a snake. He was identified as “The Serpent” because of his craftiness, and described not as remes, but chay – a living being. It’s true that Satan may have been given the idiom of Serpent because he was initially a snake, but it’s also true he was given that idiom based on his craftiness, as snakes are seen that way, particularly in how they hunt prey. The narrator implies this very thing even before he is cursed to crawl on his belly. Maybe he even has reptilian-like features… who knows. But I don’t find much reason in the view that he appeared to Eve as a snake -- he comes as an “angel of light” -- and the view that Hebrews believed that’s where snakes came from (the Hebrews believing that snakes were his offspring) is silly to me.

The Hebrew word akal (eat) specifically described feeding – he literally eats dirt.

It doesn’t make sense to assume the enmity between the Serpent and the woman represents her fear of snakes but the enmity between their offspring represents something else. No, the enmity between the woman and the Serpent is the same enmity between their offspring.

[Scrawly]

That. And also what King's Gambit was saying about focusing on the core of the gospel rather than the peripherals.

OK. How would you approach this example: Say there is a Christian guy who demonstrates all fruits of regeneration. From a young age he read and studied the Scriptures. Whenever he read Genesis he always "took God at His word" and assumed the flood was global due to the universalistic language of the text. However, eventually this Christian guy became a geologist and was excited to analyze the geological data that supported a global flood. However, even as a Christian interpreting the data through the lens of a Christian worldview, reluctantly, based upon the physical evidence he came to the conclusion that a gloabal flood could have never happened.

In the above case, how can you appeal to presuppositions and interpretation of the data if the individual is a Christian with Christian presuppositions and he is just saying: "Brothers and sisters, there isn't a shred of evidence that this ever happened. I wish it did, but I am sorry."

[Scrawly]

This is why I think getting at and understanding presuppositions is important. I think the idea of a universe popping into existence out of nothing (or even eternally existing), and then, by chance, shuffling itself into a state of order to produce creatures of intelligence with no intrinsic purpose, and no destiny beyond the grave is (on the face of it) more incredible than believing a man could survive 3 days in the belly of a fish or that a man could kill many with the jaw of a donkey bone, both by divine intervention. The former may rely on naturalistic rationalizations, and the later may rely on metaphysical ones, but if we're going to reject one or the other because they sound absurd on the face of it, well... that just seems intellectually dishonest.

OK, but would you concede that searching for a naturalistic mechanism for answers that we currently do not have in regards to the universe is in a different category than a guy with supernatural hair killing thousands of other guys with a jaw bone? Honestly, does one of the examples above better fit in a category of "nice tale" than the other?

[KingsGambit]

OK. How would you approach this example: Say there is a Christian guy who demonstrates all fruits of regeneration. From a young age he read and studied the Scriptures. Whenever he read Genesis he always "took God at His word" and assumed the flood was global due to the universalistic language of the text. However, eventually this Christian guy became a geologist and was excited to analyze the geological data that supported a global flood. However, even as a Christian interpreting the data through the lens of a Christian worldview, reluctantly, based upon the physical evidence he came to the conclusion that a gloabal flood could have never happened.

In the above case, how can you appeal to presuppositions and interpretation of the data if the individual is a Christian with Christian presuppositions and he is just saying: "Brothers and sisters, there isn't a shred of evidence that this ever happened. I wish it did, but I am sorry."

In this case, since we still have strong evidence for the core of the gospel, I think this guy would have to take a look and see if there are any alternative ways of reading the text that are the most possible, even if they wouldn't otherwise be the most likely. In this case, there are in fact other possible readings - some dispute them, but the key thing is there are possibilities.

I can personally relate. For a couple of years, there was one particular point of scripture I was having problems putting in its full historical context, and I knew that I couldn't figure it out for sure, but that some Bible scholars had at least proposed possibilities, and with all the evidence otherwise weighing for Christianity, I would just have to put that aside for now and trust that there was some resolution (which I eventually found).

[RBerman]

OK. How would you approach this example: Say there is a Christian guy who demonstrates all fruits of regeneration. From a young age he read and studied the Scriptures. Whenever he read Genesis he always "took God at His word" and assumed the flood was global due to the universalistic language of the text. However, eventually this Christian guy became a geologist and was excited to analyze the geological data that supported a global flood. However, even as a Christian interpreting the data through the lens of a Christian worldview, reluctantly, based upon the physical evidence he came to the conclusion that a gloabal flood could have never happened. In the above case, how can you appeal to presuppositions and interpretation of the data if the individual is a Christian with Christian presuppositions and he is just saying: "Brothers and sisters, there isn't a shred of evidence that this ever happened. I wish it did, but I am sorry."

Well, there are several possible outcomes:

1) Believe in the absence of evidence.
2) Re-exegete the Bible in a way more aligned with the other evidence you've determined to accept already.
3) Chuck the whole thing and become an atheist.

I might recommend (1). Some choose (2) or (3). The problem with (2) is that the claims of science continue to encroach on every imaginable aspect of the Biblical narrative, and many people who adopt a hermeneutic of accomodation to secularism find it difficult to stop short of complete surrender, i.e. (3).

[Adrift]

OK, but would you concede that searching for a naturalistic mechanism for answers that we currently do not have in regards to the universe is in a different category than a guy with supernatural hair killing thousands of other guys with a jaw bone? Honestly, does one of the examples above better fit in a category of "nice tale" than the other?

Scrawly... seriously? This sounds like an emotional appeal. Your comparison doesn't even make sense, so of course they're in different categories. If you want to compare like for like then why not "the search for a naturalistic mechanism" vs. "the search for a supernatural mechanism". Then you'd be comparing something like the multiverse theory with the Kalam Cosmological theory. Throwing Samson into the equation (who does not have supernatural hair) is practically non-sequitur. All it does is appeal to some sort of argument by incredulity. The reason why I stated that I find the "universe popping into existence out of nothing, and then, by chance, shuffling itself into a state of order to produce creatures of intelligence with no intrinsic purpose" incredible is to demonstrate that presuppositions matter.

[KingsGambit]

Well, there are several possible outcomes:

1) Believe in the absence of evidence.
2) Re-exegete the Bible in a way more aligned with the other evidence you've determined to accept already.
3) Chuck the whole thing and become an atheist.

I might recommend (1). Some choose (2) or (3). The problem with (2) is that the claims of science continue to encroach on every imaginable aspect of the Biblical narrative, and many people who adopt a hermeneutic of accomodation to secularism find it difficult to stop short of complete surrender, i.e. (3).

I tend to think that (1) puts one more at risk of (3) than (2), because most people who are honest will eventually crack under the strain of believing something they know not to be true (and this is just assuming that everything you said is correct, from the perspective of the person in your example). I simply don't agree, like some people have posited, that God intentionally tries to trick us with false evidence. (I know a person who thinks that God planted dinosaur bones to trick people and make it harder for them to believe, for example). (2) is a painful process but many people have managed to navigate it. Mature believers don't simply slide down slippery slopes; they use discernment. That some have used it as a path toward atheism does not objectively determine the truth of anything. And, honestly, I only think the "slippery slopes" are there because of the notion that some people have that if you find one small chink in the armor, it all comes apart, which just doesn't logically follow.