Adam as “Everyman” | The BioLogos Forum

[TedDavis (Dr. Ted Davis)]

@johnZ

If I understand you correctly, John, you are arguing that God must have said exactly what God is said to have said, anywhere God speaks in the Bible. And, even more than this, you seem to be saying that if God said it, we must always (or almost always) interpret those words literally, as if there were no significant conceptual distance between the Creator and his mere creatures that must be bridged on our own level, with our own verbal language, under which lies our own conceptual language that might indeed differ greatly from God’s. This is the fundamental problem of accommodation, acknowledged by Augustine, Calvin, and countless other Christian thinkers.

If I haven’t misrepresented your position (in which case I hope you will represent it more accurately yourself), then we might be left in a difficult place. We might have to say that (for example) God told the Sun to stand still, and not the Earth, because it’s the former not the latter that moves. I wrote about this in a column some time ago: http://biologos.org/blog/galileo-and-the-garden-of-eden-part-2 especially after the large image. If you get a chance to read that, please let me know what you think.

[johnZ]

Getting real deep into the story of Esther is going to be a sidetrack that i would prefer to avoid. Hopefully that is okay with you. I think Job is real not fiction because of the way it is written, with names of his friends and himself, the land, the enemies, etc. But it is not historical in the sense of fitting into the history of most of the old testament, the way Ezra or Psalms, or Ruth was. Job could impart lessons without being non-fiction, I suppose, but we would have difficulty knowing the context. If a parable, then we don’t know if God really blessed this or someone made it up, hoping or imagining God was like that. So we understand it to be real for us to give it credibility. Even the parables that Jesus told, have validity primarily because Jesus told them… otherwise we would just debate them, and make up counter parables.

Okay, I do not understand how you could say Collins article would be non-literal if in Canon, but literal if not in Canon. Isn’t there a difference between truth and literality?

About the mustard seed, the point is that the orchid is not seeded as an herb in the field, so it is not relevant to the context… Jesus was referring specifically to a seed planted in the field as an herb or food. The point is not primarily whether our faith crumbles, but whether Jesus spoke falsehood. It appears he did not.

I apologize if I implied that there are no moral lessons in the Adam and Eve story. There are always moral lessons in life. But the encouragement, or the moral lesson is much more foundational than a mere proverb, which applies generally with exceptions. This is not only a moral lesson, but is also an explanation for our condition. If it is fiction, then it does not explain our condition. There are moral lessons in Deuteronomy and Joshua as well. The main moral lesson is that when Israel failed to cast out the other people from the land, and began to make treaties with them, it turned out they also worshiped their false gods… and God then brought on them pain and suffering and punishment by the very peoples they had failed to cast out. But this is a real moral lesson that actually happened. So Genesis is like that. It’s not like Ali baba and the forty thieves, or like Alladin’s Lamp, which may have their own moral lessons, but of a different type of hopeful morality which is fanciful and unreal. (If you are good and beautiful, you will marry a prince or a princess.) You see, if it is fiction, then Genesis is generic, but if it is true, then it is unique.

Yes, narrative historical, moral lesson, encouragement can co-exist. Even fiction could theoretically coexist, but not without detracting from the inherent truth, unless it is only a parable imbedded in the narrative. Changing reality to fiction, is by definition, a detraction of truth. If we say that Jesus resurrection was fiction, then the truth is no longer. If God created us specifically to disobey him, and to disobey the commandments he gave us, then several truths no longer exist. But thankyou very much for your interesting and challenging perspective.

[johnZ]

Yes, thankyou. I think Job is real, not imagined nor concocted. And I think the conversation and the events happened. But is it literal? I think it is in the sense that God said what he said. But obviously, maybe God used a different language, and maybe a different sequence of words with the same meaning. Nor do we know exactly how God spoke to Job or appeared to Job and his friends. (well, out of a storm, somehow…) But the meaning is real, and not symbolic. But I agree that even if it was some huge parable, this still does not really impact on how we should read Genesis.

[johnZ]

arguing that God must have said exactly what God is said to have said, anywhere God speaks in the Bible

Ted, yes and no. God meant what He said. But he could have said it in any language, and put words in various sequences. God not being a God of confusion, we can be confident that what He says is understandable. So the sun stood still because the earth stopped rotating or whatever the cause was. Just as quieting the waves due to the wind dying down. Or believing in Jesus because of the Holy Spirit’s work.

You are still getting at how we decide whether something is metaphorical or historical. I disagree that God needs to falsify things in order to make them understandable. The comparison with the sun rising and setting is a good example, because today we still in common parlance say that the sun rises, just as they did 4000 years ago. We understand the science behind why it appears to rise, but to us it also rises in our context. To say that the lack of science makes it difficult to say something is not really true. To imagine that God created everything in seven days is not easier to understand than to say that God changed small animals into bigger animals, and some animals into humans. Even stated in an unscientific fashion, it can be said and accepted. Except that God did not say that. So we are left with what God did say. And what Moses recorded.

[Relates (Roger A. Sawtelle)]

Jim,

Thank you for your question.

I have not read the book, but I can comment on what you said.

The only thing good that came out of the Fall is salvation. Without sin there is no need for salvation. Without our sin there is no Cross. Salvation is not something we earn, it is a gift that we need. Jesus died for us, meaning both because we are sinners and because we need forgiveness and salvation.

This said God’s history of salvation is a good thing, not an evil thing. We in the West tend to look at history as the growth of knowledge, but knowledge is not salvation. Today we have much knowledge which is growing exponentially, yet we are killing each other in record numbers outside of WW1 and WW2, and this war will last much longer than those two wars, yet we act as if the current war is not real.

History is the story of relationships, which it began with the Fall. Sadly we often put our knowledge of “nature” ahead of our knowledge of ourselves and others. We seek to know the impersonal which we can to some extent control, rather than persons including God Whom we cannot control. This knowledge gives us the feeling of power making us feel that we do not need God, which deepens our frustration and sin, as did the Fall.

The wheat and the tares reminds us that nothing and no one is intrinsically good, including us, science, and the Church. No one except God. It is not up to judge others, just God. We love and accept knowledge and others for who they are, not for what they are not. Our salvation and fulfillment is in God, Who reveals Godself through others and the Creation, but not in others and things in themselves.

I hope that you understand the point I am trying to make. Whether you agree with it is another question.

[Relates (Roger A. Sawtelle)]

johnZ,

Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.” NIV (Emphasis added.)

As the Bible says God speaks to us in many ways. God speaks to us through events so we can learn from the faith of some and the lack of faith of others. God speaks to us through parables in the OT and the NT. God even speaks to us by clear unmistakable words, like “Do not kill,” but how often Christians and others try to justify killing of other people.

Primarily God speaks to humans by Jesus Christ, His Word/Logos, and His birth, life, death, resurrection, and coming again. Please do not get us bogged down on the question as whether the Bible is inerrant. Only Jesus Christ is inerrant. The Bible is not equal to Jesus because He is God and the Bible while holy is not God. We worship Jesus and not the Bible.

We need to stop bickering about the words of the Bible and start doing the Word (Logos) of God, Jesus the Messiah.

[johnZ]

I agree with most of what you say here, Roger, except for your seeming admonition about being bogged down. I don’t think I used the word “inerrant”. But I would use the words true and understandable.

In your example, you highlight the phrase “Do not kill”. Well known phrase. But then you castigate Christians generically without taking the rest of the same scripture into account. In the same book of the bible, God tells Israel to stone those who murder or rape or commit adultery. He tells Israel to destroy the people of the land of canaan because of their detestable idolatrous practices. Achan gets killed for stealing stuff from Jericho when told not to. People get swallowed up in the dessert earth for rebelling against Moses. Levites are told to kill Israelites for building the golden calf when Moses was up on the mountain getting the exact law “Do not murder”, that you are referring to.

Yes, I agree that Jesus is God’s Logos, and is God, and we worship God/Jesus and not the bible. But, we do use the Bible in our understanding of how to worship God. How to be obedient to God. It is in the Bible that God’s words are found, and Jesus parables are found, and the Holy Spirit’s works are described. When we have such evidence about God, we need to be careful about changing this evidence to suit our own purposes. The example of “do not kill” above shows how simplistically easy it is for us to be selective in our handling of scripture.

While Jesus did change our understanding of the prophets of old, when he came to earth, Jesus himself said that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus himself was the fulfillment of prophecies by the prophets. What the prophets (including Moses) had said did not become invalidated, but its application changed. Sin was still sin, but Jesus paid the price. On the other hand, Annanias and Sapphira still died just for lying to make themselves look good. So we should be careful about judging christians who believe that the state still has the power of the sword, as scripture also indicates. The cause of the widows and orphans and the oppressed (as we see in Syria and Yemen and Chad) is sometimes upheld by the power of the state in relieving them from their oppression, and punishing or restraining the oppressors.

We cannot know if we are doing the Word of God, if we don’t understand the word of God.

[johnZ]

I find it interesting that just as Job the book appears to refer to animals we no longer see today, so also there is a reference to ice, big sheets of ice, which we rather gloss over:

God questioned Job from a whirlwind, “Out of whose womb
came the ice? And the frost of the heavens, who fathered it? The waters
are hidden like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen” (Job 38:29–30)

Perhaps Job was familiar not just with a bit of snow and slippery ice on a cold night, but also thick ice covering deep waters, possibly also on oceans (face of the deep). Interesting.

[jlock (Jim Lock)]

@Relates

Roger,

I understand your point perfectly and do in fact agree with everything you said. I did not make it clear, but in contemplating the nature of good and evil I was using only the framework of the human experience. Of course Salvation is without evil. Otherwise we would have nothing to hope for. In fact your 2nd paragraph appears to highlight the same idea quite well. Perhaps a better way to state this idea of kenosis is as a parallel with the Garden story rather than a consequence. In other words, we can see correlation between our experience and the Tree of Good AND Evil. However, trying to see any kind of causal relationship falls short.

As to the wheat and the tares…yep.

As to whether I agree with Kreegan, the ‘wheat and the tares’ makes for some interesting discussion. It think it could also tell us a lot of God and the extent of His mercy and grace. However, the book ultimately falls short in the she dismisses Satan as an active enemy of God while simultaneously trying to have evil as a. active entity. I’d has a hard time with that. But thanks for the discussion. Assuming I understand you correctly, it did help clarify some of my thinking on the matter.

Jim