Does anyone have a Good Answer to Genesis 1-11 seemingly being referred to literally?

[gbob]

I believe Genesis 1-11 are referred to literally because they are literal. Look up my post here on Genesis 1 Historical/scientific reading of Genesis 1

[gbob]

Hi Dick. I see you are still stuck on that Neolithic Adam of yours. lol. Hope you are well. Been a long time since we saw each other.

[Dick_Fischer]

I just follow the evidence. Here’s a “smoking gun” for you. Cain builds a city he names “Enoch” after his son (Gen. 4:17). That was a real city. The Sumerians called it “Unug.” You can find it in the Sumerian King List and the epic tale of Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta. The En- prefix in Enmerkar and Enoch means “king” in both Sumerian and Akkadian. The city was located about 30 miles north of the Euphrates and eventually grew into the city of Uruk (Erech in Hebrew). Today it is called Warka.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@Dick_Fischer

Well, all Chinese are human but not all humans are Chinese. Genesis is history. If you are Arab or Jewish it is likely your history. The “mistake” is that the translation assumes Genesis history is about the beginnings of the entire human race that has 6 million years under its belt whereas the covenant couple came on the scene roughly 7 thousand years ago judging by the text itself and the history of the ancient Near East. My book is Historical Genesis from Adam to Abraham in case you’re interested.

Not since Angoulême [thanks Dick. Where my side bet on Eden evaporated in the museum on seeing how irrefutably ancient modern man is].

[T_aquaticus]

Reasons to Believe may have a series of essays worth checking out. RTB is an old Earth creationism organization, so they may not agree with everything BioLogos, but the essays seem to be well researched and evenly handled.

Previously in this series, I began reviewing chapter one of Coming to Grips with Genesis , a book edited by Terry Mortenson and Thane H. Ury that features a collection of essays by various young-earth writers. In the first chapter, James Mook attempts to make the case that the early church fathers were young-earth creationists. However, it is well-acknowledged that the church fathers were by no means unified on how to understand the creation days. Even Mook recognizes that Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine rejected a calendar-day view, believing instead that everything was created instantly. For completeness, we should include Hilary of Poitiers and the Jewish scholar Philo who believed likewise, even though Mook does not discuss them.

These facts carry two important consequences for Mook’s point. First, there was genuine disagreement in the early church over how to best understand the days of creation, with a small but significant number rejecting the idea that they were “ordinary” days. Second, the church allowed for charitable disagreement on this point and did not view it as an issue of orthodoxy. Recognition that Augustine was the single most influential theologian of the early church further challenges Mook’s position by demonstrating that opposition to a calendar-day view cannot be dismissed as a mere fringe position.

Part 1 begins here

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@gbob

I believe Genesis 1-11 are referred to literally because they are literal. Look up my post here on Genesis 1 Historical/scientific reading of Genesis 1

Any story can be viewed as literal, no matter how figurative. That’s about what one brings to the party. It has nothing to do with things as they are. The literal story I like best is disinterested science within rationality, as it more closely approximates to things as they are - dinge an sich - than any other story by many orders of magnitude in the case of modern woodenly literalistic views of three thousand year old creation myths. I love the inspired, timeless, yearning up and down beauty of ‘ours’.