Who made a “recycling surface” argument?
Well I think contextual analysis requires more than direct word for word translation. It’s like the phrase “ I’m so hungry I could eat a horse”. The words all have literal meanings. A plain straight forward reading though misses the point. The point is that they are very hungry.
When it comes to genesis 1-11 it’s mythology. It’s not written as historical or autobiographical narratives.
The point of the flood story is so much more than just those few chapters. It goes back to the very beginning. “ The world was formless and void and the spirit of god was hovering over the waters of the deep. This water is a metaphor for chaos. It’s chaotic. It’s not productive to life. It’s not our friend. If we were tossed into a world that was just darkness and water we would quickly die. We need land. We need a ark.
The first ark for life was the land appearing out of the deep waters.
The next ark was Eden. This land of goodness surrounded by these rivers.
The next ark was the ark of Noah.
Then we see the Red Sea splitting so that the Hebrews could travel safely through the water.
This all is hyperlinked to in baptism. We get baptized into Christ. The water washes away our sin just like the waters have washed away all the evil before from Noah and Moses’s enemies. This water metaphorically kills us allowing us to be reborn.
A man must be born of water and spirit.
Repent and be baptized.
That’s also why in revelation it says there will be no sea in the restored world. It’s again not literal, but metaphorical for in perfection we bo longer need water to kill anything. We don’t need this chaotic force that is counter productive to life. We have a new source of water. A well that gives eternal life.
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As i commented, there are about as many ideas about the flood
story as there are Christians.
Im not much interested in the various possibilities as to why it
was written. Nobody knows.
Its kind of a strange thing to write if they didnt mean it.
And if there is some message, seems more sensible to just say it.
As it is either most, or all readers are led astray by the stoty.
Seems like you share the same interpretation of the Bible as the typical young earth creationist.
What makes a literalist interpretation better than one that considers genre and recognizes literary devices such as hyperbolic speech, metaphors, hyperlinks and uses cultural worldviews of ancient people?
Why should a young earth creationist style interpretation be better than the ones used by evolutionary creationist?
Have you never seen wisdom and word views shared through things like fairy tales, myths, folklore and ect?
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It’s not that they didn’t mean it. Think of it as a parable that teaches an important lesson: We live in a moral universe and God judges the immoral but redeems the righteous. It’s one of our great stories. Clues that it shouldn’t be taken literally are right in the text. Two flood stories are merged together to make the account we see in Genesis. And God gives instructions for clean and unclean animals, even though the dietary laws hadn’t been given yet.
My Mom was s professor of English lit. I kind of know about literary devices.
I commented on the myriad ( often infallible ) interpretations.
Thats good fun with literature, not so much for an instruction manual…
How do you know what the people who concocted the story meant by it?
Because it’s really basic, really obvious.
All interpretations are fallible. Anyone that says otherwise has just failed.
Obviously. But they do say God guides them and he wont lie or mislead.
God may inspire but their handling of that inspiration is still fallible. They are human and fallible after all.
You get my point about not a very good book?
I think it is a great book. But why should my or your opinion count for anything.
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There’s so much that’s better reading
Resurfacing Venus: I don’t know which young-earth source originated the misrepresentation, but the argument is:
Astronomers claim that Venus’s surface has been resurfaced relatively recently (by geological and astronomical standards of “recently”).
How do they know it’s resurfaced instead of actually indicating a recent creation of Venus?
“Recently” actually means about 100-600 million years, so not a great YEC argument. Also, that includes several individual incidents (volcanic eruptions, impact craters) rather than a single age. Based on the numbers of craters and on radiometric dating of rocks from the Moon and Mars, several other objects have much older surfaces; claiming that Venus is younger seems pointless. But if the goal is to promote a young earth by casting aspersions and sowing doubt rather than trying to make a good argument, then who cares about logic?
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You’ll probably find that many here don’t view the Bible as a instruction manual. I’m under the impression you are an atheist, or a atheist leaning agnostic. But you must be somewhat interested in Christianity, or maybe just in his various Christian’s interpret the Bible.
Either way Tim Mackie and Jon Collin’s podcast “ the Bible project” has some good resources. If you enjoy podcasts you may like it.
If you prefer reading various articles here also to also about it.
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The story is pretty simple. Mankind is wicked except for Noah, so God punishes the world but saves Noah and his family. We don’t need to struggle over its meaning any more than we would struggle over the meaning of one of Aesop’s fables. But you are free to consult the Talmud for ancient commentary on the story if you think I am in error.
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As in did they think the story is true.
Must have bern around for quite a while with everybody adding
their own way of telling it before any was written down.
Who knows how authentic people thought it was. An awful lot
today figure its literal.
I second this, as a newcome to the Bible. I’m following the “paradigms” series on their podcast at the moment, and it’s really helpful with regards to what the Bible is, and is not. It’s definitely not a linear, literal history. Nor is it fiction. It’s truth, told using literary techniques that are sophisticated and often alien and challenging to modern readers.
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To an ancient person it might have seemed reasonable. YECs today take the story literally but modern young earth creationism is a relatively recent development, and they add to the story anyway.
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