That’s beside the point. The point is you can’t tell when someone references a mythologized but potentially historical figure, exactly what they believe about the figure. I don’t buy that just because Jesus referenced Adam and Eve to make a theological point about marriage, we can draw the clear conclusion that therefore he believed they were 100% historical and 0% mythologized. Adam and Eve were literary figures that everyone was familiar with. But I don’t think we can assume with certainty what everyone believed about their literal historicity or myth status or even if they thought of them in those terms.
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Curtis, I meant no offense to anyone. I only meant that @gbrooks9 and probably some others here think I grip my Bible too tightly. I was not judging anyone else; rather, I was acknowledging how I might be judged by others, and I was not complaining about it.
My point was a practical one: that I don’t want anyone who thinks I’m too much of a Bible thumper to feel obligated to answer my questions.
Although I do not like the doctrine of inerrancy, I’m what most people would call an inerrantist. I get that. [quote=“cwhenderson, post:33, topic:36201”]
Agreed, many here INTERPRET the Bible a little (or a lot) more liberally than you do, but you are making a rather sizable jump to make the claim you did.
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I was only saying what you said between the first and second comma. Maybe I said it inartfully, but I was trying to say it respectfully. Since you say before the first comma that we are agreed about this, then I don’t understand what there is to be stirred up about. I don’t know what “rather sizable jump” you think I took beyond our point of agreement.
P. S. The expression “grip my Bible too tightly” should be taken figuratively and not literally. 
No worries, it just sounded like there was some miscommunication about the perception of the Bible. Inerrancy is a tricky issue, to be sure. I guess I would hesitate to say I’m an inerrantist to the letter, but I do lean in that direction, as well.
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Why would interperting Genesis to agree with the vast amount of real world data that shows the earth to be very old be considered ad hoc? The age of the earth was not set based on being good for evolution. In fact most of the early geologists that began to realize the earth was very old were Christians. You are also well aware of the OEC view that has no problem with 4.543 billion years.
ad hoc - formed, arranged, or done for a particular purpose only
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Because it meets the definition of ad hoc (i.e. “formed, arranged, or done for a particular purpose only”). By saying “the vast amount of real world data” you’re just saying that you believe you have a very good reason for being ad hoc.
I am well aware that belief in an old earth preceded belief in evolution.
Perhaps beside your point…but not beside mine.
In the abstract, I would generally agree with this statement. However, we are discussing this matter in very specific contexts: biblical, and even more specifically, the words of Christ.
The point Jesus was making only makes sense if Adam and Eve were historical. In His argument against the use of Moses’ commandment to justify divorce Jesus said:
“…from the beginning it has not been this way.” Matt 19:8
If it was actually some other way from the beginning, HIs argument falls apart.
Here you go @Mike_Gantt
But one that has to be made when you study the portions of Biblical history that do not match up with actual history.
Show me one quotation of the OT by Jesus that in itself REQUIRES the OT to be historically accurate. And don’t give me the “Jesus always spoke truth” because we both know he spoke in very nonhistorical parables.
And if you have never come across them, there are some quotations of Jesus and the Apostles that take OT verses figuratively when the verse quoted was literal in it’s original meaning.
It could be called prehistory/protohistory.
Actually prehistory and protohistory are widely studied outside of Scripture.
I don’t believe I shut off any valid interpretation. I just don’t go into areas that are not supported. “I go where the evidence leads me.” One interpretation of Genesis has the earth surrounded by a crystal sphere. Do you think this is a valid area that should be explored? Dinosaurs on the ark?
No more so than any other interpretative scheme of which I am aware.I am open to making changes when something comes up that requires it. If you are interested I tend to follow the Historical-grammatical hermeneutics which also requires I follow the Dispensational model. Am I in perfect agreement with others that follow these, probably not. Do you have a scheme that is foolproof? And what is interpretive abuse? Is it something more than yours doesn’t agree with mine? The multitudes of interpretations proves that there is no one right way to do this.
Bingo. Move along now. Nothing to see here. “always existed”, and here you were acting like I was crying alone in the wilderness. Don’t believe I have ever called mine new or improved.
Anytime your belief conflicts with your reality you need to change your interpretation.
Now what are some of the things that I consider reality:
A great age for the earth.
God created time and space.
God made man in His image.
Jesus is fully man and fully God.
Jesus was raised from the dead.
You notice I didn’t say things other people consider to be reality.
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Right. But how does ‘mythologized’ = reality/history was totally different? The whole idea of true myth is that it describes reality, but not in an objectively historical way.
A photograph of St. Mark’s in Venice
An impressionist painting of St. Mark’s
Is one more true than the other?
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Is this a trick question?
The Bible frowns on myths.
Godless ones. No one is saying Adam and Eve is an old wive’s tale.
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Paraphrased: “But I have a really good reason for making an artificial and arbitrary distinction!”
If you have to bruise the Bible to preserve its health…
See above.
No problem.
Couldn’t it also be called fiction, non-factual, myth, legend, fable, fabrication? (Not trying to be rhetorical or pejorative; please note the ones you’d accept from this group. I think you previously told me you wouldn’t accept “parable.”)
No, but I do always look for Christ in any passage I study.
Using an interpretive scheme in the way you are - which is to achieve a certain interpretive outcome rather than to find the truth. You say “I go where the evidence leads me,” but you also say that you want interpretive outcomes that do not conflict with modern scientific or historical consensus. The former will only inevitably lead you to the latter if you privilege evidence from the latter.
I know two people can only get so close in an internet forum, but do you really know me no better than this by now?
All the more reason to subject your method to scrutiny…which I commend you for doing.
Not sure what button I pushed to generate that. I was just saying that people have been interpreting this or that from Gen 1-11 as figurative for a long time; I was trying to get a sense from you of how much more of it was going to be considered figurative under your wholesale approach.
How is “A great age for the earth” not a thing “other people consider to be a reality”?
No I have a very good reason to believe what I do. To me ad hoc means to make up something just to fit. I am certainly not making up Scripture and I am not making up nature. I am letting each speak to the other. In fact I could say your current view of nature is ad hoc to make it fit your interpretation of Genesis.
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The beginning doesn’t mean time t = 0. Adam and Eve had no parents so the verse in Genesis would apply to their kids and onward. Or can you explain how that verse would fit Adam and Eve literally?
Quick answer, what I meant was if someone says the reality is people are not raised from the dead I would not accept that. Yes other people, including you, would share many of the things I consider reality.
I think we may have reached the point where we’re beginning to talk past one another. You wanted to know the problems I had with your view. I’ve done that. And we’ve gone back and forth a time or two. I’m happy to keep going if you think it’s a productive “iron sharpens iron” dynamic, but not if you feel we’re passing out, of have passed out, of that stage.
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.” For what reason? “He who created them from the beginning made them male and female.” Who is them - that is, who is the male and the female? Adam and Eve. Thus God commanded Adam’s and Eve’s offspring to mate because God had mated Adam and Eve to start the process.
You said you came to your conclusion about Gen 1-11 based on your own study, that you were not adopting a school of thought you’d read in a book or found in some other source. Did you come to your conclusion about the age of the earth in the same way? It’s impossible for me to think you did because the grand consensus of geologists, astronomers, biologists and others could not have been unknown to you.
I can’t find the Bible verse that smiles on godly myths.
Let me ask this.
I don’t think the majority of geologists, astronomers, biologists aren’t in cahoots to fight faith in the Bible. I think they come to their conclusions, for the most part, in good faith.
What do you think about the YEC geologists, YEC astronomers, YEC biologists? Do you think they come to their conclusions in good faith, too? I recognize they are a minority, but it’s not like they consist of only three unshaven guys living out of a van down by the river. They are some respectable people in some respectable numbers.
I do not think of the majority as fools or liars or a conspiracy. They give me pause. What then do you think of the minority? How do you explain them? Do they give you no pause?
I know this is addressed to Bill, but I hope you’ll tolerate my intrusion.
Some of us (okay – me, I’ll speak for myself) may have some difficulty pointing to “just one” formal work or treatise that captures all of where I am now at. There are important works, of course from diverse authors and editors like Wright, Walton, Lewis, Polkinghorne, McGrath, Keith B. Miller, not to mention Collins! … and many others who will all have contributed (but never single-handedly) to much of what many here have come over time to believe. Even our interactions in this very forum with its many anonymous “authors” have had considerably influence on many of us. There is a growing corpus of all this work, and if it as yet lacks one neatly summative label or author or work that we can neatly point people toward; well, – that might be a sign of healthy and diverse growth still in process.
I can’t speak for Bill, but I know my conclusions (such as they are thus far) about early Genesis passages are the result of much reading from many points of view (and reading Scriptures themselves most of all). I don’t know Hebrew or Greek and am no where near smart enough to have arrived at any conclusions at all without the input of many scholars (many, but not all of them God-fearing). And ditto for the age of the earth question. My own views (as I suspect is true of many here) have messily evolved over decades (in my case). And again, because of the inputs of many who are much more knowledgeable than me in their respective areas of expertise. So when Bill challenged you that he thinks it’s actually your approach to the study of creation that seems more ad-hoc than his own, I have a very sympathetic ear toward his notion without knowing either of you well enough to know for sure. All I know is if Bill’s is anything like mine, then there is very little that is ad-hoc about it. I have encountered a lot of ad-hoc looking arguments or equivocations from those, however, who want to maintain certain fences around certain kinds of science or theological understandings or both. My impression thus far is that the latter group are the more agile contortionists.
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