- We finally agree on the point I was making.
- Or maybe we don’t.
1 Like
First thing, we are potentially conflating terms here.
To say that something is “literal” is to make the assertion that the words of the text, including perhaps the punctuation, are “exactly” as they were written, and without any edits.
Even if the text is not “literal,” that does not automatically rule out the meaning or intent of a particular word or passage. It just means the words are not fixed in one particular fashion or design.
For example, the word “leviathan” is commonly used to indicate a whale, and in some stretching and twisting of the text, the justification for “dinosaurs”. But the word used in the Hebrew is for a “sea serpent”, not a Cetacean, and most definitely not one of the dinosaur “kinds”.
Using transliteration of the NIV translation, the word used is"nāḥāš", which is somewhat generic in that it can be snake or serpent.
2 Likes
No one waved away any record. Again, you either fail to read what’s in front of you, or you deliberately misrepresent.
I absolutely believe Genesis – I just refuse to make it something it isn’t.
No, it is the first step towards understanding scripture: cast aside your presuppositions – which is the first part of humility before the text.
Which has no basis in Scripture.
As long as you take the record as real, fine. Eve was really created by God from a bone of a man. No monkeys involved
Looking at some 30 translations I almost always see agreement. Check out all the translations for the record of God creating Eve and see for yourself. If some put a comma or whatever it still agrees.
When something is written as real we are to take it that way. If something is primarily symbolic that is indicated.
Even things that are symbolic are real but involve more than just the surface truths.
Right. A creature called a serpent was used by Satan to speak/lie to Eve.
If you do not wave away the account of God putting Adam to sleep and creating the first woman etc what do you do with it precisely? In what way is the clear account of the serpent creature being used to lie to Eve ‘something it is not’?
So if someone does not accept that a real creature was used by Satan to tempt Eve etc that is a ‘first step’ to ‘understand’ it? So give us the results and show what you understand?
- Then we don’t agree after all. You may interpret it, provided your interpretation agrees with mine” is not an acknowledgment that you are interpreting Scripture too.
- Don’t bother replying, I’m muting you and adding you to my Ignore list.
1 Like
It is already signed sealed and delivered and confirmed as real in other parts of Scripture. You and I are not need for any ‘interpretation’ of the account
Indicated how exactly? Where is this how defined in Scripture?
1 Like
Jesus told a parable for example. Or in a dream someone saw a tree. That is different than a straight account of historical people and events such as Eve Any symbolism you might draw from the factual story are worth looking at perhaps. Denying the historical people and events is not OK
But not all of them in the Old or New Testament are directly identified as parables. They can be identified by the context but that gets back to (your favorite word) interpretation to determine if a passage is or is not a parable.
But not all dreams are symbolic. There are several major prophetic dreams in the OT.
But many of the parables read like an account of historical people and events.
So bottom line, deciding if something is symbolic depends on your interpretation.
You didn’t answer this because it isn’t directly defined in Scripture.
1 Like
Name one that is a parable that is presented as something else?
I used a dream as an example of what could be symbolic. I never said all dreams ‘are symbolic’ The dream Joseph had for example to flee.
If a parable names people why would anyone think they were not real people?
That depends on what someone means by ‘how did He create’? I find that the Genesis account tells us how. Now if someone imagines God should have told them how He does miracles, well, that is above their ability to understand. Especially if they are bogged down in manscience.
It’s not “waving it away”, it’s treating it as the kind of literature it is – and I already told you what I do with it, treat it as mythologized history full of symbolism.
Did it actually happen? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter; it’s from Yahweh and is therefore conveys authoritative truth.
BTW treating the scripture as what it is, Eve was not the first woman; there were already male and female humans from the previous account. The world was already filled, and Eden is a special place: it is sacred space where God walks personally with two people He didn’t make by normal means but with His own hands.
“Being used” is an interpretation. I view the nakhash as being a heavenly being that looked like a serpent – the word is related to things that are shiny and has been rendered “shining one”, which was an ANE term for a heavenly being, and that would explain why Eve was surprised when it talked.
There’s a lot more to that story but I’m kind of brain-dead right now so I’ll quit while I’m still making sense.
Don’t pick out pieces and treat them separately – you have to take the account as a whole as it stands. Indeed – and my grasp of the literary type here is tenuous – getting lessons from the story requires treating it as literal while knowing it wasn’t written as history.
That’s the trouble: it isn’t defined in scripture. What ‘dad’ is doing is making his own definition and applying it without bothering to be humble enough to ask what kind of literature it really is – and therefore misses the actual message because the “how” comes from the literary type; it cannot be deduced from the grammar.
Your evidence that the world was already filled when Eve left the garden?
Gen 3:20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
Eve was not surprised when the creature talked.
The serpent is identified in Revelation as being Satan.
If you do not so much as believe it really happened, the lessons you glean from it will be lame
No. Whatever is able to be taken literally should be.
Only by modern ideas. In Moses’ time, what mattered was that it came from God, not whether it “really happened”.
Where does scripture tell us that?