It sure seems as if you are used to getting your questions answered quickly and simply. If it is really that transparent to you why do you need others to answer? But it also seems like you dislike abiding a question everyone can’t agree has one answer. I find the most interesting questions are worth spending time with and really good ones I’d prefer to get clear on what I think before I hear a lot of other peoples opinions.
3 Likes
@Rohan, how’s this? (1) Gen 1 speaks of creation, using literal days in a figurative week. (2) Exodus refers back to the story as an analogy for the rhythm of human work & rest. Why figurative? Well, that question takes into account genre and purpose (which takes some time to unpack). But a less-than-wooden reading has the advantage of removing otherwise obvious discrepancies.
BTW, if you read Exod 31:17 too literally, you’ll have to conclude that God got tired ("…and was refreshed"). This is one of many indicators that the description of God’s act of creation is anthropomorphic.
3 Likes
A reasonable request. The verse in total says,” So also it is written, " The first man , Adam , became a living person "; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”. That verse is part of larger discussion of describing the difference in natural man and spiritual man. Again, the topic is not about science, or age of the earth, or evolution, but rather on the difference between our physical and spiritual nature. One might also note the the verse says Adam became a living person, when God breathed life into him. What does that mean? To breathe requires lungs and breathing passages. Does God have those? Or is it figurative? Could there have been others that were human but not fully man made in the image of God? it that where Cain got his wife? Were those the ones Cain feared? I don’t know. But if one believes science can falsify the Bible, I think they may have the wrong interpretation of the Bible as if you have something that is clearly true like the long age of the earth and universe, then the Bible must not be saying that it is not much older than the Pyramids but rather is saying something else. And that something else is just using the commonly held ideas of what creation was to make that point.
Science, or a modicum of common sense readily disproves a lot of what the bible says.
Obviously.
Once one gets into such as assuming the bible
is True and interpreting plain text to where
it passes any test, then of course the bible is all true
Yes, apologists like to paint targets around the arrow with back-peddling exegesis. But we all do that to an extent in our worldview thinking. Some more egregiously than others all across the spectrum. But Genesis read in its context is not remotely close to what a Modern concordist reading looks like. It is plainly about establishing monotheistic beliefs and the primacy of God. It’s taking widely known cultural images and rearranging them to put God on a pedestal. Most today don’t get the cultural references because they haven’t ready ancient Mesopotamian creation myths outside Genesis. Of course the authors had incorrect cosmogonies (ours certainly aren’t perfect) and expressed things phenomenologically. You have to get the literary genre right first before you can interpret something. Many of us who believe in accommodation believe there are many erroneous assumptions and incorrect background knowledge held by the Biblical authors. The important point is what the Bible teaches from within that context. I don’t think this distinction removes all errors from the text. Some certainly remain even after genre considerations. Some of us do not view the world or the Bible in a cartesian sense of fact-literally true or false! I don’t think of Scripture as perfect. God is perfect. I think of scripture as good. Good enough to serve God’s purposes. “All or nothing” is a silly hypocritical belief.
Too many people read the Bible as if it was a theological encyclopedia that fell from heaven.
Vinnie
IMO, if it is read as being about an actual existent god then
any interpretation will fail
That is tautological if atheism is correct.
Does that make it invalid as a consideration?
The same verse calls Jesus “the last Adam.” The evidence is conclusive that a number of people have been born after Jesus, several of them named Adam. The same passage, two verses later, declares that Jesus is “the second man.” It’s also fairly well established that more than one man lived before Jesus.
I think we can easily find a way to see truth in this passage that isn’t challenged by people before Adam, before Jesus or after Jesus. Paul isn’t talking about all people of all time. He’s contrasting two figures, Adam and Jesus. Of these, Adam is the first and Jesus is both the last and the second.
We need to understand what all is in view before we judge what positional labels like “first,” “second” or “last” mean. These statements can’t just be extracted into absolute formulas. While here Adam is first and Jesus is last, elsewhere Jesus claims to be “the first and the last” (Revelation 22:13). Even though he seemed to be just some random character arising in the middle of human history, he’s no delta or omicron – he’s the alpha and omega. Rather than looking for ways to reduce statements about Jesus to errors, we should try to understand what they were intended to convey.
2 Likes
Nothing is invalid to consider. Even though the context is about prophecy, surely we can both agree 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 (NRSV) is a wise statement?
Vinnie
However, in the other version of the Decalogue it does not say that God created the universe in 6 days. Deuteronomy 5:12-15 (NIV2011)
12 “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you.
13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
14 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do.
15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
Why did YHWH give two versions of the Decalogue one of which does not mention of 6 days of Creation? Why did Jesus say that He and the Father didnotreston the seventh day?
I believe that the Creation began in the Beginning, which is Second 1 or the Big Bang, when God said, “Let there be Light!” (John 1:1) The difference is that it has lasted 13 billion or so years and as Jesus said is still continuing.
I didn’t type it the right way. It seems like those verse contradict your view, because it says he made the heavens and the earth in 6 days, contradictory to the view that he started making it on day 1. Do you have an explanation to get us out of this dilemma?
The way out of this dilemma is the way of Jesus, the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity. See below. We believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rather than the Bible.
John 5:17 (NIV2011)
17 In His defense Jesus said to them**, “My Father is always at His work [of Creation] to this very day, and I too am working.” Emphasis added.**
This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.