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Anyone who's been to Sunday School has heard the Biblical stories of Jonah and The Whale, Noah's Flood, Adam & Eve, etc.. When I was little I was taught these stories were true. When I got older I heard these stories were like the parables, and never really happened.
It doesn't matter unless you are a young earth creationist.
I have come to understand that the first part of the book of Genesis as basically saying that God created everything. It should be noted that Genesis was written for the Hebrew mindset. We (westerners) are of the Greek mindset. By Greek I mean we follow the Greek way of thinking and looking at the world. We want precise answers, facts, figures order of occurrence and dates, etc.
The Hebrew mindset is primarily interested in concepts, with facts and figures being secondary. What mattered to the Hebrews is that God created the Universe. The order and time of the events were not important to the Hebrew mind.
As I see it you run into problems applying Greek thinking to a Hebrew document. That is why the creation story does not make sense to the scientific mind.
Of course we always must bear in mind that God is not limited to obey the laws of nature. So, if God wanted to create the universe in six, 24 hour days He could.
Just so you know I believe all of the Bible to be true. But……….some of the Bible is poetry, some is symbolic, some conceptual, but most is literal (esp the NT).
The allegoric parts of the Bible are quite obvious, but within Christianity that changes nothing.
The creation account is symbolic since we know the Earth is 4.6 billion years old.
Adam and Eve are symbolic.
That people lived to be over 900 years old is allegoric.
A person having a simple seizure may be described to have a demon inside. That was the primitive knowledge of the era.
The word Satan is used to describe evil.
None of that changes the message.
That God and Satan made a bet to torment Job is philosophical book about why MAN lives in despair despite having a benevolent God. No one really believes God and Satan got together to make a bet. There is no such thing as Satan. Unless, folks take the words literally.
Anyone who's been to Sunday School has heard the Biblical stories of Jonah and The Whale, Noah's Flood, Adam & Eve, etc.. When I was little I was taught these stories were true. When I got older I heard these stories were like the parables, and never really happened.
Which is it? Does it matter?
Priscilla, the Bible is literal and it is important to understand that. This does not fail to recognize that there is allegory and symbolic language in the Bible. But unless something is clearly allegoric then it is literal.
The Golden Rule of Biblical interpretation is;
When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word, at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise. Biblical Research Studies Group-The Golden Rule of Interpretation
Adam and Eve were real. If they weren't, then the fall never happened and mankind is not in need of a Savior, and Jesus never would have had to come into the world.
The flood really happened. If it didn't, then 1 Peter 3:19-20, 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 are a lie.
1 Pet. 3:19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20] who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.
2 Pet. 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus (not Hell as is translated in many Bible translations).
Jude 1:6 and angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,
The spirits now in prison (1 Pet. 3:19) who abandoned their proper abode (Jude 1:6) are the fallen angels who are now in Tartarus (2 Pet. 2:4) and are in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day ( Jude 1:6).
Not all fallen angels are imprisoned in Tartarus. Most of the fallen angels are operative upon the Earth at the present time. But the particular group of fallen angels who are in Tartarus at the moment are the Sons of God who, as recorded in Genesis chapter 6 took human wives and mated with them resulting in the Nephilim, which were the half angelic-half human offspring. And this is why God brought the flood. Since it was true humanity which had sinned, Jesus had to come into the world as true humanity in order to redeem mankind. Satan's strategy was to create a hybrid race of half human and half angelic beings to prevent Jesus from coming as true humanity. God's solution was to destroy the Nephilim by means of the flood. Now again, if the flood never happened, then 1 Peter 3:19-20, 2 Peter 2:4, and Jude 1:6 are not true. But they are true because the flood was a real event.
And look at Jesus' genealogy in Luke 3. Noah, Lamech, Methuselah, Enoch, Jared, Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enosh, Seth, and Adam are all a part of Jesus' genealogy. This means that they were real people. Not allegorical fictions.
Priscilla, the Bible is literal and it is important to understand that. This does not fail to recognize that there is allegory and symbolic language in the Bible. But unless something is clearly allegoric then it is literal.
The Golden Rule of Biblical interpretation is;
When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word, at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise. Biblical Research Studies Group-The Golden Rule of Interpretation
Adam and Eve were real. If they weren't, then the fall never happened and mankind is not in need of a Savior, and Jesus never would have had to come into the world.
The flood really happened. If it didn't, then 1 Peter 3:19-20, 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 are a lie.
1 Pet. 3:19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20] who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.
2 Pet. 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus (not Hell as is translated in many Bible translations).
Jude 1:6 and angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,
The spirits now in prison (1 Pet. 3:19) who abandoned their proper abode (Jude 1:6) are the fallen angels who are now in Tartarus (2 Pet. 2:4) and are in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day ( Jude 1:6).
Not all fallen angels are imprisoned in Tartarus. Most of the fallen angels are operative upon the Earth at the present time. But the particular group of fallen angels who are in Tartarus at the moment are the Sons of God who, as recorded in Genesis chapter 6 took human wives and mated with them resulting in the Nephilim, which were the half angelic-half human offspring. And this is why God brought the flood. Since it was true humanity which had sinned, Jesus had to come into the world as true humanity in order to redeem mankind. Satan's strategy was to create a hybrid race of half human and half angelic beings to prevent Jesus from coming as true humanity. God's solution was to destroy the Nephilim by means of the flood. Now again, if the flood never happened, then 1 Peter 3:19-20, 2 Peter 2:4, and Jude 1:6 are not true. But they are true because the flood was a real event.
And look at Jesus' genealogy in Luke 3. Noah, Lamech, Methuselah, Enoch, Jared, Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enosh, Seth, and Adam are all a part of Jesus' genealogy. This means that they were real people. Not allegorical fictions.
Your argument is circular. You are using the Bible to prove the existence of Adam and Eve.
Circular reasoning (also known as paradoxical thinking[1] or circular logic), is a logical fallacy in which "the reasoner begins with what he or she is trying to end up with".[2] The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. However, the argument is useless because the conclusion is one of the premises.
WIKI
Your argument is circular. You are using the Bible to prove the existence of Adam and Eve.
Circular reasoning (also known as paradoxical thinking[1] or circular logic), is a logical fallacy in which "the reasoner begins with what he or she is trying to end up with".[2] The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. However, the argument is useless because the conclusion is one of the premises.
WIKI
I know what circular reasoning is.
But the Bible is the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15) It is the Word of God. One evidence of that is the reality of fulfilled prophecy. Therefore, you bet your boots that I believe the Bible concerning the existence of Adam and Eve, and everything else that the Bible says. I suspect however that you will not understand.
Yes. Adam and Eve actually existed. Yes....Noah really did build an ark. Yes....Jonah really did get swallowed by a big fish/whale. These parts are presented as historical, and are later referred to as historical.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike555
Priscilla, the Bible is literal and it is important to understand that. This does not fail to recognize that there is allegory and symbolic language in the Bible. But unless something is clearly allegoric then it is literal.
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And look at Jesus' genealogy in Luke 3. Noah, Lamech, Methuselah, Enoch, Jared, Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enosh, Seth, and Adam are all a part of Jesus' genealogy. This means that they were real people. Not allegorical fictions.
I assume you are well aware of the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew. One cannot relate that to what is outlined in Luke. Which one is to be taken literally? Is one of the allegorical?
They actually both fall apart. Jesus was supposed to be at Jew, and Jewish genealogy are derived from the paternal side , not the maternal side.
I assume you are well aware of the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew. One cannot relate that to what is outlined in Luke. Which one is to be taken literally? Is one of the allegorical?
They actually both fall apart. Jesus was supposed to be at Jew, and Jewish genealogy are derived from the paternal side , not the maternal side.
Not necessarily.....Luke was waiting to a non-Jewish audience.
I assume you are well aware of the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew. One cannot relate that to what is outlined in Luke. Which one is to be taken literally? Is one of the allegorical?
They actually both fall apart. Jesus was supposed to be at Jew, and Jewish genealogy are derived from the paternal side , not the maternal side.
This is an old skeptics argument, and is not valid. Both genealogies are true. Matthew's account traces Jesus' descent from David through Solomon and Luke's from David through Nathan. Matthew's stops at Joseph who was Jesus' adoptive but not real father, and Luke's goes through Mary (even though she is not mentioned by name). It is through Mary that Jesus is physically related to David. Joseph is also mentioned in Luke's account, but though he is called the son of Heli it actually refers to him being the son-in-law of Heli. But there is no word for son-in-law in the Greek, and so he is simply referred to as the son of Heli. Now, not everyone agrees everything in that view.
There could also be Levirate marriage involved which would have caused both genealogical lines to meet at some point which would remove any supposed difficulties in reconciling the two lines.
Skeptics are quick to scream contradiction instead of honestly seeking answers to difficult passages.
Last edited by Michael Way; 09-05-2013 at 04:55 PM..
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