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Nikk--Why should I believe you? When the Bible says SHORTLY, we make it mean a long, long time. When the Bible says NEAR, we make it a long, long way off.
If you can use those terms in their normal, everyday, common uasge, why don't you see them that way in the Bible?
John was to be shown those things that were in his day to SHORTLY take place because the time was THEN near (Rev. 1:1, 3;22:6, 10).
James said--"The coming of the Lord is NEAR" (James 5:8).
Furthermore, it was Jesus' first-century disciples who were told to be ready. Jesus repeatedly said to THEM when THEY were right there with Him: YOU watch and YOU be ready.
"The Son of Man is ABOUT TO COME in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds" (Matt. 16:27). Then Jesus said--"There are some standing HERE who will not taste death till THEY see the Son of Man COMING in His kingdom."
Paul said "The time is NEAR" (Phil. 4:5).
The meanings of these words in the Bible are no different than the meanings we commonly give them in our everyday lives. So if near actually means far in the Bible and shortly actually means much later (according to many today), why do we give them their normal meanings when we use them?
Do they not have consistent meanings?
Preterist
2 Peter 3:8 "But you must not forget dear friends, that a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and thousand years is like a day".
Soon means at any moment and we must be ready for Him. Or do you think Jesus has already returned?
2 Peter 3:8 "But you must not forget dear friends, that a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and thousand years is like a day".
Soon means at any moment and we must be ready for Him. Or do you think Jesus has already returned?
2 Peter 3:8 in NO WAY and in NO MANNER teaches that time, when given in the words of God's inspired Scriptures, has no normal, everyday, common meanings! That is NOT the meainng of 2 Peter 3:8.
WITH GOD, (this is KEY) a day is AS a thousand years and a thousand years is AS a day. God does not exist within the boundaries of time, but He created time, and WE do live within its boundaries. Therefore, when He communicates with us, He does so with the rules of language and word usage HE Himself created. There is nothing here indicating that a day can ACTUALLY mean a thousand years or vice versa. All this verse is saying is that God is faithful and He will do whatever He has promised in HIS time. But when He inspired the writers of Scripture to use time indicators, they are to be understood within the framework of the common nuances and usages of language.
Are you a dispensationalist, I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA? Do you believe in a future one-thousand-year reign of Christ? How do you know it will be 1,000 years--after all "a thousand years is as a day! Perhaps your thousand-year millennium will last only one day! Respectfully, ILNC, if you are going to use the first part of 2 Peter 3:8, then you must use the second part in the same way.
I do not mean to be rude and I hope I have not come across that way, but you cannot ignore or detract from the significant impact of time words in the Scriptures by reasoning them away with 2 Peter 3:8. Again, that is not what that verse is teaching.
Jesus said He was returning to THAT first-century generation. Yes, I believe He kept His word.
Genesis is history. LMAO. Genesis 1 and 2 conflict with each other. It is, therefore, impossible to take them literally--that, and there is zero fact-based evidence to support it.
Genesis is history. LMAO. Genesis 1 and 2 conflict with each other. It is, therefore, impossible to take them literally--that, and there is zero fact-based evidence to support it.
You can laugh all you'd like, but Genesis is written in the historical narrative style, not poety or allegory. This is agreed upon by secular Hebrew experts. There is no conflict between Genesis 1 and 2. Chapter 1 is the ‘big picture’ and Chapter 2 is a more detailed account of the creation of Adam and Eve and day six of creation. Even with that said, believers and non-believers alike still do not want to take Genesis at its plain, straight-forward meaning. Some dismiss it outright and others twist it to suit their own personal views.
You can laugh all you'd like, but Genesis is written in the historical narrative style, not poety or allegory. This is agreed upon by secular Hebrew experts. There is no conflict between Genesis 1 and 2. Chapter 1 is the ‘big picture’ and Chapter 2 is a more detailed account of the creation of Adam and Eve and day six of creation. Even with that said, believers and non-believers alike still do not want to take Genesis at its plain, straight-forward meaning. Some dismiss it outright and others twist it to suit their own personal views.
Yes, it is an interesting article. I started to read it... then I started skimming it. It'll take a little time to get through it all. But my first impression is it is yet another attempt to merge old-age ideas with the plain meaning of Genesis. So far as I read, the article was contrasting the trains of thought that held 1) Genesis = myth/allegory and 2) theistic evolutionism/Rossism to a new, third way to interpret Genesis without taking it completely literally, in a sense.
In one sentence that I read it outright disregarded YEC biblical creationism and didn't address it further (as far as I read, anyway). So preliminarily it looks like it's applying the plain, straight-forward meaning of Genesis in a way that says, yes, it is literal history as understood by those who wrote it which leaves room to "adapt" it to fit old-age ideals.
I did also read one glaring contradiction in the article. In trying to reconcile the verses that state plants were created before the sun was created, the author admits that's what the verses say - "created". Then in the very next sentence she switches it to the sun wasn't "visible" until day 4. Well, it can't be visible if it's not created. She's implying the sun was created before day 4, but not yet visible on earth to the plants, which contradicts what Genesis plainly states.
Folks: It doesn't look like anyone's yet mentioned this little tidbit:
(1.) Around the year 397 AD, the New Testament was officially canonized by the Christian church leaders then living. It was chosen to include all the books which (a.) were the oldest written works of the apostles and early disciples and (b.) represented most faithfully the Christian teachings passed down from the apostles and early disciples.
(2.) Among the Christian church leaders then living, one of the most respected was Augustine of Hippo.
(3.) At around the same time, Augustine wrote a theological analysis of the Genesis story saying, in effect, that it was not meant to be taken as a literal and chronological story, but rather a poetic way of communicating that (a.) God created not just the world but the universe, (b.) God created every last thing in the universe including things which other cultures sometimes worshiped as gods such as the sun, moon, stars, and seas, (c.) God created matter and thought it good, (d.) God created man as a part of the same process of creation by which He created the animals, but distinctively "like God" in reason and free will, and therefore distinct from the animals, (e.) man's abuse of his own free will, or sin, led to the catastrophe of man's lack of easy intimacy with God and with the world around him.
Augustine explained that, to anyone who knew the writing style of the Ancient Hebrews, it would not have occurred to them to take the "order of creation" as necessarily literal; rather, the list of sun, moon, seas, land, plants, fish, birds, animals, et cetera was intended to convey COMPLETENESS. It was just a detailed and poetic way of emphasizing that God made EVERYTHING.
There is very little chance that the God-inspired human author of the Genesis creation story would have expected his audience to ask such questions as "how could the first day really be a 'day' when the sun wasn't created until the third day?" He'd have said, "No, you're missing the point." It's like hearing a parable of Jesus, and asking what the prodigal son's middle name was!
This, then, is the ORTHODOX view of Genesis. It is what Christian theologians, or at least one of the most respected Christian theologians of the age, were ALREADY saying, even before the New Testament had even yet been made official. The only way it could be more official would be if an apostle, or Jesus himself, had said it.
The people who say that Genesis (chapters 1-3, at least) is intended to be taken literally are warping scripture just as much as they would be if they said the parables of Jesus were to be taken literally...or, conversely, that His crucifixion was to be meant as a parable.
Mind you, I'm sure they don't MEAN to be warping Genesis away from it's author's intent. They just don't know much about the history of their faith, sadly. (How many Christians know who Augustine of Hippo even was?)
And, some of them think that if you take the creation story as less-than-literal, that it means the whole Bible is all parable. That's bunk. The whole STYLE of the creation story begs to be taken less-than-literally. Conversely, the Gospels (esp. Luke's) were obviously written in newspaper-reporting style, by compiling eyewitness testimony. The Song of Solomon is obviously a love song with theological parables; the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel are obviously literal political reporting from a pro-Yahweh point-of-view.
Want to respect the Bible? Read it as it was intended to be read. Interpret it according to "framer's intent." That's what the authors wanted...and since they were inspired by God in what they were writing, we can assume that's what HE wants.
Last edited by R.C.; 08-10-2008 at 07:26 PM..
Reason: edited because the formatting was bad 1st time
What I'm really getting at by this question is the word for word literal acceptance of Genesis as fact while Revelations in particular seems to be open for speculation as to what it means. There is an actual industry of preachers and authors who spend their careers trying to explain various passages of Revelations to their congregations and the public. Since they take Genesis literally why don't they take Revelations literally? I think people should at least be consistent when they study the bible. If Revelations can be interpreted as being symbolic shouldn't the same thing apply to Genesis? Many religious people, particularly fundamentalists, go ballistic when someone suggests that the days of creation might be symbolic and yet these same people accept all sorts of interpretations and speculations in Revelations instead of a literal meaning. The rapture is an interesting example. As far as I can tell the whole idea of the rapture was based on the supposed visions of a Scottish teenager in the 1800's and it was widely publicized and now many fundamentalists accept it as fact even though it's not based on Christian traditions. What do some of those think?
well like a heart there is a living beat to the heart, a rythum if you will and within it you will find 3 that agree, two that are not divided and one that is, the one part shines light on the other part that always was and is the whole of many of whom it is saved by one which a child in a few words could express as a whole in 5 words or less, but you must first have faith, to have the author of it or you will never hear and be filled with what is right and would remain to hear and understand with one's own understanding and never be complete and would remain to believe in only one's limited sight of what one can think one can see, because one cannot believe beyond the test or proof of it so remaining limited, but given the possibility someone walked in every set of footprints then one must possibly believe or remain to consider that it is possible for the lack that you may not have seen it yet that one might have also walked in what everyone needed and lacked, even faith itself, and even though one cannot at this time acknowledge the face, one can certainly see the work thereof, considering the possibility of when you did this to the least of these, you did it to me,
You have to keep in mind that language often includes figures of speech.
When Jesus said "I am the door"", He was not literally saying He was a rusty gate with hinges. It means He is the way to eternal life. When Paul wrote that salvation is a gift apart from works, it means literally that. There is a literal meaning behind every scripture, but no one takes it word for word literally.
I beg to differ with you here because Futurists definitely take it word for word literally....they are all waiting for the sun to darken and the moon to turn to blood...it's pretty silly if you ask me, given the same language is used in the OT and none of that literally, word for word, happened. They don't understand how Jews used figurative language and until the do...they will always be waiting....
On what should the opinion of "the majority of Christians" be based? What saith the Scriptures?
"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants things which must SHORTLY take place . . . . for the time is NEAR" (Rev. 1:1, 3).
This is Scripture--not my opinion.
In case we didn't quite understand the timing in Revelation 1, it is repeated in chapter 22:
"'These words are faithful and true'. And the God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His servants the things which must SHORTLY take place . . . . and he [the angel] said to me, 'Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is NEAR'" (Rev. 22:6, 10).
Again, this is Scripture--not my opinion.
Preterist
Hang in there Preterist....they will get it one day
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Respect the Bible's Literal and Figurative PARTS
fishing
