Which, again, after you through out the rest of the Old Testement, which is just quaint old myths, why would any Jew or Gentile have any reason to look for a Messiah? If Genesis means little more than a nice old tradition, why expect Isaiah or Jeremiah's prophecies about the coming of the Son of Man to be any different? For that matter, what use is the Gospels? Can they not be just quaint old myths that don't really apply except for moral living? For that matter, what is moral?
Friend, be very careful on the path you are treading. For if you dismiss Genesis, you might as well dismiss the Incarnation. If there was no real fall from grace, no real reason for Jesus to die, then there is no reason to listen to any teaching of Jesus. Dismissing the Old Testament (except for certain passages of the Law) means that Christianity is a lie.
You are 100% correct. If we start "picking and choosing" which parts of scripture are true and which are "myths" we will get totally lost. We actually would wind up on just about the same level as the moral relativists and just dismiss the parts of the Bible that interfere with what we want to do (i.e. someone who wants to commit adultery simply determines that the Decalogue was offered more as a "guideline" than a Law).
And as you said, without the Fall of Man, there is no need for our Salvation. If a sinful nature was "just the way God made us" then it would be improper of Him to put conditions on Salvation; however, He didn't create us as sinful, mankind CHOSE to be sinful, hence the absolute need for the Crucifixion and our acceptance of our Savior.
"For if you dismiss Genesis, you might as well dismiss the Incarnation."
Dismiss Genesis? No. I do not dismiss it.
It means, somehow, 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself, and love God above all'. I don't see that in there, much, so I'll just take Jesus' word for it.
But dismiss the CREATION account in Genesis?
Yes absolutely I dismiss that. It is ridiculous.
The world was not made by making a bubble in an abyss of water, which is still above the stars and below the ground.
The birds were not made on the fifth day, before man, and then all made (same birds) after man. The world was not made in six literal days. The animals were not all vegetarians before man came along and ate a piece of fruit. Dinosaurs lived and died millions of years before men, who very probably descended from primates. The aspects of Genesis that say otherwise are not true.
Nor is it true that the whole entire world was covered by a seven-mile-high flood and every living thing, from penguins to polar bears, to woolly mammoths to toucans to orangutans to panda bears to koala bears to black widow spiders to mosquitos were all carried on a wooden ark made by a man.
None of that ever happened.
It is a myth. A legend. A story.
If faith must be based on literally believing THAT, and on ignoring the flat contradictions and obvious storytelling of the Creation account, then faith must perish immediately, because such faith would be RIDICULOUS.
Even St. Augustine saw that. So did Rashi and Maimonedes writing long ago. Genesis is not literal fact. The world didn't come to be that way, death didn't come into the world because of something man did, etc.
The Old Testament means 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself, and love God above all.' That's what it means, according to Jesus. He ought to know.
The Gospels could be quaint myths, of course.
But there are ongoing signs and proofs that they are not.
The problem with the Bible is precisely the problem that the Church saw in it, and therefore discouraged its reading except under instruction: if you take what is written in the Bible absolutely literally, you will either take leave of reason or take leave of faith.
What is important in the Adam and Eve story? Not that snakes became slimy and slithering because of an apple. That's a folk legend and it is completely false. Snakes are reptiles who evolved from amphibians, and there were slithering snakes long before there were any men to be bitten by them, much less tempted by them.
What's important is that man, even in his natural state, heads straight into sin and is aware of it. Man and the world were made by God. What is the lesson? To get out of the consequences of sin, love God and love each other. You don't get that lesson from reading the OT. In the OT you think you've got to avoid pork and circumcise yourself and tie tefillin on your head and sit around doing nothing on Saturday and make yourself little booths, etc. Those are all nice traditions. They might help you think about God more, and therefore fulfill the two commandments. But then again, they might not.
In 1950, The Magisterium issued this ...
HUMANI GENERIS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XII
CONCERNING SOME FALSE OPINIONS THREATENING TO UNDERMINE THE FOUNDATIONS OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINE...
..38. Just as in the biological and anthropological sciences, so also in the historical sciences there are those who boldly transgress the limits and safeguards established by the Church. In a particular way must be deplored a certain too free interpretation of the historical books of the Old Testament. Those who favor this system, in order to defend their cause, wrongly refer to the Letter which was sent not long ago to the Archbishop of Paris by the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Studies.[13] This letter, in fact, clearly points out that the first eleven chapters of Genesis, although properly speaking not conforming to the historical method used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense, which however must be further studied and determined by exegetes; the same chapters, (the Letter points out), in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people.If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.
39. Therefore, whatever of the popular narrations have been inserted into the Sacred Scriptures must in no way be considered on a par with myths or other such things, which are more the product of an extravagant imagination than of that striving for truth and simplicity which in the Sacred Books, also of the Old Testament, is so apparent that our ancient sacred writers must be admitted to be clearly superior to the ancient profane writers.
*Brother, you spotted that heresy with alacrity. Kudos.
And, you are spot on with your analysis.
So, when ya swimming the Tiber?
Catholic Catechism
289Among all the Scriptural texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary standpoint these texts may have had diverse sources. The inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their solemn language the truths of creation - its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principal source for catechesis on the mysteries of the "beginning": creation, fall, and promise of salvation.
* Well, so much for myths.
BTW, How come YOU don't know the Old Testament is,essentially, useless :)