How you can conflat issues that no else is is beyond me.
Oh. The Bible says in one place that the earth was created in six days (and gives a very detailed chronology of when) and in another (your bible, that is) it says that the bread and wine turn into flesh and blood. One is literal and one isn't. You think insisting they must both be literal is "conflating issues no one else does?" I wish my old friend wideawake were still here.
Bdeaner and the other Catholics on this thread are not singling out the days of creation but the entire first eleven chapters of the book which includes Cain and Abel, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. Furthermore he invoked Gilgamesh, an ancient Babylonian myth seized on by German atheists in the late nineteenth century, to justify this. He used quotes from ancient church authorities to defend transubstantiation but he obviously rejects the church fathers as "men of their time" when it comes to Genesis because he invokes Gilgamesh. So if the church fathers were ignorant, naive, pre-scientific men when it comes to Genesis, then one must also admit that they could be equally ignorant, naive, and pre-scientific when it comes to transubstantiation. To not admit this, to hold that the church fathers are authoritative on one matter but not another, is to show they aren't really the reason one believes in transubstantiation in the first place. Could it be a visceral reaction to "those awful people?" Must we believe anything they do not and disbelieve everything they do?
Let us say that it doesn't matter whether or not the world was created in six literal days. Does it matter if one believes that Adam and Eve were two real people? That Cain and Abel actually existed and that the former murdered the latter? That there was a Flood out of which only eight people were saved? That mankind's languages were confounded at Babel? That there were exactly twenty-six generations (all carefully dated) from the Creation of Adam to the birth of Moses? Just which of these is unimportant, Vlad? No, I'm serious. Which is optional?
Maybe it doesn't matter whether or not Israel was ever enslaved in Egypt. Maybe the story of the sea parting is a silly myth invented by primitive people before the enlightenment showed us such things can never be.
Listen to me, Vlad. You have in the past accused me of slandering the Catholic Church and Catholics, yet you have admitted that even to you, who believe in the events related in Genesis, it just isn't that important. You have just confirmed everything I have ever said (or thought) about Catholics and their hypocritical vendetta against the Hebrew Bible.
Every chr*stmas eve the priest chants out the chronology of creation until the birth of J*sus--but no one actually believes it. It's a pantomime! Ditto for the prayers in the mass that invoke the sacrifices of Abel and Melchizedeq. If Genesis doesn't matter--if it is just as likely to be myth or parable as actual history--then all these prayers are reduced to a pantomime recited by a play actor, somewhat on the level of the "Hiram Abiff" legend during a Masonic initiation. What kind of church is this? What kind of church says that these events invoked in its holiest prayer may have happened, but they didn't necessarily actually happen? I've got news for you: the prayers in the `Amidah and Birkat HaMazon that invoke the events of Purim and Chanukkah could not be uttered if the events they thank G-d for didn't actually happen; that would be a sin!
You're right about Raymond Brown. He couldn't possibly have been Catholic. He was too consistent and too honest. Only someone who holds--or who defends the right of others to hold--that the Jewish part of the Bible is didactic mythology while the chr*stian part of it is "real history" is not only a hypocrite but a theological anti-Semite.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on Catholics who go into spasms of ecstasy at the thought of Mary making the sun dance in Portugal in 1917 who smirk at the Bible’s narrative of the sun standing still for Joshua!
You wrote:
“I was not aware that Augustine was that up on the epic of Gilgamesh. Wow. Learn something new every day.”
He was up on Genesis which is what bdeaner cited him for.
“Oh. The Bible says in one place that the earth was created in six days (and gives a very detailed chronology of when) and in another (your bible, that is) it says that the bread and wine turn into flesh and blood. One is literal and one isn’t.”
No. Everything in the Bible has a literal meaning, but that doesn’t mean they are to be taken ONLY literally. Also, Genesis offers no time specific chronology of creation. It offers a sequence of events. If there was a time specific chronology then there would be specific time references and yet we only get “In the beginning...”
“You think insisting they must both be literal is “conflating issues no one else does?” I wish my old friend wideawake were still here.”
No, I think you conflate all sorts of issues. You always do. You assume one thing is another. You are, right now, conflating the idea that every verse has a literal meaning with the idea that every verse’s literal meaning was meant to be taken as plain explanation. St. Paul talks about allegories for a reason.
“Bdeaner and the other Catholics on this thread are not singling out the days of creation but the entire first eleven chapters of the book which includes Cain and Abel, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel.”
Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. I’m not wasting my time to check because I already know that you simply can’t talk about this issue with any clarity. Again, you’ll conflate one thing with another.
“Furthermore he invoked Gilgamesh, an ancient Babylonian myth seized on by German atheists in the late nineteenth century, to justify this. He used quotes from ancient church authorities to defend transubstantiation but he obviously rejects the church fathers as “men of their time” when it comes to Genesis because he invokes Gilgamesh.”
No. In post #19 bdeaner posted this: “St. Augustine (A.D> 354-430) wrote on this topic in his book, The Literal Meaning of Genesis. This quote comes from a translation by J. H. Taylor in Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, volume 41.”
Do you see it? LITERAL MEANING OF GENESIS.
So there you are conflating two DIFFERENT things again as if they were the same. Transsubstantiation is not the same thing as LITERAL MEANING OF GENESIS.
“Listen to me, Vlad. You have in the past accused me of slandering the Catholic Church and Catholics, yet you have admitted that even to you, who believe in the events related in Genesis, it just isn’t that important.”
No. Again you’re saying one thing is the same as another. I said:
“You want everything to be neat and tidy and plainly black and white and have everyone agree with YOU and YOUR interpretation of scripture. That ain’t gonna happen. I take Genesis 1 and 2 quite literally, but realize God can create in anyway He chooses. bdeaner doesn’t take Genesis 1 and 2 quite literally, but realizes God can create anyway He chooses. So, while you’re losing sleep over this, and worrying that the world is going to hell in a handbasket because of it, I, in my bed, and bdeaner in his, will be sleeping just fine.”
That is WAY DIFFERENT than, “it just isn’t that important.”
Again, you are making it look like one thing is the same as another.
“You have just confirmed everything I have ever said (or thought) about Catholics and their hypocritical vendetta against the Hebrew Bible.”
Oh, here we go. So, you invent something I never said and claim it proves what you always said? ROFLOL! Neat trick. And we’re back, once again, to it always being about your interpretation and your conflating of things.
“Every chr*stmas eve the priest chants out the chronology of creation until the birth of J*sus—but no one actually believes it.”
I believe it and so does my priest.
“It’s a pantomime! Ditto for the prayers in the mass that invoke the sacrifices of Abel and Melchizedeq. If Genesis doesn’t matter—if it is just as likely to be myth or parable as actual history—then all these prayers are reduced to a pantomime recited by a play actor, somewhat on the level of the “Hiram Abiff” legend during a Masonic initiation. What kind of church is this? What kind of church says that these events invoked in its holiest prayer may have happened, but they didn’t necessarily actually happen? I’ve got news for you: the prayers in the `Amidah and Birkat HaMazon that invoke the events of Purim and Chanukkah could not be uttered if the events they thank G-d for didn’t actually happen; that would be a sin!”
Uh, when you’re done with your rant, let me know.
“You’re right about Raymond Brown. He couldn’t possibly have been Catholic. He was too consistent and too honest.”
Actually he was neither, but why let a fact get in the way of your post, right?
“Only someone who holds—or who defends the right of others to hold—that the Jewish part of the Bible is didactic mythology while the chr*stian part of it is “real history” is not only a hypocrite but a theological anti-Semite.”
Oh, please. So, someone who doesn’t believe in the most literal understanding of Genesis 1 and 2 is not an anti-Semite? Like I’ve told you before: you are obsessive on this issue. Obsessive to the point that you’ve lost touch with reason if you’re going to hurl around bogus charges of anti-semitism.