Why, pray tell, do you fancy that your reading of the Holy Scriptures at a remove of nearly two millenia (with its obvious modern bias toward literal textual interpretation) is superior to that given by the generation of Christians alive when the canon of Scripture was fixed, and living in the same linguistic and cultural milieu as the Holy Apostles a mere two and a half centuries earlier?
Neither St. Basil the Great nor St. Gregory of Nyssa nor St. John Chrysostom felt any compulsion to interpet Genesis literally. St. Basil wrote "It matters not whether you say 'day' or 'aeon' the thought is the same." St. Gregory of Nyssa described the first two chapters of Genesis as "doctrine in the guise of a narrative."
Medieval Jewish commentators similarly did not read the opening of Genesis literally, but interpreted it (in ways very similar to that given by the Christian Fathers just mentioned) on the basis of its odd structure in the Hebrew and the oddity of having it fixed first in the Torah, when it itself is not at a surface level an expression of the Law.
Incidentally, don't sound silly when discussing Darwinism: no one believes we are descendants of monkeys, though evolutionists believe they and we have common ancestors--and rather distantly.
"Why, pray tell, do you fancy that your reading of the Holy Scriptures at a remove of nearly two millenia (with its obvious modern bias toward literal textual interpretation) is superior to that given by the generation of Christians alive when the canon of Scripture was fixed, and living in the same linguistic and cultural milieu as the Holy Apostles a mere two and a half centuries earlier?
Neither St. Basil the Great nor St. Gregory of Nyssa nor St. John Chrysostom felt any compulsion to interpet Genesis literally. St. Basil wrote "It matters not whether you say 'day' or 'aeon' the thought is the same." St. Gregory of Nyssa described the first two chapters of Genesis as "doctrine in the guise of a narrative."
Medieval Jewish commentators similarly did not read the opening of Genesis literally, but interpreted it (in ways very similar to that given by the Christian Fathers just mentioned) on the basis of its odd structure in the Hebrew and the oddity of having it fixed first in the Torah, when it itself is not at a surface level an expression of the Law.
Incidentally, don't sound silly when discussing Darwinism: no one believes we are descendants of monkeys, though evolutionists believe they and we have common ancestors--and rather distantly."
Can you provide proof that we have a common ancestor with monkeys?
(Crickets chirping)
Just because some saints interpret the Bible wrongly does not convince me that the Bible is just one big metaphor and can be interpreted to whatever strikes your fancy. (I am not denying that there aren't metaphors in the Bible e.g. Revelation, what I am saying is that the Bible is not one big metaphor.)