Ping!
Sorry
“So what happened”?
Arrogant liberals decided they were smarter than God.
Why is this alarming? Since these interpretations are accepted by the Catholic Church clearly the vast majority of the world's Christians believe this.
Any physical evidence of Moses and the Exodus? Any physical evidence of Abraham? Any physical evidence of the flood? Any physical evidence of King David? Any physical evidence of Joseph in Egypt? Any physical evidence of a Garden of Eden? Any physical evidence that the Bible was created in 144 hours?
There is none, this is all accepted on faith. I have faith in God, but not in your interpretation of His word.
Do you really expect me to accept you belief that the Bible is a scientific textbook?
Yes, it seems that the Catholic Church, as dogmatic as they are on so much, leave the belief of a literal creation up to the individual.
Now that I am “escaped” from Catholicism, I find that stunning. If you don’t believe the bible is the truth, I guess you are free to interpret it to fit your purposes.
Me? I believe.
When did hunting heretics get to be an exercise in political activism?
THANKS.
A literal interpretation of Genesis would put it 5 days later, which is still not at the beginning.
But lets go back to Mark 10:6 in the original:
απο δε αρχης κτισεως αρσεν και θηλυ εποιησεν αυτους ο θεος
The key words being αρχης (strong's 746) and κτισεως (strong's 2937). I am not sure why this implies the beginning of the creation of the decaying universe we find our selfs in, but rather in context seems to mean the start (or foundation or corner stone) of humankind (disclaimer: I am only a beginner at biblical Greek).
Also, I recall that Adam was put to sleep and had a rib taken out from which Eve was formed (Genesis 2:22-23). And following in Genesis 2:24 we see something familiar, which the NIV translates as:
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Which seems to convey support for the principle of what Jesus was saying in Mark 10:6, which I take to be Christs purpose there, and the Holy Spirit's purpose in Genesis 2:22-23.
I also observe, that biblical books of prophecy are not written in the same form of the historical books of the bible, but have symbolism (like animals and beasts representing empires in both Daniel and Revelation) and even riddles (such as the 70 sevens of Daniel chapter 9). But none of bears on the question of them being true or not.
Prophetic books get the message God wants across, and yet, He does not usually choose to inform us through literal historical narratives on these occasions.
Seems to me, the books that are historical were the ones written by eye witnesses, or at least those who interviewed the live witnesses. The books more entirely dependent on the Holy Spirit are usually not historical in form.
That being said, it seems to me that the early chapters in Genesis were not composed by eye witnesses, thus I would not expect them to be historical in form, so much as they are similar to prophecy (only telling about the past rather than the future).
Yes I think the Tree of Life is a real thing. Just as I believe the Whore of Babylon is a real thing. I'm just not sure if the one was really a tree, or the other will really be an individual woman. But I believe that what God says about them is true and something we should learn from, even if we do not know the kinds of details a literal history would afford us.
[heavy sarcasm] Nonsense! Why, don't you know that until the rise of Protestant Fundamentalism" in nineteenth century America no one had ever taken this stuff seriously? Why, the Catholic, Orthodox, Non-Chalcaedonian, and Non-Ephesine churches all knew that Adam, Eve, and Noah were myths derived from Babylonian paganism! As a matter of fact, they already believed in evolution. Shoot, they'd always believed in evolution from day one! Everyone believed in evolution until Charles Darwin arose and provoked white trash neanderthals into suggesting for the first time in all recorded history that the first eleven chapters of Genesis were historically true!
Wake up and smell the coffee, you racist rednecks! You're the only people on earth who have ever believed that stuff and everyone knows you're all stupid! It's time to join the rest of the world in the ancient, traditional, immemorial belief in evolution and higher Biblical criticism! [/heavy sarcasm]
-St. Augustine of Hippo, On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, A.D. 408
You are such an ignorant freak.
God may very well call you stupid.
Myth does not mean "made up" or "fairy tale". A myth is a sacred narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form told in a way that can be remembered as a story told orally.
Please note that I am not arguing your faith or lack there of - I am correcting the error made about what a "myth" is.
I will give you an example. On an island of Greece, in red clay earth is a bone yard of pre-historic bones. The Greeks described this as the place where the Titans were slain by the Olympians and those were the scattered bones of the giant Titans. This is a myth but it describes a real thing through the cultural understanding of the Greeks of that time. Even though this myth is not false it is also not the real history of those bones. But that does not make it any less valid/true. I forgot the name of the Greek island by the way.
Seeing Genesis as such an origin myth does not invalidate it. I think the western mind has become unable to see the world in a mystical light so I see desperate attempts by such people to force their faith to match up with science because for western man science is their new God. The Bible was never viewed as a scientific document but rather a mystical one and should be read and understood in that light.