Posted on 09/16/2024 10:40:49 AM PDT by Morgana
Is Genesis a record of true history, given by God, or was it written by men trying to answer the questions that plague our world? An article I saw recently [from the Biblical Archaeology Society] makes the latter claim—that Genesis is just a compilation of etiological myths finally written down by the biblical authors.
Now, what is an “etiological myth”? The article answers this way: “The creation stories in Genesis served to provide answers to why the world was the way it was, such as why people wear clothes and why women experience pain during childbirth.” So according to this view, Genesis is myth but that doesn’t mean it’s not “true,” as myths “are stories that convey and reinforce aspects of a culture’s worldview: many truths.”
In support of this view, the article claims that the Bible has three different creation accounts: Genesis 1, Genesis 2, and “a third version alluded to elsewhere in the Bible, a myth of the primordial battle between God and the forces of chaos known as Leviathan (e.g., Psalm 74), Rahab (Psalm 89), or the dragon (Isaiah 27; 51).”
Now, we’ve previously addressed the contention that Genesis 1 and 2 are contradictory accounts—they aren’t. Genesis 1 is an overview; Genesis 2 provides the details of day six of creation week. And if you read the passages mentioned as a “third version” of creation, you’ll find they appear to either be about the exodus (not creation), perhaps a literal sea monster or Israel’s enemies or false gods.
Yes, there are many creation myths (both ancient and in our modern time), but Genesis isn’t one of them. It’s actual history. How do we know? Well, here are just a few reasons:
* Genesis uses the same structure and writing style throughout the entire book. There’s no break between the early chapters and Abraham—it’s all meant to be taken the same way, as history.
* The New Testament authors always treated Genesis as literal history, never as a myth or oral tradition. Jesus quoted the text of Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24 as literal history in Matthew 19.
* Science confirms the Bible. If Genesis were a myth like the Gilgamesh Epic, science wouldn’t confirm it . . . and yet it does! For example, genetics confirms there’s only one race, biology shows that organisms reproduce according to their kinds, geology and paleontology confirm there really was a global flood, and so on.
Genesis isn’t a “convenient” way of answering questions, written down long after things happened. It accurately records the history we need to understand why we wear clothes or why childbirth is painful. Actually, Genesis is very inconvenient for the sinner! It’s that history that shows us that we’re not “good people”; we’re sinners who try to be our own gods, are wise in our own eyes, and whose only hope is the promised One who would crush the head of the serpent through his death.
How did Moses write about his own death?
This might be of interest for some people.
It reconciles the creation account with what is observed in nature based on then latest scientific theories, for whatever they are worth. I think they are different papers or articles he wrote on the topic.
The Age of the Universe
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1576941/posts
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1576941/posts
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3051495/posts
Most modern scholars, influenced by German form criticism, don’t believe anything about the traditional authorship of any books of the Bible.
Thanks I find it fascinating. Links 1 and 2 are identical and #3 didn’t load.
“Modern scholars”. Riiiight.
They’re just like all of the other liberals, in lockstep with each other and not allowing any other opinions.
Wonder if they believe men claiming to be women is a myth?
And designated you for his glory before the foundation of the world. Believe it, or not!
*****
It's not that we want it to be true....it is true whether you want it to be or not.
Depends on what you admit as evidence and the conclusions you allow yorself to draw from that. For the longest time it was a geocentric universe, but even now we know we can’t say heliocentric universe, because we only have the ability to theoretically assume “a universe.”
He isn’t talking about creation or all of genesis. He is taking a true story and using it to make his point. Paul is not calling the story of Hagar and Sarah an allegory, but rather he is using it as a symbol of the difference between the old and new covenants.
These things which are allegory” is pretty self evident to me.
Oh? So people revert to nudity after the “first cold night”? Or is it something else, perhaps . . . ?
Because you want it to be. It is clear that Paul and everyone else in the new testament took Genesis literally.
The allegory was Paul’s illustration in Galatians, not the book of Genesis.
The Hebrew Bible is the most hated and ridiculed book in all human history. 99.999% of the "attacks on chrstianity" consist on attacks on the integrity of the Hebrew Bible. The "new testament," though attacked in academic settings, is singled out for anti-chrstian ire only slightly more than the aboriginal dreamtime.
All the "theistic evolutionists" still believe in and defend the "miracles" of the "new testament," and maybe even post-Biblical "miracles," but the Hebrew Bible is simply too much. Ironically, the Hebrew Bible is more associated with "hillbillies," "white trash," and "rednecks" than it is to Jews. Indeed the hidden assumption of secular Jewish anti-chrstianity today is that prejudice and racism are caused by a belief in Adam and Eve.
And by the way, where are all the black fundies? They seem to have disappeared.
So, did the "virgin birth" take 13.5 million years to set up, or did G-d simply go "zip zap?"
So, did J*sus look like he didn't have a human father?
Oh? He didn't? He looked like everybody else?
If there was no evidence he didn't have a human father then he must not have had one. Right?
You "theistic evolutionists" are so hypocritical and naive.
I feel sorry for your ignorance. God is more powerful with a vast expanse of time.
Superstition raising a parable does not make it so. God created the universe, just a long long time ago
The entire Torah was written entirely by G-d Himself, on a scroll of white fire in letters of black fire, 974 generations before the creation. So the entire Written Torah was already in existence before it was given to Israel.
This Torah was then taken down by Moses as a stenographer as G-d dictated it to him letter-by-letter.
There is a tradition that the very last part of the Torah was dictated to and written down by Joshua, but there is also one that says Moses took down these verses "with tears in his eyes.'
Duh.
You know, authentic Jewish Tradition would answer a lot of chrstians' questions, but then they have to reject Jewish Tradition to prove they're not Catholic!
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