# Is Genesis Narrative or Metaphor?



## DMcFadden

_I am reluctant to teach anything in Genesis as "actual historical incident," since these stories were handed down word-of-mouth for hundreds of years before Moses (or somebody) wrote them in the Torah. _

Today I was left slack jawed by reading the aforementioned statement in a Baptist message board. When my mediating profs in college and seminary talked about Genesis, they scandalized me when they often spoke of the historical difficulties with "SOME" of the passages. Have we come so far that we disbelieve that ANY of it corresponds to an "actual historical incident"??? 

Yikes!  

No wonder the "Answers in Genesis" folks have had nearly 200,000 visitors to their Creation Museum in the first three months of its operation. If the Doctors of the church are so sceptical of their primary text book, no wonder the laity are craving not credulity but creditable faith in the Bible as the Word of God.


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## Anton Bruckner

I wonder how these people would respond when they come to the Book of Jonah? They will probably do it something like this.

"Jonah wasn't actually swallowed by a fish, for the fish is allegorical. The fish represents being in the rut of our sin and disobedience. Jonah's initial disobedience led to him being swallowed up by his sinful actions. It was only after he repented that he became free from his sins, hence God used the metaphor of the fish spewing up Jonah, to represent Jonah breaking free of his stronghold"


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## JBaldwin

Yikes! If Genesis is not historically accurate, then we should just throw out the rest of Scripture. Maybe that's the intention of those who refuse to accept the truths revealed in Genesis. 

Incidentally, I spoke just this evening to a college student who is struggling with doubts due to the mockery of the book of Genesis by one of his professors. I'm not surprised, however. If our enemy can get people to think that the accounts of the fall of man, sin, the flood, Abraham, etc are just a bunch of stories, then it knocks the very foundation from the promise and fulfillment of the coming of Christ, His death, ressurection and atonement for our sin.


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## DMcFadden

Slippery,

Actually my OT profs in seminary explained that the nature of Jonah was of the genre of parable. They argued that the first two chapters corresponded to the last two in a tight literary structure, betraying a "clear" literary device rather than an historical narrative. In their minds, the point was to contrast the jingoistic nationalism of "Jonah" with the universal and inclusive love of God.

No thanks! Personally, when preaching the book, I found some of the older commentaries and expositions to be far richer and more useful than the contemporary stuff. You know, books that actually believe that Jonah was real.


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## weinhold

Opinions are earned, and I admit that I have not done enough research into _Genesis_ to merit any real opinion at all. I would like, however, to offer a few highly provisional comments regarding my approach to the creation narrative found in _Genesis_.

The relatively recent obsession with historical accuracy in _Genesis_ among evangelicals is needless and ultimately unhelpful. If 19th century criticism sabotaged scripture by revealing historical inaccuracies, attempting the opposite seems merely to engage in the same decreasingly interesting exercise and perpetuate the paradigmatic method of approaching _Genesis_ in terms of its history. In my estimation, the problem evangelicals face is not historical precision but the decline of our imaginative faculties, which results from our subordination of "story" as an inferior version of "history." I hope I bring no offense by citing an example of such subordination in this very thread:



> If our enemy can get people to think that the accounts of the fall of man, sin, the flood, Abraham, etc are _just a bunch of stories_, then it knocks the very foundation from the promise and fulfillment of the coming of Christ, His death, ressurection and atonement for our sin.



_Just_ stories? The implication is that stories must have the support of a historical event, which, I suppose is true in some senses. Homer wrote of Troy's fall; Dante included historical figures in _The Commedia_; and Shakespeare's first works were history plays. None of these (or authors like them), however, restricted themselves to historical precision as the their guiding light, and yet their stories reverberate in our culture to this day. How could this be? As Wendell Berry writes in _Standing By Words_, "We are speaking where we stand, and we shall stand afterwards in the presence of what we have said." Shakespeare and Homer and Dante knew that, and I think the author of _Genesis_ knew that, too. He knew the strange puissance of stories, and so his central purpose was to employ _Genesis_ didactically, as a way of telling God's people, "This is where you come from. This is who you are," and not as a factual chronicle. 

I can't prove that last part, of course. I was not there when Moses or whoever it was wrote _Genesis_, and I didn't ask him whether his account was factual. I doubt he would have known what I meant anyway. Neither was I (or any human being) present at the historical event of creation, making it seem rather silly to demand historical accuracy of _Genesis_. I think that's part of it; I think _Genesis_ is a story that is _supposed_ to be surrounded by mystery. A friend illumined that point for me in a recent conversation. He said that historically accurate knowledge of creation would be like a detailed account of one's own conception. It's a mystery that, if stripped naked, becomes repulsive. 

So I hope you, my reader, will not consider these remarks in defense of stories too finicky. And I certainly hope that nobody reads these statements as hostile toward the historical profession. Historical approaches to scripture are important. Very important. In certain cases, such as the historicity of the resurrection, the event means _everything_. But I think it a false dilemma to pit historical precision against storytelling, and I think it is a mistake to subordinate one to another without examining the contingencies of a particular text. In other words, _Chronicles_ is more concerned with historical accuracy than, say, _Proverbs_ or _Psalms_--although both storytelling and historical detail occur in all three. As for my reading of _Genesis_? Who knows? I admit ignorance. I only attempt to approach the text as it is, without demanding that it be something else.


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## DMcFadden

Paul,

In your studies of Genesis, try RTS prof, Douglas Kelly, "Creation and Change." He argues for a literal reading of Genesis on exegetical and hermeneutical grounds.


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## AV1611

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Studies-Genesis-One-Edward-Young/dp/0875525504/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-1837731-9618241?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189681938&sr=8-2]Amazon.com: Studies in Genesis One: Books: Edward J. Young[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Old-Testament-Edward-Young/dp/0802803393/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product/103-1837731-9618241]Amazon.com: An Introduction to the Old Testament: Books: Edward J. Young[/ame]


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## shackleton

weinhold said:


> Opinions are earned, and I admit that I have not done enough research into _Genesis_ to merit any real opinion at all. I would like, however, to offer a few highly provisional comments regarding my approach to the creation narrative found in _Genesis_.
> 
> The relatively recent obsession with historical accuracy in _Genesis_ among evangelicals is needless and ultimately unhelpful. If 19th century criticism sabotaged scripture by revealing historical inaccuracies, attempting the opposite seems merely to engage in the same decreasingly interesting exercise and perpetuate the paradigmatic method of approaching _Genesis_ in terms of its history. In my estimation, the problem evangelicals face is not historical precision but the decline of our imaginative faculties, which results from our subordination of "story" as an inferior version of "history." I hope I bring no offense by citing an example of such subordination in this very thread:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If our enemy can get people to think that the accounts of the fall of man, sin, the flood, Abraham, etc are _just a bunch of stories_, then it knocks the very foundation from the promise and fulfillment of the coming of Christ, His death, ressurection and atonement for our sin.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Just_ stories? The implication is that stories must have the support of a historical event, which, I suppose is true in some senses. Homer wrote of Troy's fall; Dante included historical figures in _The Commedia_; and Shakespeare's first works were history plays. None of these (or authors like them), however, restricted themselves to historical precision as the their guiding light, and yet their stories reverberate in our culture to this day. How could this be? As Wendell Berry writes in _Standing By Words_, "We are speaking where we stand, and we shall stand afterwards in the presence of what we have said." Shakespeare and Homer and Dante knew that, and I think the author of _Genesis_ knew that, too. He knew the strange puissance of stories, and so his central purpose was to employ _Genesis_ didactically, as a way of telling God's people, "This is where you come from. This is who you are," and not as a factual chronicle.
> 
> I can't prove that last part, of course. I was not there when Moses or whoever it was wrote _Genesis_, and I didn't ask him whether his account was factual. I doubt he would have known what I meant anyway. Neither was I (or any human being) present at the historical event of creation, making it seem rather silly to demand historical accuracy of _Genesis_. I think that's part of it; I think _Genesis_ is a story that is _supposed_ to be surrounded by mystery. A friend illumined that point for me in a recent conversation. He said that historically accurate knowledge of creation would be like a detailed account of one's own conception. It's a mystery that, if stripped naked, becomes repulsive.
> 
> So I hope you, my reader, will not consider these remarks in defense of stories too finicky. And I certainly hope that nobody reads these statements as hostile toward the historical profession. Historical approaches to scripture are important. Very important. In certain cases, such as the historicity of the resurrection, the event means _everything_. But I think it a false dilemma to pit historical precision against storytelling, and I think it is a mistake to subordinate one to another without examining the contingencies of a particular text. In other words, _Chronicles_ is more concerned with historical accuracy than, say, _Proverbs_ or _Psalms_--although both storytelling and historical detail occur in all three. As for my reading of _Genesis_? Who knows? I admit ignorance. I only attempt to approach the text as it is, without demanding that it be something else.
Click to expand...


I don't know where you learned this, but if you take this approach to Genesis it will lead you to take this approach to other books of the bible. You will begin to just write off most of scripture as allegory or say it is loosely based on some distant fact and before you know it you will sound like the "Jesus Seminar"people. 
Find some other sources that teach the opposite view, weigh it, and think it through.


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## A5pointer

weinhold said:


> Opinions are earned, and I admit that I have not done enough research into _Genesis_ to merit any real opinion at all. I would like, however, to offer a few highly provisional comments regarding my approach to the creation narrative found in _Genesis_.
> 
> The relatively recent obsession with historical accuracy in _Genesis_ among evangelicals is needless and ultimately unhelpful. If 19th century criticism sabotaged scripture by revealing historical inaccuracies, attempting the opposite seems merely to engage in the same decreasingly interesting exercise and perpetuate the paradigmatic method of approaching _Genesis_ in terms of its history. In my estimation, the problem evangelicals face is not historical precision but the decline of our imaginative faculties, which results from our subordination of "story" as an inferior version of "history." I hope I bring no offense by citing an example of such subordination in this very thread:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If our enemy can get people to think that the accounts of the fall of man, sin, the flood, Abraham, etc are _just a bunch of stories_, then it knocks the very foundation from the promise and fulfillment of the coming of Christ, His death, ressurection and atonement for our sin.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Just_ stories? The implication is that stories must have the support of a historical event, which, I suppose is true in some senses. Homer wrote of Troy's fall; Dante included historical figures in _The Commedia_; and Shakespeare's first works were history plays. None of these (or authors like them), however, restricted themselves to historical precision as the their guiding light, and yet their stories reverberate in our culture to this day. How could this be? As Wendell Berry writes in _Standing By Words_, "We are speaking where we stand, and we shall stand afterwards in the presence of what we have said." Shakespeare and Homer and Dante knew that, and I think the author of _Genesis_ knew that, too. He knew the strange puissance of stories, and so his central purpose was to employ _Genesis_ didactically, as a way of telling God's people, "This is where you come from. This is who you are," and not as a factual chronicle.
> 
> I can't prove that last part, of course. I was not there when Moses or whoever it was wrote _Genesis_, and I didn't ask him whether his account was factual. I doubt he would have known what I meant anyway. Neither was I (or any human being) present at the historical event of creation, making it seem rather silly to demand historical accuracy of _Genesis_. I think that's part of it; I think _Genesis_ is a story that is _supposed_ to be surrounded by mystery. A friend illumined that point for me in a recent conversation. He said that historically accurate knowledge of creation would be like a detailed account of one's own conception. It's a mystery that, if stripped naked, becomes repulsive.
> 
> So I hope you, my reader, will not consider these remarks in defense of stories too finicky. And I certainly hope that nobody reads these statements as hostile toward the historical profession. Historical approaches to scripture are important. Very important. In certain cases, such as the historicity of the resurrection, the event means _everything_. But I think it a false dilemma to pit historical precision against storytelling, and I think it is a mistake to subordinate one to another without examining the contingencies of a particular text. In other words, _Chronicles_ is more concerned with historical accuracy than, say, _Proverbs_ or _Psalms_--although both storytelling and historical detail occur in all three. As for my reading of _Genesis_? Who knows? I admit ignorance. I only attempt to approach the text as it is, without demanding that it be something else.
Click to expand...


This should not be dismissed so easily. There is no reason for us to feel threatened by the idea that God has taught us and revealed himself through stories. It is likely that this was a legitimate way for instruction of the ancient peoples. Don't go crazy on me for this, I am not making a broad determination about Genesis, just saying we needn't feel so threatened. We have been granted the mind of Christ through the work of the Spirit to understand and believe the Gospel contained in the scriptures. Our faith is not based on every jot and title being historically acurate. The ancient audience may not have had our strict paradigm in this sense.


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## Peter

My 1st observation is that an allegorical and literal interpretation are not mutually exclusive. It's possible Genesis happened as literally described but that a religious message was intended to be conveyed symbolically through historical facts.

2nd, we should avoid falling into the trap of automatically believing if we take one passage as allegorical and not literally true it will inescapably lead us into rejecting all of scripture. We should deal with the merits of each case individually and not play to the fears of irrelevant issues. Personally, I find reducing scripture to a mere science or history textbook degrading to its sacred integrity. The Bible's purpose is more elevated than that - namely, revealing to man the way of salvation in Christ.


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## caddy

I like how *this *was phrased and think it is insightful. There is much mystery in the Genesis story. So much of the "detail" we just don't have. I remember my philososphy and religion professor 20 years ago talking about the _stories_ in Genesis and the _stories_ of the Exodus and the parting of the Red Sea. He explained to the class that the _story_ was no less important because of the truth it conveyed even though we should call the story a myth, meaning not factual. I did not know it then, but now I find it a slippery slope. 

Glad to hear you say *the event means everything. *

Slippery slope story which I found insightful not long ago:

The slippery slide to unbelief



weinhold said:


> Opinions are earned, and I admit that I have not done enough research into _Genesis_ to merit any real opinion at all. I would like, however, to offer a few highly provisional comments regarding my approach to the creation narrative found in _Genesis_.
> 
> The relatively recent obsession with historical accuracy in _Genesis_ among evangelicals is needless and ultimately unhelpful. If 19th century criticism sabotaged scripture by revealing historical inaccuracies, attempting the opposite seems merely to engage in the same decreasingly interesting exercise and perpetuate the paradigmatic method of approaching _Genesis_ in terms of its history. In my estimation, the problem evangelicals face is not historical precision but the decline of our imaginative faculties, which results from our subordination of "story" as an inferior version of "history." I hope I bring no offense by citing an example of such subordination in this very thread:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If our enemy can get people to think that the accounts of the fall of man, sin, the flood, Abraham, etc are _just a bunch of stories_, then it knocks the very foundation from the promise and fulfillment of the coming of Christ, His death, ressurection and atonement for our sin.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Just_ stories? The implication is that stories must have the support of a historical event, which, I suppose is true in some senses. Homer wrote of Troy's fall; Dante included historical figures in _The Commedia_; and Shakespeare's first works were history plays. None of these (or authors like them), however, restricted themselves to historical precision as the their guiding light, and yet their stories reverberate in our culture to this day. How could this be? As Wendell Berry writes in _Standing By Words_, "We are speaking where we stand, and we shall stand afterwards in the presence of what we have said." Shakespeare and Homer and Dante knew that, and I think the author of _Genesis_ knew that, too. He knew the strange puissance of stories, and so his central purpose was to employ _Genesis_ didactically, as a way of telling God's people, "This is where you come from. *This is who you are,"* *and not as a factual chronicle*.
> 
> I can't prove that last part, of course. I was not there when Moses or whoever it was wrote _Genesis_, and I didn't ask him whether his account was factual. I doubt he would have known what I meant anyway. Neither was I (or any human being) present at the historical event of creation, making it seem rather silly to demand historical accuracy of _Genesis_. I think that's part of it; *I think Genesis is a story that is supposed to be surrounded by mystery. A friend illumined that point for me in a recent conversation. He said that historically accurate knowledge of creation would be like a detailed account of one's own conception. It's a mystery that, if stripped naked, becomes repulsive.*
> 
> So I hope you, my reader, will not consider these remarks in defense of stories too finicky. And I certainly hope that nobody reads these statements as hostile toward the historical profession. Historical approaches to scripture are important. Very important. In certain cases, such as the historicity of the resurrection, *the event means everything*. But I think it a false dilemma to pit historical precision against storytelling, and I think it is a mistake to subordinate one to another without examining the contingencies of a particular text. In other words, _Chronicles_ is more concerned with historical accuracy than, say, _Proverbs_ or _Psalms_--although both storytelling and historical detail occur in all three. As for my reading of _Genesis_? Who knows? I admit ignorance. I only attempt to approach the text as it is, without demanding that it be something else.
Click to expand...


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## Mathetes

Leaving aside the issue of whether "six days" is literal or figurative, there's little in Genesis that's symbolic. There's the odd dream here and there, but the majority of it reads like it's referring to actual, historical events.


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## Blueridge Believer

I believe Genesis as it reads. To do anything else does great violence to the rest of scripture in my opinion.


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## AV1611

Blueridge Baptist said:


> I believe Genesis as it reads. To do anything else does great violence to the rest of scripture in my opinion.


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## caddy

Absolutely. 



Mathetes said:


> Leaving aside the issue of whether "six days" is literal or figurative, there's little in Genesis that's symbolic. There's the odd dream here and there, but the majority of it reads like it's referring to actual, historical events.


 


Blueridge Baptist said:


> I believe Genesis as it reads. To do anything else does great violence to the rest of scripture in my opinion.


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## 2 Tim 4:2

Yea hath God Said....

.....Ye shall not surely die

Satan has always worked to question God's words since the begining of time. And those who fall prey to his devices should check themsleves.


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## weinhold

> I don't know where you learned this, but if you take this approach to Genesis it will lead you to take this approach to other books of the bible. You will begin to just _write off most of scripture as allegory_ or say it is loosely based on some distant fact and before you know it you will sound like the "Jesus Seminar"people.



Erick, as others have indicated already, we needn't subordinate allegory to history; saying that _Genesis_ is a story makes it very meaningful, perhaps more meaningful than a historical chronicling of the events. To my mind, this is the advantage _Genesis_ has over any scientific approach to our beginning. When scientific claims about these things reach my ears, I find it satisfying to remember that those claims are just that, hypothetical assertions, and that _Genesis_ is a far more beautiful story than theirs. It provides me with an identity in a way that evolution never could, and it does this precisely because it is a story.


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## JBaldwin

Weinhold said:


> Erick, as others have indicated already, we needn't subordinate allegory to history; saying that Genesis is a story makes it very meaningful, perhaps more meaningful than a historical chronicling of the events. To my mind, this is the advantage Genesis has over any scientific approach to our beginning. When scientific claims about these things reach my ears, I find it satisfying to remember that those claims are just that, hypothetical assertions, and that Genesis is a far more beautiful story than theirs. It provides me with an identity in a way that evolution never could, and it does this precisely because it is a story.



The problem with saying that Genesis is mere stories or allegory is that it makes the events in the Garden, including the fall of man, the entrance of sin into the world, the life of Abraham, the founding of the Israel nothing more than nice stories to teach truth. They do teach truth, and we learn so much from that. However, if they are just stories and not historical truth, than we cannot point back to an historical moment when man sinned, or an historical moment when God promised that the seed of woman would bring forth the Messiah and crush the serpent's head. These facts are foundational to our redemption. This is why we must take Genesis as historical fact, as well as stories that teach.


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## Southern Presbyterian

JBaldwin said:


> The problem with saying that Genesis is mere stories or allegory is that it makes the events in the Garden, including the fall of man, the entrance of sin into the world, the life of Abraham, the founding of the Israel nothing more than nice stories to teach truth. They do teach truth, and we learn so much from that. However, if they are just stories and not historical truth, than we cannot point back to an historical moment when man sinned, or an historical moment when God promised that the seed of woman would bring forth the Messiah and crush the serpent's head. These facts are foundational to our redemption. This is why we must take Genesis as historical fact, as well as stories that teach.




Well said.


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## Jerusalem Blade

Yes, the Genesis accounts are stories (I have no problem with the genre), but they are _true_ stories, that is, God-inspired narratives (in the main narratives) of actual history.

If the account of the creation and Fall of man are "myth" or "symbol" and not solid facts, that makes the need for redemption by a Savior unnecessary.

This is one of the most damning things about Westcott and Hort, they were fervent evolutionists, and deprecated the historicity of the Genesis account.

The historicity of this book is a battle worth fighting and dying for.

In their view of this book men fly their true colors.


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## 2 Tim 4:2

weinhold said:


> It provides me with an identity in a way that evolution never could, and it does this precisely because it is a story.




Why is that?


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## DMcFadden

While I have my own view of the issue of literal 6 day vs. a literary reading (e.g., the "framework" view), I would contend that not accepting the accuracy of the history contained in the narratives leads in one direction; it is quite simply disbelief. Whether you opine along the lines of the Answers in Genesis crowd or Meredith Kline's framework theory it would seem to me that the one thing we canNOT afford is to interpret Genesis as something other than history. Virtually all of the doctrines we cherish are taught, implied, or rooted in the historical narrative of Genesis 1-11.

Calvin's accommodationalism gave rise to a belief that science and sound theology could be reconciled. If the genre of Genesis is shown to be a literary fable, so be it. However, so much of what our present day society struggles with results from a hermeneutic that begins with saying that Genesis does not really "mean" what it "says."

Incidentally, a computer analysis of Genesis has shown with something like a 99.73% confidence level that Genesis 1-11 purports to be historical narrative of the ordinary sort. According to the researcher, it lacks the linguistic markers necessary to suggest anything else (cf. Steven W. Boyd, Institute for Creation Research - A Christ-Focused Creation Ministry).


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## C. Matthew McMahon

If the creation event is metaphor or allegory, so is the creation account.

If the creation account is metaphor or allegory, so is the creation of Adam and Eve.

If Adam and Eve are not real people in real historical narratives, the fall is a metaphor or allegory.

If the fall, then Noah.

If Noah, then the flood and the wickedness of men.

If the wickedness of men and the flood, then Abraham.

If Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob, then Moses, then David, then the prophets, then Jesus Christ.

If they are all metaphor or allegory, so goes the entire Christian faith.

The entire OT text reads like historical narrative WITH aspects of literary usage in the HISTORICAL NARRATIVES. OTherwise, you have nothing but conjecture on everything.

The same Genesis narrative that explains Abraham, explains creation. It assumes a geneological chronology from primeval history through to the Gospel accounts.

In interpreting the text, one simply needs to ask what Genesis meant to Harriet Lichenstien of Israel in 2000 BC.


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## fredtgreco

Jerusalem Blade said:


> Yes, the Genesis accounts are stories (I have no problem with the genre), but they are _true_ stories, that is, God-inspired narratives (in the main narratives) of actual history.
> 
> If the account of the creation and Fall of man are "myth" or "symbol" and not solid facts, that makes the need for redemption by a Savior unnecessary.
> 
> This is one of the most damning things about Westcott and Hort, they were fervent evolutionists, and deprecated the historicity of the Genesis account.
> 
> The historicity of this book is a battle worth fighting and dying for.
> 
> In their view of this book men fly their true colors.



Steve,

This is an excellent point. If one wavers even an iota on Genesis being a true story, he has lost everything. Why? Because our Lord treated them as real with real people and real events - Moses, Abraham, Lot, etc.


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## weinhold

2 Tim 4:2 said:


> weinhold said:
> 
> 
> 
> It provides me with an identity in a way that evolution never could, and it does this precisely because it is a story.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why is that?
Click to expand...


Great question, Mark. If evolution or some other discovery provided a factual account of human origins, it would illumine the "how" of our beginnings, but would still fail to surround those bare facts with any sort of meaning. But stories have the capacity to answer the meaningful questions humans seek. Stories root us in a tradition; they propel us toward an eschaton; they saturate our lives with allusion; and they offer a glimpse of those spiritual realities that unite humans to each other and to the divine. Science could hardly do the work of a good poem. It has its place, of course, and is a noble profession, but it quite rightly limits itself to the factuality of the physical world.

Another point comes to mind regarding facts. We generally think of fact as synonymous with truth. There are facts and there are falsities. This path of factuality, which some have referred to as "The Myth of Fact," leads ultimately to statistics. How do we know something? Quantify it. Again, I hope I will not bring offense when I mention an example from this thread: 



> Incidentally, a computer analysis of Genesis has shown with something like a 99.73% confidence level that Genesis 1-11 purports to be historical narrative of the ordinary sort. According to the researcher, it lacks the linguistic markers necessary to suggest anything else (cf. Steven W. Boyd, Institute for Creation Research - A Christ-Focused Creation Ministry).



I think the proper word for this degree of quantification is "ridiculous." Who could read "99.73% confidence level" without a chuckle? But it is precisely the dominance of fact, which tricks us into believing that it is always and everywhere truth, that often lets our eyes pass over it without any reaction at all other than effortless consent. 

By contrast, I assert that fact is a _species_ of truth and is not equal to it, so that my reading of _Genesis_ allows for it to be a true story, without demanding that it be a factual story in the sense of strict historical precision. It may indeed be such an account, but I don't think the text demands that we take it that way; I don't think that is what it is trying to be. _Genesis_ is first and foremost a story (a noun that I would never modify with "mere" or "only" or "just"), and because it is so, its primary mode of imparting knowledge is different from fact but nonetheless true.


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## 2 Tim 4:2

weinhold said:


> 2 Tim 4:2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> weinhold said:
> 
> 
> 
> It provides me with an identity in a way that evolution never could, and it does this precisely because it is a story.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why is that?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Great question, Mark. If evolution or some other discovery provided a factual account of human origins, it would illumine the "how" of our beginnings, but would still fail to surround those bare facts with any sort of meaning. But stories have the capacity to answer the meaningful questions humans seek. Stories root us in a tradition; they propel us toward an eschaton; they saturate our lives with allusion; and they offer a glimpse of those spiritual realities that unite humans to each other and to the divine. Science could hardly do the work of a good poem. It has its place, of course, and is a noble profession, but it quite rightly limits itself to the factuality of the physical world.
> 
> Another point comes to mind regarding facts. We generally think of fact as synonymous with truth. There are facts and there are falsities. This path of factuality, which some have referred to as "The Myth of Fact," leads ultimately to statistics. How do we know something? Quantify it. Again, I hope I will not bring offense when I mention an example from this thread:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Incidentally, a computer analysis of Genesis has shown with something like a 99.73% confidence level that Genesis 1-11 purports to be historical narrative of the ordinary sort. According to the researcher, it lacks the linguistic markers necessary to suggest anything else (cf. Steven W. Boyd, Institute for Creation Research - A Christ-Focused Creation Ministry).
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I think the proper word for this degree of quantification is "ridiculous." Who could read "99.73% confidence level" without a chuckle? But it is precisely the dominance of fact, which tricks us into believing that it is always and everywhere truth, that often lets our eyes pass over it without any reaction at all other than effortless consent.
> 
> By contrast, I assert that fact is a _species_ of truth and is not equal to it, so that my reading of _Genesis_ allows for it to be a true story, without demanding that it be a factual story in the sense of strict historical precision. It may indeed be such an account, but I don't think the text demands that we take it that way; I don't think that is what it is trying to be. _Genesis_ is first and foremost a story (a noun that I would never modify with "mere" or "only" or "just"), and because it is so, its primary mode of imparting knowledge is different from fact but nonetheless true.
Click to expand...



I appreciate you response.

I find interesting your ability to divorce science from the story. What science in the Genesis account can be incorrect and still be a believable and doctrinally sound "story"? Who determines what is fact and what is not fact in the Genesis account? How far do we go with this line of thought? Do we take it into the the death, burial, and ressurrection of Jesus Christ? Or would you concede that this account is scientifically accurate? If Genesis is not then how do we know that the events surrounding the life of Christ are? And what do you understand about the inspriation of scripture?

When you say that scripture can be wrong or scientifically incorrect then you make yourself the judge of scripture rather than scripture being your judge.

And lastly I found your ability to call something true even when the scientific facts are believed to be incorrect. What author could I read to look into such a mind set?

And just a side question. Do you identify yourself with the Emerging Church Movment?


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## k.seymore

> Mark said: "I find interesting your ability to divorce science from the story. What science in the Genesis account can be incorrect and still be a believable and doctrinally sound "story"? Who determines what is fact and what is not fact in the Genesis account? How far do we go with this line of thought?"





> "I found your ability to call something true even when the scientific facts are believed to be incorrect. What author could I read to look into such a mind set?"




You ask what author you could read to look into this mind set... Calvin is a great place to start. As anyone who has starts reading Calvin's Commentaries from the beginning knows, he jumps into these concepts really quickly (I'll get to Calvin in a little bit). Genesis wasn't written in our own language and with our conceptions of nature. If so it wouldn't have made sense to anyone for thousands of years. Our thoughts would have been nonsense to them–just like their concepts sometimes seem like nonsense to us. For instance, the Ancient Near Easterners perceived the sky/heavens as being a hard curved surface above us like an upside-down bowl. This hard thing is the firmament (which means hammered out thing) and is heaven. Heaven is transparent, and there is water above it (perhaps they were thinking of the blue that you see when you look up). When one looks up he is seeing the inside of heaven (like seeing the inside of a flipped-over bowl). The sun/moon/planets/stars are inside the bowl (they are inside the firmament) on our side of heaven, and the water is above heaven, although it sometimes rains down through heaven on us. I absolutely love reading the ancient texts of Israel's neighbors, and if you read Ancient Near Eastern texts you will start to see their conception. For instance in Enuma Elish, heaven is described as being like the top half of a shellfish's shell, and it keeps the water off the earth which is underneath this heaven/bowl. Another example is in the Gilgamesh Epic where during the flood the gods were terrified at the great flood and "fled to the highest heaven, the firmament... they crouched against the walls" which means they were inside heaven (on our side of heaven, the side we see when we look up), pressed against heaven which was like a hard wall to escape the waters rising below them. Another example in in the Baal Cycle the water comes down from heaven where the stars are. These conceptions seem like nonsense to us.

Calvin wouldn't have had this information about Ancient Near Eastern beliefs (which have been discovered after his time), but he still recognizes that this is the type of language being used. He brings up Psa 148 in Genesis 1 while explaining that these waters above the heavens were simply accommodation to the perception of the unlearned: "Praise him, all his angels;praise him, all his hosts!Praise him, sun and moon,praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens,and you waters above the heavens!" (Psa 148:2-4). That the water over heaven is accommodation as Calvin says seems to be confirmed by other places in scripture where it speaks of the same thing. In Job the"heavens" are described as a firm or hard thing: "Can you, like him, spread out the skies (same word: heavens),hard as a cast metal mirror?" (Job 37:18). This hard sky is the "firmament" which literally means "hammered out thing," and it is this hard thing God names "heaven" in Genesis 1: "God called the firmament Heaven" (Gen 1:7-8). This hard heaven has a surface, and Genesis 1 also says bird can fly across the surface of heaven:"let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament." (Gen 1:20). The firmament is the firm heaven that is hard as cast metal that God "spreads out" to keep the water off of everything under heaven, and it has openings in it to let the rain come down. For instance, Genesis also says that"the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth" (Gen 7:11-12) which shows that the water is perceived as outside heaven falling through it and falling on to earth which is below heaven. It seems likely that the Israelites also would have perceived the blue sky as being the waters above because the firmament in scripture is not just described as being as hard as metal, but also clear like crystal. When Ezekiel sees a platform over his head that is hard and transparent "as crystal"he says it has "the likeness of the firmament" (Ezek 1:22) which tells us what he understood the firmament to look like. I found another possible example when I was reading Exodus the other day... when the elders and Moses see God above them on the mountain, the hard pavement below his feet is described as"like the very heaven for clearness" (Ex 24:10) which would be a fitting thing to say if they thought of the heaven as being a hard transparent firmament similar to the pavement they were then seeing. 

With this in mind, here is Calvin on the waters in Genesis 1. Calvin says God is described as creating something that we know isn't really there. Calvin says this is because the Hebrews wouldn't have understood anything else:

"It appears opposed to common sense [that is, sound like nonsense to us], and quite incredible, that there should be waters above the heaven... to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. Here the Spirit of God would teach all men without exception... it is the book of the unlearned. The things, therefore, which he relates, serve as the garniture of that theater which he places before our eyes. Whence I conclude, that the waters here meant are such as the rude and unlearned may perceive. The assertion of some, that they embrace by faith what they have read concerning the waters above the heavens, notwithstanding their ignorance respecting them, is not in accordance with the design of Moses... We know, indeed that the rain is naturally produced"

So Calvin describes those who take this particular description of nature "by faith" are "in ignorance respecting them" since a description of science is not the point of what Moses is writing. He is telling us about God being the creator in the language "of the unlearned" and to learn about science, "go elsewhere." He continues this line of thought in Genesis 1 when he gets to the creation of the Sun & Moon. 

This way Calvin speaks may seem odd at first, but as you read more of him you start to see that he doesn't just think this way about descriptions of nature in scripture, but even more so about descriptions of God. Since this is a thread about creation I'll just list one example (Sorry to get off topic): Calvin says God does not get angry. That is just an anthropomorphism. This is from the Institutes:

"God is described to us humanly... Because our weakness cannot reach his height, any description which wereceive of him must be lowered to our capacity in order to be intelligible.And the mode of lowering is to represent him not as he really is, but as we conceive of him. Though he is incapable of every feeling of perturbation, he declares that he is angry with the wicked. Wherefore, as when we hear that God is angry, we ought not to imagine that there is any emotion in him, butought rather to consider the mode of speech accommodated to our sense, God appearing to us like one inflamed and irritated..."

And in Hosea 11:8-9 in the Commentaries he says God puts "on a character foreign to himself, as much as a regard for our salvation will bear or require... 'I will not execute the fury of my wrath': by which figurative mode of speaking he sets forth the punishment which was suitable to the sins of men... But why does Scripture say that God is angry? Even because we imagine him to be so according to the perception of the flesh... God, with regard to our perception, calls the fury of his wrath the heavy judgment, which is equal to, or meet for, our sins."

As I've read more and more places where Calvin uses language like this I've also began to see that he describes God's communication of himself as being like a sacrament, so although there is communication which isn't in of itself literally true, it is described as a "token of his presence" and an "outward sign" and is God (and truths about God) "represented and exhibited" to the person (see Commentaries on Isaiah 6). 

I could go on and on (sorry this is so long already) but to summarize, the exact descriptions of nature in Genesis 1 don't have to be scientifically accurate to convey the truth about God as creator any more than Bread and Wine need to be scientifically Jesus' actual body & blood to convey the truth about God as Redeemer in Christ. 

Another example I just thought of regarding the creation account... when Moses says on the seventh day God "rested and was refreshed" (Ex. 31:17), Was God really refreshed? Or is this an anthromoporphism? Something we can understand and emulate as humans?


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## caddy

Amen to this Dennis! Well said. 



DMcFadden said:


> While I have my own view of the issue of literal 6 day vs. a literary reading (e.g., the "framework" view), I would contend that not accepting the accuracy of the history contained in the narratives leads in one direction; it is quite simply disbelief. Whether you opine along the lines of the Answers in Genesis crowd or Meredith Kline's framework theory it would seem to me that the one thing we canNOT afford is to interpret Genesis as something other than history. Virtually all of the doctrines we cherish are taught, implied, or rooted in the historical narrative of Genesis 1-11.
> 
> Calvin's accommodationalism gave rise to a belief that science and sound theology could be reconciled. If the genre of Genesis is shown to be a literary fable, so be it. However, so much of what our present day society struggles with results from a hermeneutic that begins with saying that Genesis does not really "mean" what it "says."
> 
> Incidentally, a computer analysis of Genesis has shown with something like a 99.73% confidence level that Genesis 1-11 purports to be historical narrative of the ordinary sort. According to the researcher, it lacks the linguistic markers necessary to suggest anything else (cf. Steven W. Boyd, Institute for Creation Research - A Christ-Focused Creation Ministry).


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## caddy

PB friends and Members. I have been in dialogue with a friend for a number of months concerning the faith. He has been most gracious over that time to discuss his views with me. He has asked some very tough questions. I have sought to share my views with him concerning such issues as we are dicussing here and now in this thread on the importance of God's word. Is it trusthworthy. Does it mean what it says and and can reading it in its proper context help us to understand what God is trying to convey to us. Suprisingly, we have kept our level of conversation amiable. For the most part we have discused the evidences of scripture, science, intelligent design, philosophy and history as it relates to a God. All of us on this forum have made professions of faith and think He is _knowable_ and wants us to know Him. I have pointed him here on occasion, knowing that many--if not most of you--are much more gifted than I am at conveying your faith in a winsome and intelligent fashion. I have been honored to be a part of this group. With his persmission I have asked him if I could post some of his comments for this group to interact with.

His last two posts to me I will Post here. Please feel free to interact with his questions. I do not know his name, but for the sake of brevity I have been calling him simply: "B".

His first two posts concerning this thread, which I pointed him to are here:

1:Great discussion. That's a big decision you have to make about litteral interpretation. On one hand you can believe in the "slippery slope" like some, and on the other hand you can believe it's inevitable. There are enough people who believe in God AND evolution/big bang that I think believing science doens't mean you reject God or Christianity. You just have to change you mindset a bit.
K.Seymore's post is very interesting, about how Genesis was not written "for us" and thus if it had been written literally, it couldn't have been true both of us and the early people.
I don't face the same dilmena as you, fortunately. 


2:You have my permission to post any ideas I share with you, it's gracious of you to ask.
I think if you say the genesis language was "non scientific" (as opposed to "non litteral") doesn't that also make it possible to be compatible with science? It seemed to me like that was the point he was trying to make, but perhaps he was wrong.
As you can guess, I identify strongly with weinhold in that discussion. One may say it's a slippery slope to not take genesis literrally, for some people's faith; however, it's also a very slippery slope when you start picking and choosing what parts of science you choose to oppose, based on science' disagreement with litteral genesis. This is what I argued in our previous discussions, that if you challenge certain parts of certain scientific fields, you're challenging pretty much all of science. You're setting yourself up to oppose on moral grounds certain scientific observations that by themselves have no moral significance. They only have moral significance to YOU because you have first chosen to say "my morality rests on my litteral interpretation of Genesis". This is kind of what happens with evolution today. For many people like myself, the fact that humans may be descendents of animals does not have any impact on human dignity today. We are humans, we need to treat others the way we would want to be treated ourselves.
It makes no difference to me what our species was before. YOU were never a monkey, YOU were always human, and you have human dignity.

Please interact--providing there are no objections to going forward with this format. And let me thank you in advance for any light you might be able to shed.

Steve


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## greenbaggins

*The Nature of Genesis' History*

It seems very important in this discussion to make some key distinctions. The first is that even if some things are interpreted in a non-literal manner (I agree, for instance, that Moses meant to describe the heavens as a solid object; it is phenomenological description), that doesn't mean that it isn't history. Personally, I think the best exegetical case can be made for the literal 24-hour view of the creation days, even if I believe that the raqia is solid. One of the basic problems here is that historical writing has changed in many ways from the time period of Genesis to the time period of today. For us, everything has to be chronologically in order, and scientifically described. However, we must not press this distinction too finely, either, since we still use the expression, "the sun rose." Calvin's principle of accomodation is vitally important here. However, the principle of accomodation in no way limits the historicity of the account. Genesis is fully historical. The creation happened, the Fall happened. You could have videotaped it. However, Moses' description of these events just plain doesn't look like a modern description would have looked. Another problem here is that we are gun-shy of anything that says that such and such literature is theological, therefore it cannot be historical, or vice versa. The fact is that Scripture is both. In the midst of describing history (accurately according to ancient standards), Scripture is theologizing. 

Another great example is the difference between Chronicles and Kings. Kings was written during the exile. It was answering the question, "How did it come to this?" Kings therefore records every last failing of every monarch. Historical? Yes. Theological? Yes. What about Chronicles? Chronicles was written after the exile. The Chronicler was asking a different question: "Is there any continuity at all between the pre-exilic Israel and the post-exilic Israel? Is God still our God? Is there any hope for us to be the people of God?" This is why Chronicles "neglects" to mention David's fall into sin with Bathsheba, or Solomon's decline. This is why Chronicles mentions Manasseh's repentance. These are intentional differences. The Chronicler did not forget his history. The Chronicler was writing to a drastically different audience with a completely different set of concerns. He was writing to give them hope. Historical? Yes. Theological? Yes. 

Back to Genesis: Moses was writing for the people of Israel, who had come out of the land of Egypt. They needed to know certain things about the so-called gods of Egypt and Mesopotamia. There is a definite apologetic edge to Genesis, especially in chapter 1 (see my Accent Translation for more detailed spelling out of this issue). The apologetical issue for Moses, however, was not about whether science and the Bible conflict (here I think Answers in Genesis has much that is helpful to say, and, as someone mentioned, Douglas Kelly's book is also very good). Rather, Moses' apologetic was directed against the other Ancient Near Eastern gods.


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## A5pointer

Green, very well balanced comments. Reminds me of, sermon on the mount or plain or both? Back to Mr. B, Mr B. must be confronted with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Conversations on the accuracy of Genesis are certainly appropriate but the unconverted come into the kingdom clinging to the cross not by mental persuasion that the bible is indeed reliable.


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## JohnV

I can give you my views on this, if you like. They're just my own thoughts, and nothing more than that. 

The wedding album might do as an example to show what difficulties we face in such discussions. I've seen many wedding albums, and I've looked at my own a number of times as well. These are still shots of live events now in the past, gone to history.

As I look at my own wedding pictures I can recall the events, and also remember that some of the shots are out of sequence with the events for different purposes. Pictures of the different tables happened throughout the night, while other things were going on. From the background of some of the pictures I can see something relating to other pictures, maybe a page or two or ten backwards or forwards in the album. But they're on this page for a more important reason than to show series of events.

When I look at someone else's wedding album, laid out perhaps exactly the same way, the pictures only tend to confuse me if I try to figure out the series of events, the history of what happened that night. I can piece some things together, but I can't possibly write a history of the evening just from the pictures. I need narratves.

Science can only deal with still pictures from the past. And they're not complete pictures at that. At most science can only tell us a few things about the particular moment from that partial still shot. From those few things science assumes patterns, and from those patterns extrapolates a history. 

The Bible gives us narratives. These too are partial, in bits and pieces. They can't possibly cover the whole frame of events; a book that size would not be enough to accurately cover even one day thoroughly, never mind the centuries it tries to cover. Many, many shortcuts have to be used in order to give us both the accuracy of history and the general line of events for that time era from the creation to the last days of Joseph. It does not mean that the history is inaccurate, nor that the events are not real events, nor that the things described are not described as they should be. 

Narrating a single event is very difficult. Any hockey player knows that if he watches hockey on TV, listening to the man doing the play-by-play. His very simple narrative is so inaccurate, and yet he puts the very same course of events into words very well, so that people will even listen to that game on the radio as if they're watching it on TV, or as if they're at the game. We older gents will especially recall that feeling of being at the game when listening to the radio. But I've had to, at times, play the radio beside the TV because that was the only sound I had with the game I was watching. And the announcer was getting many things wrong. Most of the reason is because he has to keep up with the play, so he takes shortcuts, but some of it is also for the sake of smooth delivery. This is narrative at it's simplest, and yet filled with problems as far as accuracy, historicity, and communication are concerned. And one game lasts only sixty minutes: one hour. 

There are different problems with different kinds of portrayals or evidences of the past. Each kind must know its limitations, and each must be aware of the others' powers. What the six-dayers have difficulty with when it comes to evolution is that the latter is a superimposed narrative of the past based on a number of partial images. What evolutionists had difficulty with when it comes to creation is that the Bible gives a biased and scientifically unverifiable account of the same era. It doesn't mean that the partial snapshots are inaccurate, nor that the narrative of the Bible is inaccurate. It simply means that men do too much when they presumptuously superimpose upon an approach to history. 

There are a host of things to consider. Even if Genesis is only allegory, it is still God's Word. Therefore God's allegory is more to us than thousands of "accurate" tellings from men. God tells us in His great wisdom what we need to know about His redemptive work, both in creation and the salvation that follows. So the problems increase; they do not decrease in limiting Genesis to allegory. We can argue ten thousand different things as opposed to the few things we now debate. Was Adam real? Did he have a name, or was he just called "Man"? These questions become manifold when we ask what it was that Adam symbolized. For in falling from grace he symbolized neither Christ nor the devil. Where we had a few possible answers we would now have innumerable possible answers. Without a norm, a set standard, an allegory becomes so open that it becomes meaningless.

I used to be very concerned about the inroads of evolutionistic teaching, especially when the church was starting to incorporate it into her theology. But I'm not so concerned about that anymore. Those who are so interested in making the church relevant to our "scientific" world betray something that I believe is much more important. And that is that they betray their indifference in the Word of God as the Word of God. The religion of the Bible becomes a personal theology for them, with each one believing his own views. They are not subject to the Word of God, because the meaning of the Word of God may be changed to support what they believe to be true. Or I should say, what they want to believe to be true. They have no more grounding for their theories than a house built on flowing sand; yet they build their eternal theologies upon it. They are unwilling to submit to God. Instead they make a display of submission to God's Word, but as it is amended to fit their own theologies. 

There are several of these kinds, not just the "scientific" crowd. There is also the "philosophical" crowd; and there's the "prophetic" crowd as well, just to name a few. They are unashamed to submit God's Word to their latest theories, and then asserting things as "true" out of that practice. "Bible doctrine" becomes defined by a man's own conscience out of God's Word, not God's Word alone. 

And so you have it that a few cast doubt upon the literal translation of a particular word in Genesis, and from that doubt elevate their own theories to the same level as God's "allegory". Suddenly, from this casting of doubt upon just one word, the Framework Hypothesis, the Day-Age Theory, the Analogical Day Theory, Theistic Evolution, or any other man-made theory is equal to God's allegory in Exodus 20. This is what I see is the great problem in our day; this is why we cannot answer the skeptic: we have too many pretenders raising their voices before ours, overtop of ours, demanding that they rightfully ought to be listened to. But God does not send men out to preach their own messages; He sends them out to preach His message. 

We have partial knowledge, a few snapshots, a few artifacts, a few witness narratives. They have severe limitations to them. It took over three hundred snapshots of our wedding and reception to make our wedding album, and they could not tell an accurate story by themselves. My wife's and my narratives (to those who are interested to listen) tell some of the story, but some of the pictures will cause stumbling blocks to that narrative: we have to take shortcuts to get the story across, and too often are not as accurate as the pictures of the same event. Neither the pictures nor the narratives are the historical event itself; and each one must accommodate to expediencies.


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## VictorBravo

I'm trying to get my head around the purpose of the original question. (Not the original questioner, I agree with him!).

Why can't Genesis be a _true_ story, artfully well told? Jesus took it that way. Paul referenced it that way. Other biblical writers took it that way. Why on earth should I view it any differently?


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## greenbaggins

You shouldn't. Genesis is a true story told with an apologetic art directed against Ancient Near Eastern gods. It is true historically, theologically, and literarily. And it is true especially in how it relates to the original audience (not that it isn't true now! It is, but we have to get at that truth through understanding the context and how ancient people thought).


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## caddy

From B:

As cheezy and blasphemous as it may sound, I would compare the old testament stories to the movie "300".

It's a true story and can be said to be "historically accurate", with much real evidence proving that it happened. And yet it's basically a cartoon, with many many inaccuracies and exagerations. The story's purpose is not to tell us how exactly 300 Spartans managed to defeat at least 1,000,000 Persians. Or that Xerxes was an 8ft-tall bald giant. Even if the timelines and many facts are wrong and exagerated, the story has great value.


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## JohnV

caddy said:


> From B:
> 
> As cheezy and blasphemous as it may sound, I would compare the old testament stories to the movie "300".
> 
> It's a true story and can be said to be "historically accurate", with much real evidence proving that it happened. And yet it's basically a cartoon, with many many inaccuracies and exagerations. The story's purpose is not to tell us how exactly 300 Spartans managed to defeat at least 1,000,000 Persians. Or that Xerxes was an 8ft-tall bald giant. Even if the timelines and many facts are wrong and exagerated, the story has great value.



If this is the impression I gave above, I'm truly sorry. I was trying to say the opposite. I was assuming that everyone knows that I am dead set against these other views making their way into the churches and onto the pulpits. What I tried to convey is that Genesis rises above pictures, images, narratives, and such like, as human a human endeavour, even if it's only an allegory. But it's not an allegory: that's not a possibility. God can do what no sports announcer can do, what no historian can do. When God narrates, it's infallibly accurat, historical, scientific, and all the rest. More than we have a right to question.


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## caddy

I understood you correctly JohnV and appreciated your comments and this reply as well. 



JohnV said:


> caddy said:
> 
> 
> 
> From B:
> 
> As cheezy and blasphemous as it may sound, I would compare the old testament stories to the movie "300".
> 
> It's a true story and can be said to be "historically accurate", with much real evidence proving that it happened. And yet it's basically a cartoon, with many many inaccuracies and exagerations. The story's purpose is not to tell us how exactly 300 Spartans managed to defeat at least 1,000,000 Persians. Or that Xerxes was an 8ft-tall bald giant. Even if the timelines and many facts are wrong and exagerated, the story has great value.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If this is the impression I gave above, I'm truly sorry. I was trying to say the opposite. I was assuming that everyone knows that I am dead set against these other views making their way into the churches and onto the pulpits. What I tried to convey is that Genesis rises above pictures, images, narratives, and such like, as human a human endeavour, even if it's only an allegory. But it's not an allegory: that's not a possibility. God can do what no sports announcer can do, what no historian can do. When God narrates, it's infallibly accurat, historical, scientific, and all the rest. More than we have a right to question.
Click to expand...


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## caddy

Reflecting on the O.T. narrative of Genesis being "like a movie" is the focus of Brian Godawa's excellent article in this month's copy of Modern Reformation. He explains that _movies are visually dramatic stories, and in the Bible, the dominant means through which God communicates is visually dramatic stories--not systematic theology, not doctrinal catechism, and not rational argument. _We are told that 30 % of the Bible is _expressed through rational propositional truth and laws, while 70 % is story, vision, symbol, and narrative. _Story telling is very important to God. _Consider the sense of awe at the majestic panoramic depiction of good battling evil in the Lord of the Rings. Remember the visual punch in the spiritual gut experience through The Passion of the Christ. The thousands of miracles that God performed for his people in the Bible were not mere abstract propositions, but "signs and wonders," sensate visual displays of God's glory. Drama is relationship in action, _and it certainly appears that God loves drama._ It is existential rather than intellectual. As we follow characters working through their moral dilemmas and personal journeys, so we learn through them. It is one thing to rationally explain the concept of forensic justification, but the power of seeing Jean Val jean being forgiven in Les Miserables embodies that truth existentially like no theological exposition possibly could._

Godawa points out how Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Job are not simply limited or tied only to their words, rather they were performances. They actually lived out individual dramas, just as our lives are individual dramas and stories--Real histories of wrong choices and God influenced choices, just as Harriet Lichenstien of Israel in 2000 BC lived a real life drama. It is mentioned that the books of Job and Jonah themselves are _depicted in dialogues reminiscent of ancient plays, including prologues, epilogues, and several acts. Job's friends function as the chorus of ancient theatrical performances_ just as the 8ft bald Xerxes did. _The Book of Mark structurally resembles a Greek tragedy. _The Bible is a book filled with stories of _God's redemptive activity in history. The Bible is not a systematic theological textbook. It communicates doctrine and theology mostly through story. Storytelling draws us into truth by incarnating worldview through narrative._ _Creation, Fall, and Redemption, the elements of a worldview, are a narrative progression of events that can be seen in all movies._

_Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God mostly through parables--sensate, dramatic stories. To him, the Kingdom was far too deep and rich a truth to entrust to rational abstract propositions. _Can science do better than narrative at reconstructing these stories through contrived formulas? How can it when they naturally presuppose a story totally different yet one equally based on faith claims? Godawa points out that Jesus _chose stories of weddings, investment bankers, unscrupulous slaves, and buried treasure over syllogisms, abstractions, systematics, or dissertations. Jesus could do abstraction. He preferred not to._

_Indeed, stories and parables may be a superior means of conveying theological truth than propositional logic or theological abstraction. As N.T. Wright suggests, "It would be clearly quite wrong to see these stories as mere illustrations of truths that could in principle have been articulated in a purer, more abstract form...A biblical story is not simply a 'delivery system' for an idea. Rather, the story first creates a world and then invites the listener to live in that world, to take it on as part of who he or she is....Narratives make story-shaped points that cannot always be paraphrased in propositional statements without losing something in translation. If you try to dissect the parable scientifically you will kill it, and if you discard the carcass once you have your doctrine, you have discarded the heart of God._

_Excerpts taken from Volume 16, Number 5 September / October 2007 Modern Reformation, P.6,7._


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## A5pointer

I just got my MR will be sure to read that article. Your post makes sense to me.


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## weinhold

2 Tim 4:2 said:


> I appreciate you response.
> 
> I find interesting your ability to divorce science from the story. What science in the Genesis account can be incorrect and still be a believable and doctrinally sound "story"? Who determines what is fact and what is not fact in the Genesis account? How far do we go with this line of thought? Do we take it into the the death, burial, and ressurrection of Jesus Christ? Or would you concede that this account is scientifically accurate? If Genesis is not then how do we know that the events surrounding the life of Christ are? And what do you understand about the inspriation of scripture?
> 
> When you say that scripture can be wrong or scientifically incorrect then you make yourself the judge of scripture rather than scripture being your judge.
> 
> And lastly I found your ability to call something true even when the scientific facts are believed to be incorrect. What author could I read to look into such a mind set?
> 
> And just a side question. Do you identify yourself with the Emerging Church Movment?



Whew, that's a lot of questions! But they are good ones, and so I'll try to answer each of them as best I can.

#1 What science in the Genesis account can be incorrect and still be a believable and doctrinally sound "story"?

I suppose the bit about the firmament is a good example. See post 27.

#2 Who determines what is fact and what is not fact in the Genesis account?

Attempting to verify facts in _Genesis_ strikes me as a terribly deficient way of approaching it, like spending one's career researching Shakespeare's biography but neglecting his plays. Such obsession with factuality shrivels one's soul like a raisin when instead it might become an exquisite merlot. So while I suppose that readers themselves must attempt to _discern_ as accurately as possible the text at hand, we would of course agree that no single reader _determines_ the factuality of a biblical text.

#3 How far do we go with this line of thought? Do we take it into the the death, burial, and ressurrection of Jesus Christ? Or would you concede that this account is scientifically accurate?

A great question that leads me to a crucial definition of terms. There seems to be some confusion about the word "history" that I hope to clarify. We can use the term factually, meaning a direct correspondence between the account found in, say, _Genesis_ and the events of the past themselves. Alternatively, we can use "history" to mean a perspectival narrative of the past. I think Scripture uses the second type of history, and the person and life of Christ is a perfect example. We have four Gospels, each with slightly different story to tell about Jesus of Nazareth. Though it is obvious that each of these stories references somebody who actually existed (we must remember that the Synoptic problem stems not from discrepancies between the accounts but from their surprising similitude), each story purposefully presents us with a slightly altered form of it.

In a critique of my comments in this thread, someone mentioned the Jesus Seminar. I'm sure most of you are familiar with their efforts to unveil "the historical Jesus," by which they mean the Jesus who lived in the past, whose dusty sandals trod across the roads of first century Palestine. Their publication of the Gospels employs a system for ranking their level of confidence in the scriptural words of Christ. Did Jesus really say "For God so loved the world," etc.? As I wrote before regarding the factual quantification of Scripture, this effort earns the epithet "ridiculous." Scripture is not an old t-shirt that conceals the body of the past; it is a ravishing gown that accentuates its beauty. If we approach a text of Scripture and ask it to be scientifically accurate or correspond precisely to the past, we are in essence ripping off the gown. But when we allow the text to be what it is, when we are awestruck by its unique beauty, then it reveals itself to us. 

#4 If Genesis is not then how do we know that the events surrounding the life of Christ are?

As I wrote before, the very nature of beginnings seems to necessitate their being mysterious. With Christ, we have the accounts of eyewitnesses. But who witnessed creation? 

#5 And what do you understand about the inspiration of Scripture?

This is a simple question whose answer unfortunately requires much more complexity. I believe that the books of the Old and New Testaments were written by fallible, finite human beings in fallible, finite languages during specific historical, political, social, economic and cultural situations. I believe that through His Holy Spirit (and in ways that I cannot really understand), God inspired those fallible and finite authors, languages, and cultural situations to write His words. I believe that this miracle occurred in the original manuscripts (which we have not discovered). I also believe that the manuscripts and translations of the Old and New Testaments to which we currently have access are generally true to the original manuscripts, though with varying degrees of precision. This reliability is a work of the Holy Spirit. I believe that the Holy Spirit works to produce scholars in Christ's Church who will faithfully examine the Scriptures, and I believe that He works in readers of Scripture, opening the truth to us as we read. I admit that I have no idea how any of that works; I admit that it is a spiritual mystery. Nonetheless, I affirm it. I admit that I bridle over words of evangelical etiquette like "inerrant" or "infallible." I bridle because strident theological debate--necessary though it was--has hollowed the life out of them and made them mere passwords for entry into the clubhouse of evangelicalism. They are lazy words, and they are insufficient words. For me, the Bible is trustworthy; it is true; it does what it intends to do; and it is reliable. It is not merely black ink on white pages; it is Word of the living God. It wants to become a part of us, and we should be enthralled by not just its truth but its astounding beauty. And we should seek to be faithful to it, to submit to it. We should let it live in us, and we should live in it. This is only a partial answer, of course, but I hope that it begins to communicate my posture toward Scripture in a way that you find satisfactory. 

#6 And lastly I found your ability to call something true even when the scientific facts are believed to be incorrect. What author could I read to look into such a mind set?

I'm not sure what you found my ability to be, and I'm not sure what source I could direct you toward. I don't think I've ever read anything that says exactly what I'm saying, though I'm sure I'm not the first, and I'm sure that my studies in literature have taught me this perspective. I'll keep thinking about a possible reference.

#7 Do you identify yourself with the Emerging Church Movment?

Oh good, an easy question! No, I don't identify myself with the Emerging Church.


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## weinhold

I'd love to continue this conversation, if you folks think it will be profitable.


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## DMcFadden

Paul,

I deeply respect the highly nuanced and intellectually satisfying hermeneutic that animates your points. For most of my ministry, I found the Day Age (and even more satisfying) the Framework theories as ways to follow Calvin's principle of accommodation, allowing the truth of Scripture to speak (i.e., "lisp") in language that could be true and meaningful without denying the "truths" of science. 

Frankly, in several academic programs, NOBODY ever gave more than a snide dismissal to the idea that the universe could be anything other than 20 billion (during my college years), 16-18 billion (during seminary), or 13.7 billion (the current estimate) years old. In fact, a belief in young earth creationism was often associated with the most ignorant kinds of fundamentalism.

So, with B.A. (Biblical studies), M.Div., D.Min., M.A.O.M., and a couple of certificate programs in hand, I blithly stuck with the Hugh Ross type approach to science. 

Meanwhile my mainline denomination continued to move further and further away from basic orthodoxy. Even some professing to be "evangelicals" began to defend gay marriage and ordination of practicing homosexuals. My battles with the theo-left kept coming up against the fact that my own highly nuanced hermeneutic with respect to Genesis 1-11 sounded a awful lot like the arguments being used by some to argue for revisionist views of human sexuality. Ultimately my judicatory (270 congregations) withdrew from the national body.

My uneasiness with saying that "The Bible 'says' this, but it really 'means' that" in Genesis precipitated a re-examination of the evidence regarding creation. I have found greater satisfaction in the presuppositional apologetics of the Answers in Genesis group and the arguments they have advanced for taking the Bible literally from the very first verse. 

And, just yesterday, I returned from a conference in Denver dealing with radioactive decay and the age of the earth sponsored by another creationist group that uses a more evidentialist approach. They feted a number of PhD scientists to discuss their RATE project results. They pointed out that C14 with its notoriously short half-life of 5,730 yrs. should not even be found in a measurable form in anything older than 60k - 100k. Yet, we have significant quantities of C14 in coal samples from different strata dated hundreds of thousands of years to hundreds of millions of years ago by conventional "experts." C14 can even be found in diamonds supposedly millions of years old! 

Further, the findings of goodly amounts of helium in zircon crystals defies the conventional dating schemes. U238 decays naturally, resulting in helium and lead. Heat seems to accelerate the diffusion of helium from zircon crystals. The model was tested with assumptions of a recent creation and an old earth. The helium diffusion rates conform exactly to the young earth model and are off by a factor of several hundred thousand from the old earth model, even when adjusted for different assumptions for heat.

One of the presenters in Denver discussed accelerated radioactive decay. He has done work on gravitational time dilation as a way of dealing with the distant starlight problem using Einsteinian relativity theory equations to predict a young earth. Historically, many have argued that the fact of starlight from distant stars militates against a young earth.

Another project by this same organization has the inventer of the genetics technique used in virtually all of the genetically engineered crops in the world to argue that the mutations and degradation in the human genome will not tolerate a human history of more than a few thousands of years.

All of that is quite interesting. However, it does little more than to show that one can take the Bible in a straight-forward manner without committing intellectual suicide. However, as I mentioned, the Answers in Genesis crowd takes a different approach framing the issue in terms of one's presuppositions and worldview. I appreciate their clear framing of the matter in terms of assumptions even if I do not fully subscribe to all of their Bahnsen-esque apologetic.

But, they make a very sound point. If we concede that Genesis does not mean what it says in chapters 1-3, and if there is no universal flood, no tower of Babel, etc., why should we believe that it should be taken any more literally in the New Testament? While _yom_ may mean many things, it certainly means "day" in Exodus 20:11 when God's creation of the world in six days is linked to the institution of the Sabbath. Jesus did not just accommodate himself to the ignorance of the day and speak with a wry smile and a wink in his eye, did he? Nor did Paul take the need for the Second Adam any less literally than the problem occasioned by the first Adam.


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## caddy

Excellent Post Dennis!


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## DMcFadden

Actually, the process of taking the Bible in a more straight forward way also carried over to my soteriology. For years I was a Baptist who waffled on the number of points of Calvinism I believed ("guess" which one was my problem, duh!). The hermeneutical shift away from old earth creationism came along with a much belated reconsideration of the atonement. Thanks to the good efforts of people like Sproul, Piper, and Owen my entire theology began to take on a much more consistent (I would argue "biblical") cast. Incidentally, R.C. Sproul (sr.) credits RTS's Kelley for his own shift to young earth creationism from his earlier endorsement of Ross's progressive creationism. I am probably the only person alive who came into Calvinism via an argument about Genesis. Nevertheless, here I am.


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## 2 Tim 4:2

weinhold;306306/ said:


> I admit that I bridle over words of evangelical etiquette like "inerrant" or "infallible." I bridle because strident theological debate--necessary though it was--has hollowed the life out of them and made them mere passwords for entry into the clubhouse of evangelicalism. They are lazy words, and they are insufficient words.



I disagree. Mens use of the words are merely that. The nature of the words do not really change only the intention of mens hearts. Setting aside any perceived misuse of these words what then would be your inhibitions to using such words?


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## shackleton

I have noticed that a belief in an old earth naturally leads one to believe in death before the Fall, death then is not a punishment for sin. Death no longer being the result of sin, but a natural occurance, slowly erodes away a belief in the seriousness of Orginal Sin. Then the belief that we are not that bad and the way to fix it is a sort of "psychological gospel," one that deals with the _effects_ of sin, rather than sin itself. 
It is sort of a man centered way of looking at it. If all of life got here by chance, then all of our lives now tend to be governed by chance, God is not necessary. Even if God started things running and dealt with the consequences, he is still not very involved. It erodes sovereignty. It seems like the natural outflow of a "Free Will" hermeneutic. 
I hope that is clear.


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## k.seymore

> Shackleton said "I have noticed that a belief in an old earth naturally leads one to believe in death before the Fall, death then is not a punishment for sin. Death no longer being the result of sin, but a natural occurance, slowly erodes away a belief in the seriousness of Orginal Sin. Then the belief that we are not that bad and the way to fix it is a sort of "psychological gospel," one that deals with the effects of sin, rather than sin itself."



While Calvin didn't believe in an old earth (if I remember right, he only interacts with two options, instantaneous creation vs. 6-day) he certainly says life was temporal before the fall, he just doesn't call it death. I thought this was interesting because we normally think that it would have been continuous earthly life, but he seems to think about it differently. Adam's _earthy_ life would have ended, but that end would be a beautiful transition into _heavenly_ life, not an end of life altogether. In regard to God threatening death to Adam, Calvin says, "under the name of death is comprehended all those miseries in which Adam involved himself by his defection..." Here is more from the commentaries on Genesis 2:

"But it is asked, what kind of death God means in this place? It appears to me, that the definition of this death is to be sought from its opposite; we must, I say, remember from what kind of life man fell. He was, in every respect, happy; his life, therefore, had alike respect to his body and his soul, since in his soul a right judgment and a proper government of the affections prevailed, there also life reigned; in his body there was no defect, wherefore he was wholly free from death. His earthly life truly would have been temporal; yet he would have passed into heaven without death, and without injury. Death, therefore, is now a terror to us; first, because there is a kind of annihilation, as it respects the body; then, because the soul feels the curse of God. We must also see what is the cause of death, namely alienation from God. Thence it follows, that under the name of death is comprehended all those miseries in which Adam involved himself by his defection; for as soon as he revolted from God, the fountain of life, he was cast down from his former state, in order that he might perceive the life of man without God to be wretched and lost, and therefore differing nothing from death. Hence the condition of man after his sin is not improperly called both the privation of life, and death. The miseries and evils both of soul and body, with which man is beset so long as he is on earth, are a kind of entrance into death, till death itself entirely absorbs him; for the Scripture everywhere calls those dead who, being oppressed by the tyranny of sin and Satan, breath nothing but their own destruction. Wherefore the question is superfluous, how it was that God threatened death to Adam on the day in which he should touch the fruit, when he long deferred the punishment? For then was Adam consigned to death, and death began its reign in him, until supervening grace should bring a remedy."


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## weinhold

Dennis and Mark, thanks for your replies. I'll be sure to interact with you tomorrow. For tonight, I have a (his)story for B:



> Long ago, around the time of _Beowulf_, the prince of Russia, whose name was Vladimir of Kiev, decided it was time to establish a national religion. To accomplish this task, Vladimir sent envoys to the three major religions: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. When his emissaries returned, they reported back to the prince. The first emissary reported on Islam, and when he said that alcohol is forbidden for Muslims, Vladimir said, "this must not be the religion for Russia." When the second emissary returned to give his report on Judaism, he said that the God of that religion had scattered his people, so that they had no land of their own. Vladimir did not think this could be the religion for Russia either. But the official from Constantinople, having seen the Hagia Sophia, said to Vladimir, “We know not what people believe in that faith, but when we entered into their house of worship everything was so beautiful that we knew not whether we were on earth or in heaven.” At that moment, Vladimir knew that Christianity was the right religion for his people.



B, I'm not sure if you've ever thought of beauty as a motive for conversion, but the Russians certainly did. They recognized that Christianity is not simply a logical religion; it is a beautiful one. As I've been commenting in this thread regarding _Genesis_, one reason I am captivated by Scripture is its aesthetic quality, and I think the same could be said for the Christian faith in general. Just some food for thought.

***

Know that you have my deep respect for honestly grappling with ultimate questions, for seeking nuanced and intellectually satisfying answers, and for probing the veracity of Christianity. As for any questions or doubts you might have, keep wrestling. God can handle it, so wrestle hard. I am confident that if you seek the truth, you will find it. And remember, God knows our weakness; He does not require that we know, only that we believe. In my own wrestlings, I've found this adage helpful.

Ok, I couldn't resist! Here's another (his)story:



> Long ago, King Edmund I of England was approached by Christian missionaries. At that time, England was a pagan country. After hearing these missionaries, Edmund asked his wise men whether or not he could trust them. One of the wise men said, “O king, the life of man is like the life of a sparrow. He flies into the mead hall out of the dark and the cold and the ice and for a brief time he is in a lighted room where there is music and song and wine and food and merriment, but he flies on through, and flies out the other window into the dark and the cold and the ice and the snow. Such O king is the life of man as our faith teaches it. If these have anything more to say than that, I suggest that we hear them.” And so because of the hope that Christianity brought, England adopted Christianity as its national religion.


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## weinhold

Unfortunately, I don't have time to answer both Dennis and Mark tonight. My apologies. I will answer Mark tonight, and Dennis tomorrow.

Here is what Mark said:


2 Tim 4:2 said:


> I disagree. Mens use of the words are merely that. The nature of the words do not really change only the intention of mens hearts. Setting aside any perceived misuse of these words what then would be your inhibitions to using such words?



If by "the nature of words" Mark means the _meaning_ of words, then I'm afraid I must disagree with his premise. Definitions (both denotative and connotative) change with usage; just think about the way words like "gay" or "web" or "memory" or "drive" have changed in recent years, not to mention completely new words like "blog" or "google." That being said, Mark might argue that words like "inerrant" and "infallible" can still do the work they need to do, and that would be a reasonable argument to make. As it is, however, I do not think they act as sufficient modifiers for "Scripture" unless they are qualified in some aspects and expanded in others.


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## 2 Tim 4:2

weinhold said:


> Unfortunately, I don't have time to answer both Dennis and Mark tonight. My apologies. I will answer Mark tonight, and Dennis tomorrow.
> 
> Here is what Mark said:
> 
> 
> 2 Tim 4:2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I disagree. Mens use of the words are merely that. The nature of the words do not really change only the intention of mens hearts. Setting aside any perceived misuse of these words what then would be your inhibitions to using such words?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If by "the nature of words" Mark means the _meaning_ of words, then I'm afraid I must disagree with his premise. Definitions (both denotative and connotative) change with usage; just think about the way words like "gay" or "web" or "memory" or "drive" have changed in recent years, not to mention completely new words like "blog" or "google." That being said, Mark might argue that words like "inerrant" and "infallible" can still do the work they need to do, and that would be a reasonable argument to make. As it is, however, I do not think they act as sufficient modifiers for "Scripture" unless they are qualified in some aspects and expanded in others.
Click to expand...


What is it about anything in Genesis that drives you to determine that it is just a story and not historically or scientifically accurate?


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## weinhold

2 Tim 4:2 said:


> What is it about anything in Genesis that drives you to determine that it is just a story and not historically or scientifically accurate?



Mark, I don't presume to determine what is historically or scientifically accurate in _Genesis_. How could one substantiate such a claim? 

I sincerely apologize for giving you this false impression.


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## weinhold

Dennis, thanks for your patience with me. I'm glad to finally respond to your post.

I suppose that if one felt the need to scientifically account for our beginnings, then the type of investigation you mention above would prevent intellectual suicide. To me, however, it just seems a bit silly. Whatever the factual event of creation was, it is neither observable nor repeatable, so how could science allege a conclusive answer? What we have in _Genesis_ is more constant than scientific fads, more beautiful than cold facts, more functional than a DVD of the creation event. What would be so great about a scientific explanation, and why does _Genesis_ need to correspond with the creation event, for which science itself cannot account? I hope these questions communicate my perspective about _Genesis_: I fail to understand why critics of _Genesis_ fault it for lacking scientific precision, and I also fail to understand why its proponents accept the very same premise when they defend it. 

Dennis writes:



> If we concede that Genesis does not mean what it says in chapters 1-3, and if there is no universal flood, no tower of Babel, etc., why should we believe that it should be taken any more literally in the New Testament? While _yom_ may mean many things, it certainly means "day" in Exodus 20:11 when God's creation of the world in six days is linked to the institution of the Sabbath. Jesus did not just accommodate himself to the ignorance of the day and speak with a wry smile and a wink in his eye, did he? Nor did Paul take the need for the Second Adam any less literally than the problem occasioned by the first Adam.



I think the problem with this paragraph is the vagueness of "mean what it says" in the first sentence. I would never concede that what the Bible says is not true. But as I have written above, I envision truth as a genus; factuality and story are species of truth. Even if _Genesis_ were proven false in their factuality (a conclusion science cannot provide), it would still be a true story. 

Your thoughts?


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## DMcFadden

Paul,

Now I must plead for patience. Tonight is not the time to respond thoughtfully. 

Briefly, I do not believe that we must "prove" that the Bible corresponds to science. My claim is that the nature of historical narrative militates for a more straight-forward reading of Genesis as a summary, but not factually inaccurate, re-telling of the great work of God's creation. It is only when some Christians confront secular claims to a hegemony on "truth" in their account of origins and respond by capitulating to the naturalistic version of things that I put forth chinks in the scientific account. Your final sentence is doubtless true. However, why even make the distinction here? 

Exodus 20:11 may be the most embarrassing verse in the Bible for the 21st century Christian. Most conservatives hold to some form of old earth viewpoint. Yet, Exodus 20:11 seems to ground the institution of the sabbath yom in the creation yom of Genesis.


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## Archlute

I agree that Exodus 20:11 presents a real problem for the metaphorical reading of the early chapters of Genesis. As well, the inconsistency of the "sophisticated" hermeneutic which Paul and others embrace is clearly shown when the question is asked as to why that approach is not consistently applied to the great bulk of the book outside of the first three chapters. Notice that I said "consistently" applied. For example, if one were to apply Kline's Framework hermeneutic with _true_ consistency to the rest of Genesis, it would make historical mush out of the Abraham cycle. Nobody that I am familiar with gets all bent out of shape about the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives (except for the Society of Biblical Literature radicals), but it is linguistically clear that the Hebrew prose used in those narratives is no different than the linguistic usage of the first three chapters of the book.

Does this mean that Moses, as guided by the Holy Spirit, had no stylistic genius when tailoring the truth of these events to the ear? Not at all - they are completely historically accurate, as well as represented with stylistic savvy.

If you want to see the change in Hebrew syntactical style between historical narrative and poetic metaphor, all you have to do is compare the historical books with any of the prophetic oracles, the Psalms, the Song of Solomon, etc. It will quickly become clear that there is a difference that should be obvious to any modestly skilled Hebrew reader. In fact, the Prophetic and Poetic portions of the OT are not even assigned for study at WSC until the second and third years. Why is that? Because they are so much more difficult and complex when compared to historical narrative, that the first year student cannot even begin to decipher most of it. The distinction between history and metaphor becomes quite obvious.


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## Gloria

If Genesis isn't literal, was there a REAL Adam? If Adam wasn't real, then Adam didn't fall. If Adam didn't fall, we aren't in sin and are able to live sin free. If we are born sinless why do we need a savior? The line of questioning goes ON and ON. I REALLY believe that toying with Genesis (ESPECIALLY stories in Genesis like the creation story and the fall) toys with the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

I really think that people who say/think things like this do not examine the full implications of it. They are definitely treading on thin ice.

I mean, seriously, the first prophecy of the coming messiah is mentioned IMMEDIATELY after the fall in Genesis 3:15...


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## 2 Tim 4:2

weinhold said:


> 2 Tim 4:2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> What is it about anything in Genesis that drives you to determine that it is just a story and not historically or scientifically accurate?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mark, I don't presume to determine what is historically or scientifically accurate in _Genesis_. How could one substantiate such a claim?
> 
> I sincerely apologize for giving you this false impression.
Click to expand...



So you have no way of knowing if Genesis 3 is accurate? How would such a position clarify mans fall and need for Christ?


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## jtbdad

AV1611 said:


> Amazon.com: An Introduction to the Old Testament: Books: Edward J. Young




One of my favorites!

I have a first edition I was able to buy from the library book sale for $1.60.


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## weinhold

2 Tim 4:2 said:


> So you have no way of knowing if Genesis 3 is accurate? How would such a position clarify mans fall and need for Christ?



Mark, how could anyone conclusively prove with science (a created thing) that the universe was spoken into being by God? How could anyone give a conclusive and exhaustive narrative of the creation event, let alone any events that followed after it? These realities exist in the past, behind the text, but they are not realities that we are meant to see. As I said before, Scripture is a sumptuous gown; we need to be enthralled with the beauty it brings, not constantly peeking underneath it.


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## DMcFadden

Paul,

As a presuppositionalist, I begin with the idea that you can either start with God or with naturalistic materialistic assumptions. Beginning with God, the account of Genesis corresponds with an increasingly impressive fit to recent science research. Beginning with time, chance, and matter you can also make the facts "fit" the metanarrative. My contention is that the "facts" of science more comfortably conform to the presupposition of the God described in Genesis.


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## 2 Tim 4:2

weinhold said:


> 2 Tim 4:2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> So you have no way of knowing if Genesis 3 is accurate? How would such a position clarify mans fall and need for Christ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mark, how could anyone conclusively prove with science (a created thing) that the universe was spoken into being by God? How could anyone give a conclusive and exhaustive narrative of the creation event, let alone any events that followed after it?
Click to expand...


This is an interesting question from a Christian. Since I never alluded to such an idea it appears that this is simply the basis you use to interpret scripture.(correct me if I am wrong) The reason why I find it so interesting is that as a Christian we begin with the idea that God is. Scripture doesn't work to prove God but presupposes His existence. As Christians we also presuppose that scripture is the work of God. (2 Tim 3:16-17) And that it reveals Christ. (Luke 24:27)

So what I am asking is, does the Genesis account reveal an actual fallen man, in need of an actual redemption, by the shed blood of Christ. Does it reveal the Messiah, who came and shed His blood for a fallen man. Does it reveal a penalty for sin and rebellion toward God that is eternal. If so is it accurate in its revelation of these things?


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## weinhold

Folks, allow me to reiterate, as a reminder to myself mostly, the words with which I opened my comments on this thread:



> Opinions are earned, and I admit that I have not done enough research into Genesis to merit any real opinion at all. I would like, however, to offer a few highly provisional comments regarding my approach to the creation narrative found in Genesis.



I am, I know, not an expert at all in matters of biblical exegesis. Nor am I an expert in scientific matters. I am, however, working very hard right now to become an expert at reading literature, and so perhaps that explains my approach to _Genesis_ as a text. When I read it, it strikes me as the most beautiful story of human beginnings that I have ever read. So if it is my Christian presuppositions that lead me to the conclusion that _Genesis_ is accurate, then I also think it is the beauty of _Genesis_ as a story that leads me to believe it is true. (As a corollary, I have to admit my own jealousy that many of you pastors and seminarians have the marvelous privilege of encountering the beauty of _Genesis_ in Hebrew. I imagine that you must revel in that opportunity.) Anyway, I am woefully behind in my replies, so what follows is an attempt to catch up. It is a shame that we cannot all drink coffee and talk for an hour, for I am certain that if we did, we would arrive at a consensus rather easily. As it is, we must continue "scribbling hieroglyphs" as Carlos Fuentes has said. 

***

Mark said:



> _Mark, how could anyone conclusively prove with science (a created thing) that the universe was spoken into being by God? How could anyone give a conclusive and exhaustive narrative of the creation event, let alone any events that followed after it?_
> 
> This is an interesting question from a Christian. Since I never alluded to such an idea it appears that this is simply the basis you use to interpret scripture.(correct me if I am wrong) The reason why I find it so interesting is that as a Christian we begin with the idea that God is. Scripture doesn't work to prove God but presupposes His existence. As Christians we also presuppose that scripture is the work of God. (2 Tim 3:16-17) And that it reveals Christ. (Luke 24:27)



The questions I asked regarding scientific and historical accuracy were meant to probe Mark's definition of "accurate." If Mark's answer to my question (which was also a statement) is that we must presuppose God's existence and His faithfulness to us in Scripture, then I think we might agree regarding our hermeneutic. Scientific and historically precise accuracy (i.e. direct correspondence with the events of the past) is not what I demand Scripture to provide. In fact, to make such demands would probably exceed the limits of science and history itself, because as I have said, the creation event is neither repeatable nor observable, and so science can provide no conclusions; likewise, no human witness was present to observe the creation, and so a history also falls short. As I wrote earlier, "These realities exist in the past, behind the text, but they are not realities that we are meant to see. . . Scripture is a sumptuous gown; we need to be enthralled with the beauty it brings, not constantly peeking underneath it." What we have in _Genesis_ is a tremendously beautiful story, which we as a faith community believe is a true story.



> So what I am asking is, does the Genesis account reveal an actual fallen man, in need of an actual redemption, by the shed blood of Christ. Does it reveal the Messiah, who came and shed His blood for a fallen man. Does it reveal a penalty for sin and rebellion toward God that is eternal. If so is it accurate in its revelation of these things?



Question #1: If by "actual" you mean "true" or "real" then yes, if you are asking whether a man named Adam ever really existed, then I would say "I believe so," though of course I can't prove that with science or history. Incidentally, I am reminded of a statement made by William Faulkner. When a reporter asked him how he knew what his characters would do next, he answered, "I follow behind them with pad and pen." In other words, characters have ontology just as "real" human beings.

Question #2: Not unless you mean a typological reading that prefigures Christ's redemption in the Gospels.

Question #3: I'm not sure if _Genesis_ itself refers to eternal punishment. 

Question #4: If by "accurate" you do not demand factual precision, then yes. 

***

Dennis, my reply to you has been a long time coming. My apologies for the delay.

I admire Dennis' willingness to deconstruct the scientific hegemony that mocks the truth of _Genesis_; it is certainly a project that exceeds my gifts and interests. What concerns me, however, is that many Christians feel the need to construct in its place a scientifically legitimate explanation for creation that corresponds with _Genesis_. Why not simply concede that the purpose of _Genesis_ is not scientific accuracy? Indeed, Dennis exemplifies the approach I advocate when he writes:



> Briefly, I do not believe that we must "prove" that the Bible corresponds to science. My claim is that the nature of historical narrative militates for a more straight-forward reading of Genesis as a summary, but not factually inaccurate, re-telling of the great work of God's creation. It is only when some Christians confront secular claims to a hegemony on "truth" in their account of origins and respond by capitulating to the naturalistic version of things that I put forth chinks in the scientific account. Your final sentence is doubtless true. However, why even make the distinction here?



Dennis asks about the differentia between fact and story. I concede that my line of distinction is crude, and probably does not do justice to the many other differentia of truth (sociological, psychological, etc.) To differentiate between fact and story, however, I draw from Perrine and Arp, _Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense_. They compare an encyclopedia article on "eagles" with Tennyson's poem, "The Eagle":



> If we want simply to acquire information about eagles, we may turn to an encyclopedia or a book of natural history. There we find that the family Falconidae, to which eagles belong, is characterized by imperforate nostrils, legs of medium length, a hooked bill, the hind toe inserted on a level with the three front ones, and the claws roundly curved and sharp; that land eagles are feathered to the toes and sea-fishing eagles halfway to the toes; that their length is about three feet and their wingspan seven feet; that they usually build their nests on some inaccessible cliff; that the eggs are spotted and do not exceed three . . .
> 
> The Eagle
> 
> He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
> Close to the sun in lonely lands,
> Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
> 
> The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
> He watches from his mountain walls,
> And like a thunderbolt, he falls.
> 
> When "The Eagle" has been read well, readers will feel that they have enjoyed a significant experience and understand eagles better, though in a different way, than they did from the encyclopedia article alone.



I hope the example above demonstrates why I distinguish between fact and story in _Genesis_: it reads more like Tennyson and less like an encyclopedia.


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## DMcFadden

Paul,

You are a very bright young man with a promising future. Your questions are good ones, your reflections are well phrased and thoughtful.

My handing of the text of Genesis is somewhat more simple-minded. In brief:

I am not wedded to Ussher's chronology and do not necessarily insist upon the rigid notions popular in the YEC crowd regarding the necessity of all generations being included in the genealogies. However, to indicate that "day" (yom) does not mean day in Gen 1 because it can be used to indicate a much larger period of time in Gen 2 is specious. 

"Yom" is no more "magical" in Hebrew than "day" in English. We customarily use the word in various senses and know what it means. "In my father's *day* it took four *days* to travel from Illinois to California during the *day*." The first instance refers to the period of my dad's life (the good ole days), the second speaks of 24 hour periods, and the third denotes the light portion of a day. It is usually no more difficult to determine the meaning of "day" in the OT (in most instances) than in English. Gen 2:4 clearly speaks of the time of God's creation and Gen 1 lays out the various days of creation. Ex 20:11 provides a non-Genesis reference where the creation of the "sabbath" DAY (i.e. a 24 hour period) is based upon the creation DAYS (also viewed as 24 hour periods). 

Ousdie of Genesis, "day" is used 410x with a number (e.g., first day, day one, etc.) and it ALWAYS means an ordinary day; "evening and morning" appears 34x and it ALWAYS means an ordinary day; "evening" or "morning" with "day" can be found 23x each and it ALWAYS means an ordinary day; and "night" couples with "day" 52x and it ALWAYS means an ordinary day. So, how come when these linguistic markers appear in Genesis we suddenly balk at interpreting them in an ordinary manner? Only because we have concluded, based on some very anti-theistic assumptions, that the "facts" make such belief incredible. 

"It is of course admitted that, taking this account [Genesis] by itself, it would be most natural to understand the word [day] in its ordinary sense; but if that sense brings the Mosaic account into conflict with facts, [millions of years] and another sense avoids such conflict, then it is obligatory on us to adopt that other." (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 570-571).

As Hodge observed (and Grudem has restated), an honest reading of Genesis 1 would lead one to believe that 6 days (of a roughly normal type and duration) are in view. It is only under the pressure from the conclusions brought into modern intellectual life through those operating with naturalistic materialistic assumptions that we were faced with the unfortunate choice of believing that Genesis teaches what it says vs. finding an alternative interpretation for the text that will allow us to accept naturalistic conclusions of modern science without outright denying the Bible. Hodge, like most contemporary evangelicals, accepted as "fact" the position on the antiquity of the universe. Therefore, he felt compelled to modify his understanding of the Bible to avoid admitting it was in error. 

Since, contra Collins, I believe that the bitter fruit of materialistic assumptions (old earth, old universe, and evolutionary biology) has poisoned confidence in the Bible as the Word of God, I am inclined to accept the biblical record in a straight forward manner and await further confirmation (even in the eschaton) to settle the matter.


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## caddy

I would like to know if Ussher's Chronology is errant or misleading, where would we began looking for errors?


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## weinhold

Dennis, thanks for your reply. It points out a flaw that I meant to correct in my last post: I haven't yet answered your point about Exodus 20:11. I am definitely not qualified (I don't even know Hebrew!) to refute your point about "yom." Also, I must admit that I am not up to speed on the apparently thriving secondary critical debate. Even with my limited knowledge, however, I very much agree with your point: every piece of textual evidence seems to indicate that Moses (or whoever) meant "24 hr day," even though they didn't know that days were 24 hrs long. I see no reason to read "day-age" into the text or any such silliness. Why attempt to make _Genesis_ a scientifically accurate account? Doing so requires specious hermeneutics that read hidden meanings into the text which would have been completely irrelevant until about 150 years ago. It can be true without all that nonsense. Incidentally, a thought occurred to me recently: Since we have established that science cannot conclusively explain human origins, if we prefer its explanation over _Genesis_, aren't we just substituting an ugly story for a beautiful one?


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## 2 Tim 4:2

I must say I am always saddened by those who call themsleves Christian and yet will not rely on the soveriegnty of God. To think that mans imperfections will trump God's ability to keep His word, say what he means and mean what he says.

The fact that man wasn't there in creation is not a well reasoned standard for findng inaccuracy or even an inablity to know if the events that are described are accurate in any historical sense or scientific. This is rather a strawman that has no foundation or density.

Many events are researched after the fact when there is little to no eyewitnesses. Yet events always leave in there trail evidence of the historical facts. Long before man ever crawled in a rocket and climbed into space Job said that God hung the earth on nothing. (Job 26:7) And thousands of years later man found this to be true through clear observation. Man didn't need to recreate the events that made it so to discover if it were true. The evidence of the flood that pushed noah and his family around for forty days and nights have been left all over this world. No historical or scientific fact found in scripture can be disproven. And as the time of eternity goes by more and more come into light under the evidence that continues to be revealed that support them. 

The nature of scripture is a revelation of the Messiah. (Luke 24:27,44) The Genesis account contains more than just typology but in fact prophecies of the Messiah.( Genesis 3:15) It speaks to the eternal penalty if sin and the wrath of God.(Genesis3:3) It also gives us a clear picture of God's grace.(Genesis 3:21,24)

In the case of Genesis the eye witness account was God. And God being perfect, Soveriegn, and immutable gave that account to Moses with clarity and accuracy. (Luke 24:27,44) Let everyone else be a liar and God will always stand true to His word.


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## weinhold

2 Tim 4:2 said:


> I must say I am always saddened by those who call themsleves Christian and yet will not rely on the soveriegnty of God. To think that mans imperfections will trump God's ability to keep His word, say what he means and mean what he says.



Mark, now I am saddened. The above statement seems to obliquely imply that our disagreement over how to interpret _Genesis_ somehow makes my Christianity disingenuous. Surely this was a slip, out of frustration perhaps; your previous comments had indicated a great deal of charity. Let me encourage you to avoid such gaffes in the future, for they inflict immeasurable damage to your ethos.



> The fact that man wasn't there in creation is not a well reasoned standard for findng inaccuracy or even an inablity to know if the events that are described are accurate in any historical sense or scientific. This is rather a strawman that has no foundation or density.



The standards for scientific and historical analysis are not straw men, and the whole point of my mentioning them is to agree with elements of Mark's presuppositional approach. The scientific method uses experimentation to arrive at conclusions. Thus, anything that cannot be repeatedly observed cannot be explained scientifically. Hence, science can only asymptotically approach the creation event; it cannot conclusively explain it. The same is true for history: those who were not present at an event must rely upon accounts of it, which are perspectival and limited. Nobody was present at creation. Hence, what we must rely on instead of scientific or historical accounts is the story that _Genesis_ provides for us. The power of this story is in its own generative capacity to beget a heritage in its readers, something a factual account could never really provide.



> Many events are researched after the fact when there is little to no eyewitnesses. Yet events always leave in there trail evidence of the historical facts. Long before man ever crawled in a rocket and climbed into space Job said that God hung the earth on nothing. (Job 26:7) And thousands of years later man found this to be true through clear observation. Man didn't need to recreate the events that made it so to discover if it were true. The evidence of the flood that pushed noah and his family around for forty days and nights have been left all over this world. No historical or scientific fact found in scripture can be disproven. And as the time of eternity goes by more and more come into light under the evidence that continues to be revealed that support them.



Here I think Mark and I simply disagree over what the Bible purports to be; I am not nearly as concerned with upholding the scientific or historical precision of Scripture. Again, this is because I do not demand that truth must be factual. If Mark wishes to meticulously harmonize science and Scripture, then that's fine I suppose. I find such a project decreasingly interesting since, even if it could be conclusive, only results in proving Christian sanity. I would rather invest in the story itself.



> The nature of scripture is a revelation of the Messiah. (Luke 24:27,44) The Genesis account contains more than just typology but in fact prophecies of the Messiah.( Genesis 3:15) It speaks to the eternal penalty if sin and the wrath of God.(Genesis3:3) It also gives us a clear picture of God's grace.(Genesis 3:21,24)



Statement 1: Agreed.

Statement 2: "typology" vs "prophecies" hardly seems significant, but I will yield to Mark's preference.

Statement 3: I'm not sure whether Eve thought of "death" as "eternal penalty" in 3:3; are there any other passages in _Genesis_ that clarify?

Statement 4: These would hardly have been clear to Adam and Eve, though the Gospel reality makes them clear as crystal for us.



> In the case of Genesis the eye witness account was God. And God being perfect, Soveriegn, and immutable gave that account to Moses with clarity and accuracy. (Luke 24:27,44) Let everyone else be a liar and God will always stand true to His word.



Yes, God was there. Interestingly enough, He did not choose to reveal the event with historical or scientific precision. Instead, He chose to write a story. Again, the gown analogy applies.


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## sastark

> Yes, God was there. Interestingly enough, He did not choose to reveal the event with historical or scientific precision. Instead, He chose to write a story. Again, the gown analogy applies.



This thread is very interesting to me, being a grad student studying Science and Religion (and the interaction of the two). 

Paul, why do you believe that God chose to not reveal the event (creation) with historical precision (I agree that it was not revealed with scientific precision: God did not give us a detailed explanation of the formation of the atom)? Is it because of modern scientific understanding of the origin of man? 

I agree with you that from a literary perspective the creation account is beautiful (the structure of the days of creation and the events that take place each day is awe inspiring), but I also believe the story can be both beautiful in prose and historically accurate at the same time.

As a side note: I agree with Paul that science cannot prove the creation account of Genesis; however, neither can it disprove it. So then, how do we know what happened? We must rely on revelation, which tells us God created in 6 days of evenings and mornings.


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## 2 Tim 4:2

weinhold;309381
Mark said:


> Genesis[/I] somehow makes my Christianity disingenuous. Surely this was a slip, out of frustration perhaps; your previous comments had indicated a great deal of charity. Let me encourage you to avoid such gaffes in the future, for they inflict immeasurable damage to your ethos.



Actually it implies no such thing. I have seen no evidence to convince me one way or the other about your Christianity. I am sorry you felt that way.




> The standards for scientific and historical analysis are not straw men, and the whole point of my mentioning them is to agree with elements of Mark's presuppositional approach. The scientific method uses experimentation to arrive at conclusions. Thus, anything that cannot be repeatedly observed cannot be explained scientifically. Hence, science can only asymptotically approach the creation event; it cannot conclusively explain it. The same is true for history: those who were not present at an event must rely upon accounts of it, which are perspectival and limited. Nobody was present at creation. Hence, what we must rely on instead of scientific or historical accounts is the story that _Genesis_ provides for us. The power of this story is in its own generative capacity to beget a heritage in its readers, something a factual account could never really provide.




You missed my point. I will make another attempt to clarify it. When we re given a story that claims specifics of certain events in most cases we cannot recreate those events. What we do do s to verify them by the expected results of such events. Much of what is described in scripture has evidence tat supports the described events. archaeology continues to reveal the validity of the claims in Scripture. I gave you the small example of Job. Who said that God hung the earth on nothing. No one in his time could have known this. Yet we now know this is accurate in our time. It is false that we always need science to prove science. What Job said is scientifically correct. The earth hangs on nothing. 




> Here I think Mark and I simply disagree over what the Bible purports to be; I am not nearly as concerned with upholding the scientific or historical precision of Scripture. Again, this is because I do not demand that truth must be factual. If Mark wishes to meticulously harmonize science and Scripture, then that's fine I suppose. I find such a project decreasingly interesting since, even if it could be conclusive, only results in proving Christian sanity. I would rather invest in the story itself.



Really Do you find that the New Testament accounts of Christ on earth to be of the same nature as Genesis? why or why not?




> I'm not sure whether Eve thought of "death" as "eternal penalty" in 3:3; are there any other passages in _Genesis_ that clarify?




I did not suggest Eve understood it in any way. I made reference to how we can understand it. Do you believe in eternal penalty and the wrath of God?






> Statement 4: These would hardly have been clear to Adam and Eve, though the Gospel reality makes them clear as crystal for us.



How do you know?




> Yes God was there. Interestingly enough, He did not choose to reveal the event with historical or scientific precision. Instead, He chose to write a story. Again, the gown analogy applies.



Again you missed the point. I will try to be a bit clearer. The sovereignty was spoken of in the context of revealing His revelation exactly and without error. 

I have no idea how anyone has ever come to the conclusion that God "chose" not to be scientifically accurate.

As far as the differences in typology and prophecy they are night and day. Typology has no need to have all the details exact. Prophecy must be fulfilled exactly.


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## JohnV

What is interesting to me is that calling Genesis a story does not really say anything about Genesis. There's no affirmation that it is either true or not true in saying it is a story; nor is there any affirmation as to the purpose or aim of the account. 

If, for example, the 'story' about Adam is a true one, then it is clear what the purpose of it is. But if it is a story that is neither true nor false, then there can be no accounting for its purpose. The Fall might be an indication of man's fall from grace, but is only an indication; it is not a Biblical assertion that we could determine as doctrinal. We only assume it is so from the rest of Scripture. But we should keep in mind that when we read the rest of Scripture that Genesis is only a story that is neither true nor false, and that therefore Jesus treats it as such as well. That leaves us with the conclusion that Jesus' assertions that derive out of Genesis are not to be taken as doctrinal truth, but as metaphor for the truth of that which He spoke. What, then, is the meaning of the metaphor? And so it goes, the chain of doubt become endless. 

Surely there is beauty in the account, in the use of communicative tools and the ideas themselves. But that beauty centres around whether the account is either true or meaningful as a story. In other words, if it is not a true account but just a story, then it certainly has to point directly or knowingly to a truth that is known, or the story loses all meaning. And so the beauty of it is gone as well. It would be nice to call it beautiful, but we could not possibly know whether it is or not because we could not know the true meaningful content of the story; thus we would also not really know whether it was beautiful. 

The point I'm trying to make is that we are not given the option of Genesis being anything but a true account, brief as it is, of the first few centuries of life. The true beauty of the account lies in the fact that Genesis does what no man on earth could do: give a concise and complete account that is true in every way. There are no rabbit trails in order to explain the setting or circumstances; it's just a straight forward account that is true. It can be examined in detail itself and still remain precise and authoritative in every way. In other words, it loses nothing as a result of indepth analysis and examination, such as men's accounts of any history would. 

We may dispute about the word "day", whether the English word or the Hebrew word, but that is our dispute, not the Word's. The Word still means something definite and firm, whether we are fuzzy on it or not. Our struggle to understand cannot be blamed on the Word, for it is our sinful hearts and minds that are to blame. 

I can read many different accounts or explanations which try to solve the riddles of the Genesis account, and how that account squares with what we think we know from our sciences, but the Word of God is still the Word of God to me. And therefore it still stands far above all these speculative ideas and philosophies. I know God, and I know He is true and trustworthy. I do not have that same confidence in even the best of men, no matter how intelligent he may be. A man might make me look like a childish fool for my faith in God's Word, but that will not generate in me a higher faith in him than I have in God.


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## caddy

*Can Creation Models Be Wrong?*

*Jesus showed that He understood Genesis was true history when He quoted Genesis 1:27 & 2:24 ( See Mark 10:6-8). God afirmed that He created iin 6 normal-length days when He wrote the 4th commandment ( Ex 20:11 ). *





*Answers Magazine: Building a Biblical Worldview*












*by Paul Taylor, AiG–U.K.*

*September 4, 2007*


*Keywords*

author-Paul-taylor
creation-research
presuppositions
science
scientific-creationism
*Featured In*





Browse this issue
If scientific evidence causes a creationist model to change, we should not let that shake our confidence in the accuracy and authority of Scripture.
Sometimes it is good to state your presuppositions at the start of an article. I believe the Bible to be the complete, authoritative, inspired and inerrant word of God. That is my basis for this article and all the articles that I write, as it is for the other writers in this magazine. Perhaps you are now expecting the word “but.” Often, a statement of belief, such as that above, is followed by the word “but.” There will be no “but” here, in the sense that I accept no exceptions to the statement.
*The Place of Scientific Models*


In the course of our work at Answers in Genesis–United Kingdom, we are sometimes asked questions for which the Bible does not give an exact answer. In a chapter that I penned for the _New Answers Book_, I stated:“Skeptics often claim, ‘The Bible is not a science textbook.’ This, of course, is true—because science textbooks change every year, whereas the Bible is the unchanging Word of God—the God who cannot lie. Nevertheless, the Bible can be relied upon when it touches on every scientific issue. ... It is the Bible that gives us the big picture. Within this big picture, we can build scientific models that help us explain how past events may have come about.”1​The issue that I was addressing in the _New Answers Book_ was the question “How did animals spread all over the world from where the Ark landed?” The Bible doesn’t actually say how this happened, yet it is clear from the Bible that it did happen. That is why a scientific model was necessary. However, I said this about scientific models: such models should be held lightly, but the Scripture to which they refer is inerrant. That is to say, future research may cast doubt on an actual model, without casting doubt on Scripture.
*Building a Scientific Model*

In describing a biblical model of post-Flood recolonization, I began with four facts, taken directly from Genesis.

Two of every kind of land animal and bird were on the Ark.
God brought the animals to Noah, so it was God’s intention to preserve them. The subsequent recolonization was not left to chance.
The Ark came to rest somewhere in the vicinity of modern-day Turkey.
God willed the earth to be recolonized (Genesis 8:15–19).
Any model that fits the above biblical criteria is potentially viable. Yet it is obviously sensible to use accepted scientific models in the construction of the biblical model—always remembering that our acceptance of science is secondary to our acceptance of scriptural inerrancy.
Building scientific models is a helpful step in fulfilling the Christian duty to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Some answers are not stated directly in Scripture, so it is fair to ask if we can work out an explanation. We just need to remember that we cannot prove with absolute certainty that the model is how things actually happened.
We need to be aware of the difference between operational science and origins science. Operational science is the result of experimental data or observations taken in the present, subject to peer review, and capable of repetition. Origins science is an extrapolation of presently observed phenomena into the past, in a manner which is not repeatable. When evolutionists are criticized for the latter, it is not because the principle of origins science is wrong, but because such a model cannot be accepted as a proven fact. So it is with creationists’ models.



This supernova remnant was born in 1987 when a star exploded. Since this object is 170,000 light years away, it is claimed that the event happened 170,000 years ago and that the light is just now reaching us. If God had created the light “in-transit,” then it would mean that this event never actually happened, and this object does not actually exist. So, most creation scientists reject the “in-transit” solution to distant starlight.

*Case Study: Distant Starlight*

A well-known example of the building of scientific models is the attempt to answer the so-called “distant starlight problem.” The problem is this: how do we explain that light appears to have taken millions of years to cross millions of light-years of space, when we believe that the sun, moon, and stars were created on the fourth day of creation, in a single 24-hour period?

Astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle has examined the details of this issue on a number of occasions, including in _The New Answers Book_.2 In this article, I simply want to look at the flow of ideas rather than the detailed scientific models.Scientific models, while helpful, must never take the place of Scripture. The scientific model can be superseded. Scripture cannot.​In _The Genesis Record_, Dr. Henry Morris concluded that the light from distant stars could have been created in transit so that the universe only appears to be old, having the appearance of maturity. Lisle describes a problem with this view. “We see things happen in space. For example, we see stars change brightness and move. Sometimes we see stars explode. We see these things because their light has reached us.”3 Yet, if the light were created in transit, then we are observing events—novae and supernovae, for example—that never actually happened. It doesn’t seem reasonable that God would create “movies” of fictional events.
Some scientists suggest a second model, that the speed of light has changed (decelerated) over time. This idea can fit with the biblical account because, if the speed of light were much faster in the past, then it could be possible for the sun, moon, and stars to have been made on Day 4, just a few thousand years ago.
This model also has scientific, rather than scriptural, problems, in that the speed of light determines a number of other phenomena. For example, the energy produced by radioactive decay, using Albert Einstein’s famous E=mc2 equation, would have been unreasonably great at the time of creation.
Another model is the rather complex one proposed by Dr. Russell Humphreys.4 He postulates that the universe is expanding but bounded. This would have been like a white hole at the time of Day 4 of creation. A white hole is similar to a black hole, except that matter emerges from a white hole rather than being absorbed. A bounded universe would have a center, and the gravitational field would cause the fabric of space-time to distort. According to Einstein’s principles, time will flow more slowly near the center of a bounded universe than it will closer to the edge. Humphreys showed that if our solar system were near the center of the universe, then what would appear to be millions of years’ worth of stellar processes could have occurred in the depths of space, while only 24 hours elapsed on earth. Humphreys’ model has been very influential in creationist circles, but even aspects of that model are challenged by other creationists.




Often called the Andromeda Galaxy, M31 is over 2 million light-years away. Yet it is one of the nearest galaxies.

Without needing to understand every detail of the various scientific models, the principles are these.
Asking about the distant starlight problem is a fair question, to which Christians should seek an answer. Yet the Bible does not give a specific answer.
The Bible teaches that God made the sun, moon, and stars on Day 4.
Models have been developed that accept the Bible as true and apply scientific principles in a manner consistent with Scripture. However, even these models may need to be overturned if other scientific ideas suggest that the model is not correct—though the scriptural principles are never overturned.
*Conclusion*

We have seen that scientific models can help us carry out our 1 Peter 3:15 obligation always to have an answer. The scriptural principles behind the construction of a model are absolute. The model itself may contain reasoned conjecture, according to established scientific ideas, so long as these do not conflict with the scriptural facts.
Scientific models, while helpful, must never take the place of Scripture. The scientific model can be superseded. Scripture cannot.
Paul F. Taylor graduated with his B.Sc. in chemistry from Nottingham University and his masters in science education from Cardiff University. Paul taught science for 17 years in a state school but is now a proficient writer and speaker for Answers in Genesis-UK.



Above: The Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104, is located 28 million light-years from earth. Because we start from the Bible, which teaches a young universe, creation models seek to understand how light can travel vast distances in a short period of time.
Bottom: The creation model of created kinds starts with the fact that only two animals of each kind (with the exception of certain animals) entered Noah’s Ark as the Bible teaches.

http://javascript<b></b>:OpenPrint()
*References*

Taylor, P. F., How Did Animals Spread All Over the World from Where the Ark Landed? in Ham, K. (ed.), _The New Answers Book_ (Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books, 2006), p. 141. Back
Lisle, J., “Does Distant Starlight Prove the Universe Is Old?” in Ham, K. (ed.), _The New Answers Book_ (Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books, 2006), p. 245. Back
Ibid., p. 246. Back
Humphreys, R., _Starlight and Time_ (Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books, 1994). Back


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## BertMulder

Well, if you do not believe that God created us in the manner described in Genesis 1, what does that do to the manner God recreates us as described in the rest of Holy Writ?


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## JohnV

I'm not saying that I agree with all the activities and published articles of Answers in Genesis. I'm not so sure that's the right way to go about it; and on some things I'm sure that its not the right way to go about it. I see no need, for example, to give in to the demand from the atheists' challenges to provide scientific models, because that inescapably ties human speculations in with the Bible's revelations. It follows from the same sort of reasoning that we ought not to allow pictures of Jesus: it is an (unintended) addition to Scripture. 

But what I am trying to stress is that even calling the Genesis account a story without any overt attempts to tie it with truth or historical accuracy still has inherent in it the necessary suggestion that it is true and historically accurate. Not to recognize that, as so many atheists do, is to do injustice to your own integrity in understanding, let alone the integrity of the Word of God. Whether any account allows 1% or 100% truth to the account, it requires at least some of it to be true and accurate. Even if it is metaphor, it has to be metaphor for something; and that something is not found anywhere else in God's revelation except Genesis. 

So what part is it that is "honestly" deemed as true and accurate? And why is it that this part alone is true and accurate, and not the other parts? What sets that one section of Genesis apart as true and accurate that we can call it a story, or lend support to alternative theories of origins? If it is analogical, it is analogical for something that can be understood, or the purpose of analogy is defeated. 

As I said, calling it a story does not say anything about Genesis. Admiring it for its beauty without giving content to that beauty is meaningless. As with any story, intrinsic in it's beauty is it's relation of the intent and aim within that story, and what it either teaches us or what it imparts to us. 

But to me the most important part is whether Genesis remains as revelation from God, if it is true that it is only a story. It must reveal something to us from God. Without any relation to truth or accuracy not even the most elaborate or thorough alternative explanations have any meaning for us: the Day-Age Theory, the Analogical Day Theory, the Framework Hypothesis, Theistic Evolution; all these are as nothing if they do not rely at least to some degree upon the accuracy and truth of Genesis. Calling it a story without any predisposition to truth or accuracy empty's the word "story" of its meaning, and empties Genesis of its revelation from God. We have no obligation to a story unless it imparts something to us from above.


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## weinhold

> This thread is very interesting to me, being a grad student studying Science and Religion (and the interaction of the two).
> 
> Paul, why do you believe that God chose to not reveal the event (creation) with historical precision (I agree that it was not revealed with scientific precision: God did not give us a detailed explanation of the formation of the atom)? Is it because of modern scientific understanding of the origin of man?
> 
> I agree with you that from a literary perspective the creation account is beautiful (the structure of the days of creation and the events that take place each day is awe inspiring), but I also believe the story can be both beautiful in prose and historically accurate at the same time.
> 
> As a side note: I agree with Paul that science cannot prove the creation account of Genesis; however, neither can it disprove it. So then, how do we know what happened? We must rely on revelation, which tells us God created in 6 days of evenings and mornings.



Seth, I'm glad to see your comment in this thread since you will likely bring expertise that I certainly lack in the area of science and religion. I am not sure what a "modern scientific understanding of the origin of man" even is anymore; it seems to change with the wind, and we should expect as much from science, since its hypotheses about human origins must always be provisional. All that aside, my statement about _Genesis_ lacking historical precision is not meant derisively; it merely delimits what readers should expect from Scripture. 

Let's assume a fiction: that an objectively accurate and comprehensive historical account is possible. What would we expect from _Genesis_ if we demanded that it be such an account? Several things would need explanation: God's creative speech, the primordial void, Eve's creation from Adam's rib, light prior to the sun, the meaning of "His image," etc. Some of these might require scientific explanation, but these are nonetheless also historical explanations, since a precise and factual history thoroughly explains a past event. _Genesis_ does not engage in this type of factual analysis. I thank God that it does not, because what an ugly story that would make!


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## sastark

Paul, first, if I completely miss your point, my apologies. Second, it sounds like you are saying that the miraculous is not possible, at least not in the first few chapters of Genesis.

When you say "several things would need explanation" do you mean beyond the explanation of God said it, and it happened? I would agree that a detailed anatomical/scientific explanation of Eve being formed out of Adam's rib would make for a boring narrative (and as a side note, wouldn't be "scientific" since science cannot account for the supernatural) and that isn't what we should expect from Scripture; however, what little information we are given, I believe to be historically and factually accurate.


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## weinhold

2 Tim 4:2 said:


> Actually it implies no such thing. I have seen no evidence to convince me one way or the other about your Christianity. I am sorry you felt that way.


Mark, you have succeeded in making an implicit statement explicit. Since this line of ad hominem neither strengthens your argument nor relates to the thread, I propose we deal with my personal belief (which, I assure you, exists) via private messaging.



> You missed my point. I will make another attempt to clarify it. When we re given a story that claims specifics of certain events in most cases we cannot recreate those events. What we do do s to verify them by the expected results of such events. Much of what is described in scripture has evidence tat supports the described events. archaeology continues to reveal the validity of the claims in Scripture. I gave you the small example of Job. Who said that God hung the earth on nothing. No one in his time could have known this. Yet we now know this is accurate in our time. It is false that we always need science to prove science. What Job said is scientifically correct. The earth hangs on nothing.



I suppose that if one reads "earth" as "planet," which I doubt is the case, one might accept Job 26:7 as a rather simplistic statement about our planet's gravitational orbit, but even that seems quite a stretch and incidental to the story of _Job_. The real point of Job's statement seems to be its place in the broader cosmography of chapter 26 that includes: Sheol, Abaddon, void, earth, waters, clouds, the moon, heaven, and winds. Job's point, as I read the chapter, is the existence of God's overwhelming power in the cosmos. But if 26:7 becomes a golden apple that we pursue to disprove science, then we have actually missed the frail beauty of the story itself. In seeking to preserve Scripture we shall have left it behind. 



> Do you find that the New Testament accounts of Christ on earth to be of the same nature as Genesis? why or why not?



No, I think the Gospels are different. First, the Gospels occurred closer to our own time; second, clear historical data exists for dating the Gospels (e.g. reign of kings); third, we can still visit many places where Gospel stories occurred; fourth, the gospel writers themselves are far more concerned with narrative precision (e.g. Lk. 1:3); fifth, we have four Gospel accounts, and the synoptic Gospels verify one another consistently; sixth, the rapid growth of the Christian church soon after the events in the Gospels surely allowed for revision of factual mistakes. So while the Gospels are not really trying to be historically precise in a 19th century historicist sense, they are certainly as factual, maybe more, than Thucydides, Heroditus, Plutarch, Xenophon, etc. 



> I did not suggest Eve understood it in any way. I made reference to how we can understand it. Do you believe in eternal penalty and the wrath of God?



Eve is the speaker in the verse you cited, Genesis 3:3. She is recounting (with her subtle addition, "neither shall you touch it") God's words to the serpent. I am not sure whether Eve understood "death" as "eternal penalty" at that moment. So yes, I believe that hell exists as the Bible explains it, but I don't think I get that from _Genesis_. 



> _Statement 4: These would hardly have been clear to Adam and Eve, though the Gospel reality makes them clear as crystal for us._
> 
> How do you know?



I don't for sure, but I also don't see any textual evidence in _Genesis_ that Adam and Eve understood anything more than a vague prophecy of hope. 



> _Yes God was there. Interestingly enough, He did not choose to reveal the event with historical or scientific precision. Instead, He chose to write a story. Again, the gown analogy applies._
> 
> Again you missed the point. I will try to be a bit clearer. The sovereignty was spoken of in the context of revealing His revelation exactly and without error.



I'm not sure what you are asking here.



> As far as the differences in typology and prophecy they are night and day. Typology has no need to have all the details exact. Prophecy must be fulfilled exactly.


I yield the distinction.


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## weinhold

John, I believe that _Genesis_ is a true story:



weinhold said:


> Even if _Genesis_ were proven false in their factuality (a conclusion science cannot provide), it would still be a true story.





weinhold said:


> What we have in _Genesis_ is a tremendously beautiful story, which we as a faith community believe is a true story.





weinhold said:


> By contrast, I assert that fact is a _species_ of truth and is not equal to it, so that my reading of _Genesis_ allows for it to be a true story, without demanding that it be a factual story in the sense of strict historical precision. It may indeed be such an account, but I don't think the text demands that we take it that way; I don't think that is what it is trying to be. _Genesis_ is first and foremost a story (a noun that I would never modify with "mere" or "only" or "just"), and because it is so, its primary mode of imparting knowledge is different from fact but nonetheless true.


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## 2 Tim 4:2

weinhold said:


> Mark, you have succeeded in making an implicit statement explicit. Since this line of ad hominem neither strengthens your argument nor relates to the thread, I propose we deal with my personal belief (which, I assure you, exists) via private messaging.



Again there has beenno implication and certainly no ad hominem. As far as relating to the thread, I simpy responded to your accusation.


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## JohnV

weinhold said:


> John, I believe that _Genesis_ is a true story:



I know that is what you say, Paul, but I don't know what you mean by that, since you also say,



weinhold said:


> Even if _Genesis_ were proven false in their factuality (a conclusion science cannot provide), it would still be a true story.


and,



weinhold said:


> What we have in _Genesis_ is a tremendously beautiful story, which we as a faith community believe is a true story.


and, 



weinhold said:


> By contrast, I assert that fact is a _species_ of truth and is not equal to it, so that my reading of _Genesis_ allows for it to be a true story, without demanding that it be a factual story in the sense of strict historical precision. It may indeed be such an account, but I don't think the text demands that we take it that way; I don't think that is what it is trying to be. _Genesis_ is first and foremost a story (a noun that I would never modify with "mere" or "only" or "just"), and because it is so, its primary mode of imparting knowledge is different from fact but nonetheless true.



I read Genesis as part of God's revelation of Himself, from which I may be instructed in my faith. When I say I believe Genesis, it is more than saying I believe it is a true nonfactual story. It is more than admiring the beauty of what it says. It must include believing what it says for the factual truth it conveys. If Genesis is metaphor, then we have no idea of what truth it actually portrays to us. 

The difference, as I see it, is how you understand what true faith consists of. I divide it into three categories, the same as that which is demanded of office-bearers in the Church: that which is required of us to believe; that which we may believe, though not required; and that which may not be believed. The first is that which God reveals in His Word; the second is that which we might be convinced of in our own minds out of God's Word, but may not be required of us nor become a disqualificaton to our memberships (i.e., _adiaphora, might be true or might not be true; and the third is that which disqualifies us, or beliefs which are not true. Ministers may only preach, and elders only require and defend, the first. That's because this is what the Church says God tells us in His Word. The second may not be required nor preached because the Church does not know whether God tells us these things or not, though they do not in themselves negate anything in the first category. The third ought not to be believed because they stand against or militate against, or outrightly contradict, the first category. 

I only regard the first as doctrine, which it that which God reveals to us in His Word. And that includes Genesis. For Genesis to be included, I am not able to regard it as metaphor, or as a true story which has no relation to factuality. I must believe that the things stated as fact are indeed fact. And I find no clear markers making a distinction between metaphor and fact other than that which is common and well known in literature. That means that I cannot regard Genesis as metaphor. To me it is not a possibility.

Nor, then, is it in any way meaningful to call Genesis a true story without any demand to whether the account is factual. Either way, whether metaphor or non-factual story, it is meaningless to me, even if you still make a claim to believing it as true. The only way it is meaningful to me is if it tells me a true and factual account. Otherwise the content of Genesis goes into the second or third categories, and therefore outside the requirements of faith._


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## caddy

JohnV said:


> weinhold said:
> 
> 
> 
> John, I believe that _Genesis_ is a true story:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I know that is what you say, Paul, but I don't know what you mean by that, since you also say,
> 
> 
> I read Genesis as part of God's revelation of Himself, from which I may be instructed in my faith. When I say I believe Genesis, it is more than saying I believe it is a true nonfactual story. It is more than admiring the beauty of what it says. It must include believing what it says for the factual truth it conveys. If Genesis is metaphor, then we have no idea of what truth it actually portrays to us.
> 
> The difference, as I see it, is how you understand what true faith consists of. I divide it into three categories, the same as that which is demanded of office-bearers in the Church: that which is required of us to believe; that which we may believe, though not required; and that which may not be believed. The first is that which God reveals in His Word; the second is that which we might be convinced of in our own minds out of God's Word, but may not be required of us nor become a disqualificaton to our memberships (i.e., _adiaphora, might be true or might not be true; and the third is that which disqualifies us, or beliefs which are not true. Ministers may only preach, and elders only require and defend, the first. That's because this is what the Church says God tells us in His Word. The second may not be required nor preached because the Church does not know whether God tells us these things or not, though they do not in themselves negate anything in the first category. The third ought not to be believed because they stand against or militate against, or outrightly contradict, the first category.
> 
> I only regard the first as doctrine, which it that which God reveals to us in His Word. And that includes Genesis. For Genesis to be included, I am not able to regard it as metaphor, or as a true story which has no relation to factuality. I must believe that the things stated as fact are indeed fact. And I find no clear markers making a distinction between metaphor and fact other than that which is common and well known in literature. That means that I cannot regard Genesis as metaphor. To me it is not a possibility.
> 
> Nor, then, is it in any way meaningful to call Genesis a true story without any demand to whether the account is factual. Either way, whether metaphor or non-factual story, it is meaningless to me, even if you still make a claim to believing it as true. The only way it is meaningful to me is if it tells me a true and factual account. Otherwise the content of Genesis goes into the second or third categories, and therefore outside the requirements of faith._
Click to expand...


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## shackleton

As I read these arguments back and forth it seems as though Weinhold is saying that Genesis cannot be proven "scientifically" because to do that it would have to be, (A) observed and (B) reproducable, and since it was not observed, it was a story handed down for several generations then put to paper by Moses, and it obviously cannot be reproduced there is no "scientific" way of prooving the events in Genesis. Wienhold is not saying that these events did not happen nor that they are not true. He is saying that it is given to us in the form of a "true" story. 

Weinhold, is this an accurate assumption, or am I way off?


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## Wannabee

Creation cannot be proven scientifically because of the reasons stated. Even the simplest hypothesis must be observable. However, it can be proven historically because history is based on circumstantial evidence. There is more circumstantial evidence for the verity of the Genesis account being literal than for any other theory (proven throughout this thread). 
However, as edifying as this is, the testimony of Scripture is all that is needed. As has been stated, the language is clear.


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## weinhold

Seth, I should begin by affirming your previous statement that science can neither prove nor disprove the factuality of _Genesis_. I don't think I emphasized it enough in my last reply to you. 

I can see why you would inquire about miracles in your follow-up reply. I affirm the reality of miracles, though I think the bifurcation between natural and supernatural might be as confusing as it is helpful. At least on some level, the sovereignty of God makes "natural" and "supernatural" synonymous. After all, aren't "natural" processes governed by God just as much as anomalies? You see what I mean. 

But your point remains: can't we just say that the creation event was miraculous and leave it at that? To me, that answer is very satisfying. But I would stop short of calling it "factual," since that word might bring with it the connotation that it is quantifiable. So perhaps all the difference between our perspectives is word choice, which I hope is not too wide a gap to overcome.


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## weinhold

shackleton said:


> As I read these arguments back and forth it seems as though Weinhold is saying that Genesis cannot be proven "scientifically" because to do that it would have to be, (A) observed and (B) reproducable, and since it was not observed, it was a story handed down for several generations then put to paper by Moses, and it obviously cannot be reproduced there is no "scientific" way of prooving the events in Genesis. Wienhold is not saying that these events did not happen nor that they are not true. He is saying that it is given to us in the form of a "true" story.
> 
> Weinhold, is this an accurate assumption, or am I way off?



Erick, that sounds about right.


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## weinhold

JohnV said:


> I read Genesis as part of God's revelation of Himself, from which I may be instructed in my faith. When I say I believe Genesis, it is more than saying I believe it is a true nonfactual story. It is more than admiring the beauty of what it says. It must include believing what it says for the factual truth it conveys. If Genesis is metaphor, then we have no idea of what truth it actually portrays to us.



John, I don't think I would use the term "metaphor" to describe _Genesis_ as a whole, since I think of metaphor as a specific trope employed in language. For example, "I see what you mean" is a metaphor we use so frequently that we fail to recognize it: sight is perception. Nevertheless, I would say that Genesis is a true _story_, and that we most certainly have access to the truth it conveys. For instance, God's creative speech that created the world _ex nihilo_ is most certainly true--it really happened!--but I would not call it factual. How would one quantify it? Can it be scientifically observed? Etc. As I wrote to Seth, I think our difference of opinion centers upon semantics, and I hope it is not too great a gap, despite your closing comments:



> Nor, then, is it in any way meaningful to call Genesis a true story without any demand to whether the account is factual. Either way, whether metaphor or non-factual story, it is meaningless to me, even if you still make a claim to believing it as true. The only way it is meaningful to me is if it tells me a true and factual account. Otherwise the content of Genesis goes into the second or third categories, and therefore outside the requirements of faith.



By the way, I don't think that my reading of _Genesis_ is outside the requirements of faith. Where is it held that your reading of _Genesis_ is a requirement for belief?


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## weinhold

I have probably already posted enough for today, but I had a passing thought that I wanted to share. I think the crux of our debate (which I am thoroughly enjoying, by the way) is our definition of truth. If one demands that truth be factual, then my reading of _Genesis_ just doesn't compute. But as I have said before, I don't think truth needs to be factual, and as evidence I plead with readers of this thread to scroll back and read Tennyson's "The Eagle" again. While those encyclopedic facts might be useful in a narrowly technical sense because they provide information _about_ eagles, Tennyson's poem gives readers access to an eagle's ontological essence. This is what I think _Genesis_ does; it gives readers access to the essence of the creative act.


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## gene_mingo

This has been an interesting discussion. While I have hesitated to make any comments, I have some questions for Paul Weinhold.

Well, maybe comments and questions.

My first question is...

Can you please point to an example of the truth being non factual? Besides your opinion of the Genesis narrative. You have cited a poem by Tennyson. It is a nice poem, but is not the truth. It is merely an artistic description of a bird by a man. I honestly fail to see how his opinion can be considered the truth.

Would you please define what you mean when you use the word truth?

Would you please define what fact means to you?

lol. It is a multiple part question. Sorry. My mind starts running off in all direction when i think about this.

I stand really firm on this point. The truth is always factual. Facts are subject to the truth. If your facts don't point to the truth then your facts are wrong. True facts always point to the truth. The absence of facts does not make the truth non factual. Let me give you an example of this. Thousands of years ago men thought the earth might be round. Even though science at the time was set in the flat earth theory. The men who thought the earth was round told a truth. The earth is round. Even if they could not scientifically prove their statement, that didn't change the truth of the statement. We know that it is a fact the earth is round. It has always been a fact that the earth is round. Regardless of what was provable with scientific examination.

Ok, now you need to convince me that I am wrong. This is a big challenge, seeing how your other arguments really didn't budge my position much.

All in all I have really enjoyed this thread.


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## weinhold

Josh, thanks for jumping into the discussion. I was glad to read your reply because it gets right to the heart of what I've been trying to say all along, and so hopefully this time I will communicate with greater clarity and persuasion. The central point of contention, as you point out, is our definition of terms. You (and others) assert that fact=truth; I assert that fact is a _species_ of truth. I should not be surprised at your equating of fact and truth; it is, after all, the common usage of the term: There are facts and there are lies. Any dictionary would indicate agreement with your definition in at least one of its entries, probably more. So I concede the general usage of the word, and accept the necessary task of defining the way I am using "fact."

Let's start by surrounding the term with a cluster of modifiers and see if that helps:

Fact: mathematical, quantifiable, statistical, scientific, technical, logical, empirical, rational, analytic, literal

"Fact" is a word born in the Renaissance and reared during the Enlightenment. In my understanding, equating it with "truth" implicitly limits our idea of reality to the narrowly naturalistic perspective that emerged from Enlightenment skepticism. Now Josh, I certainly know that you do not mean to imply all this when you equate fact with truth, but nevertheless I think the word carries that baggage with it. If we blithely accept factuality as the only type of truth, then we will live out the lament of William Faulkner: "There are no longer any problems of spirit. There is only one question, 'When will I be blown up?'" By expanding the definition, I am trying to acknowledge those spiritual realities that we seem to have lost during the modern era. Reality is more than statistics, more than sense perception, more than what can be quantified.

Given this fuller definition of reality, which I have been calling "truth" (perhaps reality would be better?), I hope that you will see the point Perrine and Arp are making about eagles. Tennyson's poem is not just the artistic description of a bird; it is a mode of knowledge, every bit as valid (I think more valid) as an encyclopedia article. As Perrine and Arp argue, factual data about eagles leaves us feeling


> "a little disappointed, as though we had grasped the feathers of the eagle but not its soul. True, we have learned many facts about the eagle, but we have missed somehow its lonely majesty, its power, and the 'wild grandeur' of its surroundings that would make the eagle a living creature rather than a mere museum specimen. For the living eagle we must turn to literature."


And it is not just literature that provides this mode of knowledge. All forms of art communicate this type of nonfactual truth: painting, sculpture, music, dance, drama, architecture, Etc. Art is not just beautiful; it is true. 

Ok, well that's a start. Glad to have you on board!


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## sastark

weinhold said:


> Seth, I should begin by affirming your previous statement that science can neither prove nor disprove the factuality of _Genesis_. I don't think I emphasized it enough in my last reply to you.



 No problem.



> I can see why you would inquire about miracles in your follow-up reply. I affirm the reality of miracles, though I think the bifurcation between natural and supernatural might be as confusing as it is helpful. At least on some level, the sovereignty of God makes "natural" and "supernatural" synonymous. After all, aren't "natural" processes governed by God just as much as anomalies? You see what I mean.



We actually had an interesting discussion about miracles in one of my classes last night. I agree with what you say above: What is "miraculous" to us is not so to God. He is above natural processes and is not bound by them. God does not "break" any natural laws when he acts in what we perceive as a "supernatural" way. God's ways are not our ways.



> But your point remains: can't we just say that the creation event was miraculous and leave it at that? To me, that answer is very satisfying. But I would stop short of calling it "factual," since that word might bring with it the connotation that it is quantifiable. So perhaps all the difference between our perspectives is word choice, which I hope is not too wide a gap to overcome.



Now that I understand how you are using the word "fact" ("emperically true"), I agree. I do suppose, however, that if one wanted to press the point, one could argue that we do have a witness to the creation act, who is God himself. Of course, we cannot recreate creation, so it is still not scientific (in that it cannot be verified through reproduction of the "experiment"). But, as you and I already agreed, it is _true_.

I continue to enjoy this discussion immensely.


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## gene_mingo

Paul,
Thank you for your timely answer. I do believe our disagreement is partly with definitions of the terms truth and fact. I think you have added some terms to the word fact that are not required to be used to define it. Thats ok with me. At least it gives me a better understanding of your point.

I will go back to the poem of the eagle. You seem to place a strong bit of your argument on that. 

First lets examine your quote.




> "a little disappointed, as though we had grasped the feathers of the eagle but not its soul. True, we have learned many facts about the eagle, but we have missed somehow its lonely majesty, its power, and the 'wild grandeur' of its surroundings that would make the eagle a living creature rather than a mere museum specimen. For the living eagle we must turn to literature."


Words like, majesty, grandeur, and power, are all descriptions based on the persons opinion of the eagle. This is not a truth about eagles. I happen to live in an area where eagles nest and have been watching them most of my life. First off eagles, when hot, will poop down their legs to cool off. This is not the actions of anything i would describe as majestic. Eagles are smaller than the vultures that live here, not so grand In my humble opinion. I have seen eagles run off by sparrows. This leads me to believe that they are not so powerful. I would describe eagles in another way completely. These types of descriptions are subjective human expressions. You have to agree with the writers opinion of the subject. This is not truth. The poem by Tennyson is the same as above. I have to agree with his opinion about eagles for them to be valid. I agree that the poem can pass a kind of knowledge, but knowledge is not truth either. I hope this helps you understand my point better.




> "If we blithely accept factuality as the only type of truth,"



I think you are missing my point. Facts don't make truth. Truth makes facts.

If we redefine what truth means then i agree that subjective human expression would be a type of truth, but then truth is subject to human opinion. If truth is subjective to human opinion, then the new definition of truth can't be applied to the truth of the word of God. God's word is not subject to human opinion.

Personally I don't see any truth outside of the word of God. Everything else is human perception. 

I am really enjoying this discussion. Thank you for your patience in this matter. I can be very stubborn about things.


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## weinhold

Josh, I have to admit that I laughed out loud when I read of your experience with eagles. You certainly have a different understanding than Tennyson, one that I would say is informed more by the facts of your own experience with eagles than with their ontology, which is what I think Tennyson is trying to encounter in his poem. You see, I think that it is the factual perspective that science brings to eagles which prevents us from experiencing their majesty, nobility, grandeur, etc. If this is true of eagles, it is even more true of human beings, for we know all too well that the facts of humanity mitigate against any qualitative claim we might make for ourselves. But your perspective on eagles, however humorous, probably necessitates my picking another poem with which to make my point, and I am glad to do so, especially after enjoying a moment of levity.

Before I offer another poem, however, I should mention that you make a good point about truth. I should clarify that I do not believe that truth is subjective; the truth is one just as God is one. But saying 2+2=4 is a very different type of statement than Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro”:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

The first operates wholly within the abstractions of logic and arithmetic symbolism, while the other is analogical, forming a contemplative image through juxtaposition. Both are true, but they are very different modes of knowledge. Pound’s poem is a very simple simile, which we might simplify even further using the familiar SAT formula: “A is to B as C is to D,” (A:B::C: D)

Faces:Crowd:etals:Black Bough

So with Pound we gain a true statement, embodied within natural and cultural images and also embodied within language. 

So now here is another poem. It's one with numbers in it, but they don't operate like 2+2=4. Tell me what you think of it (anyone else feel free to join in as well). Aren't there truths in it that are not factual? 



> For the first twenty years, since yesterday
> I scarce believed thou couldst be gone away;
> For forty more I fed on favours past,
> And forty on hopes that thou wouldst they might last.
> Tears drown'd one hundred, and sighs blew out two;
> A thousand, I did neither think nor do,
> Or not divide, all being one thought of you.
> Or in a thousand more, forgot that too.
> Yet call not this long life; but think that I
> Am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die?



Looking forward to continuing our conversation, Josh.


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## weinhold

sastark said:


> I continue to enjoy this discussion immensely.



Seth, I was glad to read of our consensus about _Genesis_, and I am also continuing to enjoy the discussion.


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## gene_mingo

Sorry about the delay in my response. Things have been busy at my house.



> You certainly have a different understanding than Tennyson, one that I would say is informed more by the facts of your own experience with eagles than with their ontology, which is what I think Tennyson is trying to encounter in his poem.



My description of eagles is just as valid as Tennysons'. Ontology is based on personal experience. If you want I can write a short poem to address my point.. 



> the truth is one just as God is one.



There is only one truth as there is only one God. The truth only comes from God.



> But saying 2+2=4 is a very different type of statement than Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro”:



And yet neither of those are the truth. 2+2=4 is a factual statement, but not the truth. We should never look to math for the truth.
2+2=4.
2+2≄4.
Both the above statements are factual based on the mathematician's experience, but neither are the truth. Just as in poetry. It is a fact that the poem is a description of the writers experience, but it is not the truth.

I don't think that you can change my mind with any amount of poetry. Poetry is subjective to the authors personal experience. You might agree with the description of that experience, but agreement with a description of a experience is not the truth. 

Anyway,
sorry for the delay.

Josh


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## weinhold

Hey Josh, I'm glad we connected after a hiatus in the conversation. Unfortunately, my schedule will require yet another pause before I can post a response. This next few weeks is very stressful for me, since I am finishing up my graduate coursework and taking comprehensive exams. But stay tuned, brother, because I'd like to continue our conversation when all that is complete. Sorry for the delay; I wish I had more time! Thanks for your response, and I look forward to continuing the thread. ~PW


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