Do We Interprete genesis 1/2 as being Literal, Myth, or metaphorical then?

If it can be claimed Genesis 1 is merely poetic, the same cannot be said of Exodus 20:11 in any way, shape or form...


For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

...and Acts 4:24 is not poetic...

When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.

Conclusion: Genesis 1 and 2 are both to be taken literally and not poetically as has been suggested.

 

I agree that genesis has to be interpreted literally.

I agree it was real.

Metaphor is not the same as "not real". There are many metaphors used in the bible to describe real things.

Myth is not the same as "not real". That is a lay understanding of the term myth and as I stated, is not how I understand Gen 1+2.

To interpret literally and poetically are not mutually exclusive. To interpret the psalms literally is still interpreting poetically because the literary style of the psalm is a poem. Being poetry does not make something untrue or less true than non-poetry. It is just a different way to write literature.

 

There is a difference between interpreting the truth literally derived from poetic language and interpreting the poetic language as literal. I do not read the Psalms as literal language in the same way I do not read the creation account in Genesis as poetic. For instance God is described in the Psalms as a rock, sun, shield, fortress, high tower, a bird and a song. Clearly we do not take this literally, but the truth behind these phrases as literal.
In the same manner, we do not take "day" in the creation account and the rest of the wording describing it in the same way we do with the Psalms. The creation account is not poetic with underlying truths, it is literal truth meant to be taken literally as is evidenced by being referred back to in the law being given to the Israelites in Exodus.

 

Well for starters, what do you mean by literal?

Secondly, no, no it doesn't have to be interpreted literally. Significant church leaders since the earliest days of the Church haven't said this and have used various interpretative lenses to understand the content of the text.

You can have a literal Adam and still believe in a very old earth.

Why should we? The nature of biblical writing is different than present day expectations of a text.

My general focus in reading the text is to believe several things:
1. God (clearly) creates with age.
2. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden which has a different context than the rest of creation.
3. Recorded time only begins once Adam and Eve are out of the Garden.
4. Adam and Eve weren't created on day 6 and sinned on day 8
5. The creation of humanity in Genesis 1:1-2:3 is different than 2:4-2:25. This doesn't mean erroneous, but points out that the creation of mankind is from the macro perspective in the first account and the micro perspective in the second.
6. The creations accounts speak to different worldviews. They sound different in Hebrew. They use different language in Hebrew.

Oh yeah poetic doesn't equal myth. Hebraic poetry doesn't function like that.

 

Thanks Winman, this has really perked my interest; I've heard of this theory before but had never really checked into the hypothesis of "decay of c" until now. If true, it impacts nearly everything of what we think we know of our physical universe.

An article by Chuck Missler that I was able to follow:

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1999/225/print/

Excerpt from the above noted article:

"The Canadian mathematician, Alan Montgomery, has reported a computer analysis supporting the Setterfield/Norman results. His model indicates that the decay of velocity of light closely follows a cosecant-squared curve, and has been asymptotic since 1958. If he is correct, the speed of light was 10-30% faster in the time of Christ; twice as fast in the days of Solomon; four times as fast in the days of Abraham, and perhaps more than 10 million times faster prior to 3000 B.C."

Heheh, the possibility blows my mind.....

[edit] Another interesting thought from the same article:

"Some of us suspect that the ostensible decay of c, the slowing velocity of light, was one of the results of the upheavals of Genesis Chapter 3."

 

Well it shouldn't, because it's just not true. Quoting Alan Montgomery is like quoting Barry Setterfield. Both have zero credibility in this area. They are amateurs and have no serious experience in this arena. Besides Montgomery is a statistician and not an actual scientist.

Montgomery's use of selection data in his report is specious. Also, its not peer-reviewed (that does matter) and it has been widely debunked by those in the physics community, including Christians who work in the field. Also, he can't reasonably say that he has data from as far back as he suggests.

Here's Montgomery's original piece: http://ldolphin.org/cdkgal.html
Here's Montgomery's acadamic credentials: ____________ (oh, nevermind)


I say this not be condemning but because it is bad, bad argumentation on the part of these guys to pretend they've got actual science behind them. Christianity has the best answers and this kind of stuff makes us look terrible. It is ridiculous to believe them. We have better resources than this.

 

So Adam's sin or maybe Eve's deception is going to cause light to stop then time will be no more.

 

OK. Thanks pj. I am enjoying the mental stimulation though, it's a novel idea to me. I've been around too long to take something like this hook, line & sinker from the gitgo.

 

From BB 2003 (someone correct me if I'm wrong, Helen is Setterfield's wife):

http://www.baptistboard.com/archive/index.php/t-13461.html

[edit] full view:

http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=13461