Excellent comment, and I agree with it 100%!

I see your point. With regards to Genesis 1, I would have to read up on the other ancient cosmogenies. I suppose if they were sufficiently similar to Genesis 1 I would be tempted to say that Genesis 1 was aristic-literary polemical narrative. I would however stop short of saying myth because such terminology implies that the readership would have believed it to be literally true but now, we know better.

But with regards to the rest of Genesis, I would find it harder to take as not-literally-true. And yes, if the flood was not a literal event, the point remains the same. But judging by Peter’s use of the flood story, I honestly believe that he understands it to be literally true. Otherwise, should we believe that “the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly”?

About parables: in such cases, the parables are clearly delineated as such and I accept them as parables. But to start declaring to other parts of Scripture to be “parabolic” or “myth” is to enter into a realm which is very subjective and ultimately only stops where the interpreter wants it to stop. So some evangelical interpreters might be happy to stop at Genesis 1. Other more liberal scholars will be quite happy to be agnostic about nearly everything about the historical Jesus bar the fact that he existed.

My basic point is, if we accept something as myth, we need to have good reasons for doing so. What such “good reasons” are, I guess, is highly debatable.

I understand your concern and I agree with you. But my struggle is this:

How can we know we can read Genesis 1 the way we want it to be read if that is not the way the original author or audience would have read it?

And if we say, “They read it back then the way we read it now” again, I have to ask, “How do we know?”

Also, let’s assume for a minute that the flood is a myth. (I believe it actually happened, but let’s assume it’s a myth). If it is a myth, the point would still be the same, that God judges the wicked. If it turns out (may it never be!) that the flood is a historical myth, the fact that it would be an inspired myth does not change the bottom line point at all: God judges the wicked.

Do we say the truths of the parables are not true because the events in those stories didn’t actually happen? Are the truths of the Parable of the Prodigal Son not true unless the events of that parable actually occurred?

“Therefore, the question is not the degree to which Genesis conforms to what we would think is a proper description of origins. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of Genesis to expect it to answer questions generated by a modern worldview, such as whether the days were literal or figurative, or whether the days of creation can be lined up with modern science, or whether the flood was local or universal…. It is wholly incomprehensible to think that thousands of years ago God would have felt constrained to speak in a way that would be meaningful only to Westerners several thousand years later. To do so borders on modern, Western arrogance….To argue, as I am doing here, that such biblical stories as creation and the flood must be understood first and foremost in the ancient contexts, is nothing new. The point I would like to emphasize, however, is that such a firm grounding in ancient myth does not make Genesis less inspired; it is not a concession that we must put up with or an embarrassment to a sound doctrine of scripture. Quite to the contrary, such rootedness in the culture of the time is precisely what it means for God to speak to his people…. This is surely what it means for God to reveal himself to people - he accommodates, condescends, meets them where they are.”

I also think that every Scripture in some way points to Jesus. Jesus Himself said as much in John 5:39. So I love a Christocentric reading of Scripture. Dr. Johnson, who I had in class, talked about reading all Scripture with a “Christotelic” lens, which means that while it is not originally about Christ, we can look back over time and see how it all points to Christ.

I have a short-term memory issue - so it could have been just one reference that I thought that about.

It seems that we can be quick to say it’s not divine intent in the areas we don’t get or clearly see the intent of. So if it doesn’t make sense to me or fit into my theories, it must be human error screwing with God’s original intent - or we put the wrong books together or something?

I often think that Biblical “misinterpretation” is like progressive divine intent - giving what is needed at just the right time.

Many of the OT “Messianic” prophecies are in exactly the same category. We read “Jesus” back into them in a way the original author and audience would not have done.

Does this mean they cannot be used as prophecies about Jesus, or should we read “divine intent” into them?

It’s true that I have a lot of what ifs, etc. but most of that is in response to Andrew’s doubts about Genesis and his (IMO, invalid) misgivings about having those doubts. As far as what we can “know”or not, I was speaking about the events of pre-history. The mention of the events of Genesis by Peter is not enough to validate their truth and the reasonable doubt of its literal truth should not be grounds for tossing the whole bible out as nothing but a story. Once we move past Genesis, there are at least reasonable arguments to be made that the other events could have happened.

You’re right that one could theorize that the earth was populated by aliens. Indeed, some do, using the same supposed holes in our knowledge of evolution that proponents of ID use. But we have no more evidence of aliens than we do of a flood that covered the world or a tower reaching to heaven. I don’t “know” for certain that anything outside of my own thoughts is anything more than a delusion, although I certainly hope I could come up with a better delusion than the world we have! At the very least, I should be “someone important, like an actor.” In my particular delusion, though, there has been a lot of evidence that human beings, when presented with questions whose answers they cannot even begin to comprehend, let alone discover, tend to make something up.

If you believe absolutely that the events of creation happened exactly as they are presented in Genesis, then you and I have nothing more to discuss, as that opinion and mine are on different ideological planes. The central point of Jeremy’s post, however, was that it shouldn’t matter to us now if Genesis is literal fact or not. I agree. It doesn’t matter unless one wishes to present it as an alternative to the scientific explanation, for which we have more than enough evidence to convince reasonable people.

(I’ve used the term “reasonable” throughout this comment as opposed to “learned” or scientific, not as opposed to “stupid”. Felt that was an important point to make.)

Thanks for your comments. Your sense of humor makes me laugh.

You said,

I realize I’m combining a LOT of arguments, here. But it goes back to my central point. We can’t possibly KNOW what went on, but 1) we have tools to help us understand things the Hebrews couldn’t and 2)we understand human nature and so we can’t assume just because someone wrote it down that it’s true or if they didn’t it’s not.

I don’t know of anyone (but again, maybe I just don’t know them!) who thinks that every single thing that happened was written down in the Bible. John 20:30 makes that pretty clear.

But when you say that we can’t possibly “know” what went on in Bible times, what do you mean by “know”? I ask because I find that many skeptics/nonChristians tend to have a signficantly higher standard for “knowing” something happened in history than any historian. For that matter, I can’t even “know” for sure that we’re not really in a matrix right now. kwim? So you’re right, we can’t “know” for sure as much as we can know about things more recent. Nevertheless, we CAN do a pretty good job determining what is historical fact and what isn’t.

Nothing, especially history, can be proven absolutely. But many things can be proven satisfactorily. And the evidence I’ve seen for the Bible, Jesus, etc. is beyond satisfactory. You seem to have a lot of theories and maybes and what ifs. Those are all interesting, but if there’s no evidence for them, or the evidence is lacking or not as good as other evidence, why consider them? It’d be like me saying, “well, maybe aliens populated the earth, or maybe we came directly from frogs, or maybe we’re all in a matrix somewhere, …” Those are all “possibilities” because we can’t “know” for sure. But since they don’t really conform to the evidence we have, they’re just theories and aren’t considered seriously. The existence of possible theories doesn’t preclude us from determining that something is fact.

You’re definitely right about your second point above though. Just because something is written down does NOT automatically make it true, and just because it wasn’t written down doesn’t mean it’s not true. You are absolutely right.