Dannii, I’m sure Moore College would give you full marks for your post. My highest mark was 51% from Moore and I bet the examiner is still doing penance.
The facts are that the Bible. is not necessary for faith in God. All Christians love and believe the Bible, but the Bible itself proves that you don’t need the Bible to believe. Simply because the Bible was written by very devout believers like Isaih and Job. They were inspired by God through the brains and genes God evolved in them. No other creation of God has this ability.
I find your statement ” death is the punishment for sin” very difficult to consume. It sounds very theological and of little use in spreading the faith, which is what I am interested in. Most people I know do not live on a precipice of surrender to sin. They are too busy, do not have the resources or desire for “sin” in the popular definition.
If people are Christian , they will,IMO, be OK with the idea that Christ died for our sins. Its all about CONNECTION.
I don’t think you’re correct there Doug. For example, Job said a whole lot of quite wrong things, and it was only when God spoke directly to him that the full truth came out. In any case, inspiration comes from God’s spirit… otherwise we would all be prophesying God’s word with those brains and genes we all have!
The Bible is not necessary for faith, though knowing the message it teaches is!
I do not believe the faith you are interested in spreading is either true, worth spreading or attractive to non-believers.
People need to trust in Jesus, and to do that they must have a need for him. That need is caused by their sin. All people need Jesus because they are in rebellion against God, and could even be called his enemies. That is not a theological or complicated or foreign definion of sin. It is a very straightforward and confronting definition that all people will understand. Most people will sadly not accept with it though, and that is because they are in denial and have told themselves that God thinks they are 100% awesome. But they are not.
Dannii, I’m sure Moore College would give you full marks for your post. My highest mark was 51% from Moore and I bet the examiner is still doing penance.
The facts are that the Bible. is not necessary for faith in God. All Christians love and believe the Bible, but the Bible itself proves that you don’t need the Bible to believe. Simply because the Bible was written by very devout believers like Isaih and Job. They were inspired by God through the brains and genes God evolved in them. No other creation of God has this ability.
I find your statement ” death is the punishment for sin” very difficult to consume. It sounds very theological and of little use in spreading the faith, which is what I am interested in. Most people I know do not live on a precipice of surrender to sin. They are too busy, do not have the resources or desire for “sin” in the popular definition.
If people are Christian , they will,IMO, be OK with the idea that Christ died for our sins. Its all about CONNECTION.
Doug
Many are denied the Bible in this world and they can come to Christ through the Lord divinely revealing Himself to them. However, God has given us His Word, the Bible which is for us to share with others so they can know about Him and His Truth. His Word is also divinely given to is for our own edification, so we can know Him and to share with others.
Your denial of God’s Word to us (the Bible)as being necessary for Believers/Christians, is a rejection of God Himself. Yes that is right. If you reject the Bible you reject God’s Truth, Jesus Christ and therefor God. You can’t be a Christian without holding God’s Word (the Bible) as spiritual food required for your spiritual life. Without eating Christ’s flesh and drinking Christ’s blood you are spiriutally dead.
The Word of God or the Bible is Jesus Christ Himself and we are told we must eat of it to have Spiritual Life to be saved, given eternal life.
Not holding any value of the Bible is denying God/Christ. So are you are “Born Again” believer? If you are then you should desire to abide in Christ and to do that you need to desire His Word.
JN 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
JN 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
JN 6:43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: `They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
If you understood the Bible when you read it and I hope you go back and read it again. Your flesh is corrupted by Sin. You can’t trust your mind or your genes for they are part of your flesh which actually leads you in rebellion against God. That is why you need the be spiritually ‘born again’ for it is your spirit only that can obey and follow God. It is your spirit that communicates with God not your carnal corrupt mind or genes.
RO 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. 10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. 12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together
Milica, I have no idea why my post has caused you to make so much accusation and grief. Perhaps it is always so with Prespyters. As I said in my post, I think all Christians love and believe the Bible. The trouble of course is in the interpretation and who is desperate to use the Bible as the moral high ground. You quote John and his oft quoted verses re the “word”.
None of the other Gospels or letters mention the ‘word” in the same vein ie as a means of totalitatian submission. Take James for instance 1:16-22. James uses the word “word” several times, but in a differen way i believe. “by his own will he brought us into being through the word of truth” James 2:18.
James is full of stern advice on just about everything. It is the result of inspiration given by God to his chosen one in the real world, - the WORLD created by God . The Bible on the other hand is inspired by God and obviously has its use limited by the time frame in which it was written.
No Doug, the world has a limited use because it has been completely and thoroughly corrupted by sin. The wisdom of the world is foolishness to God.
The Bible however is always helpful. As Hebrews 4:12 says “For the word of God is alive and powerful.” This refers both to the-word-become-flesh Jesus and the written word in the Bible.
Hey Doug, what do you think about Dawkins? He’s a very smart man, with a sharp brain and genes at least as good as any of the rest of us. And what’s more, he’s probably using those brains a great deal more than most anyone else. Is he also inspired by God?
Dannii, Yes I think also that Dawkins is a smart man, a bit of a front runner who has never had that jolt in his life where he was able to reveiw things, meditate, chew the cud etc. I hope one day he will and realise that he and humanity needs God. Then he will be inspired by God.But God"s world is all about balance and beauty in the eyes of the beholder. Look around and see around and you will feel in your body. The Bible will inspire you also.
If you don’t understand why I so vehemently uphold God’s Word as absolute truth I can’t explain it to you. Ony the Holy Spirit can reveal it to you.
Meanwhile what in the world is a “Prespyters”. I was raised Serbian Orthodox and I came to Christ through an American Evangelical Group with Pentecostal leanings. I have not really studied any Church doctrine in depth just enough to understand the difference between Orthodoxy and basic Protestant. One thing I’ve learned over the years man’s doctrines really don’t fully reflect God’s Word. The Bible is always the best source for coming to learn and know about God and His Truth.
If you dismiss His Word as not relevant that is your choice but I think you are missing out on what is described as more precious than gold or the most precious earthly treasure.
PS 19:9 The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever.
The ordinances of the LORD are sure
and altogether righteous.
PS 19:10 They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the comb.
PS 19:11 By them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
Milica Appologies for misspeling PRESBYTER—A person in some Preaching role such as Rector. I can’t understand how you decide that I ‘dismiss the Bible as not relevant” when I in fact am trying to do just the opposite.I want to make the Bible MORE relevant by putting it in context, interpretation etc. I could easily say that you want to idolise the Bible, but that would be mischievious and irrelevant.
Returning to this post, I just thought I might add how I see creationism/evolution related to Scripture.
Almost all the world of science accepts evolution and the geological age of the earth as billions of years old. Life on earth is billions and millions of years old according to fossils found in layers of rock very deep down in the earth.
Fossils of animals that have been discovered indicate that species change over time, and evolved into modern species we see today.
But, I sincerely believe in the God who made the universe, and made us in His image.
So my belief , based on what I perceive as two facts, lead me to believe that God would have used Evolution to produce mankind. I can see no other solution to my dilemma.
I don’t believe that my understanding of the World contradicts what was probably an allegorical story of Creation. Genesis 1-11 is a story written for the benefit of God’s people, as well as for the nations surrounding them. Theologists say Genesis was written to say to these nations that the true and living God has a certain nature, and that He is superior to their gods and pagan beliefs.
It is only a history. science book etc for those who havnt dug deeper into the intentions of the writer(s).
Doug why should we believe that you take the Bible seriously when you are always saying we shouldn’t rely on it and instead should use our genes for inspiration/hearing God’s message?
Ken, almost all of the world (not just scientists) also believe that they are generally pretty decent people. They believe they have free will and are in charge of their lives. They believe that God is not filled with anger at their sin and rejection of him. Why not also be wrong about the history of the world?
Do you understand evolution? It is a theory about genetics. Fossils can tell us nothing about genetics, only physiology. They cannot even tell us if two fossils were at one time related. Nor do the fossils show changes of increasing biodiversity, how could they? No, we know life and species changes because we can observe it today from living things, but we don’t observe new novel functionality being developed by random mutation. Without new functionality being introduced all that selection can do is decrease biodiversity.
But back to the real issue. Is death the punishment for sin? If God used evolution to produce mankind it cannot be. And if that is the case then we have no need of a savior.
Ken, what you are suggesting (the polemic idea) doesn’t seem to make sense to me. The best way to refute the lies about false gods is to tell lies about the living God? No! The best way to refute the false gods is to tell the full and real truth!
dannii, I agree a lot with your faith ideas. (But, you have made some illogical arguments with irrelevant connections in them.)
I really think we need to seperate our faith in God with other known facts that that great bogey man, Science, has discovered.
How do you seperate the different scientific discoveries into the two camps - the Goat and the Sheep Science, so to speak?
Do you not believe in the laws of Physics or the makeup of the solar system, like the Catholics of the middle ages did? How do you discriminate?
I feel some people like to read the Bible literally througout, where many parts were never meant to be read in that manner. Leading theologians do not read Genesis literally like you propose. Leading theologians say it was written at a certain time for a certain purpose and that purpose was not what you propose. Early listeners to the tale; from both Jew and Gentile would not have believed it literally.
I believe in the power of the scientific method, with its repetition of experiments to refine theories and models. It is a method that can access the present alone, not the past or the future. We of course can only experiment in the present. So we observe and experiment on fossils. Sometimes we’ll even observe fossils being produced. But it is completely impossible the observe to creation of a fossil we dig up out of the ground. It is impossible to use the scientific method to observe, experiment or analyse a fossil’s creation.
To develop theories about that fossil’s origins you must then leave science. Sometimes our non-scientific theories and models about the past are good. Most forensic science is like that. But the assumptions that go towards long ages and evolution assume that if there is a god, that god does not intervene in the world. And assumptions like that are incompatible with Christianity!
Where have I proposed reading the Bible literally??? No we must read it with a lot of careful thought about genre and figurative language etc. Gen 1 uses some very interesting stylistic structures. But I believe that at the core of it, Genesis 1 is still history. It is a record of how God made the universe. As such it tells us why God made us, and what role we have in the universe. It tells us the false gods are false. But if it wasn’t history it couldn’t do that. If God didn’t make us specially in his image from nothing but dirt, but instead made us through death from non-human apes, how are we made in the image of God? We’re not. If there was not at one time a man who was perfect who then sinned and was punished with death, how is death a punishment for sin? If death is no punishment then why would Jesus die to destroy the power of death?
You haven’t answered my question: do you believe death is the punishment for sin?
Hi all,
according to the theological giant J.I.Packer most modern bible believing reformed evangelical scholars of repute hold that much of the first part of Genesis is simply figurative. No, it’s not a poem as Milicia points out, but a highly metaphorical framework of thought both rebuking the ancient heretical creation narratives and is simply NOT meant to have modern day scientific questions thrust on it. http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/media/audio/creation_evolution_problems/
It is a panoramic view of the world and how things fit together. The birds are in the sky, the sun and moon are in the heavens, and God feeds the people and animals with vegetation at the base of the food chain. It’s good.
Also good is Wehnam’s commentary’s on Genesis for a very detailed analysis.
One HAS to deal with the way it was received AT THE TIME, or one is simply going to read OUR issues all over the passage. Christians have known for a LONG time that Genesis had a lot of figurative language in the early chapters. It’s only since the rise of evolution that some have sadly started to impose questions on the passage that just are not legitimate, and thus side track our understanding of Genesis and create an obstacle on which many are shipwrecked.
Also interesting on reconciling questions of death before the fall and other perceived theological issues with evolution, see
Dannii “Death as a punishment for sin ” is none of our business I believe. The Genesis word “image” and your interpretation of the word seems to be at the bottom of your question. The foundation of Christianity is IMO when the Jews decided, from the inspiration of God given genes, that one undefinable God was to be the basis of their faith. Therefore I interpret “image” in the Genesis creation story as meaning “design”. It follows that we cannot give God a mind, a gender and no complicating issues by personnifying God.
Jesus many times used similes, metaphors etc to get his message across. I think it is insolent of us to try to get into the “design” of God. That’s why I think ” Death is a punisment for sin ” is too complicated an idea. Christ died for our sins is just the result of Adam’s fall into sin.
A complicating issue is the role of women, the heart and soul of the church, have in the story. Men may be the hieracy of the church, but they are not the heart and soul, IMO. Can’t blame men. Afterall most people are brought up with “mother knows best” as their guide.
If you have ever watched young girls play, the “queen bee” of the group will determine the “make believe” or reality game and if any other girl does’t follow, she is out, out ,out—
Boys are more individualistic and fantisise about different things. I think the latter is a reason why science and reason have such a hard time getting a mention by many theologians in the church.
Doug, I just don’t understand what you are saying. If you want to continue this discussion, and I would like that, please explain yourself more, and please reference the Bible (or if you don’t think the Bible is a decent source of authority, at least some other form of authority.)
Hi Dannii,
there’s a few takes on death I’ve met recently.
1. Handbook of Christian Apologetics on animal death: (Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli)
Animals must die in a finite world. That is, animals + breeding = death necessary in a finite world. They didn’t spell it out but it is obvious. Even if the world were only 8000 years old, rabbits would probably now be greater in mass than the entire solar system if they kept breeding at an exponential rate! So in the ‘traditional’ (rather Pollyanna) view of a pre-fall *world*, if there was no animal death the YECer has to explain how they’d still be the animals they are if they all magically stopped ‘breeding’ as the food / space / resources ran out.
2. Ecclesiastes
The rhythms and seasons and times that make this ‘fleeting world’ so mysterious at times are described by Ecclesiastes as the gifts of a good God. The round and round nature of the earthly cycles are pre-fall, as described in the figurative framework story of the 1st chapter. Seasons are declared GOOD, but are part of the cyclical nature of this universe. Ecclesiastes picks up on that in a BIG way, and while I haven’t researched it I wonder if there are implications for our views of animal death here.
3. The garden of Eden was special.
The man from the earth was taken to a special place to work it. There was a Tree of Life. Once mankind fell, there is a sense that we are kicked back out into the world of weeds and toil and death. An angel with a flaming sword, a great flaming wall, conjuring images of hell already, stands there barring the way back in. There are suddenly other people and cities. So as Michael Jensen suggests, maybe the Garden was picture language for a special place where the first truly human people could have lived forever in God’s presence, eating from this “tree of life”, and all the genetic muck from evolution, all the *potential* for death & disease etc, were “put on hold” just as Jesus raised Lazarus back into his normal mortal body.
4. JI Packer says there is a growing evangelical theistic evolutionary consensus. After a period of evolution, God “wakes us up” to Himself and ourselves in relationship to him.
5. “The sting of death is sin”. If your view was correct, and we die PHYSICALLY as a result of sin, why doesn’t the verse read “The sting of SIN is DEATH!”
I am tempted to go with the Michael Jensen view of the *potential* for eternal life in “Eden” walking with God, and that sin mucked it up, but many other Christian readers are staring to read the Pauline passages and Genesis passage as “spiritual death” and that is where the podcast above is worth listening to. Dennis Alexander goes over his spiritual death position a little on this podcast. Discussion starts after about 15 minutes of intro and letter reading. http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid=〝AFF277;-FBE0-4CAD-AE38-AF114E861BFA}
6. The view is that Adam was a “Federal head” of humanity just as Christ can be a “second Federal head” of humanity.
7. Were pre- “Homo Sapiens Sapiens Divinus” “sinning” in the evolutionary story? Did they murder and war and steal up until a point where they are suddenly “aware of the Divine” and sinless, and then rebel against all that and return to life just as it had always been? There’s an interesting discussion about original sin at the following link but right now I’ll give Dennis’s answer from the podcast above. It is about relationship, our relationship with God. Whatever the “pre-humans” may have done, once we were aware of God we were fully human, no matter how closely the first “homo-Divinus” group resembled their parents etc. This is not shocking as today we see Christians and non-Christians walking around looking similar, and yet one group is spiritually alive and another spiritually dead, at least according to the bible. http://evanevodialogue.blogspot.com/2008/10/evolution-and-original-sin-series.html
My understanding at this stage, and I have to do much more reading, is that once we became aware of God and lived in that close relationship with him, I’m thinking our ‘natural urges’ would have been subjected to divine will, but that there was no sin in the world yet because anything prior would have been down to ‘natural urges’. They may have looked rather uncultured, and unsophisticated but in their hearts they were unbelievably different to us as they had not yet broken that vital relationship with God. Then they sin, and it’s WORSE than before when they were just acting ‘naturally’, far worse as they now have rebellion against God plugging into all that ‘natural baggage’ so to speak, and purposely perverting it into even worse stuff.
These are models only. Ultimately if God has given us clear theology through figurative language that doesn’t tell us all the “hows” but mainly tells us the “whys” then we’ll just have to be happy with that and trust the very clear theology that we get from early Genesis which is:
1. God made the world good, with natural rhythms we pretty much see today. Night, day, seasons, etc.
2. Some of the first humans lived in a special garden and special relationship with God.
3. When they rebelled, they were kicked out of the special garden and life became far worse, and we were to return to the dust. Adam’s name even means dust, and when God breathes into him the divine enters. It is ripe language for the JI Packer model!
4. We need saving from our sin, and should be looking forward in the bible for the serpent crusher.
Instead, too many Christians want to debate something I just can’t see the bible saying, and that is spelling out the “hows” of creation. I don’t think we are told!
Hmm interesting Dave, thanks. 1 & 2 definitely deserve more thought, but I’m pretty much unconvinced by the other points.
I agree with you that the Bible tells us the “whys” of creation, and that it is the most important aspect of those early chapters. But I think it also tells us the “hows” too! I can’t remember you ever explaining why you think the text can’t have multiple aims and accomplish multiple goals. Why do you think that?
It’s not me, but the theologians and historians I read, that are convinced the early readers simply did not associate this as a “how we got here” story so much as a “who we are” story. EG: Babylonians celebrated Marduk who destroyed the older gods and conquered Tiamet and separated out the remains of her body to set the waters in their places. Our God just speaks and it happens, isn’t our God amazing!
I asked John Dickson and a panel at SMBC recently, and he simply said that the early readers would have been very puzzled by today’s debates, with all our emphasis on “how did this work” etc. Anyway, as we are studying Genesis in church at the moment I think I’m going to have to buy Wenham’s commentary on Genesis 1-15. He has some really cool stuff to say about the style of writing, etc.
A detailed fixation on the “Hows” in the passage reduces it to a bizarre and arbitrary sequence of events by a god who can’t seem to just will all of creation into being in a nano-second. Reading it through the cultural lenses of the time as both a framework narrative on which later commands hang, and as a theological rebuke to the surrounding nations, is far more compelling and realistic of what was happening at the time.
Sure that leaves us with all sorts of questions about how. What about the Aboriginals? Were “Adam’s” parents around, and what would they have experienced? Is early Genesis *more* figurative than we imagine? What to make of various literary forms in Genesis right up to Genesis 11 (or so I hear Wenham sees a distinction in the forms). But I’m not that conversant in those articles, and am no Moore graduate or theologian.
One thing I will note is how interesting it is in Galations 4 where Paul is happy to take later parts of Genesis and just say they are allegorical or figurative, however that might be the “multiple” meanings you refer to. I don’t know, and am not bothered.
What I am amazed at is that anyone who has read the Enuma Elish and other narratives of the time could not see Genesis 1 as a clarion call against the ancient world’s theology! It mirrors those tablets, but reflects back at them their own stupidity! So it rebukes them. Genesis 2 then totally re-writes Genesis 1 from a different angle with its own internal dialogue and rationale, and none of the creationist arguments to try to defend this ‘rewritting’ of Genesis 1 convince me. The CREATIONIST is the one who insists we read the plain meaning of the text, and then the CREATIONIST is the one who dances around insisting Genesis 2 is NOT contradicting the plain reading of the text of Genesis 1, which it clearly is. So which is it? The plain reading of the text or not? WAS Adam created on day 6 after the vegetation, or was he created from the dust before there was any vegetation? I’m reading it plainly in this regard and cannot see how they fit together. And the Creationist dance begins…. “But this was answered 1000 years ago and is easy to get around…” well, maybe, but it is not OBVIOUS from the plain reading of the text, which seems to be the way the Creationist wants all of scripture to be.
Yet 8 years before Darwin published, the Enuma Elish was discovered. The enlightenment had developed further advances in literary analysis. The years of reacting to the ascetic heresy in 500 AD were over. We knew God’s material universe to be good without having to over-react to asceticism by reading the first chapters in a literalistic manner, and new cultural material had arrived just in time, in God’s providence, to help us see Genesis in a manner more accurate to the time. The core theology hasn’t changed, indeed if anything it has been clarified and improved. God made the world, made it good, we sinned and wrecked our special place in God’s plans, we suffered ‘death’ as a result (whether the focus is on spiritual or physical or both). For all this debate over the mechanisms, the outcomes theologically are exactly the same. Perspicuity stands.
Maybe I’m reading too much into the flow of history, but it almost seems like God allowed us to find the Enuma Elish just when we were ready to analyse it and make sense of it, and prepare us for even fresher insights into His sometimes surprising Word!
How can we know for sure that when the first audience of Genesis read it, they wouldn’t have thought “oh, so when Adam was made there were no other humans.” You seem to be saying that we know for certain they did not. Honestly your position seems rather arrogant.
I am NOT suggesting a ‘detailed fixiation on the “hows”’! I am suggesting that it tells us the hows in broad strokes with simple unscientific language. And how can it be more realistic for God to make the first humans out of dust when in reality he made them form other hominids?! Wouldn’t it be both more realistic and glorifying to God to say something like
And God said “Let there be humans!” And there was, and it was good. But God could not relate with these humans, for they did not have a spirit. And so God breathed into them his spirit and they became aware of God, and it was very good.
And then Romans or Hebrews or somewhere would of course point out how our first becoming aware of God was something God had to do for us, for humans were never originally made like that.
So you believe that when God breathed into Adam and made him alive, that really means that God made him spiritually alive and aware of him?
2. What does Adam mean? What is the name for the ‘dust/ground’ that “adam” is made from? God breathes into the dust and makes it alive, and then if “adam” sins, he returns to that dust. “Adam” sounds like the Hebrew word for dust. The whole passage is FULL of subtle word plays we miss in the English. Check your NIV footnotes etc.
3. I currently haven’t even thought of the Aboriginals here for 40,000 years in Australia, the “Adam” figure relating to his parents, or whether the whole story is figurative for something else. The fundamental theology doesn’t change though.
4. Paul uses parts of Galations very figuratively, but I’ll have to study this further to see what it all means.
21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born as the result of human effort, [e] but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.
24 I am taking these things figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written:
“Be glad, barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
shout for joy and cry aloud,
you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband.” [f]
28 Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 At that time the son born by human effort persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30 But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” [g] 31 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
I take it Paul is not challenging the actual events here! So this passage is probably NOT some sort of proof that the whole of Genesis is a metaphor. I’m not saying that, and neither are the people I’m reading. But if you read the John Dickson PDF he says:
With the rise of literary criticism modern biblical scholars have begun to appreciate the importance of genre for interpreting ancient texts. When you and I pick up the daily newspaper we have no problem moving from news-report, to editorial, to satire, to TV guide, to comics, and so on. We don’t need a heading which says: ‘Now for a work of satire’. We all just understand the literary forms and read the relevant pieces appropriately.
Ancient people operated in much the same way. Within the Bible alone we can discern not only poetry and prose but also legal formula, historical report, parable, aphorism, prophecy, creed, hymn, epistle, homily and apocalyptic.
The language in early Genesis seems clearly picture language to people like Packer, even to the point of the devil being like the evil serpent, a metaphor for things we loathe and disgust. He suggests that if we were hovering over the scene of the fall things may not have actually looked as presented in the bible… may or may not, the emphasis in the passage is figurative theology, not dictatorial recount. It seems we need to learn to read!
This is a rather emotional piece Dannii. Tone it down if you want people to engage with you. These are smart, cutting edge theologians, giants in the evangelical world, and you calling their ideas “pathetic” is itself pathetic. Where’s your Phd in Hebrew or OT theology? Please calm down, you’re as bad as me (in some former overpopulation and peak oil threads. ;-)
“It even loses its strength as a polemic, both in ancient times and now (for how can it be one, when it agrees in every detail with the theories of the day?)”
Your statement here shows you’re still reading Genesis as discussing the mechanistic devices, the “how”. No Dannii, it’s the WHY that is totally different. Who cares if God was using their understanding of the cosmology or view of the universe to explain theological truths, it is the THEOLOGICAL bombshell that was the real shock to the ancient world.
As to your reading of the Hebrew words to find the concept of “homo divinus”, well, nice distraction and strawman but that is not how the argument goes and I’m sorry if I misrepresented Packer’s arguments. I haven’t yet read Stott’s argument.
But the thing is you’re straining at gnats to disprove elephants. Genesis 1-3 has a particular argument to make as God’s word with God’s concerns. Evolution and science have another argument to make as the “book of God’s WORKS” (not God’s words). I take it the discussion Stott and Packer, amongst many others, are having is more in the “theological model” frame of thinking. The place of the first “divinely aware” human/s in the biblical narrative is to answer certain concerns of the passage, the place of Stott’s model is to answer certain theological and moral questions in the framework of science and history.
I think the theological bombshell is that God is ordered, and his creation is ordered. God is good, and his creation is good! God makes humans to relate to him, and he makes them special, they’re “in his image”. They have authority of all the world, second only to God.
But that’s not how the readers, or us, see the world. We see a painful world where we struggle to get by, not one where we are supreme over creation, prosperous and happy. The explanation is that humanity brought this upon itself, through the deliberate sin of the first humans.
But that’s not all, God isn’t happy to leave it that way. While he must be just, he is also merciful, and gives warmth to the humans. This clothing, produced by the shedding of blood, is expanded on through the rest of the Bible until we get to Jesus, the final sacrifice, the ultimate lamb to shield us, hide our side and keep us warm and safe.
That is the WHY of Genesis 1-3. It is also the HOW.
And yeah, it was passionate. But I don’t care what their credentials are when they’re not engaging with the text. Where is the discussion over the Hebrew words used? (I’m about to listen to Packer’s talk again now. If it does discuss the Hebrew, apologies.)
[ Edited: 03 September 2009 02:42 PM by Dannii Willis]
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