Adam and Eve...literal or allegorical?

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Xarto said:
I was told recently by a priest that the real miracle of the Loaves & Fishes was that people shared their food not that Jesus multiplied what they had. Personally I call BS in that.
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Yeah…and they didn’t have to share ,they had a ton of leftovers .
 
The Greek word was borrowed into Classical Latin as historia , meaning “investigation, inquiry, research, account, description, written account of past events, writing of history, historical narrative, recorded knowledge of past events, story, narrative”.
Wikipedia
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I do not know what you mean by history but this is the classical definition.

By this definition, the Adam and Eve stories are not history. If they do recount “historical facts” it is by some process outside the “powers and abilities” of the authors of scrpture…
 
My Two-Cents.

I don’t believe the Adam and Eve story should be accepted as historical fact; that is they were “hand made” by God and were the first humans on Earth.

First, there is a plethora of scientific evidence to suggest that some kind of human or human-like creatures on Earth millions of years before the book of Genesis would have taken place. Maybe Adam and Eve were the first recorded humans, but it makes no sense that they were the very first to exist.

Second, if Adam and Eve were indeed the first people on Earth, then all of mankind is descended of a couple who had two sons. Explain that.

-LS
 
However literally one takes Adam & Eve, I don’t think one can take the Fall any way but literally. I can only say that whoever did it and wherever/whenever they did it, something exactly like the Fall happened. And in every important respect, it might as well have happened as Genesis describes it. Trying to nail down the historical Adam, Eve, and Eden is a quibble at best.
 
I don’t understand what you mean. If I believe “the 6 days,” then I believe all of it, because that’s the hardest part.
 
So you accept the six days of creation literally? Which means you do not accept Genisis 2:4-9 literally? And you think the plants and trees grew without sun light?
What is important to take literally and what is not? How do you decide?

For example Augustine stated the days represented the points when God imparted the knowledge of His creation on the Angels. Do you think the days described are out 24 hour days, or do you allow for some other interpretation?
 
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Lost_Sheep said:
Second, if Adam and Eve were indeed the first people on Earth, then all of mankind is descended of a couple who had two sons. Explain that.
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Huh?
’ The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years; and he had other sons and daughters.’ - Genesis 5:4
 
this is why i say people should buy a hewbrew greek english bible

by the linguistics its metaphorical as the jewish theme of poems

a good example is judges chapter 4 is a historical account of the battle

and chapter 5 is a poet

the genesis creation is vague language and like judges charpter 5 it seems like a poet not a historical acount of creation
example yom means a lot of things so one cant say its a literal 24 day period

even Origen agreed that it was metaphorical, the genesis acount was a poem

so yes adam are eve are not literal
 
Dovekin said:
The Greek word was borrowed into Classical Latin as historia , meaning “investigation, inquiry, research, account, description, written account of past events, writing of history, historical narrative, recorded knowledge of past events, story, narrative”.
Wikipedia
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Two thoughts:
  • Wikipedia isn’t an authoritative reference.
  • If history is an “account, description, written account of past events” and “recorded knowledge of past events” and a “story, narrative”, then the narrative of Adam and Eve fits that bill. 😉
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“Gorgias said:
If history is an “account, description, written account of past events” and “recorded knowledge of past events” and a “story, narrative”, then the narrative of Adam and Eve fits that bill.
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Finally, you admit the possibility that history can be defined! You still seem squeamish about accepting a definition, but it is some progress.

Normally history is the result of an investigation or inquiry into what happened in the past, from ῐ̔στορέω , historéō, “I inquire”. That is not the case with the Adam and Eve stories. They are the result of philosophical reflection on what happened in the past, not an actual investigation of past events.
 
Dovekin said:
Normally history is the result of an investigation or inquiry into what happened in the past, from ῐ̔στορέω , historéō, “I inquire”. That is not the case with the Adam and Eve stories. They are the result of philosophical reflection on what happened in the past, not an actual investigation of past events.
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Ok, what about the “Historical” Jesus ?
 
There are over 200 verses in the Bible that are originally written in Aramaic. So there is a problem with people attempting their own translations without knowing Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew.

The spelling for a word can be the same in Aramaic and Biblical hebrew, but the word can be quite different,

Does this help us answer the question Are Adam and Eve literal or allegorical , it could if we had good knowledge of both languages and a few more ancient languages that give us clues as to customs and cultures of word usage.
 
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Dovekin said:
Finally, you admit the possibility that history can be defined! You still seem squeamish about accepting a definition, but it is some progress.
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Hang on a second, though: aren’t you moving the goalposts? You claimed that it had to be witnessed, didn’t you? The fact that it’s merely an account doesn’t mean that it was witnessed (if you take the counter-example of divine inspiration). Heck – you could even take the example of an indirect witness (such as scientists looking at rocks and surmising a flood or some other event). No one witnessed the event, but we could still write a historical account, no?
Dovekin said:
That is not the case with the Adam and Eve stories. They are the result of philosophical reflection on what happened in the past
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Umm… pardon? You seem to be saying that a person thought these up wholecloth, aside from any consideration of divine inspiration. Is that where you’re going?
 
Dovekin said:
If we say history is an account of reality that has happened in the past based on eyewitness observations. Adam and Eve etc. is not history in that sense. What is it then? It is a philosophical story based not on history, but on our human nature. It is not constrained by events that really happened but by the reality of our nature. You can make a case for this being based on a real universe, based on real people, but it is not obvious that it must be.
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This was my first remark on history. Eyewitness was imprecise, since I would include inference from evidence etc. but did not think detailing all that would be necessary. The object was to distinguish sources that can be investigated (history) from what cannot. It was what I intended all along, though I can understand if you did not follow he idea. My apologies for not expressing it more precisely.
Gorgias said:
You seem to be saying that a person thought these up wholecloth, aside from any consideration of divine inspiration. Is that where you’re going?
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Not at all. I am saying these stories were not written using the techniques of history, ie investigating evidence, weighing witness accounts etc. How were they written then? The point was to get to a discussion of inspiration and how that happens.
 
Techno2000 said:
Ok, what about the “Historical” Jesus ?
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What about him?

St Luke describes his process “I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you.” I assume he and the other evangelists used the techniques of history to write the gospels, along with other literary and theological techniques.

I suppose that St Luke justifies “investigating everything accurately anew” as biblical scholars try to do. There is a lot to look at in that respect.
 
Dovekin said:
It was what I intended all along, though I can understand if you did not follow he idea.
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I can follow the idea … I’m just not going to presume your argument for you. If you say “eyewitness”, I presume you mean “eyewitness”, not “eyewitnesses, inferences, other sources of info, etc”. 😉
 
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