Adam and Eve...literal or allegorical?

[Wesrock]

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.

I would, too.

 

[po18guy]

I believe the correct answer is “yes”

 

[Cruciferi]

the real miracle of the Loaves & Fishes was that people shared their food

As if God can’t multiply food

 

[goout]

literal or allegorical?
This is a false dichotomy. And it’s important to know how the Church uses these words, cause there are thousands of pages of circular discussion here between people who can’t make simple distinctions.

All of scripture it’s based in it’s literal sense. This literal sense is not what fundamentalists do in literalism. Literalism is a rigid ideology that distorts the literature in the bible and confines it to modern understandings of literature and words.

By literal sense, the CC does NOT mean rigidly scientific, and it does not mean rigidly historic. The literal sense of scripture is not a journalistic proof type of sense.
In the literal sense, the literature is taken as written without alteration. The words are explored in the context they were written in. The have an integrity that should not be violated or altered.

A passage of scripture can have, at the same time… this literal sense along with the spiritual sense, anagogical sense, moral sense, or allegorical sense. It’s not either/or literal or spiritual senses, it’s both/and.

The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a3.htm

And that’s why your title proposes a false dichotomy.

 

[goout]

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.

And at the same time… that can be a miraculous sense of this as well and is not “BS”.
Can we admit that God’s word is not limited to explicitly physical miracles, as awesome as those are?

 

[Xarto]

We can admit that but if we keep revisioning what were accepted as miracles at that time we will reduce Jesus to someone who was just an alright bloke but nothing special and not the son of God. The mass will become the “miracle” of people coming together to celebrate a meal and not the actual body and blood of Our Lord.

 

[goout]

We can admit that but if we keep revisioning what were accepted as miracles at that time we will reduce Jesus to someone who was just an alright bloke but nothing special and not the son of God. The mass will become the “miracle” of people coming together to celebrate a meal and not the actual body and blood of Our Lord.

Where does the Church propose that the multiplying of the loaves and the sharing of a meal are mutually exclusive, or where does the Church hold that if one sense of the events is appreciated, the other is automatically denigrated?

Can we use the principle of both/and? Christianity is essentially incarnational. Christ is both divine and human. We can speak about and appreciate both natures in different ways at different times. As long as we are not proposing these natures as exclusive of one another we are good. Same thing with so many other Christian elements, including scripture.

 

[Gorgias]

As an allegory, this story has no limits.

The problem here is that we’re talking about multiple stories, not just one. Namely:

• creation of the universe in six days
• creation of all the animals and of woman
• fall of Man

And, as if that weren’t enough, we’ve got the question of what is ‘real’ in figurative stories and what is not. Again:

• Are Adam and Eve real, literal humans?
• Is the talking snake real?
• Was there really an apple? (Or a fig, or whatever?)

On the face of it, these questions seem eminently sensible… until you realize what isn’t being asked:

• is the universe literal and real?

See what I mean? We’re looking at elements in figurative stories and making the (bad) assumption that, since these are figurative stories, then the elements in them are figurative, too. But, no one who would prefer not to get laughed out of the room would dare ask “but… the universe is in Genesis 1… is it real?”

So… why the presumption that Adam and Eve are not real, when we know – for a fact! – that there are real, literal ‘characters’ in the story of Genesis 1?

 

[Nelka]

Literal.

Xx

 

[Zaccheus]

Thank you for the information. People’s ages through me off when I’m reading the OT. I don’t understand how some people lived to be several hundred years old.

As I understand it, that was our normal life span. It became shorter over time, whether from natural causes or by Divine intervention.

 

[Dovekin]

We’re looking at elements in figurative stories and making the (bad) assumption that, since these are figurative stories, then the elements in them are figurative, too.

Yes, that is what I said. The line between real and allegorical is drawn in different places by different people. It is not a bad assumption to count the figures in a figurative story as figurative, it is required. It may be justified to conclude the figures are based on some historical persons, but that is not as simple as you portray it.

Try it this way. 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.

 

[tafan2]

But Genesis also says that the heavens and Earth was made in one day. Which is it?

 

[Nihilo]

Nihilo:

Adam and Eve and the whole universe were made in a week.

But Genesis also says that the heavens and Earth was made in one day. Which is it?

Not over 13 billion years.

 

[Gorgias]

It is not a bad assumption to count the figures in a figurative story as figurative, it is required.

“Representative”, perhaps, but not “figurative”.

It may be justified to conclude the figures are based on some historical persons, but that is not as simple as you portray it.

It’s neither as simple (or accurate!) to portray them as not being real.

Try it this way. 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?

Nope. Not the way the Church teaches it. Then again, if you constrain “real” (or “historical”) as merely “witnessed”, then you can get away with your characterization. I don’t think it’s a valid characterization, though.

 

[tafan2]

But if Genisis says it was created in 7 days, then says it was created in one day, it cannot as a whole, be a literal description of how God created the universe. It strongly implies the God is not immutable, but we know He is, it is difficult to read as a literal description of the means if creation. If it describes a universe that we know is not accurate, it again becomes difficult to read it as a precise description of how God created everything.

What parts do you consider accurate? Just the 6 days? Why?

 

[Dovekin]

if you constrain “real” (or “historical”) as merely “witnessed”, then you can get away with your characterization. I don’t think it’s a valid characterization, though.

Why not?

And what is the alternative?

 

[Gorgias]

Why not?

Is there anything you’ve ever done that wasn’t witnessed by anyone else? Does that make it any less ‘real’ or ‘historical’?

And what is the alternative?

In the present context? To realize – as the Church teaches – that there really were living, historical people to whom we give the names “Adam” and “Eve”.

To your other observation, I think I’d respond that this is inspired narrative. There are historical (i.e., ‘real’) elements to it, but it wasn’t an eyewitness account that brought this narrative to us. We definitely can tell history from other sources than eyewitness accounts!

 

[TheLittleLady]

44 paragraphs that every Catholic needs to study:

http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x...nts/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html

 

[Dovekin]

Is there anything you’ve ever done that wasn’t witnessed by anyone else? Does that make it any less ‘real’ or ‘historical’?

If something I have done was not witnessed by anyone, it is not “historical.” It might be real, depending on what real means. But memory is the basis of history.

I’d respond that this is inspired narrative. There are historical (i.e., ‘real’) elements to it, but it wasn’t an eyewitness account that brought this narrative to us. We definitely can tell history from other sources than eyewitness accounts!

I certainly agree it is inspired. I still do not know what you mean by history, and how you know there are “historical elements” to it. The Catholic notion is that

In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.
Dei Verbum 11

Somehow the author of Genesis knew about the historical elements in the Adam and Eve stories. How do you imagine he came to know about them? That determines the genre of the writing and how it needs to be interpreted.

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If you read @TheLittleLady’s recommendation, you get this rousing condemnation of polygenesis:
“it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled….” Not “Anathema!” Not overthrows the foundation of all truth and absolute law; nor repudiates all that is absolute, firm and immutable. It is not We pronounce, declare and define.

It is in no way apparent practically calls out for more reflection and consideration of the question.

 

[Gorgias]

If something I have done was not witnessed by anyone, it is not “historical.” It might be real, depending on what real means. But memory is the basis of history.

That’s an odd definition of ‘historical’. It’s only a historical reality if someone observes it? nah…

Somehow the author of Genesis knew about the historical elements in the Adam and Eve stories. How do you imagine he came to know about them?

We already identified it – divine inspiration. That doesn’t determine the literary genre, though. All of the Bible is divinely inspired, but the Bible contains a whole slew of genres: historical narrative, poetry, apocalyptic, pedagogical tales, etc, etc.