How lame can you get?! So the writer of the account of Noah’s Flood came up with all stuff about clean and unclean animals going into an ark made of gofer wood, tarring it inside and out, its precise dimensions, the precise chronological details of the events, etc, etc, for nothing, as they are completley irrelevant to your supposed “morality of man” interpretation.
Here is how the conversation went, post by post:
I reiterate that I am well aware that a few theolgians in the past and theovologians today interpret the six days of creation figuratively - but to my knowledge, no one has ever interpreted the “day(s)” in Genesis 1:14-18 figuratively. I would bet even Origen, who was obsessed with figuratively exegeses, would have interpreted Fen 1:14-18 literally.
Help me out here: why would he take seven pairs of clean animals, but only one pair of unclean animals? What’s an “unclean animal” as opposed to a “clean animal”, anyway?
I realize that, and that’s not what I asked you. So I’ll try again: How would Augustine have interpreted the “day(s)” in Genesis 1:14-18? How does that passage imake sense if the “day(s)” are not literal days but an instant in time?
One reason is that some of the clean animals were used in ritual sacrifices after the flood.
Leviticus 11 explains what are clean and unclean animals, but why God deemed them so, I don’t know.
So, given that Leviticus defined ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ animals, in the context of the Mosaic law, hundreds of years after Noah… how is it that Noah knew what would become ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’?
An interesting point that to me recalls the depth of meaning to be found in Genesis as a revelation of the Word of God from the beginning of the world. I don’t think it a stretch to consider how He clothed us in the sacrifice of the lamb at the beginning of our journey along the Way, as He does throughout to the end of our lives in Jesus Christ. Remember that Abel, the first born who sacrificed his unblemished lambs to God, was he himself sacrificed, killed by his brother as was Christ by His brothers.
Not a ritual sacrifice. But hey… nice try.
Which explains why God needed to tell Moses which were clean and unclean under the Mosaic covenant?
And, there we have it: for those who claim a strict literalistic approach, often the best explanation is “well, we don’t see it in Scripture… but God could have said it!”
A trivial matter, to be sure, but I didn’t say it was a ritual sacrifice.
Think of Leviticus as the official installing of God’s laws, many of which had already been practised by preceding generations.
Oh, dearie me; haven’t you anything better to spend your pocket money on than more tasteless bonbons from the Quote Mine? Your quote comes from a lecture about the Evolution of plants, and the opening sentence of the paragraph in which this sentence occurs is: “The theory of evolution is not merely the theory of the origin of species, but the only explanation of the fact that organisms can be classified into this hierarchy of natural affinity.” His lecture was a plea for the better understanding and conservation of rain-forests, so that evolutionary relationships, which in his field were indeed obscure when he gave the lecture nearly sixty years ago, could be clarified. By now they have been.
No, no, of course you didn’t:Gorgias:
A trivial matter, to be sure, but I didn’t say it was a ritual sacrifice.
Oh, it troubles me to read them, and I have trouble following your logic, but trust me… I understand (and disagree with) your arguments…
Shame. You already got it, twice.
You should read the Catechism. It affirms that Genesis 3 is written in figurative language, but in that allegory, describes something real. (Just as the creation accounts describe a real event in figurative ways).
Oh… so, all of that ritual animal sacrifice was a human invention, which God merely ratified in the Mosaic law? I would think that a strict literalist would believe it came from the mouth of God – and would be able to back that up with Scripture…?
Would you mind explaining it again, please? Your interrpetation must have got lost in the ether and thus never reached me. Thanks.
No,no; we have noticed this before. It is Creationists who are the ruthless control freaks and would-be restricters of free speech. Such is the inevitable attitude of the beleaguered minority who recognise the weakness of their cause. Evolutionists are gentle and tolerant and kind to kittens. We help Creationists across busy roads, when a Creationist would push an Evolutionist under a truck.