Did early Christians all take the 6000 years of Genesis literally?

[Evan]

When we look at the very small and the very large, we subatomic world and the cosmos, we plunge deeper into conjecture. Such looks confound our efforts to simplify. What you call myths are basically models which always seem to prove inadequate. We are torn between the idea that the mathematics we use are part of the fabric of things, or whether they are the creations of our minds. We always seem in danger of lapsing into the skepticism of the ancients. Some great shock may in fact cause us to do this.

myth n. 1) A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society:
2) A **popular belief **or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal.

fable n. A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans.
… [definition 3: A falsehood; a lie.]

So by definition 2, myth is a popular belief associated with the institution of science. As our scientific explanations change every century (remember Philostogen. Geocentricity. etc) I suspect a new and ‘better’ explanation will appear after I’m dead. The old theory still works, but it is always the case that the new theory has better explanitory powers.

The myth of Philostogen explained how we died in a coal mine accident and a fire died due to a surplus of Philostogen. Now we have a more unified theory (myth) of atomic nature that explains all chemical actions using the 100-200 atoms.

The myth of Geocentricity explained how the fixed stars the sun and the moon orbited the earth. We were able to explain the orbits of the Earth, Sun, Moon AND the planets with a myth of Heliocentric theory and Newton’s universal gravitation. But that too has fallen by the wayside. We now use the myth of Relativity for the most accurate results for orbital mechanics. And something will need to update it for the way galaxies retain their cohesion cannot be explained [unless you throw in a bunch of invisible stuff to add ‘gravity’ to the galaxy]

We are a society that likes to apply what we know to all time and space and then explain the what we know was always true. It’s that extrapolation beyond what we know to other things that I call myth. It’s not known and there is no way to ever know if it’s true. But we take great comfort in “knowing” as every civilization has take great comfort in their myths.

 

[RobbyS]

myth n. 1) A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society:
2) A **popular belief **or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal.

fable n. A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans.
… [definition 3: A falsehood; a lie.]

So by definition 2, myth is a popular belief associated with the institution of science. As our scientific explanations change every century (remember Philostogen. Geocentricity. etc) I suspect a new and ‘better’ explanation will appear after I’m dead. The old theory still works, but it is always the case that the new theory has better explanitory powers.

The myth of Philostogen explained how we died in a coal mine accident and a fire died due to a surplus of Philostogen. Now we have a more unified theory (myth) of atomic nature that explains all chemical actions using the 100-200 atoms.

The myth of Geocentricity explained how the fixed stars the sun and the moon orbited the earth. We were able to explain the orbits of the Earth, Sun, Moon AND the planets with a myth of Heliocentric theory and Newton’s universal gravitation. But that too has fallen by the wayside. We now use the myth of Relativity for the most accurate results for orbital mechanics. And something will need to update it for the way galaxies retain their cohesion cannot be explained [unless you throw in a bunch of invisible stuff to add ‘gravity’ to the galaxy]

We are a society that likes to apply what we know to all time and space and then explain the what we know was always true. It’s that extrapolation beyond what we know to other things that I call myth. It’s not known and there is no way to ever know if it’s true. But we take great comfort in “knowing” as every civilization has take great comfort in their myths.

When even educated people talk about atomic theory, they still tend to think as the ancients did about a swarm of tiny specks, with each speck resembling a small solar system, with the electrons as tiny planets orbiting the nucleus. That’s how the textbooks pictured the atoms as late as the 1960s. Of course, that is no longer the case. My favorite scientist is Richard Feynman. He got such good results because he always knew he was looking at a mystery, a puzzle, which he then used his bag of tricks to solve. The same instinct that led him to be a good safecracker and never to take himself seriously, nor anyone else. A great magician, if you will.

 

[edwest2]

The first 11 chapters of Genesis should be viewed for what they are: a series of ancient myths that should not be taken literally.

 So many facets to this question. Here are a very few.

 If we take Adam and Eve seriously, the first man and woman did not have the knowledge of good and evil, so how could they be punished for committing evil? After all, they were denied the right to eat from that very tree.

 The 'begats' listed in the Bible would suggest that Adam and Eve lived roughly 6000 years ago. This flies in the face of overwhelming evidence that humanity and human society go back many thousands of years before that.

 Gen. 1 seems to suggest that the sun and moon were created before the stars, which is almost certainly false.

  The whole story of woman being created out of man's rib offends science and common sense.

  The story of Noah is, in my view, an insult to God. Would God repent that He created humankind, then drown every living person and creature except a very few (e. g., Noah and family)? Were those children and babies (even in the womb) so guilty as to be drowned? Frankly, my loving, merciful, and forgiving God would never, ever do that.

  The Tower of Babel is a wild myth. Languages were created by God because man built a high tower into the heavens? Ridiculous. Our skyscrapers are many times as high, and we regard them as an achievement not a sin.

  And we could go on. I am disturbed that so many Catholic believe the unbelievable. Such teachings are one reason the Church has lost millions who want a reasonable faith and not one corrupted by mythology, false claims and superstitions.

  But this is no reason to toss out those myths entirely. Seen as fables with important moral lessons they can serve true religion well.

Then we have the God who did not actually intervene in human history or creation. These are not myths or fables or stories borrowed from other cultures, though other cultures may have written similar things based on incomplete knowledge.

I believe God can create in any way He chooses. I reject the random, unintelligent Creation that so-called modern man attributes to nothing. How many souls have been turned away from God because they have been taught His ability to work as He wishes is impossible?

Did Jesus Christ raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, give sight to the blind, and calm the wind and waves by commanding them to be still? Are we to believe God was powerless in the Old Testament?

Jesus refers to the Old Testament in a factual way as well.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Roy5]

Then we have the God who did not actually intervene in human history or creation. These are not myths or fables or stories borrowed from other cultures, though other cultures may have written similar things based on incomplete knowledge.

I believe God can create in any way He chooses. I reject the random, unintelligent Creation that so-called modern man attributes to nothing. How many souls have been turned away from God because they have been taught His ability to work as He wishes is impossible?

Did Jesus Christ raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, give sight to the blind, and calm the wind and waves by commanding them to be still? Are we to believe God was powerless in the Old Testament?

Jesus refers to the Old Testament in a factual way as well.

Peace,
Ed

I believe that God created this amazing universe and that the Lord also created humankind. How and when it all was done I don't claim to know. Evolution? Possibly. This in no way challenges the existence of God. It's simply that we're not God and there's a lot we don't know. I think it was Harry Emerson Fosdick who years ago said that "I can only believe in a God that I cannot understand." I agree. That makes God God.  

What troubles me is that Biblical fundamentalists - Catholics and Protestants both - mix truth with myth/legend/folklore. The Adam and Eve story is a noble attempt to answer an important question, but it is a fable developed before we had a decent telescope. Those ancient Hebrews knew nothing of the millions of stars, maybe even millions of solar systems, out there. When it rained, they believed (as in the Noah legend) that God literally opened the windows of heaven and poured forth the rain. 

 What most Christians need is a good course in the Bible that one can find at such top theological seminaries as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, etc. God certainly is not denied or denigrated. Personally, I think it is an affront to God to declare that - for example - he is loving, merciful and quick to forgive, yet believe that he drowned everybody or that he ordered Joshua to slay everyone in Jericho or that he sent Saul after the Amalekites with instructions to murder every Amalekite he could find. And what about II King 2:23-25. Check it out. Some kids teased Elisha about his bald head, so the prophet cursed them in the name of the Lord and two she-hears came out of the woods and mauled them. Can any 21th century thinker accept this as truth? No wonder more and more people seem to turn away from the Church if we insist upon believe such fairy tales. 

  Christianity needs to be intelligent, focusing upon the two principles central to the message of Jesus. When that lawyer asked him how to enter eternal life he replied: love God and love one another. Nothing about doctrine, ritual or church affiliation.

  Let us strive together to make Christianity a bridge and not a barrier.

 

[edwest2]

I believe that God created this amazing universe and that the Lord also created humankind. How and when it all was done I don’t claim to know. Evolution? Possibly. This in no way challenges the existence of God. It’s simply that we’re not God and there’s a lot we don’t know. I think it was Harry Emerson Fosdick who years ago said that “I can only believe in a God that I cannot understand.” I agree. That makes God God.

What troubles me is that Biblical fundamentalists - Catholics and Protestants both - mix truth with myth/legend/folklore. The Adam and Eve story is a noble attempt to answer an important question, but it is a fable developed before we had a decent telescope. Those ancient Hebrews knew nothing of the millions of stars, maybe even millions of solar systems, out there. When it rained, they believed (as in the Noah legend) that God literally opened the windows of heaven and poured forth the rain. 

<snip>
  Christianity needs to be intelligent, focusing upon the two principles central to the message of Jesus. When that lawyer asked him how to enter eternal life he replied: love God and love one another. Nothing about doctrine, ritual or church affiliation.

  Let us strive together to make Christianity a bridge and not a barrier.

What I see is an ongoing campaign to do wrong things.

Convince everyone that the Bible is not a science book. OK, got it. AND
Convince everyone that the Bible is directly connected to science, so called.

You cannot in any way, shape or form, say both things at the same time. They completely contradict each other.

Pope Benedict has warned against a vague spirituality. And the Church has taught specific things about specific parts of the Bible that are not optional. They make sense to the rational mind who understands that God has powers that God Himself has defined and openly demonstrated by Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus used zero science to perform miracles. THAT is what God can do. Man, by himself, without faith, CANNOT do these things.

There are attempts here to turn Sacred Scripture into a book of general guidelines to create a “one size fits all” picture of God. Does anyone even pay attention to the words said during the Mass after a Bible reading: “This is the Word of the Lord.”?

Get it straight, the following is what the Church teaches:

"Real History

"The argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.

"Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still records God’s work—things God really did.

"The Catechism explains that “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337), but “nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun” (CCC 338).

"It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

“In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).”

There are a lot of stars? So what? If you’ve ever been in the country on a cloudless night, you will see countless stars and even the Bible records the difference in the brightness of different stars. But focusing on that is like saying the following, and I mean no disrespect: “Science tells me your Bible is wrong, here, here and here.” OR “The people did not know what we know today.” No telescopes? So what?

Jesus Christ is God - who can do things science cannot do. Read about Lazarus who had died, who Jesus knew he had died, and waited to go to his tomb where he had laid long enough that he had begun to rot away and stink. He gave thanks to His Father and explicitly stated that what he was about to do was for those there to see and bear witness. He ordered the stone to be removed, and with a loud voice, said, “Lazarus! Come forth!” And Lazarus emerged from the tomb still wrapped up like a corpse.

We will never see a Catholic Church that does not preach the Gospel to all nations.

Peace,
Ed