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

[edwest2]

The Church teaches the moral unity of mankind, of mankind’s prior relationships with God and his creation, and of those relationships after man’s disobedience, of man’s subsequent history of disobedience, owing to his/her lack of integrity, and of the change in man’s relationship affected by the Incarnation, and what that entails for us all. Biology does confirm, at least hypothetically, that we are all the descendants of a single woman, which somewhat disproves the old notion of polygenism, which was formulated long before DNA is discovered, and which was based on population studies. One can, of course choose to speak of Genesis as presenting a creation “myth,” provided that one is also willing to speaking of a Darwinian “myth,” the thesis Darwin set down in His “Descent of Man.” However, we have a better idea of what Darwin had in mind when he sat down to write, and almost none at all of what “Moses” meant when he wrote Genesis. However, it is striking how different is the story in Genesis from the Egyptian or Mesopotamian or Greek myths. One might even say that he was in fact trying to demythologize the world view of the pagans, and present a radical new view.

“Genesis does not contain purified myths.” Pontifical Biblical Commission, 1909

ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=612633&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2008&Author=&Keyword=&pgnu=2&groupnum=26&record_bookmark=68&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ID+DESC&start_at=

Peace,
Ed

 

[patg]

“Genesis does not contain purified myths.” Pontifical Biblical Commission, 1909

I’ve always wondered what a “purified myth” is? I’m glad regular myths are OK because the church allows us to believe those are what make up much of Genesis.

I guess 100 years ago “purified myths” were not included in “other forms of discourse” or any "contemporary literary forms"?

For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture.

 

[edwest2]

I’ve always wondered what a “purified myth” is? I’m glad regular myths are OK because the church allows us to believe those are what make up much of Genesis.

I guess 100 years ago “purified myths” were not included in “other forms of discourse” or any "contemporary literary forms"?

For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture.

Could you provide a reference that backs up your statements?

Peace,
Ed

 

[patg]

Could you provide a reference that backs up your statements?

The quote from Dei Verbum at the end backs it up completely for me. That and the fact that there is no doctrine of Noah and the flood, the tower of Babel, Jonah and the fish, the talking snake, etc.

The stories of creation and the couple in the garden are myths by definition: imaginative stories that uses symbols to explore a realty beyond the author’s comprehension. Calling something a myth defines the literary form of the story, it does not indicate the truth of falsehood of the story. *

Dei Verbum* requires us to consider this literary form when doing scriptural analysis. Documents from the darker ages of Catholic scholarship (such as *Providentissimus Deus) *still maintained an unsophisticated understanding of "inerrancy;’ making no distinction between factual, historical issues in the Bible and religious or moral ones. Thankfully this has changed.

 

[Evan]

It would be unusual for a 1st century Jew to believe creation occurred 4000 years earlier. They all lived well before Bishop Ussher (4 Jan 1581 – 21 Mar 1656). He was a scholar who published a chronology that claimed the time and date of creation was on the night preceding Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC.

I have not seen any estimates before that time of when creation occurred.

 

[RobbyS]

“Genesis does not contain purified myths.” Pontifical Biblical Commission, 1909

ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=612633&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2008&Author=&Keyword=&pgnu=2&groupnum=26&record_bookmark=68&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ID+DESC&start_at=

Peace,
Ed

The Creator as presented in Genesis is nothing like the “process” contained in the mythological views of the surrounding peoples. So that is not what I am saying.

 

[gentle_atheist]

It would be unusual for a 1st century Jew to believe creation occurred 4000 years earlier.

This is the year 5772 in the Hebrew calendar. 5,772 years from what? From the creation of Adam.

 

[Evan]

This is the year 5772 in the Hebrew calendar. 5,772 years from what? From the creation of Adam.

and when did they start using this dating system for their years (from jewishgen.org/infofiles/tombstones.html).

Dates are written in Hebrew according to the Jewish calendar. This calendar, which starts its “year one” with the Creation of the World, was probably designed by the patriarch Hillel II in the fourth century. He calculated the age of the world by computing the literal ages of biblical characters and other events in the Bible, and came up with a calendar that begins 3760 years before the Christian calendar.

 

[gentle_atheist]

and when did they start using this dating system for their years (from jewishgen.org/infofiles/tombstones.html).

Dates are written in Hebrew according to the Jewish calendar. This calendar, which starts its “year one” with the Creation of the World, was probably designed by the patriarch Hillel II in the fourth century. He calculated the age of the world by computing the literal ages of biblical characters and other events in the Bible, and came up with a calendar that begins 3760 years before the Christian calendar.

So on what basis do you say in post #25: “It would be unusual for a 1st century Jew to believe creation occurred 4000 years earlier.”

Why would a 4th century Jew believe that creation occurred 4000 years earlier when it would be unusual for a 1st century Jew to believe so?

 

[RobbyS]

The quote from Dei Verbum at the end backs it up completely for me. That and the fact that there is no doctrine of Noah and the flood, the tower of Babel, Jonah and the fish, the talking snake, etc.

The stories of creation and the couple in the garden are myths by definition: imaginative stories that uses symbols to explore a realty beyond the author’s comprehension. Calling something a myth defines the literary form of the story, it does not indicate the truth of falsehood of the story. *

Dei Verbum* requires us to consider this literary form when doing scriptural analysis. Documents from the darker ages of Catholic scholarship (such as *Providentissimus Deus) *still maintained an unsophisticated understanding of "inerrancy;’ making no distinction between factual, historical issues in the Bible and religious or moral ones. Thankfully this has changed.

A myth in the sense that the modern science is a myth. The electron is certain a mythical being, because it manages to me in many places at the same time.

 

[edwest2]

The quote from Dei Verbum at the end backs it up completely for me. That and the fact that there is no doctrine of Noah and the flood, the tower of Babel, Jonah and the fish, the talking snake, etc.

The stories of creation and the couple in the garden are myths by definition: imaginative stories that uses symbols to explore a realty beyond the author’s comprehension. Calling something a myth defines the literary form of the story, it does not indicate the truth of falsehood of the story. *

Dei Verbum* requires us to consider this literary form when doing scriptural analysis. Documents from the darker ages of Catholic scholarship (such as *Providentissimus Deus) *still maintained an unsophisticated understanding of "inerrancy;’ making no distinction between factual, historical issues in the Bible and religious or moral ones. Thankfully this has changed.

So, we have the God who has no supernatural abilities whatsoever in the Old Testament. What is the origin of Original Sin? Why was Jesus born and why did He have to die and rise again on the third day?

"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).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

Source: Catholic Answers library

And who was Adam?

bible.cc/romans/5-12.htm

Peace,
Ed

 

[Evan]

So on what basis do you say in post #25: “It would be unusual for a 1st century Jew to believe creation occurred 4000 years earlier.”

Why would a 4th century Jew believe that creation occurred 4000 years earlier when it would be unusual for a 1st century Jew to believe so?

As is said in the quote you provided:

The patriarch Hillel II in the fourth century calculated the age of the world.

So, before the 4th century, the age of the world was not computed. The 1st century is before the 4th century.

 

[Roy5]

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.

 

[edwest2]

That is entirely contrary to what I was taught in Catholic school, mostly by nuns in the 1960s. It was all true. All of it. Adam, the Flood, Johah - all literally true.

And the Son of the same God raised the dead, commanded the wind and the waves to be still, gave sight to the blind, and let’s not forget the phrase “in fulfillment of the Scripture.” What Scripture? Only the Old Testament existed at the time.

Otherwise, let’s just write a book titled, The God Who Did Nothing - How Science Turns Everything in the Bible into Myths with lessons, like a children’s book.

Wake up, my fellow Catholics. Pope John Paul II is on his way to sainthood. He has one miracle attributed to his intercession. All that’s needed is one more. Or did miracles only happen 2,000 years ago?

peace,
Ed

 

[Publisher]

I think the evidence is clear that the world is older than 6000 years.

A Protestant friend pointed out the sun and moon were not created on the first day so our concept of time/day/year is not applicable at all to the Genesis account.

Were there early Chritians who did not take a literal interpretation of the creation story in terms of 6000 years? Also, how do Jews treat this account?

They very well may have…but then…they knew nothing of celestial mechanics, heliocentric solar system…any of the scientific theories available to us today…if they did…they were mistaken.

 

[RobbyS]

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.

Adams and Eve were innocent, IOW.

If you, ,personally, are standing on the earth, which first becomes evident to you? the sun and the moon. The stars are in the background.

Woman is Adam’s rib, very much a part of him.

 

[Evan]

The first 11 chapters of Genesis should be viewed for what they are: a series of ancient myths that should not be taken literally.
But this is no reason to toss out those myths entirely. Seen as fables with important moral lessons they can serve true religion well.

They should be seen as myths, not fables.

What myths do we have today.

1. Evolution of man from the lower animals. A theory, derived from the facts we have on hand. It accounts for much of what we see in the ground. It has many problems but there is a belief that we will eventually do away with the problems. There are no observations of time before man so it can never be verified. It is a myth (a story with some truth) and not a fable (a story made up to explain some idea (e.g. Aesop’s fables)
2. Subatomic particles. Noone will every see one, but we have a theory that is based on actions of invisible objects with given properties on other invisible objects. The results allow us to predict some things and these have turned out to be accurate predictions in many cases. But someday, there may be a new model that does even better at prediction and is much simpler. It’s an effective theory. Is it true? We will never know.
3. The big bang. Based on an assumption that laws in earlier ages of the universe are exactly the same as those we see here on earth. It also assumes they are the same in other places. We cannot verify this. We can only treat the assumptions as fact, see where they lead and tell a story about the beginning of the universe. We were not there and our present myths do not allow us to travel back in time.

These myths are accepted by the people of this day and we live our lives proclaiming their truth. There is certainly truth in them, but not every detail need be true. Any future myth will have to incorporate the parts of these that are true. Just as we incorporate the parts of the bible myths that are true: man began at one place and time, the universe began, floods happen over wide regions of land and people sin and die.

 

[RobbyS]

I’m tired of seeing the “they didn’t have our science back then.” The Bible does not tell us that “In ages long past, men looked like animals and lived like animals. But gradually, they changed, and after many more ages passed, they became the men you are today.”

No need for DNA, chemistry, physics, nothing, and the people would have understood this because it would be easy to grasp and because God, through the Holy Spirit, said so.

I think the question should be rephrased: Did God literally perform any miracles in the book of Genesis?

The Bible says that God formed man from the earth and then breathed life into him. Where evolutionists go wrong is trying to deny a relationship between the Creator and man. Genesis makes clear that God loved mankind; evolutionsts who deny God imply that we have made by forces that are indifferent to/hostile to us… They repeat the old myth that the world and all that is in it are the products of chaos, and mankind is but a slave to these forces. The existence of good gods in the various mythologies means they had concept of divine benevolence, but felt always at the mercy of those who hated them, or rather, we indifferent to their fates. This view is profoundly pessimistic. The modern view is to pretend that, use, there is radical evil in the world, but we have the power to eradicate it, to suppress the forces of chaos by an increase in knowledge. Thus science trends toward back toward magic.

Peace,
Ed

 

[RobbyS]

They should be seen as myths, not fables.

What myths do we have today.

1. Evolution of man from the lower animals. A theory, derived from the facts we have on hand. It accounts for much of what we see in the ground. It has many problems but there is a belief that we will eventually do away with the problems. There are no observations of time before man so it can never be verified. It is a myth (a story with some truth) and not a fable (a story made up to explain some idea (e.g. Aesop’s fables)
2. Subatomic particles. Noone will every see one, but we have a theory that is based on actions of invisible objects with given properties on other invisible objects. The results allow us to predict some things and these have turned out to be accurate predictions in many cases. But someday, there may be a new model that does even better at prediction and is much simpler. It’s an effective theory. Is it true? We will never know.
3. The big bang. Based on an assumption that laws in earlier ages of the universe are exactly the same as those we see here on earth. It also assumes they are the same in other places. We cannot verify this. We can only treat the assumptions as fact, see where they lead and tell a story about the beginning of the universe. We were not there and our present myths do not allow us to travel back in time.

These myths are accepted by the people of this day and we live our lives proclaiming their truth. There is certainly truth in them, but not every detail need be true. Any future myth will have to incorporate the parts of these that are true. Just as we incorporate the parts of the bible myths that are true: man began at one place and time, the universe began, floods happen over wide regions of land and people sin and die.

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.

 

[Uzziah1]

The Church teaching on this is found in Humani Generis, You may find this tract from Catholic Answers helpful. Here is an excerpt:

**"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).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).” **

I never liked the Humani Generis teaching, and I simply can’t believe it. It doesn’t actually deal with the logically-necessary corallary – that therefore, when God said to humans, “be fertile and multiply,” He was functionally commanding the first and second and third generations after the original two progenitors to engage in incestuous sex.

I have seen discussions here and elsewhere make up their own “theology” to explain the impossible-to-explain corallary – the first few generations after the two original progenitors “did not need” the incest prohibition" because they were “closer to God” – I THINK meaning, “not yet as scurrilous as the rest of us.” However, the Church never taught, “Original Sin got serious-er and serious-er with each generation.” It seems to clearly teach that the “bite” of Adam’s sin was precisely the same for ALL generations.

Also, Scripture itself seems to indicate that IMMEDIATELY protection of siblings against incest would have been necessary.

In Scripture, what is the FIRST thing Adam and Eve did after the Original Sin? Answer: Cover their personal regions. In Scripture, what is the sin in the SECOND generation described there? Murder of a sibling.

In other words, they weren’t “closer to God.” They were horrible.

They DRASTICALLY needed the incest taboo to protect the sexual security of the female siblings. If the children of the initial progenitors (a) suffered from weakened sexual control mechanisms like their parents, and (b) they could KILL their siblings, they were certainly potential RAPISTS.

I believe that the Adam and Eve story is just a hypothetical showing what mankind WOULD BE like IF grace were not available, I.e., Original Sin is the innate alienation from God whih results when an intellect and a free will is placed in mortal flesh without grace, so that grace generated by the suffering and death of a Messiah becomes necessary.