For example Genesis 3:1-4
Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Eve ate and she did not die. Taking everything at face value the serpent told the truth, God lied.
Does this indicate to us that we are not to take Genesis literally?
Please forgive these somewhat ignorant questions
- In the statement “WW1 literally happened”, it would be better to say “WW1 really/actually happened” - this is the way in which “literally” is used in many questions, such as those about the Bl. Eucharist
- As applied to these, & many other, verses - the literal sense of the Biblical text is not the same thing as the actual reality of the thing named.
“Serpent” in the text is used in its everyday “dictionary sense”: the text is not a code, it is not a way of saying “gremlin”, “mousetrap”, or something equally remote from the meaning of the Hebrew word nachash.
That is the literal sense: in one sense
A clearer way to describe it, might be to speak of the
“proper” sense. - that is, what the word properly means, apart from contexts which build on its “proper sense”.
As to whether there was an actual reptile, endowed with the faculties of thought & speech, in an actual garden - this is a separate question. The narrative talks about a serpent - but it does not follow, that it is stating that the serpent, garden, & so on were as actually real as the defeat of Germany in WW1.
Which would seem to many people to be a denial of the literal sense of the text - because “literal” is understood to mean “actually existing”.
IOW - the fact that a word is used in its literal sense in a text (in the Bible or out of it) is not the same thing as asserting its actual existence within human history.
What is a dragon ? A large, ferocious beast, probably winged, definitely scaly, with a serpentine body, which is wise, benign (in China), malign (in a lot of other literature). IOW, the word “dragon” has an ascertainable sense - but it does not follow, that dragons ever actually existed. So knowing that a word is being used to mean a particular thing, is not the same as knowwing the thing is or was actually existent.
However, the non-existence of scaly, serpentine, etc., beasts called dragons, does not mean it is not possible to use the word in a
transferred sense - as when someone is called “an old dragon”. The phrase does not imply that the person referred to has a scaly body, claws, etc. - nor is understood as doing so. The reference is to the person’s attititude & manner, not the bodily form.The word** is used**
in the proper sense - the meaning
is a “transferred” one.
All understandings of words in texts
have to start with the “proper sense” of the words used. Unless we start by using nachash in its "
proper" sense, the rest of the text, however mythological it may be, can’t be understood. That is not at all the same as saying that the thing named by the word - i.e. the serpent - was a real being. Its reality is within the narrative in Gen.3 - not within history. What are all too real in history, are temptation, & sin: the form of the narrative is that of a myth - but the theological content, is no myth. Fortunately for us, neither is God.
Why is a myth used ? Perhaps a myth was the best way of conveying the truth God wished to reveal.
