Does non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1 contradicts the bible further?

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Since most of people consider Genesis 1 to be non-literal, doesn’t it contradicts laws such as “rest on sunday” that God gives in the Exodus?
 
There are a number of theological issues that result from a non-literal or Old Earth interpretation of Genesis 1, to include the fact that it assumes that death is not the result of sin per Romans 5.
 
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Not really. Augustine and other Fathers of the Church didn’t treat Genesis as a blow by blow account.
 
Titas said:
Since most of people consider Genesis 1 to be non-literal, doesn’t it contradicts laws such as “rest on sunday” that God gives in the Exodus?
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No. The Bible is a collection of books. The fact that one book includes a particular genre of literature doesn’t imply that the others must necessarily only consist of that same genre.

Even within a single book, multiple genres are possible. (For instance, songs or poetry or legends within a greater narrative.)

Add to that the thought that Genesis itself is an amagalm of narratives, so we would expect that multiple genres would show up there.
 
Titas said:
Since most of people consider Genesis 1 to be non-literal, doesn’t it contradicts laws such as “rest on sunday” that God gives in the Exodus?
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Please define “literal” and “non-literal”.
 
Titas said:
Since most of people consider Genesis 1 to be non-literal, doesn’t it contradicts laws such as “rest on sunday” that God gives in the Exodus?
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Saying Genesis is non-literal is not equivalent to saying Genesis is nonsense.

When it says “God rested on the 7th day,” that means something. It just doesn’t literally mean “God rested on the 7th day.”

So the law about keeping the Sabbath holy in Exodus would derive from the symbolic, rather than the literal, meaning of God’s rest.
 
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That is not true for Catholics:

389 The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the “reverse side” of the Good News that Jesus is the Savior of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind of Christ,263 knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.

How to read the account of the fall

390 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 .264 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.265

So, Adam and Eve are real people, their sin (original sin) is the cause of the fall of mankind.

However a literal reading of seven 24 hour days causes a host of problems which are easily pointed out. Literalists for example believe “Yom” is a 24 hour day. However in Hebrew it has varied meanings.
  • Period of light (as contrasted with the period of darkness),
  • General term for time
  • Point of time
  • Sunrise
  • Sunset to next sunset
  • A year
  • Time period of unspecified length.
  • A long, but finite span of time: age, epoch, or season
For example: we determine a 24 hour day by the rotation of the earth, yet the sun (and moon) isn’t created until the 4th day.

God separated the waters from the waters with a dome, yet space as we know isn’t in fact an ocean. The earth also isn’t flat. Which day did God create man the third or the sixth day? And those are only a few of the problems with the literalist reading.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
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Just another sun and moon related issue. Genesis states God placed the sun and moon IN the firmament, not above it in the ocean above the dome. Which unfortunately for the literalist means the sun and moon are exactly 62 miles above the earth.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
Hodos said:
There are a number of theological issues that result from a non-literal or Old Earth interpretation of Genesis 1, to include the fact that it assumes that death is not the result of sin per Romans 5.
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When I took an old testament class in college, the professor suggested one way to resolve this potential issue could be that death in this part of the bible refers to spiritual death rather than the physical kind. He suggested that before the fall “death” for humans meant peacefully drifting from the mortal life into Heaven without fear or grief.

This is supported by scenes in the gospels where Christ promises His followers that they will not die but have life everlasting. Obviously all his followers experienced physical deaths, and sometimes painfully, so a literal interpretation is out.
 
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Death happened to animals. Our earthly lives weren’t meant to end that way. Immortality was what distinguished human bodies from the other animals. Theirs died. That’s the futility and decay God hardwired into creation. Romans 8. That’s why God made covers for us that were animal skin.
 
In Genesis when God says they shall die:

17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

The Hebrew is actually die die (twice) which indicates both physical and spiritual death. Which indicates that prior to that event they would experience neither.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
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The senses of Scripture

115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. the profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.
  1. the allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.84
  2. the moral sense. the events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.85
  3. the anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86
 
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Why does Genesis only have to be either literally or non-literally? To believe it is literally true doesn’t have to imply a denial of its allegorical truth as well.
 
BornInMarch said:
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Benadam:
Our earthly lives weren’t meant to end that way. Immortality was what distinguished human bodies from the other animals
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Any evidence for this claim?
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The Church teaches that Adam & Eve had preternatural gifts, among which was immortality.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
So the answer is No.
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The answer is “the evidence is the teaching of the Church.”

Are you looking for physical evidence of the original physical immortality of our first truly human parents? Good luck with that one…!
 
I’m affirming your position and you pull a Stephen A Smith and tell me “You’re wrong and here’s why.”
 
The evidence is Church teaching and Sacred Scriptures is that the kind of evidence you are looking for?
 
Yup. Human history begins after the fall. There are no remains unless we die. There is no past unless we die.
 
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