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mark_a
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Dig city.
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Hananiah
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mark a:
Some related reading: rtforum.org/lt/lt73.html
The Church allows her exegetes some leeway in interpreting Genesis, but there are certain limits laid down by the Pontifical Biblical Commission and Pius XII which we cannot transgress. We are required to believe at minimum that Adam and Eve were real people, that they were the first true humans (hominids with immortal souls), that there has never existed a true human who was not descended from them, and that they literally transgressed the divine commandment through the devil’s persuasion under the guise of a serpent. We are also required to believe that the first 11 chapters of Genesis pertain to history in a true sense, though what that is is open to debate. Questions which are still open include whether yom (day) as used in Genesis 1 refers to 24 hour periods or some other amount of time and whether macro-evolution which took place before the creation of Adam produced the hominid body, which in the person of Adam was first inhabited by an immortal soul.
Some related reading: rtforum.org/lt/lt73.html
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Ghosty
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I think the best way to explain it is that truth refers to the substance of the story, while facts/literal refers to the details. In our society we often confuse the two, but even now we instinctively use them differently.
Here’s an example: I ran as fast as my legs could carry me down the stairs to open my presents on Christmas day.
Now this can be both true, and non-literal. It’s impossible to know if I was really running as fast as my legs could carry me, but the intent of the words was not to convey literal fact, but rather to describe that I was running very fast down the stairs. When we hear this in everyday speech, we don’t say “you’re lying,” because we understand the sentance as true. No where in common speech does truth always equal fact. In the above sentance I could have said “I sailed down the stairs” and the truth would be conveyed perfectly to a modern audience. Taken literally, that I used a boat to sail down the stairs, would actually make the story untrue. Literalism can actually falsify an otherwise true statement.
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knute
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Well, my only problem with taking the literal story and focusing on the meaning/lesson we are being taught, is that it seems very evident from reading the language of the writer (lists of names, ages, data etc) and the fact that he does not come out and say he is telling a parable as Christ does, but presents it as historical fact. Also, the interpretation of the Church (especially the Fathers) for 2,000 years has pretty much been that the details are literally true and historical. It is only in the 1800’s that anyone came up with the idea of “well, o.k. it looks like it didn’t, uh, exactly happen that way, so…it isn’t literally true, but still, it’s, uh, true.” Mythical stories just don’t edify my faith like fact does. Did Jesus rise from the dead or was it a story designed to tell us about our future resurrection? How can we say, "oh, no, Christ really did the things attributed to him, but the Old Testament is mostly “myth”? We don’t have much corroberative data from either time period, frankly.
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Tom
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Actually we have a lot of corroborative evidence from the time of Jesus, much of it non-Scriptural. The fact that many of the “original” Christians, the ones who actually experienced His life and miracles actually died as martyrs speaks to the authenticity of His resurrection. I doubt you would have gotten people to go to their deaths so readily had they known it was simply a parable.
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Ghosty
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Actually, it wasn’t until long after the time of Christ that Christians began to insist on literal readings of the Old Testament. Prior to that it was understood that many parts were figurative simply because of the language and culture they were from. In fact, the reason that the term “parable” is included in the NT is likely to make his sayings easier for those of non-Jewish cultures to understand when they were being taught from Scripture; Jews generally had a mode of language and understanding that didn’t regard the difference between literal and figurative to be important. Modern English sets the two as very distinct, which makes reading the Old Testament exceedingly difficult for us.
Thank goodness for the Magisterium!
Thank goodness for the Magisterium!
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knute
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Actually, from my reading (Jimmy Aiken wrote an article a few issues back in This Rock), it appears most church Fathers considered the Genesis account to be factual and literal. Now we are saying otherwise. How can we quote the Fathers when their words suit us, and say they were mistaken concerning Biblical exegesis?
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Ghosty
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Some thought it was literal, others thought not, but all thought it was true. Augustine certainly told people to study the sciences before making claims to Scripture’s factual nature, because science clearly demonstrated certain things to be allegorical.
That being said, it doesn’t matter what the Church Father’s thought about this or that, as they are not the infallible Magisterium. I’m not appealing to their authority, but simply using them to show that all Christians didn’t always take the Scriptures literally. Like I said, in the Semitic culture, the line between literal and figurative is less important because both are recognized as valid ways of conveying the truth. Why else would Jesus have spoken in parables so very often? The Western mindset is very literally minded, and we make infrequent use of parables except as amusing stories. Even when we read the writings of the Church Fathers we must be careful of this, because when they speak of something as being “absolutely true”, they aren’t necessarily saying that in our understanding of “absolutely factual”.
We have to understand that the Scriptures were not written for the modern Western mind, but rather for the ancient Semitic mind. Many people, and espescially the Church, are coming to this realization and stepping into the mindset of the Hebrews in order to read these sacred writings. Like I demonstrated, putting a literal reading on a figurative phrase can actually falsify it and ruin the meaning completely. Thankfully the Magisterium is protecting us from that error in reading.
That being said, it doesn’t matter what the Church Father’s thought about this or that, as they are not the infallible Magisterium. I’m not appealing to their authority, but simply using them to show that all Christians didn’t always take the Scriptures literally. Like I said, in the Semitic culture, the line between literal and figurative is less important because both are recognized as valid ways of conveying the truth. Why else would Jesus have spoken in parables so very often? The Western mindset is very literally minded, and we make infrequent use of parables except as amusing stories. Even when we read the writings of the Church Fathers we must be careful of this, because when they speak of something as being “absolutely true”, they aren’t necessarily saying that in our understanding of “absolutely factual”.
We have to understand that the Scriptures were not written for the modern Western mind, but rather for the ancient Semitic mind. Many people, and espescially the Church, are coming to this realization and stepping into the mindset of the Hebrews in order to read these sacred writings. Like I demonstrated, putting a literal reading on a figurative phrase can actually falsify it and ruin the meaning completely. Thankfully the Magisterium is protecting us from that error in reading.
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knute
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So, if the events detailed in the Old Testament didn’t happen but are merely tales getting at a truth, then God never really has intervened in history with Israel. He never made a covenant with Noah, never spoke with a man named Moses, never led the Israelites out of Egypt, etc. In what did the people have faith, if their Scriptures were all stories about what God woulda, coulda done? Christ said part of the reason he worked miracles was to testify to the fact that he was God so that the people might believe. Isn’t it just as possible that God worked the miraculous deeds attested in the Old Testament for the very same reasons Christ did? Why is it believable that Christ fed 5,000 people with a few fish but merely an “epic myth” that God parted the Red Sea?
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Huiou_Theou
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There are still nomadic people in the areas spoken of in Genesis and Exodus. It is interesting to note how their use of stores colors their ability to communicate with archaologists and others who use them as resources to find ancient sites.
When faced with a discovery, often their ignorance of ancient history will be filled in with modern day stories they have.
The archaologist has to determine what it is that is actually being described, and whether or not the site is worth visiting.
I tend to view Genesis in the same way. It isn’t that the story is a fiction, it is just that the language of the people who wrote it includes stories they were familiar with. It wasn’t written for US alone, but first and foremost for the people whos lives it affected back then.
The hebrew texts eventually were translated into greek (septuagint), and it is also interesting to note how the translators changed the text in certain places (most notably the ages that several figures bore children at, and certain obscure phrases).
(This type of change is not limited to Genesis, it also shows up in the psalms, etc).
Some of these changes look inexcusable at first sight, and yet the new testament Greek appears to quote from the Septuagint version in the very places where some of these changes were made.
This suggests, if you believe in the inspired nature of scripture, that the language of the scriptures can change to the point where the original writing was insufficient to transmit the truth to a younger people or (possibly), that the authorship of the scriptures was not finished until a much later date.
The bottom line is that to understand Genesis, a researcher has to understand alot about the environment of the people who wrote it. Although this is not impossible, it is often difficult.
When faced with a discovery, often their ignorance of ancient history will be filled in with modern day stories they have.
The archaologist has to determine what it is that is actually being described, and whether or not the site is worth visiting.
I tend to view Genesis in the same way. It isn’t that the story is a fiction, it is just that the language of the people who wrote it includes stories they were familiar with. It wasn’t written for US alone, but first and foremost for the people whos lives it affected back then.
The hebrew texts eventually were translated into greek (septuagint), and it is also interesting to note how the translators changed the text in certain places (most notably the ages that several figures bore children at, and certain obscure phrases).
(This type of change is not limited to Genesis, it also shows up in the psalms, etc).
Some of these changes look inexcusable at first sight, and yet the new testament Greek appears to quote from the Septuagint version in the very places where some of these changes were made.
This suggests, if you believe in the inspired nature of scripture, that the language of the scriptures can change to the point where the original writing was insufficient to transmit the truth to a younger people or (possibly), that the authorship of the scriptures was not finished until a much later date.
The bottom line is that to understand Genesis, a researcher has to understand alot about the environment of the people who wrote it. Although this is not impossible, it is often difficult.
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knute
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Huiou Theou:
I follow your reasoning until this part of your statement. What, exactly do you mean by this? Did it happen or didn’t it? If it didn’t, then we’re left with an inspired story which, for me, isn’t all that, um, inspiring, I guess. The stories make it seem as if God is actually intervening and acting on the lives of the people, like Jesus did. If Christ came telling parables without working miracles (including the resurrection), it isn’t as riveting.
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twf
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Knute: You should read the document from the Vatican II the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. It teaches us to interpret Scripture taking into account the genre that it was written as. If it is history, the document tells us, read it as history. There are many books of the OT written as history, and it is very misleading to suggest that we can interpret those history books differently. It makes my blood boil when Exodus is taken as a ‘myth’ when it is clearly written as a historical account…and there is actual evidence out there for it! Even with the Flood, the Church Fathers all accepted it, and so did the Church until very recently…and how do we explain that so many cultures around the world have their own versions of it? Even the Aztec have a myth of a man and woman who survive a great flood sent by the gods…and the Biammi of Papua New Ginea have a story that goes like this:
*At first the world was populated only by men.1 The first man2 in the world heard a small palm tree crying and crying. The man came to the small palm tree and it was put into his mind to begin to make a companion for himself. He took a knife3 and he carved the little palm tree into the shape of a woman.4 He carved all the woman’s organs,5 and then he breathed the breath of life6 into the nostrils that he had carved in the palm tree. The woman became alive. * (See answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v7n2_biami.asp, this is a quote)
These are just two examples…I understand that there are many more. Liberal scholarship has grown powerful in the Church, but we must be careful.
Oh, and Knute, we have MUCH evidence for the historical accuracy of the New Testament, of the Gospels that is…and of many OT accounts as well…but especially of the Gospels. I highly recommend the Protestant book The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel…he was once an athiest before he began his investigation into the historical reliability of the Gospels.
God bless,
Tyler
*At first the world was populated only by men.1 The first man2 in the world heard a small palm tree crying and crying. The man came to the small palm tree and it was put into his mind to begin to make a companion for himself. He took a knife3 and he carved the little palm tree into the shape of a woman.4 He carved all the woman’s organs,5 and then he breathed the breath of life6 into the nostrils that he had carved in the palm tree. The woman became alive. * (See answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v7n2_biami.asp, this is a quote)
These are just two examples…I understand that there are many more. Liberal scholarship has grown powerful in the Church, but we must be careful.
Oh, and Knute, we have MUCH evidence for the historical accuracy of the New Testament, of the Gospels that is…and of many OT accounts as well…but especially of the Gospels. I highly recommend the Protestant book The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel…he was once an athiest before he began his investigation into the historical reliability of the Gospels.
God bless,
Tyler
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Ghosty
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knute: You seem to have a hard time grasping the fact that an absolutely factual event can be described in a non-literal way, and I’m not sure why it’s so difficult. Just because the event is described figuratively does not mean the event didn’t happen, but rather that further translation needs to be applied beyond the literal meaning of the words.
A modern example of additional translation comes between Russian and English. The Russian word krasna means both red and beautiful. Simply replacing the word krasna with red when translating Russian to English is absolutely unacceptable because it can easily give a false reading of the Russian even though red is the literal translation. If I were to say “the sky is krasna”, would I be saying the sky is beautiful, or that the sky is red? Without context there would be absolutely no way of knowing. The same is true with entire phrases, as I demonstrated earlier with metaphors. We must understand, for example, that the phrase “forty days and forty nights” means both an exact period of time, and “a very long time”. If that phrase were to be hypothetically summed up with the term “upsom”, and I said “I walked for upsom”, would I be saying I walked for and exact period of time, or an indefinately long period? That’s the difficulty we face when reading works from other times and languages.
Language translation is not a perfect “a to b” correlation; grammer, syntax, tone, words, and everything else alters entirely between languages. The fact that we even have different languages demonstrates that humans have an incredible range for describing things. To put an “a to b” reading on Scripture can actually be an affront to God, and can completely distory the message, just as my krasna example demonstrates. It has nothing to do with saying the events in Scripture never happened, but rather determining how to actually read the description itself. Literal rendering is the *weakest, *and least true, form of translation.
A modern example of additional translation comes between Russian and English. The Russian word krasna means both red and beautiful. Simply replacing the word krasna with red when translating Russian to English is absolutely unacceptable because it can easily give a false reading of the Russian even though red is the literal translation. If I were to say “the sky is krasna”, would I be saying the sky is beautiful, or that the sky is red? Without context there would be absolutely no way of knowing. The same is true with entire phrases, as I demonstrated earlier with metaphors. We must understand, for example, that the phrase “forty days and forty nights” means both an exact period of time, and “a very long time”. If that phrase were to be hypothetically summed up with the term “upsom”, and I said “I walked for upsom”, would I be saying I walked for and exact period of time, or an indefinately long period? That’s the difficulty we face when reading works from other times and languages.
Language translation is not a perfect “a to b” correlation; grammer, syntax, tone, words, and everything else alters entirely between languages. The fact that we even have different languages demonstrates that humans have an incredible range for describing things. To put an “a to b” reading on Scripture can actually be an affront to God, and can completely distory the message, just as my krasna example demonstrates. It has nothing to do with saying the events in Scripture never happened, but rather determining how to actually read the description itself. Literal rendering is the *weakest, *and least true, form of translation.
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Steven_Merten
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If you put God under the same constraints of physical time that man is under, the story of Genisis is confusing because of our knowledge of carbon dating.
If you understand that time is the measure of change between mass, energy and empty space, as it is, then one can see that our Spiritual God is not under the constraint of physical time. Our Spiritual God created mass, energy and empty space from nothing and, the measure of their change, time, came into existance. In the same respect our Spiritual God will still exist after “the end of time”.
If you concider our Omni Powerful, Omni Present to all physical time, God molding all of past, present and future, mass, energy and empty space into place at a specific point, creation of a universe with billions of years of physical past, Spiritually created a few thousand years ago, comes into view.
Peace in Christ,
Steven Merten
www.ILOVEYOUGOD.com
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Daniel_Marsh
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I have pulled tires out of the lake before, that does not prove a whole bunch of cars was lost in it. It could be, someone lost a wheel while snowmobiling on the lake or maybe someone just through away junk.
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Aaron_I
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I accept that a lot of Genesis and Exodus are factual. David Rohl has brilliantly clarified the Egyptian chronology problem. However, there are parts of the OT that I consider to be non-literal.
Take the fleeing from Egypt example. I believe (though I don’t have evidence to cite) that there was historically a volcano eruption at the time. That provides for the hailstorm plague. Then when the Israelites fled across the Reed Sea (there is a Reed Sea in the area that could have been crossed; also keep in mind that the original text wouldn’t have had vowels rendering Reed and Red identical), a tsunami caused by the eruption destroyed the pursuing Egyptians. I should mention that the Reed Sea is more of a swamp and is crossable without a miracle. The volcano also explains the pillar of fire and pillar of smoke.
If the hypothesis I present is true, does that diminish the power of God? Hardly. What’s more impressive, God reacting to our needs on a whim, or God planning his actions from the beginning of time?
Take the fleeing from Egypt example. I believe (though I don’t have evidence to cite) that there was historically a volcano eruption at the time. That provides for the hailstorm plague. Then when the Israelites fled across the Reed Sea (there is a Reed Sea in the area that could have been crossed; also keep in mind that the original text wouldn’t have had vowels rendering Reed and Red identical), a tsunami caused by the eruption destroyed the pursuing Egyptians. I should mention that the Reed Sea is more of a swamp and is crossable without a miracle. The volcano also explains the pillar of fire and pillar of smoke.
If the hypothesis I present is true, does that diminish the power of God? Hardly. What’s more impressive, God reacting to our needs on a whim, or God planning his actions from the beginning of time?
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Melchior
Guest
It is merely poular revisionism. It is a theory propagated by biblical critics of the 20th cnetury. Genesis 1-11 is literal and literary. Meaning the events are real, the people are real even though it may not provide all the details like 20th century history text book. It is theory that people use to try and reconcile evolution with the Bible.
The vast majortiy of theologians for the past 2,000 years had no doubts that Genesis 1-11 was real history (not textbook history - but still real). In fact it is pretty shoddy literary scholarship to arbitrarily decide where a book switches genres. Especially because it is so unnatural to the actual text. If Noah was a myth so was Abraham. Jesus and Peter speak of Adam & Eve and Noah as historical firgures. That should settle it - unless one thinks the Gospels and Epistles are not factual either.
Mel
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anawim
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One example is the light created in Gen. 1:3, which is then separated from the darkness in verse 4. In Jewish Midrash, the light is said to be the angels, which are often described in Scripture as beings of light; and the separation of the light from the dark is the fallen angels being cast into hell.
The event is real, but it is couched in symbolic, allegorical language.
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Kristina_P
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I’m not sure anyone here is denying that God worked miracles in the Old Testament. Certainly, many parts of the Old Testament were written as history, although, like all written history, they might contain a few factual flaws (like the number of men in a battle or the exact number of years between events). It’s my opinion that the books of Exodus, Kings, and Chronicles (and parts of Genesis) were meant to be history. Some of the Old Testament, traditionally books like Esther and Job, were probably not written as history but rather as religious parables. Still other books were written as prophecy or as teaching proverbs or as mixes of two or more genres. I think what the posters on this thread are advising is for you to find out about the various genres and meanings of Scripture and to find out what the Church teaches about individual books.
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Petergee
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Aaron I.:
Just one teensy problem - the English language was not invented until over 2000 years later and in a country 5000 km away. The ancient Hebrew ( and ancient Egyptian) words for “red” and “reed” are, I’ll bet, nothing like each other.
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