First Three Chapters of Genesis: Literal or Figurative?

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Epistemes

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Was reading this article, and was startled to read this,

This teaching regarding the historicity of the Garden of Eden has been twice reinforced just in this past century. First, in 1909 the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which at that time had the power to bind the conscience of Catholics, decreed that it could not be taught that the first three chapters of Genesis were not true in the literal historical sense. Moreover, the Commission emphasized especially that the literal historical sense could not be impugned regarding Adam’s transgression of the divine commandment “through the devil’s persuasion under the guise of a serpent,” their motivation for doing so being to protect the integrity of the dogma of original sin. Second, in 1950 Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical entitled Humani Generis which denounces the ideas that Adam and Eve were not real, individual people, that there has ever existed any true human who was not descended from them, and that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are not history in a literal sense [9]. He also cited as one of his reasons for doing so the dogma of original sin. Hence, if anyone attempts to make an argument that the NAB does not contradict the Council of Trent, but simply interprets its references to Adam in a less than literal way, we have a response already prepared for ourselves: the Magisterium is the best interpreter of the Magisterium, and the Magisterium has solemnly decreed that when the Council of Trent says “Adam” it really means Adam, therefore this is the interpretation to which all Catholics are bound to adhere. Faithful Catholic exegetes have no such freedom as the NAB translators arrogate unto themselves.

Didn’t even St. Augustine acknowledge the figurative qualities of Genesis?
 
The Genesis creation accounts need not be taken as a literal account of what might have been literally observed were one there at the time. It does teach theological truths, though.

One might legitimately accept the hypothesis, for example, that the human material form of Adam and Eve’s body arose through some evolutionary method.

The doctrine of original sin, however, would seem to require that there was a literal pair of first parents. No matter how their bodies came about, they became truly human through the infusion of their souls, and that can only be done directly by God.
 
The Genesis accounts–there are actually two of them in parallel–of creation were in all probability always meant as edifying stories to make several important points, among which of course is that there is a creator God and that humans have a special and unique place in creation.

Nobody knows where the Old Testament begins to have traces of history: Abraham? Joseph? Moses? Elijah? Samuel? But it is not historical where it contradicts science. To my mind, our God-given ability to know so much about history over geological time trumps a story that if taken at the literal level presents a contradiction. The Church does not teach excatly what to believe about the Genesis account, but it does teach that religion and science supplement rather than contradict each other.
 
trth_skr said:
It requires a lot of faith today to even consider a literal interpretation of Genesis.
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jbuck919 said:
The Church does not teach excatly what to believe about the Genesis account, but it does teach that religion and science supplement rather than contradict each other.
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What bothers me about the author of this article, and the article itself, is that he uses Church organizations as weighty evidence to support his fundamentalist approach to Scripture, such as when he says

First, in 1909 the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which at that time had the power to bind the conscience of Catholics, decreed that it could not be taught that the first three chapters of Genesis were not true in the literal historical sense.

He makes the claim in such a way that the views of the PBC appear to be the views of the Magisterium, but if the Magisterium truly *does not *expound how Genesis is to be taken (either literal or figurative) (which I pray someone will verify for us all), then I find the credibility of this article, located on a Catholic Apologetics site, to be highly dubious.
 
trth_skr said:
We know who the “real” god is…😉 ,😉

Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
Scientism is a god. It fidgets in the modern pantheon because of the presence of the True God, who accepts no other gods.
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Please quote me in context. I did not say there was not edifiying and valid moral and theological teaching not to mention the foundations of religion in the scriptures in question, or that they trump science in that sense. I said that they cannot be literally historical because we know better thanks to a great gift from God. Ever heard of Galileo?
 
jbuck919 said:
Please quote me in context. I did not say there was not edifiying and valid moral and theological teaching not to mention the foundations of religion in the scriptures in question, or that they trump science in that sense. I said that they cannot be literally historical because we know better thanks to a great gift from God. Ever heard of Galileo?
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But if the Catholic always revises his or her understanding of Genesis based on scientific evidence, and out of sync with the Magisterium (whatever that is), then (for apologetics purposes alone, not considering matters of personal faith) how we can we be sure of any of Scripture?
 
Epistemes said:
But if the Catholic always revises his or her understanding of Genesis based on scientific evidence, and out of sync with the Magisterium (whatever that is), then (for apologetics purposes alone, not considering matters of personal faith) how we can we be sure of any of Scripture?
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Of course we are always revising our understanding of various portions of the Bible in terms of modern research–it should not be any other way. There’s lots and lots of text critical study that helps us make that discernment, albeit imperfectly. The Bible is not a uniform document, and your implied argument is precisely what Protestant fundamentalists use to justify literal interpretation.

Several references have been made to Pius XII. He also promulgated the encyclical Divino Afflante Spritu, one of several with which modern popes gave their blessing to modern biblical research. There was a teetering point where it would have been possible for Catholicism to be a fundamentalist religion, but several popes, all anti-modernists in every other respect, had enough sense (or guidance from the Holy Spirit) not to lead us down the road to a dangerous and permanent ignorance.
 
Both. It is a literal account that uses poetic, figurative language where the xcope is simply too big. But the account itself is accurate and should be believed even if we don’t have all the details. There is no reason to doubt it.
 
jbuck919 said:
The Genesis accounts–there are actually two of them in parallel–of creation were in all probability always meant as edifying stories to make several important points, among which of course is that there is a creator God and that humans have a special and unique place in creation.

Nobody knows where the Old Testament begins to have traces of history: Abraham? Joseph? Moses? Elijah? Samuel? But it is not historical where it contradicts science. To my mind, our God-given ability to know so much about history over geological time trumps a story that if taken at the literal level presents a contradiction. The Church does not teach excatly what to believe about the Genesis account, but it does teach that religion and science supplement rather than contradict each other.
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Revelation is not the slave of scientific theory. We should never alter our traditional, biblical understanding based on incomplete science that our great grandchildren will likely not even be close to completing. We take God at His word (understanding genres of course) and let science be judge by revelation and not the reverse. If you are going to judge the Bible the way the majority of Evolutionary science does, then you are obligated to become an atheist. Just there philosophies by the faith and not vice versa.
 
I am frankly shocked to encounter this extreme form of fundamentalism and geocentrism on this site. It is not characteristic of or even consistent with even conservative modern Catholic thinking and belongs with the flat earth and perpetual motion machines as the position of any person who does not wish to consider himself on some sort of lunatic fringe. Obviously, I’d better just stay away from threads like this. (Where are our moderators?)
 
Pontifical Biblical Commission, *Responsa de charactere historico trium priorum captium Geneseos, *June 30, 1909, AAS 1 (1909) 567-69:
Question: Whether all and each of the parts of these chapters [Genesis 1-3]–namely, the single words and phrases–must always and of necessity be taken in the literal sense so that one may never deviate from it, even when it is clear that the expressions are used figuratively, that is, either metaphorically or anthropologically, and when reason forbids us to hold, or necessity impels us to reject, the literal sense.
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Answer: Negative.
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Question: Whether, since in writing the first chapter of Genesis the sacred writer did not intend to teach in a scientific manner the innermost nature of visible things and the complete order of creation, but rather sought to provide people with a popular account–such as the common parlance of that age allowed–that was adapted to the intellectual capacities of his audience, we are strictly and always obliged, when interpreting these chapters, to look for the precision proper to scientific discourse.
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Answer. Negative.
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Question: Whether the word yo’m (“day”), which is used in the first chapter of Genesis to designate and distinguish the six days, may be taken either in the literal sense for a natural day, or in a figurative sense for a certain space of time, and so whether exegetes are free to debate this question.
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Answer: Affirmative.
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jbuck919 said:
I am frankly shocked to encounter this extreme form of fundamentalism and geocentrism on this site.
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Catholicism is a fundamentalist religion. Why do you think Catholics are so hated? Catholicism has yet to agree even on contraception. We still insist that the eucharist is the body and blood of Christ. We theoretically hold to tradition. This is fundamentalist. Don’t bandy about terms to try and win arguments.
jbuck919 said:
It is not characteristic of or even consistent with even conservative modern Catholic thinking and belongs with the flat earth and perpetual motion machines as the position of any person who does not wish to consider himself on some sort of lunatic fringe. Obviously, I’d better just stay away from threads like this. (Where are our moderators?)
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What are you afraid of? Truth?

Flat earth is a 19th century protestant invention- never supported by the Church (Lactinius, one of the fathers held it). Perpetual motion machines? Give me a break.

So, now truth goes not by Scriptures, tradition, the fathers, etc., but rather conservative modern Catholic thinking, eh? So, now it is modern opinion that dictates truth?

Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-actholic.blogspot.com
Scientism is a god. It fidgets in the modern pantheon because of the presence of the True God, who accepts no other gods.
 
dave:

Thanks so much for that. This is the opinion concerning Genesis which I was familiar with, and I have no idea from where this Catholic Apologetics site gets the notion that Genesis 1-3 must always be viewed in a completely literal sense, especially the Church permits theories of theistic evolution.
 
Pius XII in Humani Generis, refuted the thesis called polygenism: the theory that the human race has descended from two or more ancestral pairs of individuals. Instead, Catholic doctrine affirms monogenism: the teaching that the human race has descended from a single pair of individuals.

Part of the confusion may be the manner in which one is defining the “literal sense” of Scripture.

The literal sense , according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 116, 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.

One should not mistake the literal sense, as defined above, with the literalist (fundamentalist) sense, as they are not the same thing.

According to Divino Afflante Spiritu the search for the literal sense of Scripture is an essential task of exegesis and, in order to fulfill this task, it is necessary to determine the literary genre of texts. Fundamentalist (literalist) interpretation starts from the principle that the Bible should be read and interpreted literally in all its details. Clearly, this is contrary the Pontifical Biblical Commission under Pope St. Pius X, as well as the PBC’s latest document, *Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. *By “literal interpretation” Fundamentalists understand a l**iteralist interpretation, one which excludes every effort at understanding the Bible that takes account of its historical origins and development.

The Pontifical Biblical Commission under Joseph Cardinal Razinger affirmed:
Fundamentalism likewise tends to adopt very narrow points of view. It accepts the literal reality of an ancient, out-of-date cosmology simply because it is found expressed in the Bible; this blocks any dialogue with a broader way of seeing the relationship between culture and faith. Its relying upon a non-critical reading of certain texts of the Bible serves to reinforce political ideas and social attitudes that are marked by prejudices—racism, for example—quite contrary to the Christian Gospel.
(Interpretation of the Bible in the Church)
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itsjustdave1988 said:
Pius XII in Humani Generis, refuted the thesis called polygenism: the theory that the human race has descended from two or more ancestral pairs of individuals. Instead, Catholic doctrine affirms monogenism: the teaching that the human race has descended from a single pair of individuals.

Part of the confusion may be the manner in which one is defining the “literal sense” of Scripture.

The literal sense , according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 116, 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.

One should not mistake the literal sense, as defined above, with the literalist (fundamentalist) sense, as they are not the same thing.

According to Divino Afflante Spiritu the search for the literal sense of Scripture is an essential task of exegesis and, in order to fulfill this task, it is necessary to determine the literary genre of texts. Fundamentalist (literalist) interpretation starts from the principle that the Bible should be read and interpreted literally in all its details. Clearly, this is contrary the Pontifical Biblical Commission under Pope St. Pius X, as well as the PBC’s latest document, Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. By “literal interpretation” Fundamentalists understand a l**iteralist interpretation, one which excludes every effort at understanding the Bible that takes account of its historical origins and development.
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So am I to understand that when the author of this article claims that the PBC authorized all Catholics to understand Genesis 1-3 in the “literal historical sense,” that all Catholics should believe the message and etiological implications of Genesis 1-3, as pertaining to the cosmogony, Adam, Eve, and original sin, which is historical; or that Catholics should understand Genesis 1-3 as happening on a historical level, just as Scripture describes, allowing for the literal framework (Adam, Eve, original sin) to be introduced?

If the author of the article had just said that we are to understand Genesis 1-3 by its literal sense, I’d have less concern, but when he states we are to take it by its “literal historical sense,” it can’t help but make me wonder what sort of literalist we’re dealing with.
 
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jbuck919 said:
Of course we are always revising our understanding of various portions of the Bible in terms of modern research–it should not be any other way. There’s lots and lots of text critical study that helps us make that discernment, albeit imperfectly. The Bible is not a uniform document, and your implied argument is precisely what Protestant fundamentalists use to justify literal interpretation.
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**
jbuck919 said:
Several references have been made to Pius XII. He also promulgated the encyclical Divino Afflante Spritu, one of several with which modern popes gave their blessing to modern biblical research. There was a teetering point where it would have been possible for Catholicism to be a fundamentalist religion, but several popes, all anti-modernists in every other respect, had enough sense (or guidance from the Holy Spirit) not to lead us down the road to a dangerous and permanent ignorance.
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**## The problem here - or a problem - is that text critical study has a very bad name among many 😦 Fundamentalism (the Catholic sort) has the advantage over it of seeming to be justified by the texts, by the history of Biblical interpretation, & by the Magisterium - a “threefold cord not easily broken”: & the clincher that proves its badness is that it does cause (or occasion, or seem to cause) loss of faith. To build a case against it is the easiest thing in the world. All arguments to the contrary can seem to be clear evidence of heresy, “denying the supernatural”, disobedience, rationalism, impiety, disrespect for the Fathers or for Tradition generally, lack of faith, sophistry, giving scandal, or denial of Christ, “proving the Bible untrue”, anti-Catholicism, etc. **

**The Bible is easy to interpret in a Fundamentalist way - it looks unnatural, “subjective”, even dishonest, to deny that the Flood was universal, that Adam was as historical as Christ, that Isaiah wrote all 66 chapters of the book bearing his name, that Isaiah 7.14 is meant to predict the Incarnation, etc. ISTM that the Church is still partly Fundamentalist; that this may be a reason why there is suspicion of the clergy; & that there is no solution to the pastoral problems which arise; for those who are certain it is malign are not likely to want to find out about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it (has ?) caused a de facto schism. 😦 **
 
Epistemes said:
So am I to understand that when the author of this article claims that the PBC authorized all Catholics to understand Genesis 1-3 in the “literal historical sense,” that all Catholics should believe the message and etiological implications of Genesis 1-3, as pertaining to the cosmogony, Adam, Eve, and original sin, which is historical;
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Yes.
…or that Catholics should understand Genesis 1-3 as happening on a historical level, just as Scripture describes, allowing for the literal framework (Adam, Eve, original sin) to be introduced?
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I’m not sure I understand this second question.

However, according to Catholic doctrine, while not interpreted literal in all its detail, these three chapters of Genesis do indeed contain “a narrative which corresponds to objective reality and historical truth” and not “legends partly historical and partly fictitious” *Enchiridion Biblicum *325; Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum (1965) 3513]. Consequently, figurative language is used by the Sacred Author to convey narratives which, according to Catholic doctrine, do indeed pertain to real salvation history. This has been the constant teaching of the Catholic Church.

Consequently, we may not call into question the “literal and historical meaning” of facts narrated in these three chapters “which touch the fundamental teachings of the Christian religion, as, for example, the creation of all things which was accomplished by God at the beginning of time, the special creation of man, the formation of the first woman from man, the unity of the human race,” (EB 326; DS 3514)

Moreoever, Pius XII affirmed in Humani Generis,
“the first eleven chapters of Genesis, although, properly speaking, **not conforming to the historical method **used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do, nevertheless, pertain to history in a true sense, which, however, must be further studied and determined by exegetes; the same chapters, in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people”
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This remains authentic Catholic doctrine.
 
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