Genesis/Literal Interpretation

[Rogerteder]

QUESTION; I think it is safe to say that those Catholics who believe in evolution DO NOT take the creation accounts literally. Here is a quote from Leo XIII imploring us to take the literal sense of scripture unless there is clear evidence in the text not to.

" But he must not on that account consider that it is forbidden, when just cause exists, to push inquiry and exposition beyond what the Fathers have done; provided he carefully observes the rule so wisely laid down by St. Augustine-not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires;(40) a rule to which it is the more necessary to adhere strictly in these times, when the thirst for novelty and unrestrained freedom of thought make the danger of error most real and proximate. Neither should those passages be neglected which the Fathers have understood in an allegorical or figurative sense, more especially when such interpretation is justified by the literal, and when it rests on the authority of many. For this method of interpretation has been received by the Church from the Apostles, and has been approved by her own practice, as the holy Liturgy attests; although it is true that the holy Fathers did not thereby pretend directly to demonstrate dogmas of faith, but used it as a means of promoting virtue and piety, such as, by their own experience, they knew to be most valuable. The authority of other Catholic interpreters is not so great; but the study of Scripture has always continued to advance in the Church, and, therefore, these commentaries also have their own honourable place, and are serviceable in many ways for the refutation of assailants and the explanation of difficulties."

Here is my question–what in the text of Genesis (creation accounts) points to a symbolic interpretation? Please answer this in regards to the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of Fathers understood Genesis literally.

 

[tobinatorstark]

I for one take the creation described in Genesis literally. I reject evolution, darwinism all that other junk. God has passed down his word over the years, we dare not reject it. Being a Catholic I accept the teachings of the Church along with Scripture. I have always been taught to believe in creation. God continues to reveal himself to us more and more each day. There are things were aren’t to know just yet are meant to never know. He did however, want us to know how man was created and he does a perfect job of describing it.

 

[rossum]

Here is my question–what in the text of Genesis (creation accounts) points to a symbolic interpretation? Please answer this in regards to the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of Fathers understood Genesis literally.

I am not Christian so you may ignore my comments if you wish.

The Jewish day is defined as lasting from sunset to sunset. As you correctly pointed out, not all the ECFs understood Genesis literally:“What intelligent person will suppose that there was a first, a second and a third day, that there was evening and morning without the existence of the sun and moon and stars?” - Origen
How can there be a day (sunset to sunset) if there is no sun? This is a good indication that “day” is not to be taken literally here. It is also worth pointing out that Saint Augustine thought that 144 hours was far too long, and said creation was instantaneous. Again not a literal interpretation.

In Genesis 1 we are told that the order of creation was plants, animals then man (and presumably woman). In Genesis 2 we are told that the order of creation was man, plants, animals, woman. This is a good indication that we are not to take the details of the story too literally. Does the story of the Prodigal Son lose its impact if we discover that there never were actually any such people as Hiram K Prodigal of Main Street, Nineveh and his son Wayne Z Prodigal, address unknown?

Jesus did not interpret Genesis literally. He said “But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.” [Mark 10:6] On a literal interpretation of Genesis this is wrong twice over, firstly because Adam (and presumably Eve) were made some time during day six, between 132 and 144 hours after the beginning and secondly with Eve being made after Adam, there was a time when there was male and not female. If Jesus did not interpret Genesis literally then it is surely allowed for others not to interpret it literally.

Although not strictly part of Genesis, there are passages in the Bible that are not obviously flagged as non-literal but are nevertheless agreed by all Christians not to be taken literally. An example is: “And he answering, said: I was not sent but to the sheep, that are lost of the house of Israel.” [Matthew 15:24] Does any Christian interpret this literally, that Jesus only saves sheep and not humans? Yet this passage is not flagged as a parable. Given that the Bible contains some non-literal passages that are not obviously flagged as non-literal then it is allowable that there are other such passages elsewhere.

rossum

 

[Ferrero_Rocher]

Genesis was given to Moses by God, right?

So, it should be considered prophecy shouldn’t it, since obviously Moses did not have a first hand account?

And doesn’t prophecy very often have the characteristics of being like a riddle?

 

[ziapueblo]

Genesis 1:1-2:15 is not meant to be a religion vs. science debate. Doing so imposes our historical situation and misses the literary clues that explain to us the religious meanings the story had to ancient Israel.

Days 1-3, God created realms (1-day and night, 2-sky and sea, 3-land and vegetation). Days 4-6, He created rulers for these realms (1-sun, moon, and stars, 2-birds and fish, 3-man and beasts). God rests on the seventh day because the seventh days seals God’s covenant with His creation. The Hebrew word for taking or swearing an oath means “to seven oneself.” By creating the in seven days, God creates the world in a covenant relationship with Him.

For ancient Israel, the Sabbath Part and parcel of Israel’s liturgical life, the creation account shows that the Sabbath is woven into the very fabric of creation. God creates the sun, moon and stars to mark “times and seasons” – a term used to describe the liturgical calendar. Worship is part of God’s design for creation.

 

[cpayne]

I am not Christian so you may ignore my comments if you wish.

The Jewish day is defined as lasting from sunset to sunset. As you correctly pointed out, not all the ECFs understood Genesis literally:“What intelligent person will suppose that there was a first, a second and a third day, that there was evening and morning without the existence of the sun and moon and stars?” - Origen
How can there be a day (sunset to sunset) if there is no sun? This is a good indication that “day” is not to be taken literally here. It is also worth pointing out that Saint Augustine thought that 144 hours was far too long, and said creation was instantaneous. Again not a literal interpretation.

In Genesis 1 we are told that the order of creation was plants, animals then man (and presumably woman). In Genesis 2 we are told that the order of creation was man, plants, animals, woman. This is a good indication that we are not to take the details of the story too literally. Does the story of the Prodigal Son lose its impact if we discover that there never were actually any such people as Hiram K Prodigal of Main Street, Nineveh and his son Wayne Z Prodigal, address unknown?

Jesus did not interpret Genesis literally. He said “But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.” [Mark 10:6] On a literal interpretation of Genesis this is wrong twice over, firstly because Adam (and presumably Eve) were made some time during day six, between 132 and 144 hours after the beginning and secondly with Eve being made after Adam, there was a time when there was male and not female. If Jesus did not interpret Genesis literally then it is surely allowed for others not to interpret it literally.

Although not strictly part of Genesis, there are passages in the Bible that are not obviously flagged as non-literal but are nevertheless agreed by all Christians not to be taken literally. An example is: “And he answering, said: I was not sent but to the sheep, that are lost of the house of Israel.” [Matthew 15:24] Does any Christian interpret this literally, that Jesus only saves sheep and not humans? Yet this passage is not flagged as a parable. Given that the Bible contains some non-literal passages that are not obviously flagged as non-literal then it is allowable that there are other such passages elsewhere.

rossum

Since I have disagreed with you on other threads, I thought I should point out when I agree. Excellent answer.

 

[Rogerteder]

Genesis 1:1-2:15 is not meant to be a religion vs. science debate. Doing so imposes our historical situation and misses the literary clues that explain to us the religious meanings the story had to ancient Israel.

Days 1-3, God created realms (1-day and night, 2-sky and sea, 3-land and vegetation). Days 4-6, He created rulers for these realms (1-sun, moon, and stars, 2-birds and fish, 3-man and beasts). God rests on the seventh day because the seventh days seals God’s covenant with His creation. The Hebrew word for taking or swearing an oath means “to seven oneself.” By creating the in seven days, God creates the world in a covenant relationship with Him.

For ancient Israel, the Sabbath Part and parcel of Israel’s liturgical life, the creation account shows that the Sabbath is woven into the very fabric of creation. God creates the sun, moon and stars to mark “times and seasons” – a term used to describe the liturgical calendar. Worship is part of God’s design

Who are you Scott Hahn? You sound just like him. The problem with it is that the VAST MAJORITY OF Church Fathers didnt hold this view. Only Origen, and maybe Augustine .(althought there is some dispute about Augustine) The rest all took Genesis literally.

 

[thistle]

ziapueblo;4418617:

Genesis 1:1-2:15 is not meant to be a religion vs. science debate. Doing so imposes our historical situation and misses the literary clues that explain to us the religious meanings the story had to ancient Israel.

Days 1-3, God created realms (1-day and night, 2-sky and sea, 3-land and vegetation). Days 4-6, He created rulers for these realms (1-sun, moon, and stars, 2-birds and fish, 3-man and beasts). God rests on the seventh day because the seventh days seals God’s covenant with His creation. The Hebrew word for taking or swearing an oath means “to seven oneself.” By creating the in seven days, God creates the world in a covenant relationship with Him.

For ancient Israel, the Sabbath Part and parcel of Israel’s liturgical life, the creation account shows that the Sabbath is woven into the very fabric of creation. God creates the sun, moon and stars to mark “times and seasons” – a term used to describe the liturgical calendar. Worship is part of God’s design f

Who are you Scott Hahn? You sound just like him. The problem with it is that the VAST MAJORITY OF Church Fathers didnt hold this view.

Only Origen, and maybe Augustine .(althought there is some dispute about Augustine) The rest all took Genesis literally.

Please tell us which ones didn’t hold this view and cite the writings so we can read it.

 

[ziapueblo]

We Catholics can believe that creation took a few days or a much longer period of time (Humani Generis 36-37).

 

[redneck22]

QUESTION what in the text of Genesis (creation accounts) points to a symbolic interpretation? Please answer this in regards to the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of Fathers understood Genesis literally.

Answer = nothing, the VAST MAJORITY of Fathers understood Genesis literally (within context)

 

[The_Barbarian]

St. Augustine himself showed that Genesis could not be a literal history. He is one of the Four Doctors of the Church. And his interpretation was never rejected by the Church, being taught from the early middle ages on.

 

[veggieSDA]

First real post! Time to inject my two cents into one of these lovely discussions.

The creation account from Genesis cannot be any kind of million or billion year time period, and here is why. God created the world in six “days”, correct? Adam was created on the sixth day, and obviously lived through the seventh day and beyond. If these “days” were million year time periods, then Adam would have lived much much longer than 930 years, which is how long Genesis says he lived.

 

[Philthy]

First real post! Time to inject my two cents into one of these lovely discussions.

The creation account from Genesis cannot be any kind of million or billion year time period, and here is why. God created the world in six “days”, correct? Adam was created on the sixth day, and obviously lived through the seventh day and beyond. If these “days” were million year time periods, then Adam would have lived much much longer than 930 years, which is how long Genesis says he lived.

That assumes, of course, that the days spoken of were equal with respect to their length of time. That is merely a more sophisticated projection of the concept of day that we currently have into the text. Sorry, but the only fact we have is that the term “day” used prior to the creation of the sun has no temporal relationship to the 24 hour day we are all familiar with.

 

[veggieSDA]

Well seeing as how the sun didn’t exist until the fourth day, the “days” couldn’t really be a literal 24 hour time period, but I would say it was something close to it. It does say the “evening and morning were the first day”, so that kinda implies to me that it was a literal day in the sense of a light-dark cycle.

 

[ziapueblo]

There are two creation stories in the Bible. Neither of these stories is intended to be a chronological account. The human author’s intent was not to write a scientific paper.

 

[Holly3278]

I honestly don’t know what I believe concerning the Genesis accounts of creation. I believe that evolution was likely used by God to create animal, human, and plant life on earth. However, I also believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I don’t really know whether to believe in young earth creation, old earth creation, or theistic evolution.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

QUESTION; I think it is safe to say that those Catholics who believe in evolution DO NOT take the creation accounts literally. Here is a quote from Leo XIII imploring us to take the literal sense of scripture unless there is clear evidence in the text not to.

" But he must not on that account consider that it is forbidden, when just cause exists, to push inquiry and exposition beyond what the Fathers have done; provided he carefully observes the rule so wisely laid down by St. Augustine-not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires;(40) a rule to which it is the more necessary to adhere strictly in these times, when the thirst for novelty and unrestrained freedom of thought make the danger of error most real and proximate. Neither should those passages be neglected which the Fathers have understood in an allegorical or figurative sense, more especially when such interpretation is justified by the literal, and when it rests on the authority of many. For this method of interpretation has been received by the Church from the Apostles, and has been approved by her own practice, as the holy Liturgy attests; although it is true that the holy Fathers did not thereby pretend directly to demonstrate dogmas of faith, but used it as a means of promoting virtue and piety, such as, by their own experience, they knew to be most valuable. The authority of other Catholic interpreters is not so great; but the study of Scripture has always continued to advance in the Church, and, therefore, these commentaries also have their own honourable place, and are serviceable in many ways for the refutation of assailants and the explanation of difficulties."

Here is my question–what in the text of Genesis (creation accounts) points to a symbolic interpretation? Please answer this in regards to the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of Fathers understood Genesis literally.

There are several issues here.​

The “VAST MAJORITY of Fathers”, in fact all, of them, had to make do with the geographical & other knowledge of their time. Which was very inaccurate in many respects. Are we throw out all post-Patristic geography & astronomy, because the Fathers had no access to it ? That is in effect what some people, those who require us to believe no differently from “the Fathers” (when they are unanimous, which they often are not), are asking. But why ? They differered from one another, the later differed from the earlier, & those who came after them did not feel obliged to repeat them. St. Thomas does not parrot St. Augustine; he respects & improves on him in certain respects. Just as others have improved on him in certain respects. This is as it should be - because no theologian, thinker, or tradition knows it all, or is perfectly equipped. They are all incomplete, as are we, as will our descendants be. It is contrary to the Tradition to use it as a muzzle in order to giove a small segment of Tradition a privileged position that no one is ever to be allowed to improve on, even when improvement in both necessary & possible. Someone has confused

• what is definitive, so far as it goes
• with what is perfect, & incapable of improvement.
  Neither the methods or the conclusions of the Fathers are beyond improvement: they too often allegorised, when an exposition of the meaning of the text was required. They were very ignorant of the languages of the Ancient Near East, & in the West, even knowledge of Greek became very rare. This is not the position of modern scholars, who do know these languages. Besides, it is dishonest to pretend that defectss in knowledge that used to exist, still exist once they have been corrected. What you are asking is for people who are far better equipped than the Fathers had the opportunity to be, to pretend they lack the resources available to them. This is taking veneration for the Fathers too far.

more

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

end

There has been a Copernican Revolution in Biblical studies, & a Tychonic, & a Newtonian - the position of a man living before Copernicus is not that of one living long after: the pre-Copernican was not a position of accepting Ptolemy rather than Copernicus, because Ptolemy’s was the only known position; what you are asking for, is that all the changes since the Copernican revolution in Biblical studies should be ditched. The position is even worse than that - because those who argue for the re-acceptance of a Ptolemaic position, such as the Patristic approach, & the throwing out of modern methods & gains, are inconsistent.

Their position is not that all post-Patristic gains are bad, but that only those of the last 200 or so years are: yet they don’t mention anyone later than the Fathers, with rare exceptions. They may know of Aquinas, but not of Peter of Ireland or Boethius of Dacia; & as for the 16th century or later, forget it. To take the Fathers (almost) alone into account is to have a very impoverished understanding of theological progress & tradition - the proposed return to the Fathers, with its “Tradition of the gaps” is a symptom of lack of care for the Catholic Tradition. It amounts to imprisoning the Holy Spirit in the past. If Biblical scholarship today is better than that of the Fathers, this is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Those who insist on the universality of the Flood, ignore the text by using means from their own times rather than that of the authors. For all their veneration of the Fathers & of Genesis, they are very modern in their methods of arriving at pre-modern & pre-critical results. This does not apply to the critics: they do not seek to make Genesis mean what an ill-equipped tradition made it mean, & are not using modern means to cancel modern conclusions.

There is no “virtue” or “piety” in pretending to be as ill-equipped as Justin Martyr or Isidore of Seville - they knew no more of infinitesimal calculus or gravity than they did of Akkadian or Coptic: why should those who do know Coptic, etc., & put their knowledge to good use in matters Biblical, not do so ? Why not do away with all mathematical & medical & other knowledge that men have gained since the times of the Fathers ? You’re asking for the diffusion of ignorance & the lessening of understanding. How is that Catholic ?

You ask:

• [What] in the text of Genesis (creation accounts) points to a symbolic interpretation ?
  Nothing - it should be taken literally. It is not symbolic; merely obscure, if read as what it is not. Those who read it literally so as to find the sense of it, are abused as “liberals” & “modernists”. But they are doing no more, in principle, than St. Thomas insists on: that the letter has to be understood before the text can be interpreted. Yom means “day”, & should be understood as day, meaning, “period of 24 hours”.

To make the text refer to indefinite but vast (?) eras is semantic falsification - it is to read into the ancient text some very modern pre-occupations; & it wholly ignores the author’s purpose in writing as he did. The author of Gen. 1 is not interested in our fussing about evolution; he knew nothing of such things; he had his own concerns as an author, which are not those of the readers who thump & batter his words into fitting what they are bothered about.

Evolution is not against the literal sense of Genesis 1-2.4, because the passage has no bearing on it. One might as well ask what geology has to do with Dr.Spock’s ideas on child-rearing, & complain of the people who insist that Dr. Spock was not interested in the Carboniferous & the Cretaceous, but only in paedriatrics. There are in any case other parts of the Bible that have to do with creation, such as some of the monster-fight passages in the OT.

Evolution has no bearing on Genesis - even if it did, the process of evolution is within Providence, not opposite to it. How can something within creation cancel out its Creator ? Genesis is talking about creation - but in a different manner from that of the sciences. BTW, the sciences in 2008 are not where they were in 1893 - so that letter is badly out of date. This is a fact, & cannot be scotched by reminders of the sanctity of the Fathers: which though admirable is no substitute for adequate scholarly methods & equipment.

The graphic signs that form a nexus of signs as a word having semantic value as the Hebrew** word** yom,which in English has the meaning “day”, do not tell us anything about the sense in which the meaning is intended. A day is 24 hours long, whether in a biography, a fairy-tale, a trial in a story, a real trial, or whatever it may be.

The fuss over the meaning of passages in Genesis arises because semantic distinctions not made or seen in the past, are seen & made now. And this affects the understanding of texts in the Bible, as it does any other. The fact that a story is told about a man, who is intended to be a man & not a plant, nor an allegory for a man, does not guarantee that the man is meant to be a real historical individual man. A story including real measurements of time can have verisimilitude, “likeness to life” - that does not make it a day that actually dawned. This is where discerning between literary types can help - & little attention was paid to them before the end of the 19th century: the issues were inerrancy & inspiration & truthfulness, but literary types: no.

 

[Rogerteder]

Rogerteder;4419379:

Please tell us which ones didn’t hold this view and cite the writings so we can read it.

i JUST TOLD YOU NONE!!! All the Fathers, except Origen and Augustine, accepted a literal interpretation of Genesis.

 

[The_Barbarian]

That’s like saying “all the software publishers but Borland and Microsoft.”

Pretty much destroys the idea that the Church endorsed a literal Genesis week.

Because a literalist reading produces logical inconsistencies, a literal six-day creation week has never been Church doctrine.