Genesis Question

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I’m currently participating in a Bible study on the book of Genesis. Father talked about the two creation stories and the fall of Adam and Eve, but keeps reminding us that this book is a book of poetry and not historical fact.:eek: I am having a very hard time with this because if its just like a mythical poem then why believe we were created by God since it is in a book of poetry. Genesis chapter 5 gives a whole rundown of the generations between Adam and Noah. Why do that if these people never existed and are just symbols or metaphors?
If Creation is poetry than is evolution the real deal to believe? I need urgent help here. Are there any scripture scholars around?
 
Marie Rose,
I could try to answer some of your questions and perhaps in further post but I cannot suggest, strongly enough, for you to read “In The Beginning” by our Holy Father. I think you can find the text on the web. In this work he clearly presents the best of contemporary Catholic teaching on this subject. If you read other works of other theologians they will present much of the same teachings but not as clearly as he does (our Holy Father was and is a great professor from what I have read of his works - probably a hard marker but you know at the end of a course you’ve learned more than just academic material).

I hope this helps.
 
What does the poem mean?

That is a good kind of question to ask the teacher.

Literature always has a literal meaning. Ask: What does it mean?

All poems, parables, and figures of speech always have literal meanings–just ask him.

I am sure that many other people will give good books to read, but one might not have time to read. Therefore, I always ask the teacher: What does it mean?
 
TOME said:
Marie Rose,
I could try to answer some of your questions and perhaps in further post but I cannot suggest, strongly enough, for you to read “In The Beginning” by our Holy Father. I think you can find the text on the web. In this work he clearly presents the best of contemporary Catholic teaching on this subject. If you read other works of other theologians they will present much of the same teachings but not as clearly as he does (our Holy Father was and is a great professor from what I have read of his works - probably a hard marker but you know at the end of a course you’ve learned more than just academic material).

I hope this helps.
Click to expand...
You can buy the book here.
 
Maria Rose, Genesis was written in a poetical way so it could be easily remembered and passed down orally for generations before it was written - not because it was just made up out of thin air! It is not history as we might define it scientifically today but it isn’t unhistorical either. the main difference is that it intended to convey faith rather than facts. As Catholics we must believe that Adam and Eve were two literal people and that God created their spiritual souls out of nothing by a miracle (as He does for each one of us). As to how their bodies came about (from the dust of the earth) we are free to entertain different opinions. When a well meaning teacher calls Genesis a myth…he means it is similar to other ancient literature and conveys important spiritual messages: God created everything, Sin came from the devil and death and pain followed.etc. Also, to miss the poetical element makes it very difficult (impossible) to reconcile Genesis 1:1-2:4 with the rest of Genesis 2-3. The literal order of things gets confused…but that is not the point…it is an order of importance of subjects that organizes the text rather than one consistant order of scientific or historic events that must agree between ch 1 & 2. Remember too that Genesis 1-11 is prehistory…it is sort of like prophecy of the future but in reverse…it is not perfectly cut and dry and literally plain and simple. Hope this helps.
 
What do you mean by a prophecy of the future in reverse? I don’t get it.:confused:
 
MARIA ROSE, By a “prophecy in reverse” I meant that when the prophets foretold the future it was sort of difficult to always understand what they meant compared to an eyewitness narrative of something that has already happened in history. In a similar way the pre-history of Genesis 1-11 retells a time that probably no one telling the story actually experienced first hand. Perhaps it had been handed down for generations or perhaps they were shown it by the Holy Spirit or a combination of both. Anyway its not surprizing that it is a little more obscure to us than the type of historical accounts we are used to reading…sort of the way prophecy of the future is also obscure to us at this point in time. For example: remember that before Christ came it would have been very difficult to put together an accurate picture of him from the prophets. The rabbi’s had different ideas of what the Messiah would do and be like. Even though they had the prophet’s words, Jesus caught them by surprize. Some of them stumbled over this, but they all probably had to adjust their thinking to the actual reality compared to what they expected from the prophets. It may be the same when we try to assemble a “scientific history” from Genesis 1-11.
 
maria_rose said:
I’m currently participating in a Bible study on the book of Genesis. Father talked about the two creation stories and the fall of Adam and Eve, but keeps reminding us that this book is a book of poetry and not historical fact.:eek: I am having a very hard time with this because if its just like a mythical poem then why believe we were created by God since it is in a book of poetry. Genesis chapter 5 gives a whole rundown of the generations between Adam and Noah. Why do that if these people never existed and are just symbols or metaphors?
If Creation is poetry than is evolution the real deal to believe? I need urgent help here. Are there any scripture scholars around?
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Hi Maria,

I consider that I take the book of Genesis literally. But that means also that I recognize where analogous terms are used.
For example:
  1. *Gen. 2:7 then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. *
When we use the word “formed” we picture hands; with “breathed” we picture a mouth. But God is Spirit, and so we know that we were formed and had life breathed into us in some sort of spiritual way, that did not require a body on God’s part. Perhaps those terms (formed and breathed) could be called poetical!
  1. Also, the 6 days of creation - each day consisting of a period of light and a period of darkness. These are not necessarily the 24 hour solar days we have because the sun was not even formed until the fourth “day”. I consider them the days of God, and Scripture doesn’t tell us how long each day was in the solar time we are familiar with.
  2. One last example. The forbidden tree was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Just from the name it seems obvious it was not just some sort of fruit tree meant to give nourishment to the human body. “Knowledge” is an activity of our souls. So what the actual tree was, we do not know.
From what your post says, I’m guessing the priest probably does not take Genesis as literally as I do. There really is no definitive teaching on how Genesis must be interpreted. However, it may not be interpreted in a way that would contradict infallible teachings of the Church. Some examples of infallible teachings: God is the creator; teachings on original sin; teaching that we are all descendents of a one man and one woman.

Hope this helps.

Nita
 
thank you so much for your posts. I take Genesis literally as well. I believe that we were created by God and that Adam and Eve were our first parents. They most probably didn’t look like us but were given the divine breath of life - the soul and the ability to procreate.
I get scared ,very scared when people say it is a myth or a poetic story because that makes the events a fairy tale to me. And Genesis is not a fairy tale. It relates truths and facts handed down through generations.
I wish there was scientific proof of Genesis then the doubts would disappear and opinions would be proven or disproven once and for all.
Have there been studies done to find out about Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood and so on.? Have any artifacts been found in relation to these events?
 
maria_rose said:
thank you so much for your posts. I take Genesis literally as well. I believe that we were created by God and that Adam and Eve were our first parents. They most probably didn’t look like us but were given the divine breath of life - the soul and the ability to procreate.
I get scared ,very scared when people say it is a myth or a poetic story because that makes the events a fairy tale to me. And Genesis is not a fairy tale. It relates truths and facts handed down through generations.
I wish there was scientific proof of Genesis then the doubts would disappear and opinions would be proven or disproven once and for all.
Have there been studies done to find out about Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood and so on.? Have any artifacts been found in relation to these events?
Click to expand...
There are always studies going on. Some indicate we all descended from a single mother; some indicate a huge flood. You can do google searches to read about them. Some sites will support the idea and others will refute it. Scientifically there is no absolute proof.

At one time the view of science would have held a lot more weight with me than it does now. As a youth I loved science. I was pretty naive when it came to accepting the trustworthiness of scientists. Now, I trust Scripture and the teachings of the Catholic Church far more than I trust science.

When you hear people calling Scripture a myth, does it start to shake your faith? Is that what you meant when you say you get scared? I don’t have any advice if that is the case. What I do know is how important it is to have a strong faith in God and a loving relationship with Him. For me that came about through reading Scripture (my passion was to learn all I could about God; I’d read a section and ask “what does this reveal about what God is like”) and prayer.

Nita
 
maria_rose said:
I’m currently participating in a Bible study on the book of Genesis. Father talked about the two creation stories and the fall of Adam and Eve, but keeps reminding us that this book is a book of poetry and not historical fact.:eek: I am having a very hard time with this because if its just like a mythical poem then why believe we were created by God since it is in a book of poetry. Genesis chapter 5 gives a whole rundown of the generations between Adam and Noah. Why do that if these people never existed and are just symbols or metaphors?
If Creation is poetry than is evolution the real deal to believe? I need urgent help here. Are there any scripture scholars around?
Click to expand...
Maria, also consider that many times Scripture has deeper layers of meaning than is readily apparent. Toward that end, there several ECFs who relate the days of CRE-ation with the RE-creation of the world. That is, just as the days of CRE-ation unfolded in seven (extended to eight) “days”, so after the Fall, God will RE-create man through eight ages, beginning with the Flood. Hence, the symbolism of each “day” as beginning first with darkness (“evening came”) and followed by light (“morning followed”), so this can be a metaphor for the spiritual developments of the Redemption of the world, that is, from the Fall until the New Creation inclusive, there will be eight stages of Redemption, each beginning with a prevalence of sin (“evening”) and succeeded by an age of Redemption (“morning”). I have a thread already on this here.

Blessings to you, Maria.
 
I think it’s important not to confuse myth with fairy tales. A myth can be true – but it is a story designed to explain a deeper truth.

For example:

A child asks her parents “how did I get here?” At age 5 or 6, the parent might respond with a myth: Mummy and Daddy love each other so much that our love needed somewhere to go, so God sent you to us so that we could love you too".

The answer is TRUE, it’s just not scientifically accurate, and it explains something else. When the child is older and asks the question, then you might give her a more scientifically accurate explanation of sex and childbirth. It’s a myth (not a good one, I admit! 😉 )

The myth teaches truth: parents love each other, new life comes from parents’ love, God is involved in process – and in fact makes the final decision; child is loved.

A fairy tale is a bit different it’s told to amuse or to hide the truth, not to reveal the truth. Maybe the cabbage leaf or the stork is a fairy tale.

But neither the myth nor the fairy tale teaches about sex or childbirth – i.e., the “literal” scientific historic answer.

To me, Genesis is like that. The stories were written after Israel was a nation, but had been sent into exile. The writers were trying to remind the people of God to STAY people of God while in exile in Babylon (which is why so many of the Genesis stories are similar to Babylonian ones – the authors wanted to make sure that the people knew that God could compete, was better than the Babylonian “gods”).

I think God inspired those writers to put down on paper all the traditional myths (teaching stories) of the people so that they didn’t forget how their relationship with God began and developed. Being in Babylon, they were tempted to follow the Babylonian beliefs, and the sacred authors needed to keep them believing so that the belief in the One God didn’t fade.

The “truth” isn’t about how long it took or that there was a big bang or evolution, the “truth” is that God created the world, and can destroy it if he wants to, but has promised not to. Of all things created, humans are most like God. God loves us and wants a relationship with us, and will chase us down to get one!!

Lots of parts of Genesis are poetic. That’s how you remember long oral stories, with rhythm and rhyme and repetition. And I would guess that some of these stories were told around the fire in the evenings before they were ever written down.

What would be the point of God inspiring an author to write a science book? Or a history book? We figured that stuff out on our own, eventually.

But creation myths that teach us how much God loved us, and WHY our world was created, and how valuable it all is — those we needed to be told. The stories that kept a people in exile faithful to their God – those we needed to learn.

Just a thought.
 
Nita said:
When you hear people calling Scripture a myth, does it start to shake your faith? Is that what you meant when you say you get scared? I don’t have any advice if that is the case. What I do know is how important it is to have a strong faith in God and a loving relationship with Him. For me that came about through reading Scripture (my passion was to learn all I could about God; I’d read a section and ask “what does this reveal about what God is like”) and prayer.

Nita
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yes, that is it. If we can explain everything on a scientific basis, where does God come in? My heart wants to trust and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God created this universe, that we can trace ourselves back to one set of ancient parents, that God’s wonders and miracles did happen. I believe the stories of the bible are real events of long ago.
Why do we shoot ourselves in the foot by explaining away the book of Genesis and others as poetry, myth ?
Either it is the truth or…
You say “what does this reveal about What God is like?”
If its a poem or story ,its a beautiful sentiment but of human creation. Then it’s like a fable to reveal a truth. Fables are invented stories. How can creation be an invention/imagination?
Someone please help me think straight. I must be dense on this one.
Thanks so much for your help.
 
Maria Rose,
I offer this for your consideration. Perhaps there are turths that are beyond any physical or historical evidence. Profound truths that are actually more real than what the senses can perceive. Isn’t God the ultimate truth? And isn’t Divine Revelation God coming to us and revealing Himself to us, as well as revealing who or what are true self really is? And can these truths really be scientifically verified or do these realities go beyond the physical.
I think one way of looking at all this is from the understanding that what we are really attempting to do is to comprehend Love in its purest form and substance?
 
I think there is certainly a relationship between myth and fairy tales and fables and all such sorts of genres of literature. Fairy tales were sometimes originally composed for an adult audience. The times, places, events, and even persons may be pure fiction and imaginatory, but beneath the surface there is always a lesson about the nature of human beings and the world they inhabit. Instead of looking to these things for facts about a time, a place or a people, look for what our teacher, a Dominican Nun taught us in sixth grade. Look for the “universals.” What does the story teach us about the nature of human beings? Not what it teaches about the specific human beings in the story. Not the fantastic place where the story occurs or the exact time in history. Not even the facts of fantastic events. The parables that Jesus told in the New Testament times were not stories about events that really happened, but which one of us would say they were not true. That they were not laden with a truthfilled lesson or lessons. Not only that, but if we should misconstrue what the Bible says to us in private, we have the Church to keep us on track.
 
maria_rose said:
yes, that is it. If we can explain everything on a scientific basis, where does God come in? My heart wants to trust and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God created this universe, that we can trace ourselves back to one set of ancient parents, that God’s wonders and miracles did happen. I believe the stories of the bible are real events of long ago.
Why do we shoot ourselves in the foot by explaining away the book of Genesis and others as poetry, myth ?
Either it is the truth or…
You say “what does this reveal about What God is like?”
If its a poem or story ,its a beautiful sentiment but of human creation. Then it’s like a fable to reveal a truth. Fables are invented stories. How can creation be an invention/imagination?
Someone please help me think straight. I must be dense on this one.
Thanks so much for your help.
Click to expand...
If we can explain everything on a scientific basis, where does God come in?
Click to expand...
That’s the easiest question of all to answer 🙂 . Who do you think created science; determined what all the scientific laws would be. God. God was there before science. He dreamed it up!! Real truth will never do away with God; God is truth. But there are an awful lot of liars and fools running around in high places today - science, politics, even religion.

You ask “why do we shoot ourselves in the foot…?” There are some people Maria who absolutely do not want to believe there is a God; whole idea makes them angry. I think often it is because they want to engage in acts God calls sinful. If they do away with God, they can do away with sin and guilt. It is probably anger that someone (God) wants to deny them an activity they want to do or unable to stop doing, a someone who, if He exists, has the right to do just that. It could be pride that resists having to admit and submit to a higher authority or a higher power and intelligence than their own. Who knows. But they will work diligently to explain how something could be created without God, and reject out of hand any explanation that does require a creator, on that basis alone.

Have someone at my door, so must run. Not even time to preview.

Nita
 
maria_rose said:
thank you so much for your posts. I take Genesis literally as well. I believe that we were created by God and that Adam and Eve were our first parents. They most probably didn’t look like us but were given the divine breath of life - the soul and the ability to procreate.
I get scared ,very scared when people say it is a myth or a poetic story because that makes the events a fairy tale to me. And Genesis is not a fairy tale. It relates truths and facts handed down through generations.
I wish there was scientific proof of Genesis then the doubts would disappear and opinions would be proven or disproven once and for all.
Have there been studies done to find out about Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood and so on.? Have any artifacts been found in relation to these events?
Click to expand...
Dear maria rose,

if it helps, I have an article on creation/evolution that goes into how the Church looks at these questions. You can read it here if you wish: Creation and Evolution.

Blessings to you.
scott
🙂
 
You say “what does this reveal about What God is like?”
If its a poem or story ,its a beautiful sentiment but of human creation. Then it’s like a fable to reveal a truth. Fables are invented stories. How can creation be an invention/imagination?
Click to expand...
Sorry to have ended so abruptly before, but the post was long enough anyway.

How can creation be an invention/imagination? It isn’t. (I’m saying that in a gentle, absolutely confident tone of voice.) You know that by the mere fact that you exist; that the universe exists. The poor atheist is left with only one explanation for the universe - the universe is eternal. It always reminds me of Paul’s words in Romans 1:21-22:

*"for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, " *

Don’t be surprised that God did not use our current human scientific language to describe creation. If God would have described the events of creation in full, using a scientific language capable of expressing it, you and I wouldn’t have a clue what He was saying. Neither would all those previous generations and, to tell you the truth, I think it would be way beyond the comprehension of our present day scientists - using words that haven’t even been coined yet.

I also think that when I get to heaven and God reveals the “scientific” explanation, I’ll see how beautifully Genesis expresses it, in a way that all generations and all age levels can comprehend. (And physics, not literature, was my favorite class in school!!)

The first three chapters of Genesis are my OT favorites. I sometimes think all of Scripture is contained in them - in seed form. When I taught CCD I used those three chapters and the kids (7th up thru 12th) always loved them. One of the questions I did always ask was “What do you learn about God from this chapter?” Their answers were marvelous. If you’ve never done it before, sit down with Our Lord and do it. What joy when He’s there to help reveal all that’s in His word.

I’ll be praying for you Maria. I went thru a faith crisis years ago and it was that very crisis that ended up bringing about my sure and confident faith in Our Lord.

Nita
 
maria_rose said:
I’m currently participating in a Bible study on the book of Genesis. Father talked about the two creation stories and the fall of Adam and Eve, but keeps reminding us that this book is a book of poetry and not historical fact.:eek: I am having a very hard time with this because if its just like a mythical poem then why believe we were created by God since it is in a book of poetry. Genesis chapter 5 gives a whole rundown of the generations between Adam and Noah. Why do that if these people never existed and are just symbols or metaphors?
If Creation is poetry than is evolution the real deal to believe? I need urgent help here. Are there any scripture scholars around?
Click to expand...
Maria Rose:

Just thought you should know that Robert Sungenis has written the forst three volumes of his study Bible [Matthew, Apocalypse, Romans/James]), and that the next one will be Genesis. He will most certainly treat Genesis as the Church has- as historical fact, and I am sure he will back his views wih loads of Patristics and ecclesial statements to that effect.

I am looking forward to this book.

Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
 
Nita said:
…Don’t be surprised that God did not use our current human scientific language to describe creation. If God would have described the events of creation in full, using a scientific language capable of expressing it, you and I wouldn’t have a clue what He was saying. Neither would all those previous generations and, to tell you the truth, I think it would be way beyond the comprehension of our present day scientists - using words that haven’t even been coined yet.

…
Nita
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Nita:

I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. I believe in the end, it will work to be exactly the way it is described in Genesis, but we just cannot imagine exactly ow at this point.

Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
 
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