Old Testament Fact or Parable

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karebear92 said:
What? So God used stitches? Did he use a scalpel, a rock, with what did He cut him? If you want to read this entirely literally, which it appears you do, why would God leave a gash, which would hurt, in Adam afterward, which would kind of contradict paradise. Do you believe God, in three persons, in one physical God, was walking in Eden?
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When you reject the actual bodies of Adam and Eve being with God, then by logic you have to reject Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve, original sin, their children, their loss of grace, the murder of one of the other…

There is no end at which to stop.
 
Nelka said:
I do not mean as people but those who believe do and those who don’t look for excuses not to believe.

I have heard many people refer to the New Testament, especially the Gospels as ‘ramblings’ and from ‘mad men’.

Do you remember things from 17 years ago?
I still remember my private baptism 25 years ago. (Not as a baby).
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I don’t understand what you are saying. I believe the New Testament is to be read literally, without figurative language, because that was how historical documents were written during the time, and thats what the Gospels are. However, the the Old Testament uses figurative language and was told orally for generations, i.e. it was not written down by those who saw it. At least not Adam and Eve.
 
Barbkw said:
When you reject the actual bodies of Adam and Eve being with God, then by logic you have to reject Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve, original sin, their children, their loss of grace, the murder of one of the other…

There is no end at which to stop.
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By what logic? I don’t deny that there were an Adam and an Eve. I reject that their creation happened scientifically and historically in the way that it happens in the Bible. God was not Human before He was Human, so how could He have walked and made noise in Eden?
 
Or why did God create by word in the first account of creation but out of the ground in the second?
 
karebear92 said:
I don’t understand what you are saying. I believe the New Testament is to be read literally without figurative language because that was how historical documents were written, and thats what the Gospels are. However, the the Old Testament uses figurative language and was told orally for generations, i.e. it was not written down by those who saw it. At least not Adam and Eve.
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Having read your back and forth with Barb, let me pose a few questions that hopefully casts the matter in a different light.

St. John Chrysostom and other Greek Fathers believed the stories literally. That much is fact, because many Romans could not take the Genesis stories seriously, so the Fathers had to address the topic.

Are we in a position to say the faith of the Fathers was defective?

The answer is clear: we are not. Therefore, a literal belief in the stories of the bible cannot be said either to be un Catholic (because it lies within the holy tradition from the Fathers) nor can it be said to be a bad practice, because it was believed by many saints.

Arriving at the next question, why would anyone not believe the literal truth of the bible stories? The answer again is clear. Because modern knowledge and aculturation strongly predisposes us to doubt miraculous stories. This is a cultural marker of modern society. If we appreciate, however, that our doubt does not in the main arise from anything we personally know, but our trust in other “experts” claims about what they have discovered, be begin to see the source of our doubt more clearly.

The Church recognizes the power of this tendency, and therefore does not make literal belief an article of faith.

It is not that she says holding the belief is bad, but because she sees that the power of suggestion and culture is very strong.
 
Warrenton said:
Having read your back and forth with Barb, let me pose a few questions that hopefully casts the matter in a different light.

St. John Chrysostom and other Greek Fathers believed the stories literally. That much is fact, because many Romans could not take the Genesis stories seriously, so the Fathers had to address the topic.

Are we in a position to say the faith of the Fathers was defective?

The answer is clear: we are not. Therefore, a literal belief in the stories of the bible cannot be said either to be un Catholic (because it lies within the holy tradition from the Fathers) nor can it be said to be a bad practice, because it was believed by many saints.

Arriving at the next question, why would anyone not believe the literal truth of the bible stories? The answer again is clear. Because modern knowledge and aculturation strongly predisposes us to doubt miraculous stories. This is a cultural marker of modern society. If we appreciate, however, that our doubt does not in the main arise from anything we personally know, but our trust in other “experts” claims about what they have discovered, be begin to see the source of our doubt more clearly.

The Church recognizes the power of this tendency, and therefore does not make literal belief an article of faith.

It is not that she says holding the belief is bad, but because she sees that the power of suggestion and culture is very strong.
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I believe I started clearly in that position and have gradually fallen away from it. What you say is true. I know that it is not wrong to take it literally. I do believe that most Catholic Theologians do not take it entirely literally, however, as many problems and contradictions arise when it is done in that way. So I agree that one can view it all literally, but I prefer to take Augustine and Ambrose position on the literal interpretation of some of the Old Testament.
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
I recently made a thread discussing the historical accuracy of the Exodus. There are serious problems with the Exodus as the bible describes it, most scholars now believe that the biblical story simply does not fit with what we know about Egypt and Canaan from archaeology.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=606675

See also:
books.google.com/books?id=6-VxwC5rQtwC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA99#v=onepage&q&f=false
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In May 2011, 17 lost pyramids were located in Egypt using infra-red technology :

bbc.co.uk/news/world-13522957
The work has been pioneered at the University of Alabama at Birmingham by US Egyptologist Dr Sarah Parcak.
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An infra-red satellite image shows a buried pyramid, located in the centre of the highlight box. She says she was amazed at how much she and her team has found.
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karebear92 said:
I do believe that most Catholic Theologians do not take it entirely literally, however, as many problems and contradictions arise when it is done in that way. So I agree that one can view it all literally, but I prefer to take Augustine and Ambrose position on the literal interpretation of some of the Old Testament.
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This is interesting, because I have found the opposite: when I look at the stories being literally true, the contradictions and paradoxes in modern analysis seem to abate!

One suspects that long ages ago, the Church realized that each view has its plusses and minuses, and that is why she never required the faithful to adopt one view or the other.
 
Warrenton said:
This is interesting, because I have found the opposite: when I look at the stories being literally true, the contradictions and paradoxes in modern analysis seem to abate!

One suspects that long ages ago, the Church realized that each view has its plusses and minuses, and that is why she never required the faithful to adopt one view or the other.
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I’m not viewing them as allegorical. I believe that Adam and Eve were true people. But that it didn’t literally happen as it is told. How do you rationalize God walking in Eden, for example. I would love to believe that they are all literally true, so please rationalize it for me. I just can’t see how a literal interpretation is rational.
 
TheTrueCentrist said:
I didn’t say that the Exodus has elements that are unknown that might be eventually found, I said that it contradicts what we *do *know.
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This really gets to the “centre” of the debate.

What do we know about ancient Egypt?

Lots of remains, including mummies of cats and baboons, to be sure. Some stories here and there. But we can no more go back and ask if Pharoah’s priests turned rods into snakes than we can go back and listen to what their music actually sounded like.

It’s based on speculation, inference, and comparison with other things, all viewed through today’s prejudices, biases, hopes and expectations.

The amount of information that has been lost in fires, upheavals, wars, floods, and the passage of epochs is beyond measuring. It cannot be recreated from this distance.

I would argue that one of the most certain things we have from ancient Egypt is Exodus itself. That story, told and retold, has at least as much longevity as King Tut in his tomb.
 
karebear92 said:
I’m not viewing them as allegorical. I believe that Adam and Eve were true people. But that it didn’t literally happen as it is told. How do you rationalize God walking in Eden, for example. I would love to believe that they are all literally true, so please rationalize it for me. I just can’t see how a literal interpretation is rational.
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God walking is a hang up for you?
 
Warrenton said:
I would argue that one of the most certain things we have from ancient Egypt is Exodus itself. That story, told and retold, has at least as much longevity as King Tut in his tomb.
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I agree with you.

The Jews certainty believed in the Exodus and in the annual sacrifice requirements of a lamb on the date that they exited Egypt.

As Christians we care about Egyptology only because God and the Jewish people started to build a relationship there.
 
Barbkw said:
God isn’t fire, but He appeared to Moses in a burning bush.
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I don’t see how that rationalizes anything. I don’t think the story of Moses is entirely literal either. Are you saying that God would reasonably take the form of a deer, pig, bacterium etc.? So there are three persons in a mighty pig? That if a talking pig came and said he was God, that would be entirely reasonable? Or is God is a shape-changer?
 
Also, was it all of God in human form, or just one person? Or just an image of a person that God decided to take the form of?
 
karebear92 said:
I don’t see how that rationalizes anything. I don’t think the story of Moses is entirely literal either. Are you saying that God would reasonably take the form of a deer, pig, bacterium etc.? So there are three persons in a mighty pig? That if a talking pig came and said he was God, that would be entirely reasonable? Or is God is a shape-changer?
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🤷 You think the burning bush is a literary device too? Good heavens.
 
karebear92 said:
Also, was it all of God in human form, or just one person? Or just an image of a person that God decided to take the form of?
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If walking is a handicapp for you, how did a spirit create the entire universe?
 
Barbkw said:
🤷 You think the burning bush is a literary device too? Good heavens.
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Not exactly, but God was not contained as a fire in the bush. He spoke to Him from the bush, which, being omnipresent, is entirely possible. Especially as the angel of the lord appeared to him. God is omnipresent. An angel is not. God cannot be contained in one place on earth and be everywhere at the same time.
 
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