Old Testament Myths

[goout]

No. I’m saying HE followed the interpretation of Genesis which you take as fundamentalist.

Can you please be specific? How does my interpretation of Genesis vary from the Church’s.
Where did I call TA a fundamentalist?
**Please be specific. **

 

[James248]

Can you please be specific? How does my interpretation of Genesis vary from the Church’s.
Where did I call TA a fundamentalist?
**Please be specific. **

He believed in a literal interpretation of the Creation Story, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, etc

 

[goout]

He believed in a literal interpretation of the Creation Story, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, etc

Please be specific.
You know…cite sources. Explain what you mean by literal.
Do you know what Scripture scholars and theologians mean by the literal sense?
How is that different from purely historical and journalistic modernist ideas? (which many Catholics have fallen for, unfortunately)

And then how am I at odds with Thomas Aquinas. How about Origen? Augustine? How about the original authors, who probably never intended literalist histories for many OT passages.
Or is Thomas Aquinas the only Catholic?


Here is a document that talks about these matters.
www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/Taqandss.htm

 

[James248]

Please be specific.
You know…cite sources. Explain what you mean by literal.
Do you know what Scripture scholars and theologians mean by the literal sense?
How is that different from purely historical and journalistic modernist ideas? (which many Catholics have fallen for, unfortunately)

And then how am I at odds with Thomas Aquinas. How about Origen? Augustine? How about the original authors, who probably never intended literalist histories for many OT passages.
Or is Thomas Aquinas the only Catholic?


Here is a document that talks about these matters.
www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/Taqandss.htm

Thomas Aquinas took Genesis 1-3 literally. As in historical reality.

As for Origen, he was also prone to many errors. He believed in subordinatation in the Trinity, salvation for even the devil, and sometimes his language would sound downright Gnostic.

I’m not saying interpreting Genesis allegorically is bad; I’m just saying don’t hate on Catholics who interpret it as history.

 

[reggieM]

I’m not saying interpreting Genesis allegorically is bad; I’m just saying don’t hate on Catholics who interpret it as history.

True. The Church permits us to take either approach.

 

[goout]

I’m not saying interpreting Genesis allegorically is bad; I’m just saying don’t hate on Catholics who interpret it as history.

You’re addressing this to me?


We just cannot seem to get a substantial conversation going.

 

[goout]

Here is a basic thing for Catholics to understand:
“Literal” is not confined to scientific facts, nor does it mean journalistic history.

If it were, then we should believe in 6 day creation, and the dome over the sky.
The word literal signifies something much deeper and profound than our modern individualist understanding.

Repost of the link discussing Aquinas’ thought on scripture interpretation.
www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/Taqandss.htm
since he has been slightly misrepresented here.

 

[Wesrock]

Not a single one of you has been willing to answer a single question. What, exactly, was the sin of disobedience in its physical active reality?

We don’t know. That has no theological importance, though. What we do know is that it was an offense to God.

Did it occur in an already corrupted world within already corrupted man, or in a “Garden” among uncorrupted man?

There’s a variety of opinion, but that’s not problematic. We do know that Adam and Eve did not have a wounded nature. They were given preternatural gifts which allowed them to submit their appetites entirely to their rational intellect and will which were forfeited.

Did God create corruption and sin?

This seems to misunderstand a traditional understanding of God’s act of creation. The traditional response to evil is that it is not some opposing substance to goodness, but that it is a privation of some good, the way darkness and shadow are a privation of light. Only light is created, while any darkness or dim areas are just areas deprived of light. In such manner, goodness is created, and evils a privation of some good. Moral evils in particular have to do with man’s rational choices. Suffice it to say, no Catholic theologian I’m aware of has ever thought that evil is outside of God’s providence. To quote from the book of Isaiah: 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

God created a world, intentionally, where the light does not always shine bright everywhere, and where things may be dimmed, and where many things that are tend towards not being at some point.

Was man’s nature sinful from the beginning?

When people say that man has a sinful nature, they are referring to it’s wounding, concupiscence, and the lack of total control of the intellect and will over lower appetites. Adam and Eve’s nature was “unwounded,” and indeed perfected by the additional gifts God gave them, gifts which were forfeited after Adam sinned. This, I believe, must be accepted by all Catholics.

What were the physical punishments for sin?]

There’s a range of opinion on that, too. What manner of death (physical and spiritual, etc…). I lean towards the idea that Adam and Eve were themselves placed in a “Garden,” immortal, etc… This is not to say I believe that this occurred 6,000 yeas ago, or don’t believe in evolution…

 

[James248]

You’re addressing this to me?


We just cannot seem to get a substantial conversation going.

I am.

My point still stands: don’t hate on those who take Genesis 1-3 as literal history. Or Jonah. Or Daniel. Or the rest of the writings of Moses.

 

[goout]

I am.

My point still stands: don’t hate on those who take Genesis 1-3 as literal history. Or Jonah. Or Daniel. Or the rest of the writings of Moses.

Right.
We are you telling me not to hate “those who…”? Why do you feel that point needs to be stated? Who is really hating on scripture?

Why don’t we have a real discussion rather than throwing assertions and sensitivities around?

Points are made. Do you want to discuss specifics?

 

[Renan]

Humani Generis is an amazing encyclical that should be read by all catholics. Let me quote something that may help us:

"38. Just as in the biological and anthropological sciences, so also in the historical sciences there are those who boldly transgress the limits and safeguards established by the Church. In a particular way must be deplored a certain too free interpretation of the historical books of the Old Testament. Those who favor this system, in order to defend their cause, wrongly refer to the Letter which was sent not long ago to the Archbishop of Paris by the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Studies. This letter, in fact, clearly points out that 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, (the Letter points out), 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. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.

1. Therefore, whatever of the popular narrations have been inserted into the Sacred Scriptures must in no way be considered on a par with myths or other such things, which are more the product of an extravagant imagination than of that striving for truth and simplicity which in the Sacred Books, also of the Old Testament, is so apparent that our ancient sacred writers must be admitted to be clearly superior to the ancient profane writers."

 

[James248]

Right.
We are you telling me not to hate “those who…”? Why do you feel that point needs to be stated? Who is really hating on scripture?

Why don’t we have a real discussion rather than throwing assertions and sensitivities around?

Points are made. Do you want to discuss specifics?

I’m not saying you’re doing that: I’m saying don’t do it. There’s a huge difference between “you’re doing this” and “don’t do this.”

 

[goout]

Humani Generis is an amazing encyclical that should be read by all catholics. Let me quote something that may help us:

"38. Just as in the biological and anthropological sciences, so also in the historical sciences there are those who boldly transgress the limits and safeguards established by the Church. In a particular way must be deplored a certain too free interpretation of the historical books of the Old Testament. Those who favor this system, in order to defend their cause, wrongly refer to the Letter which was sent not long ago to the Archbishop of Paris by the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Studies. This letter, in fact, clearly points out that 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, (the Letter points out), 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. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.

1. Therefore, whatever of the popular narrations have been inserted into the Sacred Scriptures must in no way be considered on a par with myths or other such things, which are more the product of an extravagant imagination than of that striving for truth and simplicity which in the Sacred Books, also of the Old Testament, is so apparent that our ancient sacred writers must be admitted to be clearly superior to the ancient profane writers."

Yes. Debunking the equation of other ancient creation stories and conceptions of gods with the true God and his creation.

 

[Renan]

Knowing there are no myths in the Bible, we have to use the rule of thumb we find in Leo XIII’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus: “not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires” (PD 15).

For example, we have to know the Church has never taught the absolute universality of the great flood as an article of faith. Therefore, if natural sciences demonstrate there couldn’t have been an absolutely universal flood we will have to seek its correct interpretation.

It’s like when Moses said “the whole world came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, for famine had gripped the whole world” (Genesis 41,57). It’s clear to see he didn’t mean people from America went to Egypt in order to buy grain, as he didn’t even know there was an american continent. It’s just how they used to express themselves.

On the other hand, there are many things that cannot be conceded. In 1909, the Pontifical Biblical Commission answered a few questions on the historical character of the earlier chapters of Genesis. It says:

"Question III: Whether in particular the literal and historical sense can be called into question, where it is a matter of facts related in the same chapters, which pertain to the foundations of the Christian religion; for example, among others, the creation of all things wrought by God in the beginning of time; the special creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man; the oneness of the human race; the original happiness of our first parents in the state of justice, integrity, and immortality; the command given to man by God to prove his obedience; the transgression of the divine command through the devil’s persuasion under the guise of a serpent; the casting of our first parents out of that first state of innocence; and also the promise of a future restorer?

Reply: In the negative" (Dz 2123).

That’s why Pius XII condemned polygenism in his encyclical Humani Generis:

“When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own” (HG 37).

When something is directly related to an article of faith, we have to be extra careful.

 

[oyaji]

There are no myths in the OT.

First they said there was no real Adam and Eve. Then it was Noah who was fake. Then they said Moses didn’t really write the Pentateuch. Then they said Abraham wasn’t a real person. Then it was Exodus that was entirely made up. Then they said it was all actually taken from Babylonian captivity.

It isn’t about Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, Abraham, or even the Old Testament. It is always about the same thing: Jesus was not the Christ. He was not God. He did not resurrect and ascend into Heaven. The only reason they don’t start with that is because when they start with that, people instinctively resist it, and the historical evidence of Christ’s existence is too strong to eliminate. So they got wiser and they started small. Poke little holes in it here and there. Create the illusion that it’s important because it’s a good story with an important message but not meant to be taken literally.

Once they’ve got you convinced it’s all about the message and the story and the narrative, then they don’t even have to attack Jesus as a historical person. They can twist his “narrative” to mean whatever they want. And why bother reading to find out if they’re wrong or right? It’s all just myths and legends anyway. If his life isn’t important, but his words, then maybe he didn’t really mean it that way? Or maybe something was lost in translation? Or maybe he only said that because those people needed to hear it that way? Who knows what he really said. It’s the message that’s important.

And who interprets the message? Well, of course everyone has to decide that for themselves. Or better yet, listen to the academics who have studied that sort of thing. A few soundbites will do. Better not to get too hung up on all the details here. Just take the whole idea in a few small, easily digestible bites and move along. There’s no actual facts in the Bible anyway, and isn’t it honestly more beautiful that way? It’s not this old, dry, history book with all those uncomfortable realities… no, it’s just another collection of myths from a silly, uninformed, desert people. Science has done away with all that outdated nonsense anyway. You don’t want to be regressive do you? You know how that looks, right?

You want people to think you’re intelligent and modern, don’t you?

Well done! Holy Scripture is the inerrant word of God and we Christians need to embrace that and stop kowtowing to the atheists.

 

[Tim_D]

Well done! Holy Scripture is the inerrant word of God and we Christians need to embrace that and stop kowtowing to the atheists.

So let me see if I understand this…if someone does not take the early chapters of Genesis as “real” or “true” but believes that there are literary allusions that expresses spiritual truths, then he is “kowtowing” to the atheists???

 

[reggieM]

So let me see if I understand this…if someone does not take the early chapters of Genesis as “real” or “true” but believes that there are literary allusions that expresses spiritual truths, then he is “kowtowing” to the atheists???

In some cases, yes. In others, perhaps not.

 

[Tim_D]

In some cases, yes. In others, perhaps not.

And who is the one to make that distinction?

 

[reggieM]

And who is the one to make that distinction?

With enough knowledge, experience and conversation with a particular person - I think anybody would make that judgement for themself. A person, for example, who compromises their Catholic faith when faced with a challenge from atheists would be, for me, someone who kow-tows to atheists.
Some of those cases are easy to identity, others more difficult.

 

[Tim_D]

A person, for example, who compromises their Catholic faith when faced with a challenge from atheists would be, for me, someone who kow-tows to atheists.

How is not believing in a literal reading of Genesis “kowtowing to atheists?”