On the literal and historical sense of Genesis 1 to 3

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Response of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on Genesis – June 30, 1909
Question I:
Whether the various exegetical systems which have been proposed to exclude the literal historical sense of the three first chapters of the Book of Genesis, and have been defended by the pretense of science, are sustained by a solid foundation? –
Reply:
In the negative.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church390
The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. 264 Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents. 265

264 Cf. GS 13 § 1.
265 Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1513; Pius XII: DS 3897; Paul VI: AAS 58 (1966), 654.

(figurative language = Metaphor.)

I interprete this to mean: The language used is figurative, howevent the truth of the event is :historical" and the event must be literally interpreted.

Is there an apparent discrapency here?
Can you comment?
Thanks
 
St. Augustine clearly taught that the first chapters of Genesis have a literal meaning.

The first chapters do use Biblical figures or figurative language.

The figurative language does have a literal meaning.

The ball is in your court. The literal meaning, it is your turn.

One example that I have seen on these threads and have read in some of St. Augustine’s works: In the Beginning is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. The creation is done by the Word or Second Person of the Trinity.

The Biblical figure: Jesus is the Alpha or beginning.

When God created heaven and earth, it is an introduction to the account of Creation.

Heaven refers to the creation of angels.

Origen taught that the two accounts of the making of the human being refered to the interior man: made man in His image and likeness.

In the second account: made man from the slime of the earth, this refers to our body.

The Fathers of the Church taught that God made all things all at once, but that the account is broke down into divisions for our understanding. Thus one day is an cardinal number and not an ordinal number. Example: the first thing one needs when one builds a car is the motor. This is first in the cardinal or primary sense, but not in time.

I do not know if this is helpful.

I will watch and see.
 
Hi [Sully,
Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut.

Based on the PBC teaching of 1909 and the CCC is my understanding correct?

The language used is figurative, - howevent the truth of the event is :“historical” and
the event must be literally interpreted./B]
 
From what I understand, and I am not a scholar but a serious student, there is a literal and historical sense in the early chapters of Genesis.

However, it is written in BIBLICAL FIGURES.

Those are the terms that I use to understand the figurative language of those early chapters of Genesis.

All figures of speech have a literal meaning.

“Herod that fox”, Jesus said.

I think the literal is: Herod is really evil–a dog, no dogs in Heaven.

Herod is not a canine.

116 The literal sense 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.”

Again, all figures of speeech have literal meanings.

He is a turkey. We know the literal meaning.

The snake in the Garden is the devil. We know that Biblical figure because other parts of the Holy Bible tell us.

Snake’s literal meaning: snakes do not have legs, no faith with which to walk home. Our home is in Heaven.

Snakes have no ears: Ears hear God’s voice and thus needed for faith.

Well, if you trust me, hopefully I am correct.

These ideas are not mine, I have taken them from many Church Fathers and saints.

If I am wrong, please do not yell at me.

You certainly may explain my mistake.

I will rethink my prayers!!!
 
Here is what is taught in many Catholic adult Ed classes (and it is based on fairly recent papal documents such as Dei Verbum):

The story of the man and the woman in the garden is a myth. It is an imaginative story that uses symbols to explore a realty beyond human comprehension. The reality being explored is “Why do human beings suffer?” Given the beliefs that God is all loving and all powerful, that God made humans human beings in God’s own image, and that we are very good, why do we suffer? How can our belief that God is all loving and all powerful be made compatible with our experience of suffering?

The author who chose to explore this question does not have the option of giving an historical explanation. He doesn’t know an historical explanation. The author makes it very evident that his genre is not historical by the obvious use of symbols.

What in the story is an obvious symbol? We first recognize the tree of a knowledge of good and evil as a symbol. Such a tree does not in fact exist in the order of reality. Notice there is no apple tree in this story. There is a tree of a knowledge of good and evil and a tree of life - another obvious symbol. If one can eat every day from the tree of life, one will not die. A third obvious symbol is the talking snake. Notice too that the snake is not referred to as the devil. The snake is a character in the plot, just as God, the man, and the woman are characters in the plot.

It is not unusual to ask “How do you know that these are symbols? Maybe back at the beginning of creation there were trees like that and snakes could talk.” This question flows from the same misunderstanding some encounter in regard to the creation myth. The story does not date back to the beginning of time. The author is not contemporary with the dawn of creation. This is a very sophisticated story. At the dawn of civilization society did not have a highly sophisticated view of marriage as expressed in Genesis 2:24. Neither farming nor the establishment of towns was an early development in prehistoric life, yet the fourth chapter of Genesis reports that Cain, who tilled the soil, married and built a town, all while separated from the family of his birth. This story, like the story in which God creates the world in a workweek, reflects a much more highly sophisticated society than would a story about the actual first human beings on the face of the earth. However, when we understand the literary form of the story, questions that presume historicity appear irrelevant. The text will simply not support a claim of historicity.
 
patg

What do the symbols mean?

Or, are you saying the symbols mean nothing?

Please know, I am not trying to correct or disagree.

I find these things to be difficult.

My understanding: the literal meaning of the symbol tree of life–God’s grace, that is, love and will of God.

I see a connection to the FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT–love, joy, peace, patient understanding, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-contorl.

My understanding; the symbols point to real realities.

I
 
Response of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on Genesis – June 30, 1909
Question I:
Whether the various exegetical systems which have been proposed to exclude the literal historical sense of the three first chapters of the Book of Genesis, and have been defended by the pretense of science, are sustained by a solid foundation? –
Reply:
In the negative.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
390
The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. 264 Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents. 265

264 Cf. GS 13 § 1.
265 Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1513; Pius XII: DS 3897; Paul VI: AAS 58 (1966), 654.
[catholic.com/library/adam_eve_and_evolution.asp

(](http://www.catholic.com/library/adam_eve_and_evolution.asp)Nihil Obstat & Imprimatur article from Catholic Answer)
Adam, Eve, and Evolution
The Church does not have an official position on whether the stars, nebulae, and planets we see today were created at that time or whether they developed over timeConcerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.

Adam and Eve: Real People
It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).
continue…2
 
cont;d…2

From Margaret Nutting Ralph “And God Said What?” An Introduction to Biblical Literary Forms for Bible Lovers, Paulist Press, N.J., 1986

**INTERPRETING THE LITERARY FORM OF A MYTH **
concrete symbols and concrete plot, the author speaks about what is beyond comprehension.

Adam
Each person – all of us
Eve
The other person whom we need to love and by whom we need to be loved
Garden
A place of no suffering
**God’s Instructions **
Moral and Spiritual order.
Tree of knowledge of good and evil
The capacity of acting contrary to the spiritual order.
**Tree of Life **
Avoid physical death – one kind of suffering
Naked butUnashamed
Self-acceptance
Serpent
Temptation
Eating
Sin
**Naked but Ashamed **Self-alienation
Hiding
Loss of capacity to respond to God’s love
Punishment
Suffering known from experience, which is seen as the natural consequence of disobeying the spiritual order.
**Expelled from garden and unable to return **
Human beings are powerless to undo the effects of sin

PLOT
No suffering - sin – suffering.
THEME
Sin always causes suffering.

The Teaching.
  • Code: 
    Sin always causes suffering (although not all suffering is due to ‘sin’)
  • Code: 
    The plot of the story is that God made a place of no suffering and put man and women in it. God explained the rules. The man and woman were disobedient. After that, their life was full of suffering.
  • Code: 
    The story is not about physical life and death but spiritual life and death. The man does not die physically on the day he disobeys but he does die spiritually.
================

Patg
“The story of the man and the woman in the garden is a myth. It is an imaginative story that uses symbols to explore a realty beyond human comprehension”

I will agree,
When we say “Myth” it is actually in “Mythical Fory” –
NOT a myth as in fiction by a for of literature. I have always understood this from Biblical scholars as “Man’s attempts to describe the indescribable”

**Anthromorphic is another literary form **
clearly used by the Biblical authors in Genesis 3:8 when God is described as a humer person walking in the cool of the evening with Adam and Eve.​

**The Roman Catholic Church affirms an “Original Pair” – our first parents (CCC 390) – (Their “names” may not be “Adam & Eve” per se)
BUT the original pair are Real People. **
 
For my understanding, we are now in paradise again.

The Tree of Life is God’s love and other attributes.

The Sword is the Word of God.

The Sword protects the Tree of Life like a guard rail on a highway. It keeps us on The Way.

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are the Fruits of the Tree of Life.

The Sword protects us like a weapon against sin, temptation, the world and the devil.

In my understanding, Adam and Eve were real.

Adam and Eve were naked, that is, withouth God’s love in their heart. They did their will and not God’s love.

We are now CLOTHED with CHRIST.

We are no longer naked.

There are many symbols in the sacraments for that.

I do not know if these are correct, but I feel confident.

Also, God made us with an exterior man, the slime.

God made us with an interior man. our soul.

For putting on Christ, the interior man is most important.

GOT TO GO.

I pray that I am correct.

I pray that if I am wrong, the Holy Spirit we teach me.

Thanks for sharing…
 
The Tree of Life is now protected by HUGH WALLS–the walls of the HEAVENLY JERUSALEM!!!
 
**If anuyone is confused as to why I say that the Roman Catholic Church affirms that Adam & Eve are Real “Original Pair” of our First Parents and yet Dr. Margaret Ralph also explains that in mythical firom that
**Adam **
Each person – all of us
**Eve **
The other person whom we need to love and by whom we need to be loved

The answer lies in the "Senses of Scripture as explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church

**115
According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116
The literal sense 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.” 83

117
The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

(1) The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism. 84

(2) The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”. 85

(3) *The anagogical sense *(Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem. 86 **

Hope this clarification helps.
 
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