Priest says OT is all "just stories"

[grannymh]

Scripture interprets scripture? Really? Gen 1:13-16 states God created the sun and the stars after creating the earth, scientific evidence shows the sun is older and definately proves other parts of the universe is way older. In the same group of verses it states that God made the day and night cycle, on the third day. While on previous verses, Gen 1:8 indicates that there was already a day and night cycle on the first day. All this at the same time, philosophy proves that time does not affect God. So you have scientific, philosophical, and scriptural contradiction with a literalist interpretation. Allegorical interpretation is necessary.

So God actually breathed on the pages? This another literalist interpretation? Define “God-Breathed”, does it contradict what I said?

Where? 2 Peter 3:15-16? Hardly an apostolic edict claiming the letters were divinely inspired. If that’s your interpretation, it’s grasping at straws. Even if this was the case, you’re assenting to the authority of the first Pope. Regardless, all you have is that St. Paul’s letters were equated in difficulty of understanding as the Old Testament. Nothing in scripture states that the Gospels, St. Paul’s letters, St. Peter’s letters, Revelation, etc… are inspired by God, it was the authority of the Catholic Church who recognized what was inspired and proclaimed what was the New Testament.

Who said anything about absent in protection? I was speaking of who determined what was inspired. Hard fact, the Catholic Church declared the canon of the New Testament. She didn’t make what was canon inspired at the moment the first council declared this, but recognizing what is inspired already and arranging the table of context for the New Testament.

Jesus Christ teaches that He is true God. The Catholic Church teaches the same truth. The actual doctrines of the Catholic Church are based on true Divine Revelation from God.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

So does that mean that Genesis is just a story and Adam+Eve were just 2 characters?

There were 2 first humans, they did not have original sin, and they sinned against God and each other. Other than that, no Catholic is obligated to take the story as being historically accurate.

What about The Law? Did Moses exist and therefore, were there 10 Commandments?

On that the Church would teach that Moses did truly exist and did hand down laws. However, once again, whether everything in the story of Moses is 100% historical fact is open to debate.

Its not always a case of either/or but is often a case of both/and…

 

[grannymh]

There were 2 first humans, they did not have original sin, and they sinned against God and each other. Other than that, no Catholic is obligated to take the story as being historically accurate.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you.
The first human, Adam committed Original Sin when he let his trust in his Creator die in his heart. He freely disobeyed God’s command. With that sin, Adam preferred himself to God. With that sin, Adam destroyed the bonds of friendship with God. The Original Sin of Adam is transmitted to us as a contracted state. This is different from personal sins.

Yet, God did not abandon us, who are direct descendants of Adam. He promised a Savior Who could reconcile humanity with God.

I, too, like to view things as both/and.

 

[razredge]

In the case of Job and Jonah there is nothing in the Bible to indicate that they did not exist. The great fish, it was not a whale, is referenced as Leviathon elsewhere in Scripture. .

Job is clearly a piece of didactic, wisdom literature which gives a response to the problem of evil and was not written as an actual historical account and should not be taken as such (note the highly structured text with cycles of speeches occurring between Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and later Elihu, and then the dialogue between Yahweh and Job).
Many of the details of the text are fantastical - Job lives for another 140 years (living to see the 4th generation of his children!)

If you begin to justify making people in the Bible just stories because it fits your desires then it is only a small step to make Jesus just a story

Hardly, the books of the Bible are written at very different times by different authors and have different levels of support by independent evidence.

Why does taking the Genesis creation account or Job as a ‘story’ also entail that we take the life of Christ as a story?

 

[grannymh]

Job is clearly a piece of didactic, wisdom literature which gives a response to the problem of evil and was not written as an actual historical account and should not be taken as such (note the highly structured text with cycles of speeches occurring between Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and later Elihu, and then the dialogue between Yahweh and Job).
Many of the details of the text are fantastical - Job lives for another 140 years (living to see the 4th generation of his children!)

Hardly, the books of the Bible are written at very different times by different authors and have different levels of support by independent evidence.

Why does taking the Genesis creation account or Job as a ‘story’ also entail that we take the life of Christ as a story?

It is a good idea not to put the first three chapters of Genesis and Job into the same category because they are on different levels when it comes to particular Divine Revelation. For example, there are many people who are like “Job”, but only one first human. Because of his Original Sin, this first human is directly connected to Jesus Christ Who atoned for that sin.

 

[razredge]

It is a good idea not to put the first three chapters of Genesis and Job into the same category because they are on different levels when it comes to particular Divine Revelation. For example, there are many people who are like “Job”, but only one first human. Because of his Original Sin, this first human is directly connected to Jesus Christ Who atoned for that sin.

Except said first person didn’t exist and nowhere is it implied (other than the speculations of Paul) that Jesus died to atone for the sin of said non-existent first person.

 

[grannymh]

Except said first person didn’t exist and nowhere is it implied (other than the speculations of Paul) that Jesus died to atone for the sin of said non-existent first person.

If said first person did not exist, then there is no reason for Christ to conquer death through His Resurrection. The Catholic Church tells the whole story, no matter how many people deny some of the parts.

By the way, various Church Councils after Paul clarified the fact that Jesus did die as a Savior. Please listen to the Nicene Creed at Sunday’s Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

 

[razredge]

If said first person did not exist, then there is no reason for Christ to conquer death through His Resurrection. The Catholic Church tells the whole story, no matter how many people deny some of the parts.

By the way, various Church Councils after Paul clarified the fact that Jesus did die as a Savior. Please listen to the Nicene Creed at Sunday’s Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Ah, but Christ dying on the cross did not stop death - now did it?

Hence what Christ must have accomplished is victory over the spiritual death that accompanies sin. Since death was present long before the fall and if Adam & Eve were already immortal, there’d be no reason to put a Tree of Eternal Life in Eden.

And Christ being a Saviour (which I accept) does not need equate to Christ needing to die because Adam ate a fruit from the wrong tree.

1 Peter 2:21–25

For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to him who judges righteously; and **He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed**. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.

 

[Jehuty_X]

I am with you on this, Marianna.
to add-I believe that biblical accounts should be taken literall unless its a clearly allegorical. I guess I don’t get why so many people think that Job being swallowed by the fish is some sort of fairy tale, or that Genesis itself is allegorical as well. Really?

You mean Jonah.
//
As for Jonah, he is mentioned in the book of Kings.
2 Kings 14.25 (NRSV)

He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you.
The first human, Adam committed Original Sin when he let his trust in his Creator die in his heart. He freely disobeyed God’s command. With that sin, Adam preferred himself to God. With that sin, Adam destroyed the bonds of friendship with God. The Original Sin of Adam is transmitted to us as a contracted state. This is different from personal sins.

Yes, what I said was clumsily worded. I was trying to say that the first human persons did not come into the world the same as us (separated from God and each other) but rather they caused that situation (original sin).

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Voco Pro Tatiano, are you serious? What a bunch of drivel. I feel sorry for people who are so full of false teaching about the scriptures that all their joy in the Lord is taken from them. The simple faith to believe the truth of the scriptures and that these events really took place in the real world, even if they are told in a poetic way, leads to peace. I wish that for you and not to be so mixed up.

Ok, then, do you cling to the 4004 BC Drivel, or do you accept what G_D teaches us in the unspoken understanding of geology, in the unspoken understanding of astro-physics, and relativity?

The interesting understanding of these truths shows us that behind these myths, there does lie a very accurate illustration of deep truths.

We believe that G_D is outside of Time and Space, for (S)He created Time and Space. In the Beginning…
Curiously, the ideas of the heavens being layered is there, and there being seven heavens, when compared with the latest interpretation of physics, when you add the three dimensions of space to the seven of the heavens, we get the ten dimensions of the new physics.
The Concept of the Big Bang postulates an effect without a cause.
Or more precisely, without a cause in the Time and Space which we know.
That is in very good accord with "In the beginning G_D created…

When we look at other species of animals, we see huge variations in the possibilities in one specie, but in the Human Specie, there is very little variation. The variation is so small, that the specie, even including ancient, and extinct variants, are called “Homo”, which means “The Same”. This clearly means that we are all descended from a seriously limited GENE POOL in very recent geological history. The Writers of Genesis, in their limited understanding of geology, assumed, a single family, and only about 3000 years previously. Modern genetics confirms the essence, but points out that it was a dozen or so families, and about 120000 years previously. Geology even locates the cause, which was a super-volcano, Yellow Stone would be small in comparison, in South East Asia.

So, No, I am not denying the deeper truth, but warning you that literal truth is not to be found here, and if you cling to these myths as literal fact, you blind yourself to the real truth.

The OT littterality of the Pilgrim Fathers has much to answer for.

 

[Gorgias]

Except said first person didn’t exist

Umm… really?

I think you’ve made the move from “allegory” to “myth” – and that’s the slippery slope that our literalist friends want to warn us about! (Umm… thanks? :nope

The literal truth that we pick out of the Genesis story was that there was a first person. Do we have to believe that his family called him “Adam”? No, not necessarily. In describing this primogenitor, the Bible gives him the name “Adam”. What’s really important about the story is that it identifies that all people came from this pair of first humans (rather than from a larger collection of humans). (This, by the way, is an important point when it comes to the doctrine of original sin.)

and nowhere is it implied (other than the speculations of Paul) that Jesus died to atone for the sin of said non-existent first person.

Really? Luke sure seems to want to ground Jesus’ humanity in the same line as the “first person”…!

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

Ok, then, do you cling to the 4004 BC Drivel, or do you accept what G_D teaches us in the unspoken understanding of geology, in the unspoken understanding of astro-physics, and relativity?

The interesting understanding of these truths shows us that behind these myths, there does lie a very accurate illustration of deep truths.

We believe that G_D is outside of Time and Space, for (S)He created Time and Space. In the Beginning…
Curiously, the ideas of the heavens being layered is there, and there being seven heavens, when compared with the latest interpretation of physics, when you add the three dimensions of space to the seven of the heavens, we get the ten dimensions of the new physics.
The Concept of the Big Bang postulates an effect without a cause.
Or more precisely, without a cause in the Time and Space which we know.
That is in very good accord with "In the beginning G_D created…

I’d be cautious about connecting “deeper” biblical meaning to scientific discoveries. I subscribe to the “the bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

It would seem to me that taking scientific info and trying to jam it into the bible does violence to the text.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

I’d be cautious about connecting “deeper” biblical meaning to scientific discoveries. I subscribe to the “the bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

It would seem to me that taking scientific info and trying to jam it into the bible does violence to the text.

That was not the point I was making.
We need to understand that the pre-scientific people talked in terms of the universe they understood.
For instance, the ancients said there were four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.
Modern science laughed, but then the hundred or so ‘Elements’ turned out to be not as elemental as they thought.
Now seeing the words in terms of the universe that spanwned them, we can now see that Earth is solid, Air is a gas, Water is a liquid, and Fire is a plasma. This accurately defines the four states of matter as today’s science understands.

So in that understanding, Adam, is just a man, Eve, is just a woman.
Again, read the story, a little beyond the beginning, and the Children of Adam and Eve take to husband, or wife, children, not of Adam and Eve. So this is not the beginning of the beginning, but the beginning of a recovery from a near total annihilation. An incident which today’s scientists agree actually happened.

Again, remember, these tales are from the Sumerian myths.
Also remember that there were no Jews before AD300. That is when they defined themselves as “other than Christian”, even Anti-Christian. Before then, they were “The Children of Israel”, or just “The Children”.
Our Lord was of the Children of Israel, but by definition, NOT a Jew.
Even in the Latin, The Word commonly mis-translated as Jew, actually in the New Testament Texts, refers specifically to Natives of Judea. Our Lord was a Native of Galilee. A Galilean, not a Judean.
This is the contextual meaning of ‘Jew’ in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament, the term is applied to the clansmen of Judah. This, though postulated in Our Lord’s ancestry, still has no true relationship to the modern usage of ‘Jew’.
The Children of Israel spent time with the Sumerians, indeed, they may have been Sumerians. We know that Abraham came from Ur in the Chaldees. Again, a strange name, Could it be Ab Brahmin, or Ab Brahma? King David also claimed to be a Son of G_D.

The possibility must be entertained that during the servitude of exhile, Not only were the Children of Israel incarcerated, but also other clans, and the common servitude mingled the prisoners, and their cultures. The Pentateuch was created in this exhile, primarily to unify a disparate people. It is natural that all peoples would contribute to the unifying document content, the best of each being taken, and the worst rejected.
I think, seeing the 5 in this light makes it far more interesting than clinging to the Moses Myth.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

We need to understand that the pre-scientific people talked in terms of the universe they understood.

Agreed.

For instance, the ancients said there were four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.
Modern science laughed, but then the hundred or so ‘Elements’ turned out to be not as elemental as they thought.
Now seeing the words in terms of the universe that spanwned them, we can now see that Earth is solid, Air is a gas, Water is a liquid, and Fire is a plasma. This accurately defines the four states of matter as today’s science understands.

Once again, that’s going a step beyond just accepting the texts are nonscientific in the modern sense.

So in that understanding, Adam, is just a man, Eve, is just a woman.
Again, read the story, a little beyond the beginning, and the Children of Adam and Eve take to husband, or wife, children, not of Adam and Eve. So this is not the beginning of the beginning, but the beginning of a recovery from a near total annihilation. An incident which today’s scientists agree actually happened.

Or its just a theological story about creation that just wasn’t thought out in all the minute details.

Again, remember, these tales are from the Sumerian myths.

Indeed, the changes that they made to the stories help up to better understand the theological points they’re trying to make.

The possibility must be entertained that during the servitude of exhile, Not only were the Children of Israel incarcerated, but also other clans, and the common servitude mingled the prisoners, and their cultures. The Pentateuch was created in this exhile, primarily to unify a disparate people. It is natural that all peoples would contribute to the unifying document content, the best of each being taken, and the worst rejected.
I think, seeing the 5 in this light makes it far more interesting than clinging to the Moses Myth.

Lots of things can be interesting but that does nothing to further their validity.

 

[grannymh]

Ah, but Christ dying on the cross did not stop death - now did it?

Did Christ stay dead?

Hence what Christ must have accomplished is victory over the spiritual death that accompanies sin. Since death was present long before the fall and if Adam & Eve were already immortal, there’d be no reason to put a Tree of Eternal Life in Eden.

What was the location of eternal life?

And Christ being a Saviour (which I accept) does not need equate to Christ needing to die because Adam ate a fruit from the wrong tree.

Ah, sweet allegory! What was the effect of Adam’s sin?

My apology for answering questions with a question. The reason is that I have already answered these questions in various posts, so I am thinking that if I respond with a question, it might help jog readers’ memories.

NOTE: Accepting Christ as Saviour is very important. I hope people do not lose sight of that. It is my humble opinion, that it is good to know the whole story behind John 3: 16.

 

[grannymh]

Yes, what I said was clumsily worded. I was trying to say that the first human persons did not come into the world the same as us (separated from God and each other) but rather they caused that situation (original sin).

That is what I thought you meant. Thank you.
I just needed to be sure since there has been a lot of confusion about our first parents on CAF.

 

[razredge]

Umm… really?

I think you’ve made the move from “allegory” to “myth” – and that’s the slippery slope that our literalist friends want to warn us about! (Umm… thanks? :nope

The literal truth that we pick out of the Genesis story was that there was a first person. Do we have to believe that his family called him “Adam”? No, not necessarily. In describing this primogenitor, the Bible gives him the name “Adam”. What’s really important about the story is that it identifies that all people came from this pair of first humans (rather than from a larger collection of humans). (This, by the way, is an important point when it comes to the doctrine of original sin.)

This is regularly debated in other (usually the evolution vs ID) threads and unfortunately all the scientific evidence rules out the existence of just two persons from which all humanity was descended from - the monogenism theory has been disproved much like geocentrism, six day creation, a six thousand year old earth etc. have also been disproved.

If you want to see why then please read this article (from the Biologos Foundation, which was founded by Francis Collins the director of the human genome project and also a Christian).
biologos.org/blog/does-genetics-point-to-a-single-primal-couple/

Really? Luke sure seems to want to ground Jesus’ humanity in the same line as the “first person”…!

Well everyone would have thought to be descended from Adam - so if they were writing anyone’s genealogy back then, it would have started with Adam - nothing special about Jesus’ ancestry also starting with Adam then.

 

[razredge]

Did Christ stay dead?

Of course not - you can’t kill God.
Fact is if Jesus indeed died to atone for Adam’s sin and the result of Adam’s sin was death, then Jesus didn’t do a good enough job of atoning since death still exists.

What was the location of eternal life?

Presumably,the Garden of Eden.

Ah, sweet allegory! What was the effect of Adam’s sin?

Sin entering the world and a falling away from a perfect relationship to God?

And it’s interesting that ‘sweet allegory’ means the talking snake does not mean a literal talking snake and neither is the act of eating the fruit from the wrong tree a literal historic act but yet the two first persons part of the story are not ‘allegorical’. Seems rather inconsistent, don’t you think?

 

[grannymh]

Of course not - you can’t kill God.
Fact is if Jesus indeed died to atone for Adam’s sin and the result of Adam’s sin was death, then Jesus didn’t do a good enough job of atoning since death still exists.

Let me begin with the Catholic doctrine that Jesus Christ is True Man and True God. Now add in that Catholics believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. This is because Jesus as True Man conquered death by His own resurrection. Atonement is for the act of sinning and not for the result.

Presumably,the Garden of Eden

.
That is a wrong assumption.

Sin entering the world and a falling away from a perfect relationship to God?

That is a good answer in general terms.

And it’s interesting that ‘sweet allegory’ means the talking snake does not mean a
literal talking snake and neither is the act of eating the fruit from the wrong tree a literal historic act but yet the two first persons part of the story are not ‘allegorical’. Seems rather inconsistent, don’t you think?

Now I know what is happening with your answers. Thank you.

It is my humble observation that you are not starting from Catholic doctrines, i.e., Divine Revelation. That has to be why it is difficult for you to understand why there are two real founders of humanity, one real devil and organic fruit as representing the devil’s real temptation. The basic story line of Creator and Creature is missing for many, not all, Catholics on CAF. That is why so many Catholics on CAF are unaware of what was going on in the first three chapters of Genesis. In addition, the fallout from Matthew Fox and others has affected many priests who also were not grounded in basic Catholic doctrines.

No wonder Catholics question the reality of Adam…they simply have no clue about his status.