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grannymh
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No offense taken.
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tanachanswers
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The Mercy came in when the focus of creation was Adam.
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TankGirl
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So it was merciful to go out into the animal kingdom and look for a mate for Adam before realizing that since all of the other animals were heterosexual, maybe humans should be, too?
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Gorgias
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I wish we had a facepalm smiley around hereâŚ
I think that your interpretation of Genesis 2 is rather superficial. If God is really God â that is, all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful â then itâs somewhat facile to suggest that the meaning of Genesis 2 is really that God said, âwhoops! I made a mistake! I better fix it!â
Have you never known of a parent or a teacher, who already knows the answer to a problem, but poses it as a question for the benefit of the instruction of a student or child? A more nuanced approach might suggest that Godâs goal wasnât for Him to learn that Adam needed a mate, but rather, for Adam to figure it out for himself. Moreover, it highlights the theology of Genesis 1 â humans (male and female) are the only creatures that are made âin the image and likeness of Godâ; therefore, in all creation, they need each other, in a way that no other creature will satisfy. (That need isnât just procreative, by the way.)
Your assertion that Adam was genderless prior to the creation of Eve doesnât hold, either. Whoâs to say that he didnât have boy parts? No one to use them with, if you need to think on the face of the story, but why would you suggest that he must have been androgynous? Why would you suggest that God didnât see the need for human reproduction?
Youâre reading far too much into the account, rather than trying to pull meaning from the passage, Iâm afraidâŚ
Finally, your assertions about a lack of âtruthâ in Genesis 2 betray that you arenât familiar with what the Church teaches with respect to how to approach the Bible, and what is meant by âtruthâ in Scripture. Weâre not fundamentalists, requiring that everything in the Bible is a science or history lesson, you knowâŚ
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TankGirl
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Yes, it can be very useful when one assumes oneâs interlocutors are idiots.
Indeed. It is being proposed, as noted, to point out how superficial the use of ch 1 is.
Exactly, this is silly on the face of it.
In order for this to be one of the Spiritual senses of the text, it would have to at least by indicated by the literal sense. This is an eisegesis. The literal sense poses this as a problem* to God, not to Man*. The spiritual senses cannot directly contradict the literal sense, you know.
Because that is precisely what is said by the passage according tot he literal sense. Whatever is meant in the 3 spiritual senses has to at least be indicated by the literal sense.
Therefore, Iâm pointing out that the literal sense of the the human origin story in ch1 and ch2 is contradictory, and therefore to assert that their spiritual senses are completely harmonious is facile. The literal sense of ch1 is that man and woman are created together as a complimentary mating pair, in relative harmony to biological history. The literal sense of ch2 is the opposite, that man is created solo, not created with woman, and woman is created later in response to a problem. In fact, according to the literal sense, it is only because all the animals failed to satisfy Adam that woman was created. One assumes that in the literal sense if Labrador retrievers had existed then, woman might never have come to be.
No, Iâm dealing with the passages the way the Church says to.
Thatâs sort of funny, because there are several posters in this thread and some of them apparently are fundamentalists. Why take me to task for debating with them?
My interest in this is pretty simple. The question is âwhy two accountsâ. My answer is 'Because the Jews drew from more than one culture and therefore more than one creation story. One of them turned out to be harmonious with the rest of revelation, and so it has become the primary. The other turned out to be rather contradictory to the rest of revelation and so has been de facto suppressed, even by Jesus.
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tanachanswers
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You sound like you are hung up on your own interpretation of the bible, and not on what iâm saying.
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TankGirl
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You sound like you really need to ignore what the text actually says in order to claim that it supports your view of it.
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simpleas
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Thanks.
Yes I always thought I was reading about one God in the first two chapters of my bible, but as Gen: verse: 1 :26 says âlet us make man in our own imageâ So these words or similar would not be in the original texts? If they are, how are they interpreted?
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simpleas
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Do we know if the author of genesis 1 was the same author of genesis 2?
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Randy_Carson
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We do. :doh2:
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Randy_Carson
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Jimmy Akin didnât.
I know youâre a big fan of his, but you may have missed this:
jimmyakin.com/2006/02/genesis_one.html
Since youâre a fast reader, it should only take a few minutes for you to learn what youâre missing now.
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Gorgias
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LOL⌠no; just that something silly has been asserted. Both idiots and geniuses can do that.
Youâre misusing the terms âliteral sense of Scriptureâ and âspiritual sense of Scriptureâ here. (Thatâs kind of what I figured was going on, and is the reason I suggested that you review the meanings of the terms.) The literal sense is not âwhat is said on the face of the textâ, but rather âwhat the intended meaning of the author was.â This speaks to the meaning that God, as the divine author of Scripture, intended when He inspired the human writer.
In this case, the literal text seems to imply something silly â God didnât know what He was up to. I agree that this is absurd. The literal sense, then â what God intended â would seem to be that it is Adam who learns that woman is the only fit helpmate for him. A spiritual sense to this passage might be, perhaps, the anagogical lesson that because we are made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore fundamentally different than all the rest of creation, it points to an eternal destiny for us that is likewise distinct from the rest of creation.
Thereâs no conflict between this anagogical interpretation and the literal sense which I have proposed. There is, of course, a conflict between these and a fundamentalist, literalist interpretation of the text, which would require us to believe that God is imperfect in His act of creation and must learn from His mistakes. Thatâs not how the Church would interpret this passage.
No, youâre missing the point of what the âliteral senseâ means; itâs not the âletters on the pageâ, which is the point youâre attempting to make here. (Itâs a common mistake.)
I would assert that this is mistaken: the literal sense of Genesis 1 is that humanity is created by God in His image and likeness, and that humanity consists both of male and female. The literal sense of Genesis 2 is that we realize that thereâs something unique about us as humans, such that the relationship of humans to one another (vis-a-vis the rest of creation), and in a particular way, the relationship of a man to a woman, is special within creation, and part of the plan of God for us. John Paul IIâs âTheology of the Bodyâ goes into great depth, explaining the significance of this literal sense of Scripture. I highly recommend it.
Actually, youâre not.
I wouldnât be so quick to label them fundamentalists. The Church doesnât require us to take the opening chapters of Genesis as either allegory or historical text, per se, but rather, to understand the literal sense of these passages. (Please refer to the Catechism for a more thorough treatment of this notion.)
Iâm taking you to task since you seem to be saying that the Bible is bunk, all because it doesnât read like a science book or a news story.
The multiple-source theory of the Old Testament would make the claim youâre alluding to here: one account is from the Northern Jewish tradition and the other from the Southern.
However, what Iâm not getting at is where youâre saying that Genesis 2 âhas been de facto suppressed, even by Jesusâ. You realize, of course, that in Matthew 19, Jesus quotes from both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 in His teaching about marriage⌠donât you?
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TankGirl
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Great post. Finally something to dig into.
Ok, Iâll review the CCC on the literal sense.
Ok, Iâll review the CCC on the literal sense.
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clem456
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An exposition of this issue from John Paul 2
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb2.htm
BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION ANALYSED
Pope John Paul II
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Various accounts of manâs creation
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ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb3.htm
THE SECOND ACCOUNT OF CREATION: THE SUBJECTIVE DEFINITION OF MAN
Pope John Paul II
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb5.htm
MEANING OF MANâS ORIGINAL SOLITUDE
Pope John Paul II
This whole document is incredibly rich.
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb2.htm
BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION ANALYSED
Pope John Paul II
âŚ
Various accounts of manâs creation
âŚ
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb3.htm
THE SECOND ACCOUNT OF CREATION: THE SUBJECTIVE DEFINITION OF MAN
Pope John Paul II
ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb5.htm
MEANING OF MANâS ORIGINAL SOLITUDE
Pope John Paul II
This whole document is incredibly rich.
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grannymh
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Genesis 2; 19 does not necessarily talk about a mate for Adam.
My Bible says that God brought the animals to Adam to see what he would call them. Verse 20 informs us that Adam gave names to all the cattle, etc.
Please sit down. There is some obvious scientific info in the end of verse 20. Adam could observe (first principle in the scientific method) that his species could not properly mate and raise a family with non-human beings like various birds of the air.
In addition, there is an interesting omission in Genesis 2: 18. Has anyone, with a bit of common sense, noticed that date and time is not mentioned?
My Bible says that God brought the animals to Adam to see what he would call them. Verse 20 informs us that Adam gave names to all the cattle, etc.
Please sit down. There is some obvious scientific info in the end of verse 20. Adam could observe (first principle in the scientific method) that his species could not properly mate and raise a family with non-human beings like various birds of the air.
In addition, there is an interesting omission in Genesis 2: 18. Has anyone, with a bit of common sense, noticed that date and time is not mentioned?
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TankGirl
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Randy, that article is awful. I think it demonstrates adequately how much Fundamnetalist sympathy Akin has. Itâs embarassing. A few pull quotes:
Concerning strict 6-day creation:
If I said that I believed that Jesus rose from the dead because the Greek of the Gospels compelled that interpretation for linguistic reasons, but I did in fact see how someone could believe that Jesus never rose because that was the second most likely interpretation - and I said all this with no reference to the external reality of the resurrection, youâd call me crazy. You might envy my Greek skills, but youâd realize that I had lost the plot.
Likewise, when Akin reasons like this, I get the willies, and say âWell, Iâm glad he decided that the creation of the Sun after day was a deal-breaker and didnât decide it was an allowable imprecision, else he might be a strict six-day creationist.â
â
Like I said, I like Akin for modern stuff, like how to understand Pope Francis. Nobody better IMO. However, like Scott Hahn and some others, I get really spooked by how fundamental their scriptural reasoning seems to be. I got the same feeling a few years ago when Hahn went off on what the exact form of the âserpentâ was in Genesis. I seriously doubt thereâs a single ordained scripture scholar in the world who believes there was an actual serpent. To even ask the question is to betray a sensibility which is fundy.
Concerning strict 6-day creation:
No, Jimmy, not if they read the scripture with reference to anything else on Earth.
Which is bad, because the day-age theory at least is consistent with the major facts of history, which makes it more trueâŚAkin considers it less true due to linguistic analysis, which is pretty much fundamentalism writ small.
No, the first big clue is that the universe was not created in six days 6,000 years ago. To use internal consistency as the primary analysis of how to interpret the creation narrative, even if Akin comes to the right answer, is spooky. Why? Because it indicates that Akin is not interpreting the scriptures according to reason as well, which is precisely what the Church tells us to do!
If I said that I believed that Jesus rose from the dead because the Greek of the Gospels compelled that interpretation for linguistic reasons, but I did in fact see how someone could believe that Jesus never rose because that was the second most likely interpretation - and I said all this with no reference to the external reality of the resurrection, youâd call me crazy. You might envy my Greek skills, but youâd realize that I had lost the plot.
Likewise, when Akin reasons like this, I get the willies, and say âWell, Iâm glad he decided that the creation of the Sun after day was a deal-breaker and didnât decide it was an allowable imprecision, else he might be a strict six-day creationist.â
â
Like I said, I like Akin for modern stuff, like how to understand Pope Francis. Nobody better IMO. However, like Scott Hahn and some others, I get really spooked by how fundamental their scriptural reasoning seems to be. I got the same feeling a few years ago when Hahn went off on what the exact form of the âserpentâ was in Genesis. I seriously doubt thereâs a single ordained scripture scholar in the world who believes there was an actual serpent. To even ask the question is to betray a sensibility which is fundy.
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grannymh
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Of course, you are free to believe whatever you choose. No doubt about that fundamental position.
If you have chosen to believe that there is a real Satan and that the real Satan tempted a real first-ever person biblically known as Adam â how would you depict the real Satan in a written article?
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TankGirl
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Exactly as Satan appears today.
If I were writing an article about, say, William Shatner, and I depicted Shatner an a large eggplant, I might be writing a form of truth, but it would not literally be true. In order for my description to be literally true, Iâd have to describe Shatner as he is, a human over-actor.
Satan is not literally a reptile.
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clem456
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Satan is portrayed in the Genesis literature as a serpent, so it is a literal reference.
Is he, of his full essence and being, a serpent? I donât want to know the answer to that, but I would guess that no, he is not in that rigidly literalist sense, a serpent.
The literature cannot be completely disregarded due to itâs metaphorical elements. (not saying you are doing that, but many people disregard the integrity of the whole bible out of a refusal to accept it as a work of literature. The words mean something that leads us to truth. Conversely fundamentalists reject anything other than the dead and rigid words, in their current meaning, in English, out of any reference to cultural context of any kind. Flip sides of the same coin).
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Randy_Carson
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Perhaps you didnât get all the way to the end which was contained in an separate blog post, The Age of the World - Part III in which he wrote:
The takeaway message from this is that the Magisteriumâs openness to the idea that the universe is billions of years old is not some new, sinister, modernist, post-Vatican II thing. It was acceptedâenthusiasticallyâby Pope Pius XIIâthe pope who defined the Assumption of Mary and, incidentally, just the year after he defined it.
He also used the finding of Big Bang cosmology and Old Earth science to buttress the idea of the existence of God, while noting a number of important caveats that this reasoning from science cannot be taken as definitive.
In Part III, Akin goes deep into Church documents to reach those conclusions.
As aâŚum, skepticâŚyou will need to know this stuff, I think.
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