Do you take the creation story (as found in Genesis) literally or metaphorically? Or, perhaps you take some of it literally and some of it metaphorically? Do you think God really made creation in seven, literal, measured-as-currently-measured days? Or, was a "day" to God then really a number (however huge) of years? I remember hearing conversation once that went along the lines of Adam and Eve and Eden not even being "real" but something more like "fables", stories to learn from. I don't know what I think about the Adam and Eve "fable" idea except, where do you separate "fable" from "real"? Were Cain and Able "real" or "fable"? Was Noah "real"? As for the made-in-seven-days thing, I do not doubt God could have made creation in 7 sun-up to sundown days, but I also could see a "day" equalling a huge number of years. What do you think about all this?
posted by bemily at 2:08 PM
2 Comments:
Frankly, I try not to think about. I have many of the same questions. If I believe that the creation story is simply a story, then how do I know that the rest of the Bible isn't just a story? I can't really chose which parts of the Bible to believe and which not to believe. It's kind of an all or none situtation... However, what about dinosaurs? Where do they fit in with creation? And should we belive that the earth is only thousands of years old instead of millions or billions? Then that destroys our theory on carbon-dating.
But on the other hand, why couldn't God create a million year old rock? Why couldn't God follow the steps of evolution in seven days? With God nothing is impossible...
Lots of big issues to explore here. A few remarks about Scripture. Surely in reading the Bible our goal is to believe what God intends us to believe. We'd be doing Scripture a disservice were to try to interpret a metaphor literally, or to take a parable for an eyewitness account, or to mistake a fable or allegory for a history. (Isn't it just as bad to mistake an allegory for a history as it is to mistake a history for an allegory?) If we read Genesis, there's lots of stuff going on that suggests this isn't to be read as straightforward history. And so lots of folks have moved toward a less "literal" or "historical" reading of primeval Genesis (Chapters 1-11) because they're trying to read what's really there, to believe what the text wants them to believe. Now maybe they're wrong, but aren't they simply trying to get at what God's word says?
For a small, relatively harmless example, consider, for example, Genesis 4:20-21. Are we committed to thinking that everyone who plays the lyre and pipe must be descended from Jubal? Or do we recognize this as the kind of mythological genealogy that's found in many ancient Near Eastern cultures? If someone suggests the latter, why must they give up the Bible altogether?
Final thought: on the idea that God created an old universe (a million year old rock), the typical objection to that is that it makes God a deceiver. Why would God create a world full of false evidence?
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