-
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Do We Interprete genesis 1/2 as being Literal, Myth, or metaphorical then?
- Thread starter JesusFan
- Start date
- Status
humblethinker
Active Member
I would say we should interpret it as God intended it, ie. either literally or metaphorically (does God every tell a mythological story? hmm...). I think what I said is really a restatement of what you meant though.
I'm having some difficulties reconciling some of the YE (young earth) ideas I once fervently held to. I'd be interested in hearing opinions of others who may be better qualified than me.
Which difficulties?
quantumfaith
Active Member
I say it is both simultaneously literal and allegorical. I do not hold to a YE, rather a 4.5 billion year old earth and approximately 13.7 billion year old universe.
humblethinker
Active Member
For one, the problem of astronomy, specifically how it is that we can see light from stars that are more than 10,000 light years away. I have looked in the field of astronomy for a YEC scientist's perspective but it seems that we are really lacking credibly qualified scientists that would offer very much in the way of a model for explaining this and other cosmological observances. This seems to be admittedly so from IRC and AiG. I would welcome any recommendations.
I hold to both
I believe God's universe was created fully functional and with age built in.
I agree. At times YEC scientists try to come up with an answer to every possible dilemma, in the same way darwinists do.
I'm fine with viewing creation being designed with age, not to mention the tensions and myteries. We have proof of this with Adam and Eve, both fully functional adults who at 1 day old would exhibited qualities of adults. I also believe God didn't create saplings for trees and baby animals...He created everything with age built in (including stars, light, etc.)
Last edited by a moderator:
Why can it not be an old earth that was renewed PS 104 I think to introduce a young man, Adam of whom I do not believe to have been complete. Stay with me. Before he was even created the Lamb was slain. Why? Because sin and death was coming.
Just to whom is this present world (the inhabited earth) subject?
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Now related to what was first began spoken of by the Lord, called so great salvation, and the ones he spoke to told others this statement was made by them. For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. This has to be the gospel of the kingdom of God for that is what Jesus spoke about always. All he spoke of was a contrast of this world and the world to come, often in the concept of age.
Then this question is asked. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? That covers Adam and us and even also Jesus of whom Adam was the figure of him to come. The answer. Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing [that is] not put under him.
Then this is said.
But now we see not yet all things put under him. The first man Adam and his seed never received this because he wasn't created capable of handling this.
But the one to come in his figure would be and then we resurrected in his image into, that is born again into the kingdom of God also will be capable.
There is a reason Jesus called himself the Son of man and there is tremendous meaning in this statement by God, "Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee."
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom [are] all things, and by whom [are] all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Know ye not that we shall judge angels?
Last edited by a moderator:
Gen 2:5 before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown.
Gen 2:9 And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
Sure sounds like the trees grew from seedlings to me.
That is a matter of interpretation. Wording changed ever so slightly can change the meaning drastically.
The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
At any rate that passage does not state He created saplings.
Can we assume though that Time as ALWAYS be same constant as in present time?
can we assume that either Light travels at same rate now in entire Universe, or that it ever varied in past?
Do we even know if what we see is still in existence even? What IF God is upholding all things for us, according to His plan and purpose, giving "illusion" Old Universe still exists?
One thing it definitely does not say is that the trees were fully mature.
It does use the word "tree", and given the account of Scripture using "man" and "woman" for a 1 day old, I think it is safe to assume age was built in.
quantumfaith
Active Member
I hold to both
I believe God's universe was created fully functional and with age built in.
Love you brother, I know you know, that is not exactly what I meant.
humblethinker
Active Member
I hold to both
I believe God's universe was created fully functional and with age built in.
Thank you webdog. I have heard of such an idea. Why would God create the universe with age built in? There doesn't seem to be good reasons for him to do such, and, why would God do something for which he didn't have good reason to? I'm not saying that we should necessarily disbelieve something for which we do not have adequete evidence. Though I might accept the explanation you put forth, nonetheless, it does seem like a 'fall back' idea. An idea I would eagerly discard if an alternate reasonable YE explanation were brought forth.
quantumfaith
Active Member
Absolutely not on the time thingy, even "now" time is not constant. Commuications relies on our "compensation" for the rate of time passage. Rate of time passage, as we KNOW, is dependent on at least two variables, velocity and gravity. Faster velocity = slower the rate of time passage, Greater gravity= slower rate of time passage. These "facts" are fundamental to modern science and physics.
humblethinker
Active Member
I don't see why they couldn't have been fully mature. How would you define a fully mature tree? All trees that are mature are still growing trees. Anyways, I don't think this is that relevant.
Think point is Old earth tend to need things to have time to 'evolve" intot he state that is seen today....
YE takes God as being Creator of all things complete and fully mature when originally made by Him, no need to have 'aging" to create a species!
From my perspective, we can read the first two chapters first with the thought that they weren't written in chapter form and second with an open view of what they mean.
The first point is important. It seems obvious that the first creation account extends beyond 1:31 and ends at 2:3. When Archbishop Langton, in the 1200s, put the present chapter and verse structures in place he made numerous mistakes. This one is a doozy. By extending the first creation account to the proper framing we see it is a different kind of literature an a modern, scientifically evidenced empirical account of creation. (As someone who has done the translation work from the Hebrew) It seems obvious that the nature of the literature in 1:1-2:3 is a poetic form and polemical in nature. It is replying to pagan myths of creation contemporary of the writers of the Old Testament. The second creation account changes the language and form and talks specifically about the nature of the mankind's creation. It is different from the first. That's okay.
We don't need to formalize the first two chapters of Genesis beyond what they, themselves already do. When we try to force them into a Cartesian scientific modernism we deny that they are written in a completely different time and with a completely different aim.
The second point is that, just like other parts of the Bible, we need to look at reading difficult passages with grace and humility. It seems to me that the Young Eather quest is, while certainly a noble and pure one, rooted in an epistemological context mightily different from that of the original framers. We need to be careful at holding tightly an interpretation that hasn't been uniformly believed, even by the church fathers, and thus damage our faith on a point that could reinforce it.
This goes for other passages...I'm looking at you Revelation.
I believe that the earth, and creation, appears to be very old. I believe the creation accounts in Genesis are authentic, honest recountings of God's mysterious work. I believe that they are accurate, but that my understanding might not be. Finally, I believe God creates with age and there is too much empirical evidence one has to overcome to convince me that the earth, and creation, doesn't appear to be very, very old.
The first point is important. It seems obvious that the first creation account extends beyond 1:31 and ends at 2:3. When Archbishop Langton, in the 1200s, put the present chapter and verse structures in place he made numerous mistakes. This one is a doozy. By extending the first creation account to the proper framing we see it is a different kind of literature an a modern, scientifically evidenced empirical account of creation. (As someone who has done the translation work from the Hebrew) It seems obvious that the nature of the literature in 1:1-2:3 is a poetic form and polemical in nature. It is replying to pagan myths of creation contemporary of the writers of the Old Testament. The second creation account changes the language and form and talks specifically about the nature of the mankind's creation. It is different from the first. That's okay.
We don't need to formalize the first two chapters of Genesis beyond what they, themselves already do. When we try to force them into a Cartesian scientific modernism we deny that they are written in a completely different time and with a completely different aim.
The second point is that, just like other parts of the Bible, we need to look at reading difficult passages with grace and humility. It seems to me that the Young Eather quest is, while certainly a noble and pure one, rooted in an epistemological context mightily different from that of the original framers. We need to be careful at holding tightly an interpretation that hasn't been uniformly believed, even by the church fathers, and thus damage our faith on a point that could reinforce it.
This goes for other passages...I'm looking at you Revelation.
I believe that the earth, and creation, appears to be very old. I believe the creation accounts in Genesis are authentic, honest recountings of God's mysterious work. I believe that they are accurate, but that my understanding might not be. Finally, I believe God creates with age and there is too much empirical evidence one has to overcome to convince me that the earth, and creation, doesn't appear to be very, very old.
- Status