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A Literal Adam And Eve?

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  • #61
    Originally posted by NorrinRadd View Post
    No scholars or theologians that I know of. I may have picked up the idea at one online forum or another over the years and just started seriously considering it in the past few.

    I know it's way out of the mainstream. But I also know that there are multiple passages of Scripture where ISTM it's the natural interpretation. If it were just one or two, I could easily write it off as hyperbole or some form of rhetoric. When I see several, I have to take it more seriously and literally. And when I see that there are other passages that pretty obviously conflict with the idea, I have to wonder which ones I'm actually supposed to believe.
    Yeah, it is interesting, though I can't help feel that maybe there's a missing the forest for the trees thing going on here. I think Witherington's points are interesting, especially his interpretation of Romans 13:8 (though, of course, there are other passages that emphasize the love of neighbor motif without direct mention of love of God).

    This all deserves its own thread, but it's definitely something worth more investigation.

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    • #62
      Originally posted by Adrift View Post
      This is all off topic of course, but my church just did a several month long series of teachings on this, how the first half of the 10 commandments are essentially to do with love of God, while the other half are to do with love of neighbor, so it is kind of timely.
      Interesting ... that was my Wednesday night topic last week, entitled "Follow Directions".
      The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

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      • #63
        Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
        Interesting ... that was my Wednesday night topic last week, entitled "Follow Directions".
        I also have some issues with treating the Bible as an instruction manual.
        Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

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        • #64
          Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
          I'm not understanding the issue - it's obvious that "the Big 2" represented a package deal, and, together, they covered the 10 with the first of the "Big 2" dealing with the first 4 of the 10, and the second of the "Big 2" dealing with the remaining 6 of the 10.
          As Adrift noted, this is getting well off-topic and should possibly have its own dedicated thread. However, here is where it's currently being discussed, so I will address it at least briefly here.

          I would not use the "Big 2" passages in and of themselves to support the idea that "love" replaces all the Mosaic Commandments. Those passages themselves do not support that. Or more precisely, not all of them do.

          Mark 12 presents them as two distinct Commandments that are the "greatest," and presents them in a clear hierarchy.

          Matthew presents them as two Commandments, but says the second is "like" (or "the same as") the first, which at least softens the hierarchy. He explicitly says the Law and Prophets "depend on" (lit. "hang from") those two, which is clearly NOT the same as saying they REPLACE all others. (OTOH, Matt. is also the one who teaches that the "Golden Rule" *does* encapsulate the "Law and Prophets." IMO, "Treat others as you wish others to treat you" is the best possible practical description of "Love your neighbor as yourself.")

          Luke 10 presents them as one composite Commandment, and DOES explicitly say that obeying this single compound Commandment is sufficient to obtain eternal life.


          I've often heard that idea about the Greatest Commandment encapsulating the first four of the Decalogue, and the Second-Greatest Commandment encapsulating the other six. It makes *some* sense, unless we press details too far. I am not one who believes that the Lord's Day is now the Sabbath; I do not believe the New Covenant includes "special" days.

          Finally (for this post), the idea that "Love your neighbor as yourself" is sufficient in and of itself finds its most explicit support in Paul, in Rom. 13 and Gal. 5. It also finds some support in James 2.
          Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

          Beige Federalist.

          Nationalist Christian.

          "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

          Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.

          Proud member of the this space left blank community.

          Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.

          Justice for Ashli Babbitt!

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          Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!

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          • #65
            Originally posted by Adrift View Post
            Yeah, it is interesting, though I can't help feel that maybe there's a missing the forest for the trees thing going on here. I think Witherington's points are interesting, especially his interpretation of Romans 13:8 (though, of course, there are other passages that emphasize the love of neighbor motif without direct mention of love of God).

            This all deserves its own thread, but it's definitely something worth more investigation.
            I have that book by BW3, but have not cracked it yet. I'll have to look that over, as well as his Romans and Galatians commentaries.
            Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

            Beige Federalist.

            Nationalist Christian.

            "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

            Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.

            Proud member of the this space left blank community.

            Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.

            Justice for Ashli Babbitt!

            Justice for Matthew Perna!

            Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!

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            • #66
              Originally posted by NorrinRadd View Post
              I also have some issues with treating the Bible as an instruction manual.
              The "Follow Directions" was in direct relation to the teachings of Jesus, particularly in regards to "the Big 2". I think it's a pretty good idea to follow THOSE instructions.
              The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

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              • #67
                Originally posted by seer View Post
                It seems that though Eve is called the mother of all living, and that in Adam all men died, and sin entered the world though one man, that many Christian don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve. How can that be - it would undermine the whole story of sin and redemption.
                I believe that pride, anger, covetousness and treachery are all great evils. I believed that before I read Lord of the Rings, and those lessons can all be drawn from LOTR.

                To perceive the wrongness of pride, etc., is not dependent on accepting the historical reality and accuracy of the details given about Saruman the Wizard, who is an example of pride in LOTR. That Saruman is a character in a “feigned history” but not in “real history”, does not make the sin of pride any less evil or destructive or sinful. To reject the evil character of pride because a proud character is not an historical character, would be very strange reasoning, and very rash. The evil character of pride is not contingent upon the historicality of Saruman - or upon the total inerrancy, total infallibility, and historical accuracy of LOTR.

                The lust of Melkor for the Silmarils in the Silmarillion is a revelation of the depravity of Melkor. That Melkor “isn’t real” does not make his envy, pride, malice, lies, cruelty, egoism, deceitfulness and wickedness any less detestable or damaging as human attitudes. These revolting attitudes are all too familiar, in human history if not in our own hearts. That Tolkien chose to tell of them through a feigned history, does not make them any less real or any less immoral in human experience.

                So too, disobedience to God’s known Will is a terrible choice; even if it happens in a feigned story about a man, a woman, a talking serpent, two trees, a garden, and God. The Adam and Eve story is not a relation of historical fact - it does not for one second follow, that the story is without meaning. The reverse is the case.


                Christian rejection of the historicality of Adam does not imply that mankind needs no Saviour, and in no way does it imply that Christ did not die for our sins. Rejecting an alleged cause of reality X, does not imply any rejection of the reality of X. Conversely, one cannot argue, from the existence of debris in New York in 1933, that the debris was caused by King Kong. Nor is this a good argument:

                De Loreans exist in real history
                There is a time-travelling De Lorean in the Back to the Future films
                Therefore the events in the “Back to the Future” films are really historical.

                That the Adam-story is part of God-breathed Scripture, does not require acceptance of its truth as historical truth. The parable of Jotham in Judges 9 is part of God-breathed Scripture: it does not follow that, because the trees in the parable engage in debate, God through Scripture is saying that trees engage in debate. Still less can it be inferred that the parable is proof from Scripture that the Ents in LOTR engaged in the Entmoot LOTR describes.

                All truth is from God, and truth is of many kinds: historical, ethical, mathematical, aesthetic, spiritual, linguistic, theological, among others. Scripture contains a great deal that makes no truth-claims: such as “Come bless the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord” - that is an exhortation, not a statement that X is historically true, or is claiming that X is historically true.

                And many statements are either approximate:

                “The biblical description that the bowl has a diameter of 10 cubits and a circumference of 30 cubits suggest that in the construction of the basin, π was approximated with the integer value 3. This is consistent with the practice in Babylonian mathematics at the time (6th century BC), but it has given rise to debate within rabbinical Judaism from an early period due to the concern that the biblical text might here be inaccurate.

                Rabbi Nehemiah in the 2nd century argued that the text is not claiming that π equals 3, but that instead the Hebrews measured the diameter from the outside edge of the rim of the bowl, while the circumference was measured from under the rim, since it cannot be measured with a cord along the outside edge of the rim. After accounting for the width of the brim--"about an hand breadth"--this results in a ratio closer to the true value of π. Taking a cubit to be about 18 inches and a handbreadth to be about 4 inches, the ratio of the described dimensions of the bowl differs from π by less than 1%.”

                https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_Sea

                That is still a difference - if mere mathematicians can be even more accurate, why can’t the All-Knowing God inspire the authors of Kings & Chronicles with an even more accurate answer ? A difference from the exact value of π is still an inaccuracy, regardless of approximately correct it may be. Those who insist on the literal accuracy of all Scripture as evidence of its Divine Authorship, have deprived themselves of all right to take refuge in vagueness. The solution is, that perfect mathematical accuracy is totally irrelevant to the meaning of the two passages; they are concerned with the Temple and its purpose, not with mathematics. It is not the purpose of Holy Scripture to give us infallibly, measurably, impregnably, unanswerably perfect info about everything that Scriptures on - its purpose is the far more valuable one, of revealing and glorifying God. Knowledge of history, languages, biology, mathematics, and very much else, can be attained by human effort; the grace of God made known in Christ, cannot.

                - or are even false if “taken literally”: the name of the city of Babel does not mean “confusion”. The explanation in Gen.11.9

                https://biblehub.com/genesis/11-9.htm

                is a folk etymology that treats Hebrew *balal* as though it were the source of the name Babel. In actuality, “Babel” is a Hebrew version of the place-name *Bab-ili*, which is the Akkadian Semitic name for the city, and means “gate of [the] god [Marduk]”. The Hebrew name is a sarcastic perversion of the Akkadian name, to make a theological point. Its lack of strict linguistic accuracy is irrelevant to the purpose of the passage. For the point being made, the folk etymology of “Babel” made the point very well.


                One of the reasons to reject the historicality of the Adam and Eve story, is that their names are Hebrew. If the story were historically accurate, and they were the first two human beings, and they lived only about 6,000 years ago, one would expect the first two humans to have Sumerian names. Sumerian is about 2,000 years older than Hebrew, and is one of the earliest languages to have left any written remains. The Hebrew puns in Genesis work only if the texts were composed in Hebrew.

                So the fact that X in the Bible has the linguistic form of a statement, is not necessarily proof that the statement is to be taken as strictly true. This is why familiarity with the literary genres in which the Biblical texts are written, is so important and so valuable.


                Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 09-02-2019, 10:00 PM.

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                • #68
                  Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post
                  So too, disobedience to God’s known Will is a terrible choice; even if it happens in a feigned story about a man, a woman, a talking serpent, two trees, a garden, and God. The Adam and Eve story is not a relation of historical fact - it does not for one second follow, that the story is without meaning. The reverse is the case.

                  Christian rejection of the historicality of Adam does not imply that mankind needs no Saviour, and in no way does it imply that Christ did not die for our sins. Rejecting an alleged cause of reality X, does not imply any rejection of the reality of X. Conversely, one cannot argue, from the existence of debris in New York in 1933, that the debris was caused by King Kong. Nor is this a good argument
                  Yet the New Testament takes Adam as a literal person, and in the Genealogy of Christ. And that sin entered the world through this ONE man. And that Adam was the FIRST man.
                  Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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                  • #69
                    Nitpick: a difference is not necessarily a significant difference - especially when using somewhat imprecise measurement systems to begin with. A difference of less than 1% isn't statistically significant* in this instance - only a hyper literalist would take this as either not literally correct or a significant error.





                    *Dubious that it can even be noted without modern standardized measurements.
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                    "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

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                    • #70
                      Originally posted by seer View Post
                      Yet the New Testament takes Adam as a literal person, and in the Genealogy of Christ. And that sin entered the world through this ONE man. And that Adam was the FIRST man.
                      The Genealogy of Christ in St Luke 3.23-38 is making a theological point: that Jesus the Christ is of relevance to the entire human race. The Table of the Nations in Gen.10 makes a related point: that the ancestors of Israel cannot be isolated from the rest of mankind. It could also be that this is St Luke’s way of saying that the entire human race is in need of salvation, and that Jesus is identifying Himself with this needy human race.

                      It is far from clear that the mention of Adam in St Luke 3.38 is saying that

                      • there was an historically real individual man named Adam
                      • he had an historically real wife named Eve
                      • he died at the age of 930 years
                      • he and Eve had 3 named sons
                      • the names of these sons were Cain, Abel and Seth
                      • he and Eve also had other sons, and daughters as well
                      • the account in Genesis 1-5 is to be taken as providing historically accurate biographical for the lives and times of the very earliest human beings
                      • the very earliest human beings spoke the Hebrew language


                      But all these statements are made in, or are implied by, those chapters of Genesis. None of them need be true for the Good News to be true - our salvation depends on the purpose and grace of God, not on the historical reality of the age of Adam. It does not follow, that because Seth son of Adam is said in Gen.5 to have lived 912 years, St Luke was asserting, by the fact of mentioning Seth as the son of Adam in 3.38, that the 912 years attributed to Seth were part of the Gospel.

                      I see no qualitative difference between Greek or Mesopotamian or Roman ancestor-myths, and the similar stories in the Bible. The Julio-Claudians do not become unimportant or fictitious when one denies or doubts their descent from the goddess Venus. The real historicality of Julius Caesar does not evaporate the moment one doubts that he became one of the Roman gods. Nor does one have to treat Ovid as a brazen liar for recounting, in Book 15 of the Metamorphoses, that the murdered Caesar was taken to heaven by his mother Venus, and deified. Some statements are not falsehoods, yet are not to be taken as assertions that X is really and factually (“historically”) the case.

                      As texts, these myths are much alike. What makes the myths in the Bible special and significant is not their - non-existent - historicality, but, what God by His grace makes of them, and intends by them. They are special, and God-breathed, not because they are infallibly true historical records, but because they have God’s authority and blessing and transforming power in and behind them. God’s intention, that is not itself part of Scripture, but is the “environment” within which Scripture has its life, being, and power, is what gives Scripture those qualities.

                      Theologically, this is important, because it underlines the reality of the inaccessible Divine Authorship and origin of all Scripture, while making it impossible for man to locate this authority and origin in anything which is manipulable by man - such as historical accuracy. God’s intention in and through Scripture cannot be reified, so it remains inaccessible within God, unless God graciously and in sovereign freedom sees fit to reveal it to man.

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                      • #71
                        Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                        Nitpick: a difference is not necessarily a significant difference - especially when using somewhat imprecise measurement systems to begin with. A difference of less than 1% isn't statistically significant* in this instance - only a hyper literalist would take this as either not literally correct or a significant error.





                        *Dubious that it can even be noted without modern standardized measurements.
                        This is not nitpicking. A Bible that said Athaliah was king of Judah, or that Shem lived 700 years, or that Kish was the son of Saul, or that Jesus was a disciple of Judas, would be making statements that would mean that the Bible makes mis-statements - because the Bible asserts that:

                        Athaliah was queen of Judah
                        Shem lived 600 years
                        Saul was the son of Kish
                        Judas was a disciple of Jesus.

                        IOW, God is stating, with infallible and inerrant truthfulness, all 4 statements. To say that 11 inches is pretty much the same thing, by and large, as 12 inches, would be to take refuge in vagueness - but if God is Omniscient, Almighty, All-Good, and so forth, it is intolerable that the God of truth should say that X is Y, when X is not Y. It is a species of lying to do so. If a book has the Perfect God for its author, it ought to be free of the imperfections that characterise the works of mere men.

                        Fundamentalism has long argued in that way. The Bible must all of it be inerrantly true, because what the Bible says, God says. If the Bible says Joshua stayed the Sun - then Joshua stayed the Sun. God says so in His inerrant Word - so if astronomy disagrees, too bad for astronomy. Astronomy must conform itself to the inerrant Word of God - *not* the other way round ! Therefore, to deny the inerrant truth of what God says in His inerrant Word, is to call God a liar, and amounts to an attack on the infallible truthfulness of the entirety of the Holy Bible, which amounts to undermining all that the Bible says about God, Christ, salvation, and so on. To deny the inerrant truth of one single statement in the Bible, is to call all of it, every book, chapter, verse, word, letter, jot and tittle, into question.

                        So - if one adopts that POV - those who insist on such total inerrancy need to have the courage of their convictions. It is their theory, not their critics’ theory; so those who insist that the Bible is totally inerrant in all it says cannot suddenly back away from what Scripture says, when their theory meets with problems in the text they have been insisting is totally free from all error. If they base their theory on the idea that that all Scripture is perfectly true because God is Perfect, & has therefore inspired a Bible that is perfectly inerrant in all it says, then it is not unfair to ask them why this or that passage of Scripture is not perfectly accurate, but only roughly accurate. It is their theory, not that of their critics, that raises these problems. If the theory does not fit the Bible for which it professes to account, then the theory needs changing. Not in a furtive way, but explicitly, openly, and honestly.

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                        • #72
                          Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post
                          This is not nitpicking. A Bible that said Athaliah was king of Judah, or that Shem lived 700 years, or that Kish was the son of Saul, or that Jesus was a disciple of Judas, would be making statements that would mean that the Bible makes mis-statements - because the Bible asserts that:

                          Athaliah was queen of Judah
                          Shem lived 600 years
                          Saul was the son of Kish
                          Judas was a disciple of Jesus.

                          IOW, God is stating, with infallible and inerrant truthfulness, all 4 statements. To say that 11 inches is pretty much the same thing, by and large, as 12 inches, would be to take refuge in vagueness - but if God is Omniscient, Almighty, All-Good, and so forth, it is intolerable that the God of truth should say that X is Y, when X is not Y. It is a species of lying to do so. If a book has the Perfect God for its author, it ought to be free of the imperfections that characterise the works of mere men.

                          Fundamentalism has long argued in that way. The Bible must all of it be inerrantly true, because what the Bible says, God says. If the Bible says Joshua stayed the Sun - then Joshua stayed the Sun. God says so in His inerrant Word - so if astronomy disagrees, too bad for astronomy. Astronomy must conform itself to the inerrant Word of God - *not* the other way round ! Therefore, to deny the inerrant truth of what God says in His inerrant Word, is to call God a liar, and amounts to an attack on the infallible truthfulness of the entirety of the Holy Bible, which amounts to undermining all that the Bible says about God, Christ, salvation, and so on. To deny the inerrant truth of one single statement in the Bible, is to call all of it, every book, chapter, verse, word, letter, jot and tittle, into question.

                          So - if one adopts that POV - those who insist on such total inerrancy need to have the courage of their convictions. It is their theory, not their critics’ theory; so those who insist that the Bible is totally inerrant in all it says cannot suddenly back away from what Scripture says, when their theory meets with problems in the text they have been insisting is totally free from all error. If they base their theory on the idea that that all Scripture is perfectly true because God is Perfect, & has therefore inspired a Bible that is perfectly inerrant in all it says, then it is not unfair to ask them why this or that passage of Scripture is not perfectly accurate, but only roughly accurate. It is their theory, not that of their critics, that raises these problems. If the theory does not fit the Bible for which it professes to account, then the theory needs changing. Not in a furtive way, but explicitly, openly, and honestly.
                          Er, I was nitpicking...

                          Also, I don't ascribe to that definition of inerrancy. Nor do I accept hyper-literalism as a counter argument to literalism.

                          If the Israelites saw the sun stand still, then they are reporting what they literally saw, not the mechanism by which it was achieved. To claim otherwise is to claim more than the text supports.
                          "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                          "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

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