There are no answers in Genesis

[The Grand Nudger]

Mealy mouthed bullshit. First we insist it was always this way, then we hedge our bets because we're starting to realize that other people know more about magic book..and say it doesn't matter if what we just finished saying was actually true. Not only was genesis taken to be literally true, because the ot repeatedly affirms it as history - the story of christ depends on it being true, and it was still taken to be explicitly and literally true by the authors of the nt.

That the faithful have, in every age, had to grapple with the fact that their magic book is fantasy, has never stopped them from coming up with similar mealy mouthed bullshit reasserting it as fact.

[Jehanne]

Mealy mouthed bullshit. First we insist it was always this way, then we hedge our bets because we're starting to realize that other people know more about magic book..and say it doesn't matter if what we just finished saying was actually true. Not only was genesis taken to be literally true, because the ot repeatedly affirms it as history - the story of christ depends on it being true, and it was still taken to be explicitly and literally true by the authors of the nt.

That the faithful have, in every age, had to grapple with the fact that their magic book is fantasy, has never stopped them from coming up with similar mealy mouthed bullshit reasserting it as fact.

It's called cognitive dissonance. For anyone and everyone, I would recommend the audiobook (on Audible, of course) Pale Blue Dot where the late Professor Carl Sagan reads the first six chapters followed by Ann Druyan, his third wife. Dr. Sagan hits the nail straight on the head with respect to religions and religious belief.

[Anomalocaris]

Cognitive dissonance is innocent.   Intellectual duplicity is not.    I wonder how many of the Christian apologists willfully hides behind a plausible denial modeled on cognitive dissonance so as to seem less intellectually duplicitous than they actually are.

[HappySkeptic]

Mealy mouthed bullshit.  First we insist it was always this way, then we hedge our bets because we're starting to realize that other people know more about magic book..and say it doesn't matter if what we just finished saying was actually true.  Not only was genesis taken to be literally true, because the ot repeatedly affirms it as history - the story of christ depends on it being true, and it was still taken to be explicitly and literally true by the authors of the nt.

That the faithful have, in every age, had to grapple with the fact that their magic book is fantasy, has never stopped them from coming up with similar mealy mouthed bullshit reasserting it as fact.

When I first became a Christian I read the NT, and then the OT.  It was clear to me as a new "believer" that the biblical story must be false unless The Fall was something real.  I could see the creation as 7 days as being story, the garden as being allegory, but if The Fall and the corruption of the world didn't happen, then Jesus makes no sense.

Jesus was the second Adam.  By becoming heirs of Jesus through faith, we break the curse of death that being heirs of Adam gave us.  The World is a mistake, and it was always meant to be perfect.  God will do a reset.

This is literally the message of Christianity, as laid out in the bible.  One cannot take Genesis as no-true and be a biblical Christian.  Fundamentalists and Evangelicals have it right -- you either believe the whole thing, or throw it all away.  You can't believe a few nice things about a heavenly paradise, and not-believe the entire story that leads up to it.  If the "revelation" that created the rest of the story isn't real, then the heavenly paradise part isn't either. (Well, there could be an afterlife - it just wouldn't be a Christian one).

[Jehanne]

Cognitive dissonance is innocent.   Intellectual duplicity is not.    I wonder how many of the Christian apologists willfully hides behind a plausible denial modeled on cognitive dissonance so as to seem less intellectually duplicitous than they actually are.

They don't like nihilism, which is why many believe. I was on a large conference call just this morning hosted by a manager who just got back from funeral leave. He's a believer, but the look on his face was one of profound sadness. I felt so sorry for him and his family. Someone proposed a conversation about this past Thanksgiving mishaps; it lightened the mood quite a bit.

[Anomalocaris]

Mealy mouthed bullshit.  First we insist it was always this way, then we hedge our bets because we're starting to realize that other people know more about magic book..and say it doesn't matter if what we just finished saying was actually true.  Not only was genesis taken to be literally true, because the ot repeatedly affirms it as history - the story of christ depends on it being true, and it was still taken to be explicitly and literally true by the authors of the nt.

That the faithful have, in every age, had to grapple with the fact that their magic book is fantasy, has never stopped them from coming up with similar mealy mouthed bullshit reasserting it as fact.

When I first became a Christian I read the NT, and then the OT.  It was clear to me as a new "believer" that the biblical story must be false unless The Fall was something real.  I could see the creation as 7 days as being story, the garden as being allegory, but if The Fall and the corruption of the world didn't happen, then Jesus makes no sense.

Jesus was the second Adam.  By becoming heirs of Jesus through faith, we break the curse of death that being heirs of Adam gave us.  The World is a mistake, and it was always meant to be perfect.  God will do a reset.

This is literally the message of Christianity, as laid out in the bible.  One cannot take Genesis as no-true and be a biblical Christian.  Fundamentalists and Evangelicals have it right -- you either believe the whole thing, or throw it all away.  You can't believe a few nice things about a heavenly paradise, and not-believe the entire story that leads up to it.  If the "revelation" that created the rest of the story isn't real, then the heavenly paradise part isn't either.  (Well, there could be an afterlife - it just wouldn't be a Christian one).

It seems to me a underlying reason of the vociferous defense of the bible and christian theologians by those who are forced to admit the the untenability of biblical literalism or inerrancy is a deep sympathy with profoundly misanthropic world view embodied by the text of bible,  as well as sympathy with the overweening attitude of the theologians, their distrust of humanity’s ability to profit from the truth as embodies by studied assessment of facts, and their exultation of their own ability to bullshit as convenient for the purpose deceiving humanity to achieve what may well be, in their own minds, a better world.     The latter being examplified by Belaqua’s ridiculous and nauseating lament about the displacement by Copernicus revolution of his treasured make belief world of transcendent lies and falsehoods.

[Jehanne]

Not everyone who is a Christian is a Biblical literalist, as you point out, but remember, the majority of Christians in the World are not Protestant. Catholics, Eastern & Russian Orthodox, Coptics and others have a formal, sacramental hierarchy to guide and shape their beliefs. In my opinion, only fundamentalist Protestants care about the Bible.

[Anomalocaris]

other people still care about continuing to let the capacity of humanity be circumscribed by reams of bullshit stemming from entrenched iron age fantasy of a few rather self-important, misanthropic individuals.

[emjay]

Where I said elsewhere that I took the Bible literally - both when I was a Christian, 20, 30 years ago, and now as a critic - I meant with the exception of where it is explicit or obvious that it was not intended to be taken literally, such as Psalms or parables for instance. But where Genesis is concerned, I'm not convinced; to me, if something includes lots of specifics... names, places, details... that usually implies that it is intended to be taken as a literal, historic account of something. Genesis is full of such details. Why for instance would there be the need to describe the names and locations of specific rivers in the Garden of Eden? ...when such details are completely superfluous to any obvious allegorical reading?

It seems pretty clear that the Bible is edited together from lots of different writers with lots of different intentions. Genesis in particular is a collage of different styles and levels. It's entirely possible that some part was believed by the author to be true history, and other parts are legend, myth, or extended metaphor. 

And you know, I'm sure, that it's a very old tradition to say that every verse should be interpreted at four levels simultaneously. There are easy meanings and difficult meanings, and secret, kabbalistic meanings. 

When Augustine talked about the "literal" meaning, he means the meaning that the original author intended. So if the verse was originally meant as a metaphor, then, confusingly, the literal meaning is metaphorical. But for people who believe that the text is inspired, the full meaning may not be known to the original author. It unfolds and reveals itself through time.

I can accept Augustine's usage of 'literal' and also accept that there are many different writers with different intentions represented in the Bible... and like he appears to be, I'm also interested in the intentions of the original authors...

As for detail, I don't see why a symbolic reading would necessarily need to have less. The more propaganda/history parts of the OT about the kings of Israel, for example, might give place names for verisimilitude, but if they're talking about Eden, which is full of symbolism, more detail might just mean more symbols.

...I just don't find the sort of hybrid symbolism you seem to be suggesting for the Eden story very plausible (as a likely original intention)... 

Think about a famous non-biblical text that's been interpreted allegorically, for example. The chapter in the Odyssey where Odysseus finally arrives in Ithaca describes in great detail a cave where he goes to hide his stuff and disguise himself before going to his house. Whether Homer (or whoever made it up) intended it or not, every little detail of the description has been given Neoplatonic readings by later writers, most famously Porphyry. In this case, greater detail in the literal description corresponds to greater detail in the metaphysical meaning. Spenser imitated it, in part, for his description of the Garden of Adonis, where souls go in transit between the ideal and material worlds. He describes in exhaustive detail what he imagines such a place to be like. 

Or the famous "pageant" section at the end of the Purgatorio, is another example. Dante describes dozens of characters and a strange beast and lots of other stuff, in great detail. It has kept readers busy interpreting its meaning(s) for 700 years.

... because I see the sort of detail in the imaginative writings of Dante for instance, as very different from the sort of detail I was talking about of just cold, hard facts and figures, geneologies etc. The former is artistic licence let's say, but the latter, to me at least, is an implicit claim to being a factual/historical record of something.

Whether any part of Genesis was intended to operate this way originally or not isn't really important, except as a historical detail. The fact is it's been read that way, and so that's what it has come to mean.

This is where we differ the most I think, because to me, the only thing that's important is the original intention, not whatever other interpretations have built up around it over the years... because as far as I'm concerned the original intention is the claim that needs to be evaluated, so if it's claiming to be a historical record, which I believe is most probable for the Eden story, then that's how I think it needs to be judged.

[Anomalocaris]

How does original intent, essentially unknowable except through dubious deduction, matter more than how it is manifestly, customarily, practically and Influentially applied? Especially when how it has been practically applied carries great momentum and governs to a far greater extent how it will continue to be applied than the dubious “original intent”?