(March 19, 2013 at 10:11 pm)Darkstar Wrote:(March 19, 2013 at 9:47 pm)jstrodel Wrote: You are assuming Genesis, which has two accounts, is meant to be taken literally.
Why would part of an otherwise literal book be allegorical, and not even specified as such. (i.e. we know Jesus's parables aren't supposed to be literal, but one would have to infer that Genesis was allegorical)
And if the answer is somewhere along the lines of it being too unusual or contradictory to science to be literal, than that would apply to most of the book.
Because Adam's name means 'man', because there are two stories, because it has been interpreted in non literally ways by figures as authoritative as Augustine (about as authoritative as it gets) hundreds of years before any of the scientific controversies, because the Old Testament is used allegorically in the New Testament in places like Galatians, and there is other exegetical evidence to say that it is allegorical.
There are many approaches people have taken to understand Genesis. Genesis, like abiogenesis and what came before the big bang, is a mystery.
