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The book of Genesis is poetic?
January 31, 2015 at 10:39 pm
(This post was last modified: January 31, 2015 at 10:40 pm by Fendon.)
I was having a discussion with my Dad the other day about religion. He grew up as a Christian and has spent the majority of his life devoted to God. He is totally tolerant of my Atheism and loves a decent conversation about it, as long as I can be somewhat engaging with the points I made.
Anyway, in this particular discussion he mentioned that I had made a critical flaw in my analysis of the Bible in relation to the origins of the earth. He discouraged me from taking the scriptures literally, instead suggesting that Genesis could simply be poetic or a collection of songs devoted to God. He acknowledged that Christians had been taking the Bible too literally and that he didn't believe the Earth was created in seven days.
I did some further research and did find some links, which I've been told I can't post until I've been a member for 30 days. Basically, I found that the origins of this theory actually arose from the emergence of the Theory of Evolution. Many Christians (not all, sadly) had a sudden realization that their previous understanding was limited and so in an attempt to reconcile religion with naturalistic theories, they started making shit up. Thus, the poetry/song theory emerged.
I'd quite like to hear from others about this. Whether you're a theist or atheist, I'd like to know what you think of this theory.
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RE: The book of Genesis is poetic?
January 31, 2015 at 10:46 pm
Meh.
Really this looks like retellings of mythology that was floating around in the area at the time. The epic of Gilgamesh is an excellent example. There's some similarities to Hellenistic mythology as well, which isn't surprising. It seems that genesis is one of the younger books at around 2500-2300 years old. They would be familiar with those myths.
The common practice was to borrow heavily from other mythologies, and genesis is rife with it.
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RE: The book of Genesis is poetic?
January 31, 2015 at 10:58 pm
(This post was last modified: January 31, 2015 at 10:58 pm by Dystopia.)
Christians have been adjusting their interpretations everytime progress, scientific or social, is made. Now that marriage equality is progressively being achieved in the west some Christians are saying that homosexuality isn't really a sin and the bible should be taken metaphorically.
I really hate this cheap trick because on a public sphere it validates religion and makes it look more modern, acceptable and perhaps even scientifical
The truth is that the book of genesis was written to be taken literally as the creation of the earth. Just ask Ken Ham or go check out Answers In Genesis
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RE: The book of Genesis is poetic?
January 31, 2015 at 11:00 pm
That's a Christian trying to have his cake and eat it too. I'd rather see them do this because then they will oppose the idiots trying to push creationism in schools.
If you take out the fall of man though, who needs Jesus? That's why many Christians bury their head in the sand like an ostrich anytime evolution comes up.
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RE: The book of Genesis is poetic?
January 31, 2015 at 11:22 pm
I thought it was 30 posts OR 30 days to include a link?
Mods?
You could tell you dad that he is in apparent agreement with noted atheist, H. L. Mencken.
Quote:The Jews fastened their religion upon the Western world, not because it was more reasonable than the religions of their contemporaries — as a matter of fact, it was vastly less reasonable than many of them — but because it was far more poetical.
— H L Mencken
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RE: The book of Genesis is poetic?
February 1, 2015 at 1:11 am
If dad wanted to be intellectually honest, he would realize the evidence he is utilizing to support his conclusion to take Genesis poetically actually supports your conclusion to become an atheist.
I'm sounding like a broken record around here, but dad is a heretic.
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RE: The book of Genesis is poetic?
February 1, 2015 at 1:14 am
I've read better Vogon poetry.
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RE: The book of Genesis is poetic?
February 1, 2015 at 3:09 am
I really doubt it was intended to be poetry, or to be anything other than a literal account. Sure, people can interpret it however they wish. But if you actually believe this is the word of God, then it is incredibly arrogant to think you can just tell people what God meant by these words. And the very fact that people are interpreting it different ways means either God is deliberately being ambiguous in order to cause confusion or he was just such a terrible author he could not write a coherent book.
I mean, when you're writing the book that is meant to provide clear instructions for how everyone should live, forever, you think you'd take the time not to write it like a psychotic 5 year old.
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RE: The book of Genesis is poetic?
February 1, 2015 at 10:24 am
(This post was last modified: February 1, 2015 at 10:27 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Then you should check some rabbinical literature on the matter. It's been considered a narrative (and intentionally so) - a "just so story", not a news report, for hundreds of years........sure, sure...the christians seem to have believed otherwise for more than a thousand years....but they believe many strange things...eh?
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RE: The book of Genesis is poetic?
February 1, 2015 at 10:45 am
(This post was last modified: February 1, 2015 at 10:47 am by watchamadoodle.)
According to this table from Pew Forum only 46% of US Protestants and 23% of US Catholics view the Bible as the "Word of God to be taken literally, word for word".
http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/table-...dition.pdf
Many Christians (like Catholics?) believe in biblical inerrancy, but they don't mean the Bible is history. They mean the Bible does not teach heresies, etc. They don't mean it is all factual. They mean it has good teachings. Parts of the Bible are taken as factual (e.g. the resurrection of Jesus, etc.)
Probably if we could poll Christians from before the 1800s it would be nearly 100% taking the Bible as literal history.
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