The literal interpretation of Genesis

Hello folks,

This will be a quick post.

I just want to get this out there:

A literal interpretation of Genesis is NOT a requirement for belief in YHVH or the Bible as His inspiried Word, and an allegorical interpretation does NOT mean it didn't happen exactly as we're told....we're just misinterpreating what happened...

orthodoxcatholicnew.tripod.com...

This website gives a very detailed and in depth examination of the Genesis account,

and to quote from Origen of Alexandria, one of the greatest theological minds in history,
"Who would be so childish as to think that God was like a human gardener and planted a paradise in Eden facing the east, and in it made a real visible tree, so that one could acquire life by eating its fruit with real teeth or, again, could participate in good and evil by eating what he took from the other tree? And if the text says that God walked in the garden in the evening, or Adam hid himself under the tree, I cannot think that anyone would dispute that these things are said in the figurative sense, in an effort to reveal certain mysteries by means of an apparent historical tale and not by something that actually took place. . . . . "

Also, here's from the website:

Origen was right, of course, but today there are millions of Christians who know nothing of all this. Nor do their ministers either. All they seem to be concerned about is using the story to demonstrate that God made Man and whilst this is true enough, the Allegory of Adam and Eve goes far beyond that simple explanation. Therefore let us who seek wisdom, investigate.

The story of the physical creation really ends with its summing-up in Genesis 2: 4 "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth. . ." The word translated 'generations' is 'toledath' in Hebrew and means the "origins of"' so that a better interpretation is "This is the book of the origins of the heavens and the earth..." - and it refers BACK to the preceding information including all of chapter one. In the Jerusalem Bible this is brought out very clearly.

Please folks,

Keep an open mind,

Seek wisdom,

Evolution and Darwins theory are scientific FACT, the earth being 4.54 billion years old is a scientific FACT!

To dispute these scientific facts is akin to disputing gravity or einsteins theory of relativity or any other widely known and accepted scientific belief,

Now it's about time we get our interpretations of Gods Word up to speed with the scientific community,

This way, we can be looked at seriously, and not looked at with mockery and grinning from the secular community, as a majority of us Christians are.....

Please folks, seek WISDOM and TRUTH!

Amen

*preparing myself to get bashed by fundamentalists/conservatives/literalists*

I see the science in Genesis when discerned from a non literal point of view
Yet also there is science in more ancient Creation story's also
Humanity has always wondered how all came to be
Genesis is one such explanation when discerned
Story telling and Myth are passed down through generations
At best science gives details and fills in the gaps of such stories yet stands apart from Myth - this is a great shame as both enrich the other when discerned

reply to post by Iason321


I'm glad to see someone else connected with Origen. I have a deep love for him and never have met him but I believe he was on our side, if you will.

This journey of mine began with the Bible and then when I read about the Council and Origen ... I was awakened.

I'm with you.... seek and never stop. Wisdom isn't something we are born with.

Discernment is an easy thing for me but for the new seeker.... it may be confusing.

For the new seeker: Open your mind and begin again I say. Start with what you don't understand...like maybe the Bible or another ancient Text ("Council of Nicaea").www.papalencyclicals.net...

Worldly ideals and thoughts have to be kept by the waist side and the reader has to try and understand their language way back then and word meanings... back then. Their thinking and train of thought was based off the "heavens". Astronomy was definitely a big part of their language. Also, they were not dumbed down by CNN. They were VERY in tune with the cosmos! We today, in modern times are far from in tune...far from it!!!

reply to post by Iason321

thanks for the post...

there is something about Genesis (one of my favorite books btw) that I think we apply to the meaning.

we know alot more now than they did when the mortals who penned it lived... that's what makes it all the more intriguing. Alot of time we go WOW! how could they have known this?

Genesis probably is my favorite part of the bible... it's so full of quaint metaphor that only thru scientific knowledge that we have acquired via the deaths of many martyrs can it be somewhat understood.

reply to post by artistpoet

one has to put themselves in the mindset of the elders who penned it...

with what we've learned since then... it makes Genesis probably the most supernatural book of the bible.

(the darkness doesn't understand the light... darkness can only be 'ignorance' imo, and it's where we get the saying "you're in the dark" about something be it knowledge or truth)

Darkness can be extended out to the universal plane too as it also applies to the cosmos in many ways...

the dark energy!
en.wikipedia.org...

as the light drifts away from itself so do we from one another as time goes on... as above so below.

reply to post by SisyphusRide


Good tidbits , sys!

Keepworking at it!

It'll come!

Amen!

reply to post by Iason321

I'm a trying

but I gotta fight off all these evildoing cowards to even get to you guys!

heavy duty!

Iason,
I commend your work in this area.
Not much else to say at this moment, as I'm weary....but as I'm wrapping up reading The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James, I'm in total support of what you're attempting here....

it is absurd for science to say that the egotistic elements of experience should be suppressed. The axis of reality runs solely through the egotistic places -- they are strung upon it like so many beads.

To describe the world with all the various feelings of the individual pinch of destiny, all the various spiritual attitudes, left out from the description -- they being as describable as anything else -- would be something like offering a printed bill of fare as the equivalent for a solid meal.

Religion makes no such blunder. The individual's religion may be egotistic, and those private realities which it keeps in touch with may be narrow enough; but at any rate it always remains infinitely less hollow and abstract, as far as it goes, than a science which prides itself on taking no account of anything private at all.

A bill of fare with one real raisin on it instead of the word "raisin," with one real egg instead of the word "egg," might be an inadequate meal, but it would at least be a commencement of reality. The contention of the survival-theory that we ought to stick to non-personal elements exclusively seems like saying that we ought to be satisfied forever with reading the naked bill of fare.

I think, therefore, that however particular questions connected with our individual destinies may be answered, it is only by acknowledging them as genuine questions, and living in the sphere of thought which they open up, that we become profound.

But to live thus is to be religious; so I unhesitatingly repudiate the survival-theory of religion, as being founded on an egregious mistake.

It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should therefore leave off being religious at all.

By being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality
is given us to guard. Our responsible concern is with our private destiny, after all.

Thought of you when I read this bit.
Keep fighting the good fight.

reply to post by Iason321


I am not going to profess to put words in Yeshua's mouth when it comes to creation, because it was him doing it all and i have never known him to lie. There's alot of prophetic language thrown around in the OT that if you took it literally would be total nonsense but...

There was more than one earth man, thats why all these fringe sci-fi cults keep popping up with crap like we came from other planets to this one, but thats not what happened. Life began and ended on this planet 3 times before us. We are in the 4th earth age that began after Noah when the Great Flood wiped out the antediluvians and the nephilim.

Think about how many times on earth life was wiped out and nearly driven to extinction, yet survived. Those were the first 3 earth ages. We are in the 4th and the 4th is coming to an end in a few years.

Originally posted by SisyphusRide
reply to post by artistpoet

 

one has to put themselves in the mindset of the elders who penned it...

For sure!

From torahscience.org:

The Torah contains varied types of communicable information, alluded to by the famous acronym: PaRDeS. PaRDeS stands for the four types of textual analysis traditionally used to explore the Torah in order to recover its informative content. These are: pshat (literal analysis), remez (symbolic, or numerical analysis), drash (hermeneutic analysis) and sod (associative, or model-based analysis). In order to quickly orient the reader we will note that drash (hermeneutic analysis) was utilised in the study and development of Halaha (Jewish Law). Sod (associative, modelbased) analysis was most fully developed in Lurianic Kabbalah. Our present study will make use of all four types of textual analysis. At times, we refer to the knowledge arrived at using remez and sod analysis as the ‘inner (or esoteric) wisdom of the Torah’.

Now, once you have a translation in hand, remez becomes impossible as there is no gematria for english, although symbolisim may appy, given that it translates in a cultural sense.(which more often than not, it won't). Drash, again would be distorted after translation and therefore not the 'same'. Sod, well this may survive translation assuming the translation was accurate, which by definition, translation is not the same thing, else there would be no need to translate. so really after translation, all you are left with is Pshat: a literal analysis, and that too can be distorted by translation.

reply to post by InLightTend

appreciated...

but English has assimilated it (not to coin a phrase)

and it is obviously dominant and has advanced modernity in a short time coming from a small tribe...

it has to be accurate considering.

this is a fairly long series I enjoyed...

Google Video Link