A non-creationist interpretation of Genesis

I think that dudes are adding to much mystery and philosophical stuff to a narration that is so simple to read and understand.

Do you really think that the writer of the Bible had the intention to force you to learn deep theology in order to understand the Torah? If the Torah was written to send a message for everybody in general, then children and adults should be suitable to read it and understand it without hard requirements.

The Torah really mentions a beginning in such an order that won't contradict itself in any verse or sentence.

Because many people had their own inclinations against or in favor of the Torah, and they want to read the Torah according to their own fixed ideas hold in their brains, for this reason they can't see it, they can't find the meaning, they get lost in the biblical narration at that point that they cry "disorder" because they got lost, not so because the bible is not showing events in order.

Again, my suggestion is to practice more reading comprehension, because it is laughable that dudes with so much study in several trades and careers simply get lost when reading the first chapter of the book of Genesis.

There is not such a thing as "comparative, esoteric, symbolic, retarded, etc." interpretations of this first chapter, only ignorants or dudes with comprehension problems give that opinion.

Then, let them be happy, because even when you teach them reading comprehension, they will go back to their fixed ideas that were input inside their brains by sources against the bible or by the different doctrines of each religious denomination.

Using plain English without the need of investigating, for example, what is tohu va-vohu, etc. the Torah explains the beguinning of the universe in a delightful narration that runs like a clean river from the mountains spreading out knbowledge and wisdom to everything that crosses in its way.

Of course, reading some messages here, one can notice that several dudes are far away from that river...

 

We agree on several points. I definitely don't think we need a theology degree, to understand scripture, or to have God speak to us and I would say that sometimes a degree in theology could be a hindrance if it causes you to rely on your understanding rather than what God shows you in the text. Also you say that some "anti-scholarly" teaching is bad, and I agree, but I think that you also have to realize that what may seem "anti-scholarly" to you, may just be your own prejudices or presuppositions being exposed. For instance I disagree on your "universal salvation" aspect of reading scripture, however I have to examine my own presuppositions when reading a text to make sure I'm not making a text say what I believe it says. Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm just using that as an example.

As far as writers writing things that weren't typical to their cultural, I would say, I'm not sure. However, I do believe they wrote things they didn't quite understand and that their readers may have not understood as well. And that's why I say Genesis could have mentioned evolution, but didn't. If evolution were a fact, then its a fact back then and now, and God should have at the very least alluded to It in some way.

 

Doesn't accepting what God "shows you in the text" depend on you relying on your understanding?
Your argument here is completely circular and self-serving.

 

I agree 100%. The only reason some try to stuff the bible so full of reinterpretations is to make it fit with what we know about the world. Which is kind of like reinterpreting The Lord of the Rings to fit with what we know about the world.

 

I have a feeling that some Christians often mistake what their own prejudices and preconceptions make them see in a text for what God shows them in a text. Theology may be a problem here, for instance when you are cocksure that a text says something about original sin, when (unwittingly) you are just following Augustine’s theology rather than retaining an impartial view that might tell you something else. The historical critical method is not a problem, quite the contrary: it just gives you extra information that may help you to understand better which messages the text conveyed to the original audience.

Oh yes, I understand. But it’s a bad example. From a scholarly point of view it remains pretty arbitrary whether the Bible as a whole tells us there’s going to be universal salvation or whether it tells us that loads of people will go to hell for ever. Both sides have reasonable arguments here and it remains a question of theological reflection. So when it comes down to it it’s my inspired faith, not scholarship that lets me trust in universal salvation. Reading Genesis literally is a completely different matter. Every serious Biblical scholar and scientifically established facts will tell you it’s daft to interpret it literally. There is no reasonable argument for doing so, and certainly not one firmly based on scripture. Fundamentalists, who against all reason believe Genesis is to be read literally because they think all of the Bible is to be read literally and who yet don’t believe that the earth stands on pillars and the sun circles around the earth, are not only plainly wrong but also plainly inconsistent in their reading of the Bible.

You still have not given me any examples for when Biblical authors wrote something that neither them nor their audience could possibly have understood. And see above: God does not adhere to your wishes about what He should have done. He’s got His own plans. Apparently God did not have the slightest problem with letting people believe for a while that the earth is flat and that the sun circles around the sun. Also He never has the Bible alluding to the existence of the American continent or Kochs discoveries in bacteriology. That doesn’t mean these things don’t exist, it just means that apparently God isn’t a tell-tale when it comes to things He thinks we’ll figure out ourselves in due time. The Bible just is not about scientific discoveries, it’s about the most important ongoing discovery of all: our relationship with God.

 

I still believe elements of Revelation was not understood by the author.

What would you consider a "serious biblical scholar"?

 

Has the story of Genesis changed in how it is worded from its original context?

 

The Genesis story isn't really about creation. It's about the failure of people to follow just two simple rules. That's all they had to do and they couldn't handle it. So the story moves into an essay on entitlement. Subsequent chapters show the absurdity of trying to follow hundreds of rules when people couldn't follow just two that they didn't have to do any work to observe. Those two rules were not to eat from the tree of life and not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They didn't have to pray, worship, or sacrifice. All they had to do was to resist temptation and they failed.

The Bible is about what a person needs to do to be "saved". Its stories are not about the creation of the world and the universe (except for the first one which sets the stage for the main point).

It's irrelevant to know how the universe and the world came to be if the question is how do you get into the gaudy bejeweled golden cube called New Jerusalem.

 

How would one know?
The original stories were passed on orally and the original manuscripts have never been seen.

 

That would depend on a few things. What exactly do you mean "its original context"?

 

Word for word, has that changed from its original content?

 

well, we don't possess the original documents, and some believe that it was originally done on oral tradition. I would ask could God preserve the word that He wished to convey to us?

 

Someone posted earlier that other parts have been rewritten or eliminated so that is why I am asking.

 

And other parts are later additions.
Many people find the story of Jesus saving the woman about to be stoned when He tells the men who accuse her that the one who has never sinned should throw the first stone to be very moving and compelling.
It is lovely, but it doesn't appear in any of the oldest complete manuscripts of the bible that have been found. In other words, it was added later by someone, perhaps a devout scribe who wanted to make a point clearer. But the fact that it is an addition is not in question. None of the oldest manuscripts, which presumably would be the most accurate as they would be closer chronologically to the original tellers of the stories of the bible, include this tale.

You can look it up!

 

A non-creatioinist interpretation of Genesis might start by eliminating a master mind doing it, like to say, "In the beginning heavens and earth appeared".

How hard is to start this way?

I do not agree with this non-creationist interpretation, but....

 

That would not be an interpretation.
That would be a different bible altogether.
That would be a non-creationist vision of the beginning.
The rest of us are discussing the non-creationist interpretation of the existing scriptures.
Thanks for playing.

 

Thank you for your "correction", but, what this point of yours have to do with a non-creationist interpretation of Genesis?

Hello?

 

I'm not sure which is worse, taking the Bible straight as it's written or making elaborate, esoteric exscuses for it...

 

It was in response to lynnlynn's inquiry.
Follow along and try to keep up.
I can understand why you wouldn't want the subject broached, however.

 

Well, that’s what I thought when I first read it as a teenager. To be more precise, I thought: “Wow, what a trip, I want the drugs that guy took!” Now that I’m older, hopefully wiser and a bit more educated on the Book of Revelation’s historical background and its symbolic imagery, I’d say the author probably wasn’t on magic mushrooms, but thought through and understood very well what he wrote.

Somebody who at least actually speaks Greek/Hebrew, who has an accredited academic degree related to Biblical studies and who does peer-reviewed research and publications. Here’s an example of two people I’d consider serious Biblical scholars, Richard Bauckham and Ben Witherington III, discussing the Book of Revelation:

[video=youtube;1cH3H14AL90]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cH3H14AL90[/video]

Sadly listening to quack televangelists who go on about impending Armageddon and watching "Left Behind" is much more exciting to the general public than reading dry books written by serious scholars such as Bauckham. Maybe you'd be interested to read them though, if you get around to it one day. You may like them.

 

It seems you are not even aware of the terminology used here.
There’s "creationism", "intelligent design" and "theistic evolution". All three believe that the universe is God’s creation. They differ on how God created the universe and us in it. Creationism and the pseudoscience of intelligent design more or less deny scientific findings on evolution and the age of the universe, whereas theistic evolution embraces scientific findings seeing evolution as he means by which God created us.

The reason creationism denies evolution is mostly that - contrary to most traditional Christian readings - creationists tend to interpret Genesis literally. What I tried to offer in the OP is an allegorical interpretation of Genesis that is not in conflict with modern science and that IMHO gives a better understanding of what the text actually tells us.

 

By the way what did your post have to do with an interpretation of Genesis?
Oh that's right.
Nothing.

 

Hate quoting myself, but I just found the online-version of Richard Bauckham: "The Theology of the Book of Revelation". So if you're interesed, Elijah, you won't even have to go to the library: http://le-protestant.ru/wp-content/...e_Theology_of_the_Book_of_Revelation_2003.pdf

 

I think you may well be digging yourself into a hole. Technically, they did not break two rules, but only one, i.e. not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Once they did so, however, having "become like one of us [Elohim]," it became necessary to exile them to prevent them from eating the fruit of the tree of life, lest they "live forever." There was no prohibition on the latter while they were in compliance, implying that it was OK for them to keep on living as long as they remained in an innocent/ignorant state. God said that they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit, but they did not die. How do you account for that? It seems that God lied to them.

It's all a play on words. They did die: it was the death of free spirit becoming incarnate in physical matter. Becoming animate in the physical/material world is so confining to the spirit that it is considered "evil." Putting the fruit of the tree of life off limits to them is a way of saying that they cannot continue living as spirits. They were not really exiled: they took the path of descent, a densification process, going from a higher vibration rate to a lower one. The serpent apparently lied too in telling them that eating the forbidden fruit would enable them to become like God, since embodiment in the seventh plane is the farthest that a being can get from being God-like.

There was no failure, just as there was no original sin, contrary to what power-seeking priestcraft would like us to believe.

 

So what happens when two accredited scholars about revelations?

And yeah the general public does like the left behind series and the like. I wish they cared as much for what the rest of scripture says as what they think revelation says.