Re: 7 Days

On 4 Sep 2006 01:03:22 -0700, "Peter" <peterburns01@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Have I got this right, the 7 days of creation in genesis is supposed to
be more of a tale or description of who the universe and life was
created as opposed a literal truth or is it simple a story because lets
facts in 900 BC not many folk are going to understand the big bang
theory are they

(Oh No, here we go again)

The 7 days of creation in genesis are not a literal truth, but a story
containing theological truth in non-literal form. God is fond of
conveying truth as parables, if the teachings of Jesus are anything to
go by, and by no means everything in the Bible is literal truth. Even
those obdurate literalists who insist Genesis is literal, have no
problem accepting the psalms or the apocalyptic visions as
non-literal. They just can't bring themselves to see that the Genesis
creation stories are the same.

The non-literal nature of the story is evident by its structure, and
by the internal contradiction, and by the way the story is parallelled
by a different creation story in Genesis 2 (not to mention by the way
that it directly contradicts several simple observations about the
created world)

Ths fact that creation is described as a story (or rather as two
stories - the first from the Priestly source, and the second from the
Yahwist source, if you believe the Documentary theory) is not down to
the people being simple or stupid, but down to 2 things

1) the lack of a scientific corpus to draw on
2) the lack of a scientific or rationalist world-view that says "all
truth must be literal truth"
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: 7 Days
    ... The 7 days of creation in genesis are not a literal truth, ... those obdurate literalists who insist Genesis is literal, ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • Re: Judge Jones: No Surpise
    ... TEists say the Bible is not literal truth = ... the bible is not literally true WRT the creation. ...
    (talk.origins)