>
>I regard Gn 2:7 as a *picture*, not which reflects an underlying
>literal, historical reality:
>
>"It is argued that the picture of God working like a potter with wet
>earth, anthropomorphically breathing life into man, constructing woman
>from a rib, with an idyllic garden, trees with theological
>significance, and a talking serpent, is the language of theological
>symbolism and not of literal prose. The theological truth is there,
>and this symbolism is the instrument of inspiration. We are not to
>think in terms of scientific and anti-scientific, but in terms of
>scientific and pre-scientific. The account is then pre-scientific and
>in theological symbolism which is the garment divine inspiration chose
>to reveal these truths for their more ready comprehension by the
>masses of untutored Christians. This is the view of James Orr who
>wrote:
>
>`I do not enter into the question of how we are to interpret the third
>chapter of Genesis-whether as history or allegory or myth, or most
>probably of all, as old tradition clothed in oriental allegorical
>dress-but the truth embodied in that narrative, viz. the fall of man
>from an original state of purity, I take to be vital to the Christian
>view.' (Orr J., The Christian View of God and the World, 1897, p185)
>
>(Ramm B. "The Christian View of Science and Scripture", Paternoster:
>London, 1955, pp223-224).
If the picture in Genesis 2:7 or anywhere else in Genesis 1 and 2, does not,
as you say, reflect an underlying literal, historical reality, then why
should anyone object to evolution? Why should anyone object to any view,
because if there is no underlying historical reality to these verses, then
there is nothing to defend? Why should we spend so much time believing that
God created the world as Genesis 1:1 states? Maybe there is no underlying
literal, historical reality to that either? And if there is no historicity
to Genesis 1:1, then both sides of the debate in Christendom are wasting
their time, but I would suggest that the anti-evolutionists might be wasting
even more time since many theistic evolutionists already believe that there
is no literal history in Genesis 1-11.
The acid test of a true non-literalist: Do you believe that there is no
historicity to Genesis 1:1? Does anyone here on the reflector (except Jim
Foley and Tom Moore) believe that there is no historicity to Genesis 1:1? If
you believe that Genesis 1:1 is not literal history, then what makes it
different from Genesis 1:2? 1:3? etc.
I am betting that the problem with literalness arises somewhere after Genesis
1:1.
Any comments Stephen?
glenn