Is the story of Adam, Eve, the Garden of Eden and the snake to be taken as literell?

[nogard]

I guess here's my two cents for this topic.

Even when I was a Christian, I always thought it odd how much Christians made fun of other religions' creation stories. If you study the creation stories of other religions, especially eastern religions, you'll find an array of bizarre, completely illogical and frankly unbelievable stories about floating turtles, golden eggs, and rainbow serpents. These utterly bizarre stories are what many people at one time or another believed to be how the world truly came into being. And I've known many a Christian who has chuckled at the folly of such stories.

The hypocrisy in all of this is how the Judeo-Christian creation story is equally bizarre and illogical when taken literally. The story has a talking serpent. Trees with fruit that contain supernatural powers. A mystical garden. And so forth. Yet Christians have no problem believing all of this is literal, even though there has never been anything like that since nor any evidence that such things ever existed.

While it's not the most bizarre creation story out there, it definitely has some whoppers in it, and when taken in context of its surrounding chapters in Genesis, it follows the same story arc of other creation myths written during that time period.

But yeah, Jesus did mention the Genesis account a few times, so I can see why it's important to hold onto it if you want to give any credence to what Jesus said.

 

[crossnote]

It's not really a matter of space at all. Many insects could have survived on floating mats/rafts of reeds and grasses etc, on logs and in shrubs and in trees (those with undercovering of some fashion). And many kinds of insects and sea creatures may have become extinct during the Flood (especially with the complete restructuring of the earth eg. continental drift taking place). Besides, insects aren't included in the Hebrew word for all life being wiped from the face of the earth.

I wonder if termites like gopher wood?

 

[crossnote]

I guess here's my two cents for this topic.

Even when I was a Christian, I always thought it odd how much Christians made fun of other religions' creation stories. If you study the creation stories of other religions, especially eastern religions, you'll find an array of bizarre, completely illogical and frankly unbelievable stories about floating turtles, golden eggs, and rainbow serpents. These utterly bizarre stories are what many people at one time or another believed to be how the world truly came into being. And I've known many a Christian who has chuckled at the folly of such stories.

The hypocrisy in all of this is how the Judeo-Christian creation story is equally bizarre and illogical when taken literally. The story has a talking serpent. Trees with fruit that contain supernatural powers. A mystical garden. And so forth. Yet Christians have no problem believing all of this is literal, even though there has never been anything like that since nor any evidence that such things ever existed.

While it's not the most bizarre creation story out there, it definitely has some whoppers in it, and when taken in context of its surrounding chapters in Genesis, it follows the same story arc of other creation myths written during that time period.

But yeah, Jesus did mention the Genesis account a few times, so I can see why it's important to hold onto it if you want to give any credence to what Jesus said.

Well claiming to be a christian would mean that God had worked a miracle of rebirth/a new nature in you so these so called 'fantastical stories' should be no problem for you having experienced it yourself...You did experience the New Birth, correct? Or was it just an ordinary piece of sushi upsetting your stomach? If that was the case then perhaps you have never been a Christian to begin with.

 

[Tintin]

I guess here's my two cents for this topic.

Even when I was a Christian, I always thought it odd how much Christians made fun of other religions' creation stories. If you study the creation stories of other religions, especially eastern religions, you'll find an array of bizarre, completely illogical and frankly unbelievable stories about floating turtles, golden eggs, and rainbow serpents. These utterly bizarre stories are what many people at one time or another believed to be how the world truly came into being. And I've known many a Christian who has chuckled at the folly of such stories.

The hypocrisy in all of this is how the Judeo-Christian creation story is equally bizarre and illogical when taken literally. The story has a talking serpent. Trees with fruit that contain supernatural powers. A mystical garden. And so forth. Yet Christians have no problem believing all of this is literal, even though there has never been anything like that since nor any evidence that such things ever existed.

While it's not the most bizarre creation story out there, it definitely has some whoppers in it, and when taken in context of its surrounding chapters in Genesis, it follows the same story arc of other creation myths written during that time period.

But yeah, Jesus did mention the Genesis account a few times, so I can see why it's important to hold onto it if you want to give any credence to what Jesus said.

Early Genesis has some pretty fantastical elements, but the supernatural played out more overtly back then. Also, compared to most/all other creation stories, the biblical creation story etc. is pretty darn realistic and reasonable. Finally, there was one serpent that talked, not all of the animals and the only reason it talked was because, either the serpent was possessed by Satan or because it was Satan in the form of a serpent. There's some equally weird stuff later in the Bible. But hey, if you're a Christian, you should be able to cope with the supernatural existing.

 

[kedge]

Christian creation story is equally bizarre and illogical when taken literally.

But when understood in its true light is reasonable and logical.

The story has a talking serpent.

Some deceivers have the fine art of ventriloquism, i find it rather amusing when humans talk to their animals.

Trees with fruit that contain supernatural powers.

I'll admit that is a new one on me, i have never heard anyone describe fruit as supernatural, i can understand and relate to the supernatural Creator of fruit bearing trees, haha.

A mystical garden.

Where in the Bible does it actually say that the garden of eden is mystical?, it doesn't it's just interpreters like Bible skeptics who claim it was.

Yet Christians have no problem believing all of this is literal, even though there has never been anything like that since nor any evidence that such things ever existed.

Yet animals, human beings, plant life described in the garden of eden can be observed today.

While it's not the most bizarre creation story out there, it definitely has some whoppers in it.

Evolutionists say that billions of years ago nothing existed, then a micro dot appeared from knowhere/nothing, it exploded then expanded into a vast open space, this event does not sound like a random chance natural process to me, anything that comes into existence from nothing is either a miracle or there was some sort of magical phenomena going on.

 

[wincam]

Early Genesis has some pretty fantastical elements, but the supernatural played out more overtly back then. Also, compared to most/all other creation stories, the biblical creation story etc. is pretty darn realistic and reasonable. Finally, there was one serpent that talked, not all of the animals and the only reason it talked was because, either the serpent was possessed by Satan or because it was Satan in the form of a serpent. There's some equally weird stuff later in the Bible. But hey, if you're a Christian, you should be able to cope with the supernatural existing.

so was it the ass that talked or was it talking through ventriloquism - wincam

 

[Tintin]

so was it the ass that talked or was it talking through ventriloquism - wincam

It's not entirely clear. But God was definitely talking out of His ass.

 

[kedge]

Dog breeds are mostly orchestrated by human engineering. I think the same holds true for the domestic cat.

Yeah this is correct, there are a lot of forced breeding programs orchestrated by human beings, but its interesting to see that dogs can only come from dogs, cats from cats, human beings from human beings, flys from flys, frogs from frogs, monkeys from monkeys etc etc (although some human beings do ape-around, lol)

 

[Tintin]

Yeah this is correct, there are a lot of forced breeding programs orchestrated by human beings, but its interesting to see that dogs can only come from dogs, cats from cats, human beings from human beings, flys from flys, frogs from frogs, monkeys from monkeys etc etc (although some human beings do ape-around, lol)

Yes, natural selection and speciation have nothing to do with evolution and everything to do with a biblical creation.

 

[valiant]

I guess here's my two cents for this topic.

Even when I was a Christian, I always thought it odd how much Christians made fun of other religions' creation stories. If you study the creation stories of other religions, especially eastern religions, you'll find an array of bizarre, completely illogical and frankly unbelievable stories about floating turtles, golden eggs, and rainbow serpents. These utterly bizarre stories are what many people at one time or another believed to be how the world truly came into being. And I've known many a Christian who has chuckled at the folly of such stories.

But that's the question. Were you a true Christian, or were you just a church attender? You don't sound to me as though you ever personally knew Christ.

The hypocrisy in all of this is how the Judeo-Christian creation story is equally bizarre and illogical when taken literally.

The creation story is perfectly logical and reasonable if you believe in a Creator. It holds together, and all it requires is the presence of an Almighty God although to me yom means 'period of time'..

The story has a talking serpent.

There are reasonable explanations for that. A serpent would be physically incapable of talking, so we clearly have to ask how it did so. Two reasonable answers spring to mind. Firstly that the voice was Satanic, with Satan choosing to speak through an enchanting creature. . Secondly that there was no voice but a series of impressions in Eve's mind. Christian's often say, 'God said to me', when what they mean is that they received a decided impression that God was speaking in their hearts. It may be that Eve had taken to looking enviously at the tree and when she saw the serpent was enchanted by it (the word means enchantment) and felt that it was encouraging her to partake of the tree. The conversation may all have been reasoned out in her head.

Trees with fruit that contain supernatural powers.

It is not said that they had supernatural powers. It is quite feasible that a fruit could exist that renewed the body so that by constantly taking of it the body could be kept young. Is medical science not looking for something similar?

As for the tree of 'knowing (by experience) good and evil' ANY forbidden tree would be capable of that. It was the act of eating that made Eve, then Adam, aware of evil for the first time., not the fruit of the tree itself. They 'knew evil' for the first time, and that also highlighted the good that they had lost.

A mystical garden.

Nothing mystical about it. It was simply a large area of land which provided food in abundance with very little effort.

And so forth. Yet Christians have no problem believing all of this is literal, even though there has never been anything like that since nor any evidence that such things ever existed.

As you will note I disagree with you.

While it's not the most bizarre creation story out there, it definitely has some whoppers in it, and when taken in context of its surrounding chapters in Genesis, it follows the same story arc of other creation myths written during that time period.

which demonstrates how little you know of the creation myths.

But yeah, Jesus did mention the Genesis account a few times, so I can see why it's important to hold onto it if you want to give any credence to what Jesus said.

we don't 'hold on to it.' We accept it as true.

 

[FancyNancy]

I gave you some scriptures that says it is so. Do you have any scriptures that say it's not so?

LOL! Don't you have any scripture that speaks to anything apart from the use of the parabolic? Not one of the scriptures you've offered say that all is parabolic! Can you say "tunnel vision"? Read them again. Discern the truth by asking Holy Spirit to open up your understanding.

 

[wincam]

Yeah this is correct, there are a lot of forced breeding programs orchestrated by human beings, but its interesting to see that dogs can only come from dogs, cats from cats, human beings from human beings, flys from flys, frogs from frogs, monkeys from monkeys etc etc (although some human beings do ape-around, lol)

and get up to monkey tricks and try aping God and also groan and grunt and climb trees - wincam

 

[nogard]

Well, that post certainly got a bit of feedback. I'll leave just a few general comments I suppose.

1. I was kind of expecting it, but still somewhat disappointed that there were two people who felt it necessary to call into question if I was ever a Christian based solely off that one post. Talk about making a quick judgment with virtually no supporting evidence for or against it. However, I do understand that many Christians believe there are no such thing as true ex-Christians, and I guess I can understand that viewpoint as I used to believe that myself for many years. But for the record, yes, I was a genuine follower of Jesus Christ for a large chunk of my life.

2. My initial post was moreso an argument against the hypocrisy of disbelief of the supernatural amongst several Christians in my life. It's so easy to discount the Hindu creation story as complete nonsense, but in that same breathe turn around and say all the bizarre things in the Bible are supernaturally inspired so that makes it somehow rational. It's just a double standard that's always bothered me. Like, who are we to judge that crazy supernatural stuff in other religions, when we have some crazy supernatural stuff of our own.

3. That leads me to this post I made: "Yet Christians have no problem believing all of this is literal, even though there has never been anything like that since nor any evidence that such things ever existed."

Now, two people actually attempted to tackle this comment, and I think both misunderstood what I was saying here. As one of them mentioned, snakes do not have vocal chords, so they physically cannot speak. Thus, it's not surprising that there has never been any physical evidence of a snake talking, nor is there is any evidence to indicate a snake ever could talk. Same with the fruit. The fruit from the Tree of Life and the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had supernatural/metaphysical soul-changing properties that defy any sort of logic, and since then no fruit has ever been endowed with such properties in Scripture or elsewhere. And saying that a garden that is apparently invisible/guarded by a group of angels is in no way mystical is a bit of a stretch.

I mean, just imagine for a second, if you could, that the bible was never written. Then lets say someone were to say to you that the way the earth began was this: A man and a woman were created in this garden full of all these animals and vegetation. There was a tree called Life that if they ate its fruit they would live forever and a tree called knowledge that if they ate its fruit they would attain a knowledge of both good and evil desires and they were told not to eat of this tree but a talking snake possessed by an evil spirit convinced them to eat the fruit and they were cast out of the garden and it was barred by angels never to be entered again....

If taken away from the context of Scripture and our belief in God's supernatural presence and power, this would sound like another oddly engineered creation story, full of elements that we have no reason to believe to be true because they have presumably only happened once in all of history and have not been repeated again.

4. Oh yeah, Valiant said, "which demonstrates how little you know of the creation myths."

My response: Have you taken college courses in comparative religion or had some other equivalent study on the matter, or are you literally just speaking out of your rear end here? (pardon the rudeness).

 

[Pumicestone]

Yes, natural selection and speciation have nothing to do with evolution ...

speciation - the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution.

The Incredible Explosion of Dog Breeds
"Despite the fact that dogs were first domesticated about 14,000 to 17,000 years ago, most dog breeds were developed within the last few centuries."

 

[birdie]

LOL! Don't you have any scripture that speaks to anything apart from the use of the parabolic? Not one of the scriptures you've offered say that all is parabolic! Can you say "tunnel vision"? Read them again. Discern the truth by asking Holy Spirit to open up your understanding.

Thanks FancyNancy for laughing. However, the Bible is God's law book. The blessed (saved) man in Psalm 1 meditates on the law of God (the Bible) day and night. Psalm 119 uses the word 'law' interchangeably with other words like testimonies, precepts, and statues, in speaking of the entire Bible. When God calls the law a parable in Psalm 78:1-2 he is the one who is not kidding. He calls the law the words of his mouth, and he says he opens his mouth in a parable: "Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable" He is cluing us in to the fact that the entire Bible, the law of God, is written in parable fashion.
In Mark 4, we read: "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:" When Jesus tells us that "all these things" are done in parables, it means that all Bible things are done in parables." That is also why he continues by explaining 'the sower soweth the word". The word of God includes the entire Bible.

 

[Tintin]

Thanks FancyNancy for laughing. However, the Bible is God's law book. The blessed (saved) man in Psalm 1 meditates on the law of God (the Bible) day and night. Psalm 119 uses the word 'law' interchangeably with other words like testimonies, precepts, and statues, in speaking of the entire Bible. When God calls the law a parable in Psalm 78:1-2 he is the one who is not kidding. He calls the law the words of his mouth, and he says he opens his mouth in a parable: "Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable" He is cluing us in to the fact that the entire Bible, the law of God, is written in parable fashion.
In Mark 4, we read: "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:" When Jesus tells us that "all these things" are done in parables, it means that all Bible things are done in parables." That is also why he continues by explaining 'the sower soweth the word". The word of God includes the entire Bible.

I heard this from a little birdie, but I didn't believe it.

 

[Kaycie]

Yes. A parable compares physical things to spiritual things. Jesus gave the physical example, then the spiritual meaning. In the Old Testament things were done physically that are now done spiritually. And it is because of this that those physical things had to be literal- the sacrificial lamb, the coat of many colors, the Nephilim, the land of Canaan, the serpent who would later have his spiritual head crushed. Yes, just as Jesus walking on water was literal and not a metaphor, so were other things in the Old Testament that He lived under.

 

[Tintin]

speciation - the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution.

The Incredible Explosion of Dog Breeds
"Despite the fact that dogs were first domesticated about 14,000 to 17,000 years ago, most dog breeds were developed within the last few centuries."

Derp. Dogs were first domesticated a long time ago, but that was either done pre-Flood or early post-Flood. Certainly no more than a few thousand years ago.

 

[FancyNancy]

Thanks FancyNancy for laughing. However, the Bible is God's law book. The blessed (saved) man in Psalm 1 meditates on the law of God (the Bible) day and night. Psalm 119 uses the word 'law' interchangeably with other words like testimonies, precepts, and statues, in speaking of the entire Bible. When God calls the law a parable in Psalm 78:1-2 he is the one who is not kidding. He calls the law the words of his mouth, and he says he opens his mouth in a parable: "Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable" He is cluing us in to the fact that the entire Bible, the law of God, is written in parable fashion.
In Mark 4, we read: "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:" When Jesus tells us that "all these things" are done in parables, it means that all Bible things are done in parables." That is also why he continues by explaining 'the sower soweth the word". The word of God includes the entire Bible.

Read the word again. The law is not described as a parable. God is saying that He will use multiple examples to teach His truth. Learn what parable means, then get back to me. Just because David prophesies about the Lord uttering parables, it doesn't mean everything He says is parabolic. Jesus used stories to elucidate the truth to those who were given understanding (his disciples) and to confound those who had no spiritual ear to hear.

You are greatly misunderstanding scripture.

 

[Pumicestone]

.

Hey TinTin, did you check that link at all, mate ?

James Serpell, professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine,
a team of researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm,
Leslie Irvine of the University of Colorado or ................

TinTin from South Australia.

Hmmmmm . which one should I go with ?