Is the Creation story literal?

Thoughts?

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icr.org/article/biblical-hebrew-creation-account-new-numbers-tell-/
creation.com/dinosaur-questions-and-answers
creation.com/fossil-evidence-for-alleged-apemenpart-1-the-genus-homo
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Yes.
However, let us take a step back here. It is indeed "literal" and "literally true" but it also speaks of 1) an event that the author was obviously not there to behold, and 2) an event that happened before the entire creation was disfigured through the Fall. So we should keep this in mind. The Fathers point out that the Paradise (or Garden) of Eden was both of a material and spiritual nature, and Adam and Eve themselves were in a pre-fallen state, neither mortal nor immortal, and even death was not a part of the world. The world as it was before the Fall was in a different mode of existence than it is now, so to speak, and therefore we should not be surprised that the Garden of Eden cannot be located on a map (especially as it is where righteous Christians go when they die, per Luke 23:39-43) and that when we observe this fallen world, we see that it is billions of years old.
Although I believe Augustine is alone in this, he is nonetheless intuitive to point out that the creation couldn't have been about six literal 24-hour long days, because God is not constrained by time and therefore the creation would rather have been instantaneous. This is one example of how Genesis 1-3 use the most appropriate language possible to describe something that is ultimately impossible to describe with our fallen, earthly ways of thinking.

However, the claim that the creation story just describes the way the world evolved, or that God creating man "from the earth" is a reference to evolution from previous species, is complete nonsense and pure modernism. The scriptures say the world was made in six days, with God resting on the seventh day (and the 8th day being the Day of the Lord, Easter). That's it. The first chapter of Genesis already describes how God designed His creation, do we really need to pretend the scriptures aren't inspired enough to tell us the full story?

Taking the Bible in general as a metaphor is a very dangerous heresy, it can lead to many theological abominations. And I'm no physic, so I can't really comment on this guy.

Note also that I'm not proclaiming this as doctrine. If you consider that there is another reason for the observed world showing something different than the scriptures do, go ahead. But simply rejecting the truth of the scriptures is unacceptable. The creation story isn't even an apocalypse like what Ezekiel, Daniel, and John saw.

I understand, I am just unaware of how the Catholic Church or any other denomination reconciles evolution.

Yes
There is no internal reason to point to it being nonliteral metaphor or allegory. It's treated as historical prose.

Couldn't Augustine be wrong? The first day would be the beginning of time as creation would bring about motion and thus change and thus time. That isn't to say that it would necessitate 24-hour periods. I am just looking for a better reconciliation of Creation with the Scientism™ argument of Darwinian evolution.

That Adam wasn't mortal is literally Orthodox (and Catholic) dogma. As far as I know it is only some Jews who interpret Genesis to mean Adam was created mortal. What denomination are you?

You think I said Heaven doesn't exist? Please reread.

Again, I am not claiming this as doctrine. I do not see a reason to doubt scientific claims on this, but that is unimportant - what is important is that the first chapters of Genesis, like the rest of the scriptures, are literally true.

I find it really fun when people try to turn evolution into some kind of metaphysical monstrosity

Augustine could be wrong (that wouldn't be the first time). I was just pointing out his perspective.
Either way the Fall disfigured all of the created world, including time, so I do not think too much about it. Whatever is in Genesis 1-3 is true; if we are unable to reach back to that truth through scientific observation, it is our fault for living in a fallen world of our own making, and we should be thankful that the scriptures (and icons!) tell us the underlying reality of the world that we are blind to (whether that is moral, historical, metaphysical…).

Dropped.

Dropped.

Whenever pseudo-religion nuts like these anons goes directly against science, they get their butts blasted back asswards.
Same thing happens in reverse.

We have this thread every month.

When you say "mortal", do you mean "man" or "capable of death"?
I assumed you meant "man". Is that not right?

Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive
1 Corinthians 15

Seriously you need to be able to at least suspend disbelief long enough to understand the point of the creation story. Nobody's contesting science, we're talking metaphysics.

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Huh? Of course man was created man. I have no clue how you equate "mortal" with "man".
By "mortal" I mean "capable of dying". Adam and Eve were not created "mortal" or "immortal" but rather they were created with the choice to choose either life or death. By breaking the fast imposed by God, they chose death.

If it isn't interpreted literally, then people make Jesus himself out to be wrong.. or at least a liar. For he referred to Adam and Eve, referring to a man and a woman becoming one.. or saying that those in Judea will suffer punishment for persecuting the righteous, and refers to the example of Abel and Cain.

I don't recall these passages, would you be able to share?

I used to be like some theistic evolutionist like everyone, but as of lately I've become a 6 day YEC

Are you me? When you start taking the Bible seriously, it's hard not to be YEC

What breadpilled me was hearing a sermon about how Jesus' first miracle of turning water into wine was a parallel to creation. There were six jars of water, six days of creation. Spirit hovering over the water in the beginning. Jesus created something that by "Science" would say that it looked old, but it wasn't old. He created something that seemed aged.

Genesis is the most misleading and idiotic book in the Bible if creation isn't true.

So God's a liar or a trickster?

This is very true. Also consider that people usually say that Genesis is allegorical up to Abraham (anyone who claims Abraham didnl't exist isn't worth listening to), yet Abraham lived nearly 200 years. This coupled with research that compared the language of the creation account and found that it is a historical narrative (opposed to allegorical story) with 99.9% possibly opened my eyes. At that point, 'science' be darned, if the Bible says God did it in 6 days, than that's what He did. See figure 2 on this article: icr.org/article/biblical-hebrew-creation-account-new-numbers-tell-/

I was the user who wrote that. ID changed.

Yeah..

He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?" - Matt 19:4,5

On using Abel with other historical events:

Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and ascribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. -Matt 23:34,35

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Insisting on Creation is a great stumbling block. I encourage anyone who uses it (even some of these funny evangelical institutes.. their hearts' are in the right place). It'll help weed out the pretenders.

Like I said earlier, without it, you can't even believe in Christ.. for he referred to it (and also other stories, like the flood and Noah). It also gets to the heart of sin and what Christ saves us from the begin with. People without a creation story would eventually just try to turn Christ into another garden variety "guru" with precepts on life.. and then apply their theistic evolution mentality wholesale, where ALL of our thoughts on religion are evolving.

But his Incarnation is more than that. And only in the context of Creation does it make sense.

I want to be YEC, but I dont understand where Dinsoaurs fit in?

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Seconded.

Gen1 is a metaphor and you literally lol can't prove it being anything otherwise without sounding like a moron.

Fan-fiction interpretation by weak minded fools who can't stomach an argument, the post.

As far as I know, this man (Dr. Robert Gentry) has never been properly debunked (outside of amateurs saying "Uh uh!").

He's been defunded and shut out of research opportunities.. but not debunked. He deserves that much at least.

Beasts of the earth that lived in their own biomes, and couldn't handle the drastic change in climate soon after the deluge. i suppose that if the creation narrative is literal, then some might have survived if they migrated south of the equator before that, but must have been out-competed by other animals.
creation.com/dinosaur-questions-and-answers

Fawcett was a nutter. He disappeared when he left to start a Thelema commune in the Amazon rainforest with his son as a god.

Nor can you "prove" that its a metaphor. I suppose the Church was just wrong this whole time, and we've just now figured out the TRUE meaning of Genesis.

Hermeneutics doesn't rely on external proof
The only relevant question is "what did the author intend?" All signs point to historical prose.

Strictly on a literary intention angle, it's polemic. Not merely prose. The Sumerians and Egyptians had elements of the same story.. but with key differences. Egypt had a formless "chaos" in the universe's primordial state, and the "Sun" (Ra) emerged out of it and brought order. But in the Genesis story, it's the Word of God who says "Let there be light!" and creates the sun and other things. The sun is merely a creation like everything else.

As for Sumer, the simularities are more in the Eden story. Except in Sumer, the garden was created FOR the gods.. and humans were just drones meant to manage it. Until Enki (the trickster/reptillian god) rebelled against the other gods and convinced the humans to his side. In this tradition, Enki is the great liberator and friend of mankind. Probably the origins of the Prometheus myth as well.

But Abraham himself was a Sumerian who knew this stories.. and turned it completely on it's head. Where the garden was made FOR man, and God had nothing but love for humanity. And it was the serpent who was the enemy instead, who enslaved man in ignorance and sin.

To get back to the original point, it's not merely prose, but warring ideologies between 3 distinct priestly traditions. And I'm sighting with the Abrahamic one.

Now you're starting with the presupposition that it's not true

It's not a presupposition. These texts actually exist. There's nothing I came up with through theory or on my own. I'm just comparing them.

Wait, I see what you mean. You think I'm assuming some untruth to it.. simply because it's polemic.

I don't think that. I think Abraham knew the real God and got the real story. The surrounding world may have known bits of it, but it was distorted, and favored the narrative of tyrants (either tyrannical kings or tyrannical gods).

To me, the biggest stumbling block would have to be hominin fossils. Every year, more complete specimens are found, and creationist screeching about inference of limb proportions or other bits ans bobs no longer hold water (if they ever did).

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Which ones specifically? Ugly members of the genus Homo, or non-Homo apes? They don’t really present a problem.

Both Homo and the Australopithecines, given that some of the gracile forms of the latter seem to overlap with the earliest forms of the former.

Considering how many creationists vehemently deny australopiths were upright or that critters like habilis were human, I'd say they do.

There are problems with australopithecine posture, but many secular anthropologists now believe they may have been quadrapedal. As for habilis, it seems to be a “wastebasket taxon” holding some australopiths and some Homo.
You could try reading some creationist articles on it.
creation.com/fossil-evidence-for-alleged-apemenpart-1-the-genus-homo

We've had postcranial evidence of bipedality for over 70 years, and it continues to grow. We now have an entire skeleton with the limb proportions well preserved, so they no longer have a leg to stand on.

Funny how this only pops up in Hovind-tier sermons. As I already stated, the fossils speak for themselves as to their locomotion. Actually tracked down the one paper they used to justify such a claim, and they greatly misinterpreted what it was saying in their usual fashion.

Here's the interesting part though: they overlap, which would be expected in this scenario. Not to mention other beings with similar cranial faculties to habilis have been found in a more intact state (even partial skeletons), blurring the line between the genera even further. Seeing creationists squabble over this should be evidence enough of their misdeeds.

Quite familiar with it already, thanks. Standard skewing of the facts and half-truths.

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Just read it, it won’t hurt you. Check their sources too. I know you won’t though, because you’ve made up your mind on the matter.

Seen similar claims elsewhere, most likely where they got them in the first place. Relies on the ignorance of the reader with these subjects.

Came to that conclusion based on actually looking at the fossils rather than taking their word on it. And when all I see are the same yawn-inducing claims time and time again, it becomes quite easy to ignore.

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I could say the same for the assertion that the fossils support human evolution.
Just read it.

I already did, some of the same claims I've seen in Lubenow's works and elsewhere. Similarly, they fall flat on their faces when you actually look into it.

yes. also dinosaurs lmao

I'm not really worried about the creation story. I'm convinced of the logical necessity of the One God, and I'm convinced of the historical fact of Christ's death and Ressurection. I can learn about the precise historical facts behind the world's beginning if God ever deigns to have me in His presence, until then I'm sure there's a perfectly fine explanation behind the text of the book and the physical evidence for evolution. But the point of the Christian faith isn't whether or not dinosaurs were real; it's about following the teachings of Christ.

Explain how.

www.gornahoor.net/?p=3196

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Yes I can. It was originally written as a poem. You don't write poems without methaphor.
And your binary understanding of truth just shows how truly ignorant you are.

This I can agree with. Though hermeneutics can give a push in the right direction that what some literalist halfwit is trying to push.

Best example would be the assessment of erectus by claiming that Kow Swamp 1 is perfectly within that range, despite the vast differences in facial/cranial morphology between it and the Sangiran specimens, not to mention the unreliability of Wolpoff's tilted reconstruction.
The Narmada and Ngandong hominids both lack a well-preserved face, however forms like those shown at the top seem like a close fit. One can even see the differences in the WLH 50 cranium and members of Ngandong, not to mention the fact that we have more gracile specimens from Mungo and Keilor that show there being a range of variability within these populations. But of course, these bits are glossed over to fit a narrative that erectus was "fully human," yet never really specifying what they mean.

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Whoops, forgot to include Narmada. Can't say I wasn't thorough

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It's real, it's a fact, it's truth, but it's not literal. Genesis is a poetic truth.

Is the crucifixion literal or a poetic truth?

Everything after Genesis and before Revelation are taken as literal truth. Especially the books in the New Testament.

It'd be more apt to say Jesus' parables actually happened. Or that He's actually a rock.

So the flood didn't happen?

I believe it didn't happen in a literal way. The point of genesis is to explain the nature of humans and the nature of God. What separated humans from God and what righteous things men do to be reunited with God.

Like how the Revelation writer saw Nero and made him a symbolism for Antichrist, the Genesis writer was inspired by the Ziggurat of Babylon and wrote it down as the tower of Babel as a symbol for humanity's and angels' rebellion against God.