Genesis as allegory? - History versus allegory

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St. SteVen

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Do you have proof of an actual ERROR or are you merely wringing your hands over the two recorded genealogies not being identical?
(which has several possible valid explanations that I would look forward to your disproving).

The genealogies are abridged (which is a typical Jewish literary feature used to convey information, but not an actual ”error”). Once again, what was the AUTHOR’S purpose, not what purpose do you wish to use it for.
Not my area of expertise. I only claimed that it was debatable.
Meaning there are two sides to the discussion.

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Wick Stick

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I didn't mean historical in an academic sense, I just meant in a factual sense, that those things really happened in fact.

There is sometimes more than one layer of meaning to things that are written. For example, one layer of meaning might be factual and another layer might be allegorical. "One thing you have said, two things have I heard." This is why we need the Holy Spirit to help us understand (He is called the Helper)....and to lead us into all truth.
Until very recently, History was more political than academic. Histories have mostly been written to chronicle the glory of kings. What-actually-happened has been a secondary concern.

As I read it, Genesis isn't really concerned with either of those things. The stories there mostly seem to be written to (a) answer questions of why-is-this-so? and to (b) record what nations are allies and which are enemies.

A lot of space is given to the question of why-are-we-herdsmen-rather-than-farmers? And much is written about the complicated relationship between Israel and Edom, where one tribe of Edom is an ally (the Kenites), one is an enemy (the Amalekites), and the rest are somewhere-in-between.
 

Wick Stick

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It boils down then to belief and acceptance. You either believe all the bible or none of it. You can't selectively belief only those parts you like and reject the rest.
Why make it so binary?
Basic rhetorical technique - it's easy to get the answer you want when you exclude all possibilities other than (a) my way or (b) something overtly undesirable.
 
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Wick Stick

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Do you have proof of an actual ERROR or are you merely wringing your hands over the two recorded genealogies not being identical?
(which has several possible valid explanations that I would look forward to your disproving).

The genealogies are abridged (which is a typical Jewish literary feature used to convey information, but not an actual ”error”). Once again, what was the AUTHOR’S purpose, not what purpose do you wish to use it for.
Ok, what was Matthew's purpose for his genealogy?

I think there's a clue in Matthew 7, one of several places in the New Testament where it teaches that genealogies are not useful for determining who is an authentic child of Abraham (Matt 7, John 6-8, 1Tim 1, Titus 3), and that instead we should look at behavior to determine paternity.

Why would Matthew begin his book with a genealogy, and then tell us a parable whose leading idea is that genealogies are untrustworthy?
 

Verily

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Not just the things of Abraham though, but the whole bible is a spiritual book full of spiritual lessons for the church/believers. The things of Abraham aren't the only allegories in scripture. There are lots of examples.......the animals in Noah's ark represent lost souls being saved and the Ark itself represents Christ......see how all the unclean animals in Peter's vision represent lost Gentile souls. Factually/historically only 8 people were saved from God's wrath/flood, along with some of the animals of the earth, but it was written down in scripture most importantly to give us spiritual lessons, rather than a geological or history lesson. And I think someone already mentioned the Rock that accompanied the Israelites in the wilderness, from which they drank "water" to keep from perishing, was Christ. The first Adam is a figure for He who was to come. The Tree of Life in Genesis represents something that is not literally a tree, as does the Tree of Knowledge of G&E.....(the blind man being healed was seeing men as trees). All the barren women in the bible represent spiritual barrenness. But we need to seek the Lord for understanding of these things:

1Co 2:9-13

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.


But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Exactly, and just as Adam is the figure of him who was to come so also was Melchisedec made like unto the Son of God in Hebrews 7:3 And so that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest Hebs 7:15 which again points to Jesus Christ Psalm 110:4 even as Jesus said, "they are they which testify of me"

What I meant by "the things of" Abraham was that since he was a prophet, and God tells us that, " I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets." Then the things of Abraham are of the " which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. For example, the allegorical comparing that can be made between Hagar and Sarah (the two women which are shown us in Abraham) and these being two covenants. How these answer in the Jerusalem (which is above) or the Jerusalem (that was then present).
 

atpollard

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Ok, what was Matthew's purpose for his genealogy?
My name is Arthur, so I would only be speculating on Matthew’s motivation.

I have OBSERVED that the two recorded genealogies are not IDENTICAL. I have HEARD that difference explained as one being the genealogy of Joseph and the other being the genealogy of Mary. I have HEARD the example of people in the Bible having more than one name (like the Apostles were sometimes known by different names) as an explanation for the difference between the lists. There is clear evidence of telescoping of generations to make the count fit into groups of 12 generations for literary reasons and I have HEARD claims that the lists simple collapsed the generations differently.

I never really cared enough, nor was I skilled enough at the nuances of Jewish Literature or the Greek language, to determine the truth with scholarly accuracy. I personally like the Mary vs Joseph explanation, it is just a cute explanation.
 
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Verily

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I always liked this guys explanation on the genealogies not being identical, besides the fact that he isnt boring like the others, I thought he did this well.

 
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Verily

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You really don't have any idea where the Bible came from.

There is no "ORIGINAL First Bible".

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There were books

Dan 9:2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

Werent they called visions, for example

Oba 1:1 The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning Edom; We have heard a rumour from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle.

Isaiah 29:11 And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed

Jesus read out of the book of Isaiah

Luke 4:17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias.

Book of Daniel

Mat 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

Etc etc

Although seems like they were each broken up by books (separately) werent they?

I dunno, I never looked into it really
 

atpollard

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You really don't have any idea where the Bible came from.

There is no "ORIGINAL First Bible".
autograph
1: something that is written with one's own hand: a: an original handwritten manuscript (as of an author's or composer's work)
- Websters Third New International Dictionary

… Yes, there is. It just does not exist and it was never compiled into a single bound volume, but if every word is “God-breathed (and it is), then there were autographs that were the “original First Bible” and their ultimate author WAS God.

Sort of the point behind the whole Sola Scriptura thing.
 

PGS11

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Genesis explains everything - man as a created being not a product of evolution.What happen and the effects of what happened the reason why Jesus had to come.Who the enemy of humanity is and why.Without Genesis there is no bible no Jesus no salvation.Without it there would be no reason for salvation or for Jesus to come to save us..
They are not allegory or little stories to learn from.

The bible is a collecting of writings put together by the church council elders guided by the holy spirit.The bible was printed in the 1500s after the printing press was invented no one had any access to scripture before that but the leaders of the faith.The bible did not fall from the sky.
There are 2 bibles - the Catholic version which has 6 extra books as it was originally put together.
The second is the Protestant bible - Luther had those 6 books removed because he did not agree with them.
Catholics did not add the books Protestant removed them for their version.

The first 5 Books of the bible are the Torah or Books of Moses that you are talking about as a fairy tale.

If its all allegory the faith is a lie and there is no salvation or Jesus and its all pointless.

Seven Old Testament books are found in Catholic Bibles but not in Protestant ones. Catholics call them the deuterocanonical (literally, “second canon”) books; Protestants call them the apocryphal (literally, “hidden,” thus “unknown, spurious”) books. These books include Baruch, Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon), and Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus).



They were included in the Septuagint, a third-century-B.C. Greek translation of the Old Testament, which served as the Scripture of the apostles and the generations that followed them. The earliest Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament, such as Codex Sinaiticus (fourth century) and Codex Alexandrinus (c. 450), include the deuterocanonical books with the others.



Regional Church councils at Hippo (in the year 393) and Carthage (397 and 419) listed these books (and the other 66) as Scripture, endorsing what had become the general belief of the universal Church. The ecumenical Council of Trent confirmed this canon in the sixteenth century.



How did Protestant Christians lose these books from their Bibles? The influential Protestant Reformer Martin Luther deleted them. Though he insisted that Scripture must be the sole authority for the Christian faith, when scriptural texts did not support his teaching, he tended to deny the authority of the books in which those texts were found.



The deuterocanonical books include passages that support the practice of offering prayers and sacrifices for the dead — and by extension, the doctrine of purgatory as well (see 2 Mac 12:39–45). Luther rejected this ancient teaching and practice of the Church, so he denied the deuterocanonical books a place in the Protestant canon. He also dismissed the New Testament book of James as an “epistle of straw” (though he left it in the Protestant canon) because it clearly teaches — contrary to Lutheran doctrine — that both faith and works are necessary for salvation (see Jas 2:14–26).
 
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Jack

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That's debatable, I guess.
I used to believe that. But there are many challenges to that premise.
- Errors in lineage of Christ ???
- Moses existence (and Exodus account) not supported by history and archeology ???


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Your erroneous opinions do not overrule out Bible.