The creation stories are mythic. “Myth” is a literary genre.
Who says Genesis is presented as "myth" or as "literary genre"? Not Jesus. Not Moses....How does anyone make that judgment?
I didn’t say it’s a “fairy story.” I said it is mythic. There’s a marked difference that only one who appreciates literary scholarship can appreciate.
Do you hear yourself?....."
that only one who appreciates literary scholarship can appreciate".....and that would be you of course.
Sorry but that just made me laugh out loud...
You agreed with Mr Lowery that they would "be like God" if they ate the fruit......that was the devil's lie. Who do you think masqueraded as the serpent?
It’s the best scholarship available.
Hmmmm. shame about that. Didn't Jesus say that
"if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit"? I think you and Mr Lowery might need a ladder, but mine won't reach down that far.
Do you also turn away from doctors who work in Catholic hospitals?
If a doctor has harmed patients due to his poor medical knowledge and practice, I wouldn't care what hospital he attended....I'd rather see a reliable vet.
As if your assessment means anything.
It only matters if it means something to God. We will all see in due time. I am very patient.
Punishment isn’t really the issue. consequences are the issue. There are always consequences for our actions. The stories are etiological.
I see no evidence that these Bible "stories" (I prefer to call them accounts) are in any way interpreted correctly by Mr Lowery or yourself. I am reminded of the apostle Paul's warning that ..
."wicked men and impostors will advance from bad to worse, misleading and being misled." The rot started even before the apostles passed away.....but once they were gone, the "church" spiraled into apostasy just as Jesus foretold. Humans went off on all sorts of tangents to accommodate their own "weedy" ideas about God and his Christ...."misleading and being misled". Look at Christendom today.....what a shemozzle!!! You think the Christ exists divided? I know he doesn't. He will make known soon enough who is teaching the truth and who isn't. (Matthew 7:21-23)
Nope. According to Dr. Lowery, Satan is not in the stories. Only you promulgate that rubbish.
So the apostle John is a liar too now? Satan is most definitely in OT accounts. What about Job? The "Adversary" is identified by Christendom's own scholars as "satan" (which means "opposer" or "enemy".) "Satan" and "Devil" are not his personal names but are titles indicating his character. In Greek he is called "diabolos" meaning a "false accuser" or "slanderer". The Bible makes no sense if the devil is not a real entity. He doesn't work as a "myth" because Jesus would have to be one too. Was he?
Revelation 12:7-9...
."And war broke out in heaven: Miʹcha·el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them any longer in heaven. 9 So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him."
How many others will you accuse of not telling the truth because you (and others like Mr Lowery) have other ideas? Here is the clear identification of satan as the 'original serpent'. Who was it that tempted Jesus? A figment of his imagination?
Yes, because we have self-determination and are aware of morality.
And having "self-determination" has led us where? If we ever had a sense of morality, where did it come from? Where has our morality gone today? Because of evolution, humans think that they are just animals, and that justifies acting like them....no moral sense whatsoever.
Sorry if you can’t acknowledge that we’re better off in that regard than, say, paramecia.
Good grief! You don't think we were created for a life better than paramecia? Since we alone are created in God's image, looking at the way humans behave in this "age of reason", you would hardly believe that they were capable of morality at all. They may as well BE paramecia.