Is Genesis True?

metis said:

There were pictographs much prior to that time, and there's a bone altered by some Neanderthal that appears to follow the phases of the moon. It's not like writing just emerged out of nowhere.

Not historically true, so correct.

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Stone age Eskimos would carve an abstract symbol
into their tools such as harpoons, to identify whose
it was.

Audie said:

Viewed by who?
And what proportion of the population
would you say understood that POV?

I would be interested to hear what basis
someone would have had, 2000 yrs ago,
for thinking the flood was not an actual event.

Of on what basis one might say that the
author(s) did not believe it to be history.

I bet you'd not want to have said that at the
time of Ferdie and Isabella.

I've not presented that people of the past were
stupid.
The distinction is between educated, and, not

No less a luminary than Issac Newton believed
some very ignorant things.

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You need to judge ideas by the thinkers of the time, not the man in the street with no education.

sealchan said:

If I remember my Ong, in oral cultures practical knowledge was valued over non-practical knowledge. Regarding the latter one avoids committing to anything. Tales of the beginning of the Universe might be interesting but nothing to debate about if nothing practical could result from it.

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An acquaintance who spent time "on the res" told me
of a native story about the origin of two hills near the
village.

Now, this was a new village, post WW2

The native elder said that her granddaughter asked
about the hills, how did they get there.

So she just made up a story about a giant, who
was carrying a rock. When he dropped it, it broke,
making the larger and smaller hills.

Now, though, you ask anyone, and they will
tell you that is how the hills got there.

As for who believes it?

In SE Asia, do people really think they need
to make a lot of noise during an eclipse to
stop the lizard from eating the moon?

Who knows. But if they do, it seems like
very practical info, you dont want some liz
taking the moon.

exchemist said:

You need to judge ideas by the thinkers of the time, not the man in the street with no education.

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We will use your time machine and find out.

When do you suppose people starting thinking
you were supposed to just believe what the bible
says, as opposed to, what, deciding for yourself
what the intent may have been.

Audie said:

An acquaintance who spent time "on the res" told me
of a native story about the origin of two hills near the
village.

Now, this was a new village, post WW2

The native elder said that her granddaughter asked
about the hills, how did they get there.

So she just made up a story about a giant, who
was carrying a rock. When he dropped it, it broke,
making the larger and smaller hills.

Now, though, you ask anyone, and they will
tell you that is how the hills got there.

As for who believes it?

In SE Asia, do people really think they need
to make a lot of noise during an eclipse to
stop the lizard from eating the moon?

Who knows. But if they do, it seems like
very practical info, you dont want some liz
taking the moon.

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No one wants to miss out on the fun and sense of participation and personal meaning.

metis said:

There were pictographs much prior to that time, and there's a bone altered by some Neanderthal that appears to follow the phases of the moon. It's not like writing just emerged out of nowhere.

Not historically true, so correct.

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Now, when you say not historically true, what exactly does that mean? How true is history? People question the historical authenticity of many references to Jesus, so how reliable is historical accuracy?

When we are talking about Genesis, what compares to the historical accuracy of the creation of the heavens and earth, life, and as they say, the universe and everything? Given that, what is the point of even mentioning "historical truth?"

Audie said:

We will use your time machine and find out.

When do you suppose people starting thinking
you were supposed to just believe what the bible
says, as opposed to, what, deciding for yourself
what the intent may have been.

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You leave out the third possibility which is believing what you have been taught by the priests. That is how it worked for much of the history of the church - not surprising given that most people could not read. All this decide for yourself stuff only came in after Gutenberg and mass education.

exchemist said:

Nevertheless, in spite of your personal opinion, Origen is widely regarded with great respect, as one of the early Fathers of Church. So my point stands.

By the way, his comments about Jesus are pretty standard. The Nicene Creed says "Et ex Patre natum, ante omnia saecula".

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Exactly. In my first post in this thread I call that, tradition. A potentially misleading influence. Constantine, too, is still regarded with great respect, even more so than Origen. Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus - all of them heavily influenced by Greek philosophers like Plato and Socrates. They don't call it the Platonic Trinity for nothin'.

Thief said:

not buying that

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Its the truth. You said truth doesn't change.

Muffled said:

I believe truth is not dependent on anything. It stands on its own.

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For example, rebirth is truth. Heaven is not. Which is fact if not depended on the person?

Windwalker said:

The condition of separation from our divine Source. We experience what Plotinus captured well much later on when he said, "Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts." We are aware of the higher, divine mind, and the lower beasts of field, and here we are stuck between, seemingly trapped in limbo or purgatory, as it were.


The state we "fell" from would be that of the divine Source that can be experienced within us, but in often fleeting glimpses. The divine Perfection, is that of spiritual reality, not a "perfect man", meaning no mistakes or such, no moles, no plantar fasciitis, etc. It's symbolic about the condition of the state of being, which Paul captured when he said, "That which I would do, that thing I do not, and that which I would not do, that thing I do!". Why are we attracted to death, when the divine Light lives within us? That sort of thing.

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I completely agree with you. It is a symbolic story about how we separate ourselves from God and reach spiritual death

Nakosis said:

I don't think that man was ever "perfect" or existed as perfect as seen through the eyes of Christianity.

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I would agree with this, in the sense of we weren't "superior" at one point in the past and everything became rotten after that, in any actual historical reality. Metaphorically, one could argue otherwise.

Nakosis said:

What exactly were we supposed to have fallen from?

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In the myth, the fall is from Grace, or union with God. So, full Awareness of the Divine, is what became lost and we fell inward into the ego-self, experiencing separation from ourselves and the world, and from ourselves with others, and from ourselves with our own self, a form of death in isolation. That is what is conveyed in the myth as the fall from God.

Nakosis said:

Is there any evidence of having been better than we currently are?

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That condition I just described is self-evident today to anyone living their lives in the world. We are separate from each other and the world and even ourselves with ourselves. It's rampant. In the basic human condition we all share on the planet.

Is there evidence for a different state than all of that? Yes. Absolutely. That is the mystical experience of life itself. It's a fairly common state shared by both believers and non-believers alike. I had one when I was 18 and not part of any religion or religious beliefs. That state is of absolute unity with the world, others, yourself, and everything that exists and beyond.

That experience is the foundation for such myths as you see in Genesis, and why it rings so true once you've had a glimpse at both sides of that condition. It is hell to lose that connection. It is nigh despair if it weren't for the lights that shine through the clouds for us now and then.

Nakosis said:

We had a barbarous past. We are certainly better today than the past that we know of.

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Well yes. That story is actually better understood as a "timeless story", which is the nature of mythology to begin with. Historically of course, we have actually become progressively better! That's the nature of evolution at work. That doesn't just happen to biology, but in areas like human behaviors. We have evolved socially, mentally, and I'd add spiritually as well. There are whole areas of research which show this, such as you'll find reading Jean Gebser.

Nakosis said:

Maybe Adam and Eve are symbolic of our potential, but I don't believe it is symbolic of our past.

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I see them as a human potential in the sense of the divine human. The life divine, is one where the human walks in unity with the divine at all times. There is another word for that, which is Enlightenment. That is a "return" to that state of Oneness, and a return to Source, the Divine which is both the ground and the goal of the evolution of our species. Adam and Eve are archetypes of the Divine Human. And that is what the mystic traditions point out, in so many words.

So you can see, why a literalist reading of the book of Genesis, makes my eyes want to bleed? It's painful, because it taking the myth and making it some ****ing argument for historicity. It's a myth. My God, read it with your eyes opened, for God's sake! I don't mean you personally, but "you" as in the religious who argue it as history, rather than seeing the higher metaphorical truths that it says, such as I just pointed out above. It makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

Windwalker said:

The first couple chapters of the book of Genesis describe the Fall of man from paradise, a state of unity and eternal life with God, to a state of separation, pain, loss, suffering, and death. While it is obvious to most modern readers, and especially those with any modest degree of valid scientific knowledge that the details of the story are not factual historically nor scientifically, is the story true nonetheless? Is there a real truth to the underlying theme portrayed through these symbolic characters, Adam and Eve, that is captured faithfully in the myth of the Garden of Eden?

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It certainly isn't literally true nor can I see how it could be considered to be symbolically true.

Nowhere Man said:

I would like to think most people with a fair degree of discernment , can recognize the obviousness that it is definitely not true.

We don't exactly live in an era of ancient sheepherders and goatherders subservient to their own superstitions anymore.

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But what is not true about it? If you understanding it metaphorically, doesn't it ring true that we live a life of separation from the source which gave us birth? Do you feel absolutely connected and grounded with the earth? Do you feel one with each other as though were seeing through their souls? The truth in the story, is not in its "historicity", but in its symbolic truth of the condition of what it means to be human.

QuestioningMind said:

It certainly isn't literally true nor can I see how it could be considered to be symbolically true.

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I just answered a couple people in my last two posts right before yours here I'm replying to if you jump back and look. I think I explained it pretty well in those. I could think of more, but I just finished those and need to take a break.

Posts 132 and 134 both are pretty good I think.

wandering peacefully said:

Of course it is true of the human condition of the people living at the time the mythology was written. Because it was written by those humans living with those thoughts and conditions. It didn't fall out of space onto a page in a book that millions relate to and follow. It's like all other myths and stories that have survived through the ages. It's a story about humans and their conditions, dreams, hopes, fears.

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I very much agree. I just posted to someone else that it's a "timeless story", which is what a myth is. It leaps out of history because it speaks to the state of conditions of what and who we are. Everyone can relate to it.

The only thing to add is that specifically is what makes it true. Its timeless truth that carries it from age to age. That is what it seems many miss and mistake in conflating the accuracy of details in trying to make it historical facts. That utterly guts out, kills, stomps on, and squishes between the toes any of the timeless qualities of it. It kills God, in other words. Literalists, must really just hate God.

Audie said:

I dont think I am ready to say that the ancients made
no distinction between fact and fiction.

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Well, the documentation of the influence of Greek philosophy on modern day Christian tradition is pretty well known. The immortal soul from Socrates, the Trinity from Plato, even the cross from Constantine. I wonder . . . how seriously would you take the mixing of modern evolution with the teachings of Anazimander, Anazagoras, Empedocles, and Aristotle, or even the conclusion that Darwin borrowed his theory from them so they cancel his out.

That's how thin modern day skepticism is.

sealchan said:

I think the story was written to directly counter the mythic notion of death as an essential part of life. Much of Genesis does the work of surgically removing, suppressing and denying the role of the Goddess in myth. It was a bold move by the authors. There is even some humor in how they went about it although the centuries of mysogyny that has found its justification in this scripture makes that difficult to appreciate.

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Or its a rather sopisticated view of death being a something related to perception. Certainly pre literate cultures have a different take than highly educated literate cultures. In this culture death is a something that happens to us. in the genisis account there is a shift in perceptions that goes from naked to fig leaf.

Windwalker said:

I very much agree. I just posted to someone else that it's a "timeless story", which is what a myth is. It leaps out of history because it speaks to the state of conditions of what and who we are. Everyone can relate to it.

The only thing to add is that specifically is what makes it true. Its timeless truth that carries it from age to age. That is what it seems many miss and mistake in conflating the accuracy of details in trying to make it historical facts. That utterly guts out, kills, stomps on, and squishes between the toes any of the timeless qualities of it. It kills God, in other words. Literalists, must really just hate God.

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Artists get this.... Cs lewis had a "conversion" experience after a debate with tolkien. He had debated the christian story is in many other stories so it is just myth. Tolkien rightfully said yes this is a fact. But he added, What makes the jesus story powerful is that its myth into human flesh. As an artist lewis grasped that.

Afterwards His theology was horrid as most is, absolute nonsense, but but he did much better job"theologically" speaking with the lion witch and the wardrobe. Very few people can do theology well straight up and the only really good one in the 20th century i know of is diteriech bonhoffer but he was writing in hell literally? Nazi germany. When he wrote cost of discipleship. The setting makes it powerful. Read that realizing he was executed mere days before the fall if berlin makes it extremely wow.

When you use the word myth in your question...."Is the Myth of the Fall of Man True?", which definition are you applying to the word "myth"?

Definition of myth
1a : a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon creation myths

b : parable, allegory Moral responsibility is the motif of Plato's myths.

2a : a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society seduced by the American myth of individualism — Orde Coombs the utopian myth of a perfect society

b : an unfounded or false notion the myth of racial superiority

3 : a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence the Superman myth The unicorn is a myth.

4 : the whole body of myths a student of Greek myth

Definition of MYTH


https://www.merriam-webster.com/dic...tps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/myth