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Do the authors of the NT consider Genesis a literal book of the Bible?

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
@shunyadragon

I think I get what you're trying to do here. You're trying to say that it's a parable to get out of the fact that Paul is not interpreting the Torah literally here.

Not the subject of the thread. This does not address the question of a literal Genesis and subjects such as Adam and Eve and Noah and the Arc.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
Not the subject of the thread. Paul simply cited the law as an exampl. The topic involves a literal Genesis for example Adam and Eve and Noah and the Arc, which you have failed to respond to.
So you're not actually looking for examples from the whole Torah, you're just looking for very specific examples.

Well, I've gone through this thread, and @Brickjectivity gave his take, @Augustus has given his take, and you responded to both with 'You're wrong.' You refused to engage with them or take their points into consideration on the very topics you said you want to discuss.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
So you're not actually looking for examples from the whole Torah, you're just looking for very specific examples.

No as the topic of the thread stated, 'the authors of the NT in the NT.'

Well, I've gone through this thread, and @Brickjectivity gave his take, @Augustus has given his take, and you responded to both with 'You're wrong.' You refused to engage with them or take their points into consideration on the very topics you said you want to discuss.

Good riddance to rubbish.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
No as the topic of the thread stated, 'the authors of the NT in the NT.'



Good riddance to rubbish.
Will you ever accept that the other side might have a valid argument? If not, again, why start this thread?
 
Not citing the NT, which is the topic of the thread,

Gott und Himmel :grimacing:

I literally quoted the same verses as you and said they work equally well with an allegorical interpretation.

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Source: 15 Bible verses about Noah's Ark

1 Peter 3:20-21who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Source: 15 Bible verses about Noah's Ark



Also quoted the OT:

Genesis:

Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

To me this makes more sense if you interpret Adam as being figuratively the first man as it seems to assume a world populated with other people, not simply the descendants of Adam and Eve.

Again, I could not state this as definitive fact as it is ambiguous like your example.

When you take an ambiguous text then state that it is best to interpret without recourse to genre, convention, historical context, nuance, or any other factor and simply interpret it in a naive, literalist manner what do you actually expect to uncover?

What evidence would you actually expect to see if they did interpret it, at least in part, allegorically?
 
Will you ever accept that the other side might have a valid argument? If not, again, why start this thread?

"because the best way to identify whether or not the NT authors took the OT literally is only allow a rank literalist reading of the NT and studiously ignore: genre, convention, context, textual analysis, nuance, historical circumstance, non-Biblical evidence, anything non-literal and also critical thinking in general.

We should then make dogmatic assertions that whatever chimes with our modern prejudices was definitely how the text was interpreted 200 years ago.

I don't know how anyone could possibly think there was something fundamentally flawed about this method of analysis."
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
Not the subject of the thread. Paul simply cited the law as an example. The topic involves a literal Genesis for example Adam and Eve and Noah and the Arc, which you have failed to respond to.

Paul was a JEw and believed in the Law of the Torah. So what????
You asked for examples where the NT authors took Genesis, and the Pentateuch more broadly, non-literally.

And I gave you an example of a literal law from the Pentateuch about oxen that Paul applied non-literally to people.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
You asked for examples where the NT authors took Genesis, and the Pentateuch more broadly, non-literally.

And I gave you an example of a literal law from the Pentateuch about oxen that Paul applied non-literally to people.

Your example does not work. First Paul acknowledges the Law literally and than uses in an example of a nonliteral use, That is not what I specifically outlined in the opening pos and later posts.. I previously acknowledged that the Genesis and the Pentateuch may also be used in a nonliteral sense and still be understood in the literal sense as historically accurate and of course also in terms of the law,

Also I specified the belief that the Genesis and the Pentateuch are considered;historically accurate.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
"because the best way to identify whether or not the NT authors took the OT literally is only allow a rank literalist reading of the NT and studiously ignore: genre, convention, context, textual analysis, nuance, historical circumstance, non-Biblical evidence, anything non-literal and also critical thinking in general.

All of this is not the issue and a useless smoke screen, because I am being very specific as to what the understanding of the authors was based on literally what they actually wrote without ambiguity sense I was very specific The authors of the NT believed in a literal Genesis and the Pentateuch.

By the way, Phil believed the Exodus as literally true history.

We should then make dogmatic assertions that whatever chimes with our modern prejudices was definitely how the text was interpreted 200 years ago.

I have not made any dogmatic assertions. I am making an argument based on the plain literal understanding of the text, and no counter argument has been presented so far.

]quote] I don't know how anyone could possibly think there was something fundamentally flawed about this method of analysis."[/QUOTE]

Hundreds of millions of Christians over the millennia would consider your logic flawed, and heretical as they did Philo.
 
All of this is not the issue and a useless smoke screen, because I am being very specific as to what the understanding of the authors was based on literally what they actually wrote without ambiguity sense I was very specific

Yet others reject the idea that your quotes were "unambiguous" and your assumption that the only way someone can make an intertextual reference to another story is that they believe it literally true.

You have assumed a reference to Adam, Flood, etc. can only be interpreted as an endorsement of the literal truth of that event. This is obviously false.

How to interpret an intertextual reference requires you to consider genre, historical and cultural context, etc. yet you have deemed these "off topic".

What genre were the Gospels? What was their purpose? In the ancient world, when people wrote history, what was their primary concern: objective reporting of fact or using the past to construct a narrative pertinent to the present? Was there a difference between recent history and primordial history in the minds of people?

I have not made any dogmatic assertions. I am making an argument based on the plain literal understanding of the text,

And therein lies the rub...

You have assumed an anachronistic methodology of interpreting the Bible in a naive, literalist manner and mistake it for being "objective".

Hundreds of millions of Christians over the millennia would consider your logic flawed, and heretical as they did Philo.

Hundreds of millions of Christians would consider yours flawed too, including the Catholic and Orthodox Churches from the very beginning of their existences.
 
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pearl

Well-Known Member
What's fictitious about what Paul has written?

He's citing a law from the Torah and re-interpreting the meaning. There's nothing fictional here.

Paul is not writing fiction, but interpreting through the use of typology and allegory.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Paul is not writing fiction, but interpreting through the use of typology and allegory.

In terms of his specific statements concerning the literal interpretation of Genesis No. Yes interpreting through typology and allegory also exist.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Yet others reject the idea that your quotes were "unambiguous" and your assumption that the only way someone can make an intertextual reference to another story is that they believe it literally true.

You have assumed a reference to Adam, Flood, etc. can only be interpreted as an endorsement of the literal truth of that event. This is obviously false.

How to interpret an intertextual reference requires you to consider genre, historical and cultural context, etc. yet you have deemed these "off topic".

What genre were the Gospels? What was their purpose? In the ancient world, when people wrote history, what was their primary concern: objective reporting of fact or using the past to construct a narrative pertinent to the present? Was there a difference between recent history and primordial history in the minds of people?



And therein lies the rub...

You have assumed an anachronistic methodology of interpreting the Bible in a naive, literalist manner and mistake it for being "objective".



Hundreds of millions of Christians would consider yours flawed too, including the Catholic and Orthodox Churches from the very beginning of their existences.

Again failure to respond to the topic of the thread just more rhetoric.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
@shunyadragon

We have provided textual quotes, explanations, context, historical understandings and genre. I gave you quotes from Paul, and Augustus gave you quotes from the Gospels.

What more do you want?

Whenever we quote a text you go 'Yes this is clearly literal and no other explanations make sense,' without even yourself explaining why and then telling us our explanations are somehow off-topic.
 
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Again failure to respond to the topic of the thread just more rhetoric.

Why is addressing what you said directly "off topic"?

Yet others reject the idea that your quotes were "unambiguous" and your assumption that the only way someone can make an intertextual reference to another story is that they believe it literally true.

You have assumed a reference to Adam, Flood, etc. can only be interpreted as an endorsement of the literal truth of that event. This is obviously false.

How to interpret an intertextual reference requires you to consider genre, historical and cultural context, etc. yet you have deemed these "off topic".

What genre were the Gospels? What was their purpose? In the ancient world, when people wrote history, what was their primary concern: objective reporting of fact or using the past to construct a narrative pertinent to the present? Was there a difference between recent history and primordial history in the minds of people?
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
@shunyadragon

We have provided textual quotes, explanations, context, historical understandings and genre. I gave you quotes from Paul, and Augustus gave you quotes from the Gospels.

What more do you want?

Whenever we quote a text you go 'Yes this is clearly literal and no other explanation make sense,' without even yourself explaining why and telling us our explanations are somehow off-topic.

You have presented absolutely nothing concerning the quotes which demonstrate the validity of the authors of the NT. I have acknowledged that literal, allegorical interpretations and other non- literal uses of Genesis, but you and others have absolutely refused to acknowledge that yes the authors of the NT also believed in a historical Genesis, and failed to provide references in the NT that supported your extreme position. .
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
You have presented absolutely nothing concerning the quotes which demonstrate the validity of the authors of the NT. I have acknowledged that literal, allegorical interpretations and other non- literal uses of Genesis, but you and others have absolutely refused to acknowledge that yes the authors of the NT also believed in a historical Genesis, and failed to provide references in the NT that supported your extreme position. .
Dude, you started a debate on what the NT authors believe.

The point of a debate is for your opponent to disagree with you.

Mine and Augustus' whole purpose in this thread is to dispute your claim.

We're not here to 'acknowledge that yes the authors of the NT also believed in a historical Genesis'. Our whole point here is to ague with you about this very claim.
 
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