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Author | Topic: If Genesis is Metaphorical, what's the metaphor? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
tsig Member (Idle past 2939 days) Posts: 738 From: USA Joined: |
The way we have interpret these moral lessons in our modern context often depends on our assumptions and world view about religion that comes from later developments. For example, many Christians believe in the concept of Original Sin, and see the 'fall' of mankind in the story. The Jewish religion does not have the concept of original sin, and therefore there was no 'fall'. The moral lessons they see are different than the Christian Great post! So what we see in the Bible depends on the preconceptions we bring to the Bible. This would seem to mean that no two believers really believe in the same Bible.
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Brian Member (Idle past 4989 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
hi Arach, thanks for the reply.
sure, but genesis is NOT a history. i'm talking literature here, not archaelogy. there are parts of it that are CLEARLY based on real people or places or events: bab-el is a real place. If you go back to what I said at the beginning: Of course there are parts of The Book of Genesis that are historically plausible, it isn't entirely unhistorical. How is this different to what you are saying?????????? You are agreeing that parts of Genesis are clearly historical, that’s exactly what I am saying. Sure there are many fairy tales in it, but there’s history there too. Just because it doesn’t conform to the modern day definitions of the word doesn’t mean it isn’t historical. Abraham could well have been a wandering Aramean, and any narratives about him and events concerning him ARE historical narratives, they may be largely false but they are still historical narratives.
but what genesis does not do is accurately record the histories, events, genealogies, of the stories described. I really don’t know how you can say this!! How do you know that Abraham did not go to Egypt during a famine, it is entirely possible. How do you know that the war in Genesis 14 is unhistorical? It reads like history to me.
it tells tales, and usually tall ones. Yes, it USUALLY tells tall tales, but not the entire book, which is what I am saying.
how is this hard to understand? It isn’t hard to understand, I just don’t think you fully understand what history is.
george washington was a real person. but he probably did not cut down a cherry, and tell his father that he couldn't tell a lie. But he is a historical character, PART of the tradition is true, which is what I am saying about Genesis. How can we say that there was no Abraham or Jacob, of Joseph? We can’t, and if a narrative about them concerns a past event then that is an historical account, because you and I don’t believe the tales doesn’t mean that everyone thinks it is unhistorical, a few billion people would disagree with us.
that story is not historical, but a biography of him would be. see the difference yet? these aren't hard concepts. I know the difference, I just think you have a narrow view of what history is. If someone claimed that the story was true, would you say the ENTIRE tradition is false? Of course you wouldn’t, this is a tradition involving a real historical person. Genesis has many tales similar, but we cannot sweep the entire corpus aside as unhistorical, it isn’t possible.
you're mistaking my point. my point is not that abraham didn't exist. it's that the stories told about him are fiction. My point is that there is no way you can dismiss everything about Abraham as fiction. For example: Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar. How can we say that this is fiction?
i don't know whether or not he was a real person, but any one skilled in reading any sort of literature notices immediately that genesis is written as fiction: traditional stories. NO, no, no. We are saying it was written as fiction. It was written in the style of the time, it was believed to be historical, and still is by a great many people. You are mistakenly applying a post renaissance view of literature onto a text that was written about 2000 years previous. It wasn’t originally written to be taken as fiction, it was written to be a history. Would you say that Herodotus wrote history, because his ‘history’ books are rife with anachronisms, flights of fancy and wild, unsupported claims. It’s simply the way ancient’s recorded history. Thucydides was the same, and even Polybius did not achieve his own recommended standards.
sure, maybe abraham existed. maybe he was really the father of the jews and the muslims. but stories about him are most likely made up. Yes, MOST LIKELY, there is no way to tell if they are entirely untrue! Could Abraham have been a wandering Aramean? YESCould he have been married to Sarah? YES Are there unlikely events associated with his life. YES Does this mean the narratives are unhistorical? NO They are historical narratives, but most of them are likely to be FALSE history.
because it is very unlikely that part of genesis are historical accurate. But you have just said that parts of Genesis are based on real people and real events.
a story based on history, a history, and historically accurate story are three different things. And they are all open to the interpretation of the investigator. That’s why I define history as a narrative about the past that is created in the historian’s mind and presented as a written record. Every history is a creation of the historian’s mind, it is his interpretation of the data. How many different histories have been written about Jesus based on the NT texts? They do not all agree. Some ‘prove’ that he was the Son of God, some ‘prove’ he was a revolutionary’ and they all use near enough the same sources for their conclusions. Because you and I think that Genesis is unhistorical doesn’t mean that all historians would, it is just down to what you and I, or any other historian accept as historically plausible, that’s all history is. Say we agree that all Abraham’s tales are fictional but based on history, that doesn’t mean that every historian will agree. Some will completely reject it, some will completely accept it, it is how they interpret the data.
besides, genesis is full of anachronism, which is pretty much the opposite of "historically accurate." But, this doesn’t mean that the narrative is not a historical narrative! The authors may very well have believed that they were recording accurate history, no one was critically analysing the sources to see if they were accurate or not. But, again, before the Renaissance anachronisms were not a problem at all for people who were writing and reading history. The historians probably never even considered whether anything they wrote was anachronistic or not. Look how long that the Donation of Constantine was considered historically accurate, how long did it take before anyone’s curiosity was aroused? It wasn’t until the rise of Documentary Criticism during the renaissance that anachronisms were considered to be problematic. Even although evidence of documentary criticism can be found as early as 1355 when, in a letter to Charles IV, Petrarch provided evidence that a document exempting Austria from imperial jurisdiction was clearly a forgery. The full value wasn’t really realised until 1439 when Lorenzo Valla famously exposed the Donation of Constantine as a very poor forgery. So, yes, anachronisms can indicate inaccuracy, but, it doesn’t follow that ancient historians were not writing history because of anachronisms. They weren’t even aware of them but they were aware that they were trying to record past events. Even the Joseph stories undoubtedly belong to post monarchy, most likely the Saite period, it doesn’t mean they never happened. But, you read some pre-renaissance books that claim to be history and you will be shocked to learn that most contain anachronisms. There was no critical history writing being done in Israel. It is well-known that the rise of Christianity was a tragedy for history writing, they suffocated the discipline for about 1500 years.
parts could have really happened, sure. But this is what I said in the first post.
just like dracula could have really trapsed around romania sucking on necks. dracula is, after all, based on a real person. Yes, parts of Dracula could well be historical. There was a Vlad the impaler as you say.
it has nothing to do with impossibility. it has to do with style of writing. It has to do with style of writing NOW, but what histories written 700 year before Christ were written in what we would call a historical style?
you picked a good chapter, btw. genesis does appear to have been based on some kind of history, as the opening section reads like one. for the most part, this is NOT what genesis does. I know it’s a good chapter, that’s why I picked it, because it is plausible. But I am actually agreeing with you, I am saying that PARTS of Genesis could be historical, that’s all I claimed. I honestly think that you are making the mistake of applying modern day literary definitions on to an ancient text. I have done this myself many times before.
(and don't start on genealogies, as they appear to be rigged) I would argue that every genealogy in the Bible is artificial.
i'm not saying that genesis is not historically set, or not based on historical events in some parts, i'm saying that genesis itself is NOT a history. That’s exactly what I said in the first post about this: Of course there are parts of The Book of Genesis that are historically plausible, it isn't entirely unhistorical. This is exactly the same as what you are saying. I know that Genesis is not completely historical, very little in it is historically plausible. I agree it isn’t what you and I would call history, but you can guarantee that people will disagree with us.
how do i know this? i've read genesis. i've read kings and chronicles. i know the historical difficulties with kings and chronicles, and why they're not really even considered ture histories. They aren’t considered true histories by people like us. But there are people who think that they are.
maybe joseph did exist. maybe he didn't. but the story is at the very least heavily fictionalized. Yes, it is heavily fictionalised, but there is possible history there too, which is my point. Even if a history is clearly exaggerated, it is still history, it is just inaccurate.
sure, and what i'm saying is that for the most part, there is no real historical information designed to keep records in the book of genesis. it's not terribly difficult to look around and found which stories have an element of truth in them and were based on something in the real world. Yes, I agree 100%, but this is the thing. What you and I find easy to identify as inaccuracies can be deemed legit by certain people, they have a different criteria fromus for accepting evidence. Look at this gem from Mitt on another thread:
kenneth kitchen found price of slaves in josephs time so jososeph was real bible is true you are a real loser like a idiot. You and I both know that this is a ludicrous approach to history, and biblical studies, but there are people out there who have different level of acceptance of evidence. I know this is an extreme example it was just an easy one to find.
i'm not saying he didn't. i'm saying the story is a traditional one, not a historical record. It isn’t a historical record to our eyes, that doesn’t mean that the ancients never viewed them as history. This was the way that they recorded history.
now look at the two contradictory creation accounts. the two halves of the noah story. the three instances on abraham telling a foreign king sarah is his sister. see the similarity? I think it was two instances of Abraham and one instance of Isaac and the three tales may be based on one event. Which one came first is anyone’s guess.
the redactor didn't even care to consolidate his sources, change them a little to streamline it and make it all agree nicely. why? to preserve the integrety of the tradition. But no one at the time would see this as a problem! We both know that the Bible is rife with contradictions, it is obvious, but to the ancient historian or reader this was not a problem, they did not view history as we do. The first person that we know of who sifted through his sources and attempted to reject what he thought was impossible was Hecataeus (550-475 BCE). When he wrote: What I write here is the account which I considered to be true: for the stories of the Greeks are numerous, and in my opinion ridiculous’ This was the first example we have of a critical approach to history writing. The ancients simply recorded history in a different way from us.
history is to some degree the telling of stories, yes. but explaining a history in context is different than spinning yarns. Yes it is different for us.
does it? find me morality in genesis. What about the three wife/sister motif tales? Esau and Jacob, Lot, there’s an abundance of moral stories there.
when god says "don't eat from that tree" he doesn't say "because it would be wrong to do so, and i care that you do the right things." he says "if you eat it, you'll die." sounds distinctly like cause and effect. But how is this the same as Van Seter’s ‘Modern scientific theories’? It isn’t, it is a cause and effect caused by something that is outside scientific enquiry, namely God.
genesis does not record national history. because there is no nation of israel or judah during the time it is set. rather it tells fictionalized biographies. It was written AFTER Israel became a nation, and it does allegedly record how that Nation came into being, it is that nations ‘pre-history’. It was written to give that nation a history of how it came into being. What about the conquest narratives? We know that they are completely inaccurate but what other claim to the land does Israel have? The State if Israel makes its claim to the land based on these texts and they were concerning Israel before she was a nation. It is actually quite difficult to pinpoint when Israel actually did become a nation! Brian.
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macaroniandcheese  Suspended Member (Idle past 3958 days) Posts: 4258 Joined: |
*sigh*
just because you can't prove something didn't happen is no reason to assume it did.
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Brian Member (Idle past 4989 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
I am not assuming that anything in Genesis happened, I am assuming that certain parts of Genesis *COULD* be historical.
I am assuming that Gen 14 for example, is not historically impossible, and neither Arach nor myself would reject Gen 14 as impossible. You cannot reject something that was said to be historical just because you cannot find external support for it, why would we expect to find evidence of Abraham for example? When no single person or event in the Book of Genesis is visible in what we know from near eastern history and archaeology, we have to go on plausibility, and there are certain parts that are plausible. Also, for a narrative to be historical does not mean that the events described in it are true. I am not assuming that they happened, but I am not assuming that they didn't, but some are plausible. You will have to go far to find a bigger Bible sceptic than I Brennkimi, but even I would play fair with the Bible and give it the same treatment as any other ancient text. Cheers. Brian.
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ramoss Member (Idle past 642 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
Ah..you just aren't looking through it through the proper cultural eyes.
You should read some Jewish commentaries on Beirsheit sometimes...
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
i might come back and address this post at length at some point tomorrow, but for now i'm not even gonna read it until we get clear this one, single, key point up. because you're not getting what i'm saying at all. maybe i'm not communicating it well enough.
Of course there are parts of The Book of Genesis that are historically plausible, it isn't entirely unhistorical. historically plausible and historical are very different things. lots of stuff is historically plausible. but historical fiction is one thing and a history is another. the book of genesis doesn't even have the honor of being historical fiction; it's a collection of folk tales. it's not a tale like the iliad, by one author, based on a historical event, but highly fictionalized. it's a bunch of tradition. the stories do not record historical events. they are not even consistently set in history. they record tradition, stories purely derived for a single purposes. etiologies like "how the leopard got its spots" and lots of them from all different sources. although PARTS of it are tied to the history of the people, tradition usually is. i would not call the george washington cherry tree story a history of his life by any means. in fact, i wouldn't even include it in one. just because the figures MAY had really existed does not mean the book is "historical." just because it's PLAUSIBLE does not mean the story is recording what actually happened.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Ah..you just aren't looking through it through the proper cultural eyes. You should read some Jewish commentaries on Beirsheit sometimes... i have, and i reject that conclusion. it's not THAT different from saying that the genesis 3 story is about original sin and the fall of mankind. it's later theology, and later commentary, and not always valid just because it's jewish. i often side with judaism on, well, just about everything about the bible (they did write most of it, after all). but this one particular conclusion i've come to reject. if it's teaching "morals" then it's not to do the right thing, or not to do the wrong thing. rather, i see the text as very political, like propaganda.
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Brian Member (Idle past 4989 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
I think I may have narrowed the problem down (or maybe not).
I think what you may be doing is to make a fairly common mistake in regards to what history is. Too many people simply equate the word 'history' with the word 'past'. But, history is NOT what happened in the past, it is what the historian reports that happened in the past. The past has gone, we can never recover it, but historians write histories to try and preserve *a* past. All history is created in the human mind, it is never identical with the past. I think you may be looking at history as being something that has to be verified in order to qualify as history, but it isn't. History is simply a narrative about the past, it doesnt have to be true. Brian.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Let's also remember that all women after Eve are also punished by males having dominion over them.
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
SuperHorseWoman writes: Let's also remember that all women after Eve are also punished by males having dominion over them. If that were truly the case then Rodin's The Thinker would be thinking, "Remember to leave the seat UP! Remember to leave the seat UP!" Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
I think what you may be doing is to make a fairly common mistake in regards to what history is. no, this seems to be your error. you're making the following jump: past + plausible = history. and it's not true. genesis is a history in the respect that it's purpose is to preserve the traditions of a culture. same sense in which proverbs would be a history of traditions. but it is not a history in and of itself, in the respect of being an accurate recording the real-world events of that culture.
History is simply a narrative about the past, it doesnt have to be true. so the movie titanic is a history? braveheart? gladiator? i'm not talking at ALL about outside verification of events. i'm talking AGAIN about writing style and goal of the text. the writing style is a collection of tales with designed purposes. it's goal is preserve the traditional mythology of the ancient jews. if it were a history, it would read like a history. there's a set style for hebrew histories, and genesis is not it. it tries to emulate it to give it validity, but anyone studying the tanakh for a while will notice obvious differences very quickly. if it were a history, it's gao would be preserve, i dunno the history of the culture. get the difference?
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
How do you know he isn't?
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jar Member (Idle past 424 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Only if he's a confirmed bachelor. Hell hath no fury like a wife who finds the seat up.
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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mikehager Member (Idle past 6497 days) Posts: 534 Joined: |
I got a policy about that. She likes it down, she can leave it down. I like it up, I'll leave it up. Why is her desire of greater value then mine?
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purpledawn Member (Idle past 3487 days) Posts: 4453 From: Indiana Joined: |
In our house we have a very simple and equal solution.
Everyone in our house makes sure that both the seat and the lid are down when they leave. The purpose is three-fold. Both males and females are inconvenienced equally, it is safer for small children and pets, and it looks better. A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.
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