Early chapters of Genesis as philosophy

This is sort of a spin off from the science forum topic about plate techtonics where myself and rand were discussing if God's actions were detectable or not. Rand argues that since science still has a lot to learn before it can prove God did something then we have to accept the possibility that God actions are not detectable and that He could 'clean up' any possible physical evidence that we think certain of God's actions would have left in the physical record. So, in a nutshell, there was a Flood but God cleaned up the evidence so that no evidence of a Flood is now visible.Anyway, on that thread Rand had stated that there was evidence of a Flood, that evidence was contained in the Bible, I would like to state that I agree with Rand that the Flood story in the Bible is evidence. However, I would say that where myself and Rand will probably disagree in what it is evidence of.I believe that the Flood stories (there are two Flood stories merged into one), and the creation stories for that matter in Genesis ARE evidence, but they are evidence of an ancient people's attempts at explaining the universe and thus their world to a prescientific people. The ancient Hebrews wished to know where and when life began, the philosophers gave them creation stories to satisfy their curiosity, the people wanted to know why they had to labour in the soil to scratch a living and women wanted to know why childbirth is so painful, and why is there so much suffering in the world, the philosophers gave them the Fall of Man myth. How can we keep the world out of depravity? The philosophers gave them the Flood myths to show what God is capable of.So, IMO, the Bible stories are evidence, and I have stated this a few times at EvC, but what they are evidence of is not actual events but of philosophers attempts to answer ultimate questions.Topic then is this:Do the early chapters of Genesis read much better as philosophy rather than historical fact?For matters of keeping the topic focussed, I suggest limiting the 'early chapters' to Genesis 1 through to Genesis 11:10. This is a good point to stop as there is a clear break in the style of the book.Faith and Belief for this as I expect it to go beyond the biblical texts.Brian.

Weren't they saved by the ark?The water killed everything, it did not save anything.Brian.

Hi X,I think the symbollism may be simpler than your examples. Personally, I think that the Flood myths reflect the limited human imagination of the authors of Genesis. On a simple level, if the world has become 'dirty' then what do humans normally use to clean things? Well, water would more than likely be the ancient's answer, so the world is 'dirty' and God 'cleans' it by using water. Just a thought.Also, The use of the 'sea' as a symbol in the Old Testament often refers to chaos, in particular the chaos of creation.It is also used as chaos in the mythical language used in the story of Jonah.I'll post more later I need to go out.Thanks for your thoughful reply.Brian.