Genesis: is it to be taken literally?

Quote MiguelG:
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The Bible does have wisdom to impart to us, but we need to sift through much to find it. It takes, in part, faith, logic & empathy to do so.
_____________________________________________________________________The Bible must be taken literally unless the context dictates otherwise. If we start sifting through the Bible looking for wisdom and truth, we would end up throughing out the entire thing based on human wisdom and logic. All acts of God or miracles performed by God through anyone in the Bible would have to be thrown out according to most on this site. Creation, Noah's Flood, the virgin Birth of Jesus, healing someone borned blind, the resurection of Jesus and etc. There would be nothing left of the Christian or Jewish faiths if this were done. I take all of these things very literally. I may not be able to produce a mathematical fourmula to prove the acts of God because I believe that God can work outside the natural laws we observe today. That's why they are called miracles. Christians are on a very slippery slope if they start deciding for themselves which parts of the Bible to believe and which to refect as myth.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

Coragyps says:
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Huh, that's odd! My dad was a missionary and minister for about 45 years, and never felt that a six-day creation or Noah's Flood were literal
___________________________________________________________________I can't speak for him, but I am an elder in the Church of Christ and everyone in my congregation is a six-day creationist and believes Noah's Flood is literal. Jesus believed in a six day creation also. According to Mark 10:6ff man was in the "begining of creation" having been created on the sixth day. I know most will not accept proving the Bible by the Bible as a real proof, but a Christian should.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

The Bible is truth according to Jesus in John 17:7 "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." Carefull Bible study will reveal the truth to you. Since your dad was a minister, I am sure you know at least some of the truth Coragyps.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was in Matt 22:36ff he said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." and the second greatest commandment was to "Love your neighbor as yourself."Clearly love is a central tenent of Christianity. Faith is also right up there too. In Heb 11:6 "But without faith it is impossible to please Him..." The him there being God.There are many things central to Christianity that are too numerous to get into here, but it seems that the second part of your question is about taking the word of God literally. We don't worship the text or the Word within it. We worship God and study his revieled word to us in the Bible. The discussion is mainly about Genesis and the Creation and Noah's Flood accounts. Genesis is a book of history and I find nothing in them that would indicate that these accounts are not to be taken literally. After all, God put the sign on the rainbow in the sky to say that He would not flood the earth again. Surely this is not talking about a local flood because we have those all the time!Christians before the time of Darwin almost all took Genesis literally. The only reason many don't today is because they have comprimised with the so called evidence of evolution and it's dating methods.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

The Apostle Peter said there would be false teachers in II Pet 2:1,2. I do not claim that ALL believe as I do, but only most true Christians. And of course there is deeper or hidden meaning in most of the Bible, but that does not take away the plain literal meaining of the text. Especially the creation and flood accounts.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

Hebrew poetry does repeat thoughts and use numbers with meaning like 3, 7, 10, 12 and etc. Just because it is poetry does not automatically mean it is mythical (by mythical I assume you mean not literal and not factual). The number 7 can mean forever as you say, but in the context of creation it is also counting days and setting that up as an example of the Sabbath rest of the Jews. EX 20:11

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

I have seen this definition of myth before, but that is not the way most people commonly use the word myth. Most people assume that myth is fictional stories not factual. So if myth does not mean lie, then you must believe the genesis account of creation is factual and literal like I do. Or are you just mudding the waters with myth when you really do mean not factual and not litteral.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

I am not the idiot that you may think. I am only trying to define the terms used. By your/our definition of myth I agree that Gen 1 is a myth, but I do contend that it is literally true and not simply metaphorically true.If the order of creation and the use of the word day (yom) in conjunction with a number of the day and the phrase evening and morning does not literally mean one 24 hour day then why put it in there. God could have said the first age, the second age, and etc. and described a developmental process of goo to you evolution, but He did not. God used devine fiat to create full grown plants and animals after their kind. Things naturally reproduce after their kind. This only allows for adaptations for survival within the kind, not goo to you evolution.The days are not even in the right order to go along with evolution. The earth is older than the sun (day 4), birds are older than any other land animal (day 5 and day 6 respectively). Trees (day 3) even come before the sun (day 4).I'm supprised that you claim it to be metaphorically true other than the fact that the universe had a beginning. Because all the details contradict big bang and evolutionary assumptions. If it is only metaphor of some kind of beginning, then it could have stoped at Gen 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.". We know however that God did not stop there.Even though the Bible is not a science book, when ever it gives a scientific fact it is always correct. That is why I take Genesis literally.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

There is no doubt that knowledge has increased greatly in the last 200 years. However, I believe that the Bible uses the sun rise/sun set language as we commonly do today. I listened to the news last night and they gave the excact time that the sun would rise this morning...not that the earth would rotate to allow the sun to be visible. And who knows for sure if the earth is not at or near the center of the universe. Science has been proven wrong before and frequently updates its "facts". There is also a large body of evidence that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Check out the Apologetic Press web site or AIG web site for YEC information. Most of the so called evidence for an old earth depends on the world view of the person looking at the data.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

Read the quotes you gave in the King James Version KJV and you will see that it is not saying that the earth is fixed in space, but only established by God. established is not the same as fixed immovable in space! From some translations, I can see how Luther could have been confused though. I use the same arguement for the Psalms you gave. It is talking about the nations being stable 1 Chr 16:30,31. Hebrew poetry rhymes thoughts not sounds. What is meant by "not moved" is explained in the next verse.Bottom line, I do not see the Bible teaching that the earth is fixed at a point in space. Luther and others in times past were mistaken about what was being said.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

I think we will have to agree to disagree because I do see Genesis as a history of God's dealing with man from the creation of the world through the death of Joseph in Egypt. I don't see why God would give us a creation order that is totally invalid by science today unless science is mistaken.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

I'm not sure about all of their beliefs, but most take one of several stances on Gen 1:
Literal
Day age
Gap theory
Modified Gap theory
It is only a culturally true mythExcept for literal, the other stances try to allow for 4.5 Billion years. After carful study of the text, I believe that the literal view is the only view that is supported. Others may disagree and they have their right to be wrong.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

If you truely believe that the Apostle Peter was a false teacher, then we have no common ground from which to debate.Here are a few notable names that take Genesis literally:
Peter believed the flood to be a factual account II Pet 2:5 and I Pet 3:20.The Hebrew writer believed the flood account factual Heb 11:7God in Isaiah 54:9 reafirms the flood account.Exodus 20:11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day... The six literal days of creation.Jesus in Mat 19:4 and Mar 10:6 afirms the creation of man in the beginning.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

Sorry to hear that you don't believe at all and since you don't there is no real reason you would believe a church father either. After all this Peter is reguarded as the first pope by many. Certainly one of Jesus' inner circle of the 12 Apostles.

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Ps 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

The parables of Jesus are just stories to relate a spiritual truth, but there is no indication that that is what the creation or the flood is. Jesus took those literally.