Posted on 12/09/2008 12:32:05 AM PST by marthemaria
And how do you "believe Genesis to be the story of Creation, but not the literal truth"?
If it's not the literal truth of how the world was created, then how do you credibly believe it?
You'll be providing credible examples of the twisting, right?
“Well at least we can finally dispense with the “George Bush is a Christian” myth.”
If everything in the Bible is to be taken literally, how do we account for two different versions of Genesis?
Read your posts.
The version of Genesis that rests on the original Greek or Hebrew as much as possible is the correct one. Any version of Scripture that deviates enormously from the original is most likely in error.
The entire Reformation was prompted by Erasmus’ translation of the Bible from it’s Greek form so that it was then possible to understand what was written closer to it’s original form.
The oldest known Bible that scholors have had access to is the Codex Sinaiticus. It’s text is stunningly close the concordance that I have, written over a thousand years later. Always go with a Bible which is the closest to the original Greek or Hebrew.
I like the attempt at pile-on though. Keep practicing- you'll get better over time.
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)
And here is how you twisted it:
You have to know God personally to understand His Word. If somebody claims that the Bible is "not literally true", then they are revealing something about themselves.
Piece of cake.
Um, I don't think so. If those who don't know Christ consider the gospel message to be foolishness, and therefore reject it, and as a result of that rejection do not have the benefit of the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning of Scripture to them, and by virtue of that lack of understanding decide that the Bible is not literally true, then they are revealing themselves to have rejected Christ, rejected the Holy Spirit; and they are revealing themselves as not being Christians.
Simple.
There is a tradition of mainstream Christian scholarship almost two millenia long. For a great deal of that time Theology was the only option for those of intellectual persuasion. That mainstream tradition does not "completely reject the notion that the evolutionary model is compatible with Biblical truth"
But because some flim-flam man with a clown college degree (if that), running his one-man megachurch religion says otherwise, you reject the majority tradition of christian theology. That's not particulaly conservative - more Change! Yes We Can!
The verse you quoted doesn’t say that. You are entitled to your own personal interpretation of Scripture, and I am entitled to point out it is twisted. There’s nothing in that verse about “literally true.”
One has not read and understood the Bible AT ALL unless they understand the senses of Scripture:
The senses of Scripture
115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.
116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.”83
117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.
1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.84
2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.85
3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86
118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:
The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.87
119 “It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgement. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God.”88
But I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me.89
What are you talking about?
There is one Genesis. There would be several narratives pertaining to beginnings, in Genesis and elsewhere. Augustine of Hippo explained that these passages have to be read on four levels, so the first level, the literal, might not be about what it could be taken as being about, but it has to be understood what it is about before the other levels can be attempted.
Post 167, as I just quoted. Try to keep up.
But your post was meaningless and I had to explain to you what the Scripture meant. You still haven't shown me how my explanation "twisted" anything.
I'm not the one who needs to keep up.
Not at all. I contrasted the Scripture you quoted with what you twisted it to mean.
...and I had to explain to you what the Scripture meant.
All that you explained is your own personal interpretation of it.
You're going to have to post the exact "twisting". Stating that I "twisted" something without proof doesn't cut it.
All that you explained is your own personal interpretation of it.
The Scripture in question is more than clear. There is no "interpretation" required. It's so simple a toddler could understand it.
Accusing someone of "twisting" Scripture by means of "personal interpretation" is nothing more than a person's attempt to exempt themselves in their own minds from being accountable to the God Who wrote the Scripture by claiming that none of it is really true because it's only somebody's "personal interpretation".
That dog is never going to hunt. Your denial of the Scripture does not cancel out the fact that God will hold you and every other human being who has ever existed or who will ever exist in the future accountable based on what truth we have access to and what we did with that truth.
Denial does not mean escape.
I have done so.
The Scripture in question is more than clear. There is no "interpretation" required.
What it says is what it says. What YOU claim it says is interpretation.
Accusing someone of "twisting" Scripture by means of "personal interpretation" is nothing more than a person's attempt to exempt themselves in their own minds from being accountable to the God Who wrote the Scripture...
You are not God and I am exempt from accountability to you. I am accountable to the God Who wrote the Scripture, but I am not accountable to the human who wrote the interpretation.
Okay, Petronski.
In this case you are wrong. By denying your own personal interpretation of Scripture I escape your attempt to bind me to it.
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