How Literal is Genesis

The question should be: Does it matter?Is Genesis just a dry newspaper account of "dog bites man"?
Or does it have some meaning?To me, the greatest tragedy of literalism is not just that it's plain wrong - it's that literalism deflects people from the lessons of the Bible.Instead of asking, "Did it happen?", we should be asking, "What can I learn from the story?"

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That's just it, though - an example doesn't have to be "real" to be valid or useful. An example "looks like" the real thing, but it doesn't have to be the real thing.Look at Aesop's fables. The talking animals should be a clue that the events never happened. Yet every fable has a moral - a lesson to be learned.The talking snake in Genesis should give us a similar clue.

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I'm going to protest your wording here.Let me correct it for you: Would it matter to you if the stories and legends never actually existed?What's more important - the Brothers Grimm or the fairy tales? Aesop or the fables?Hemingway or For Whom the Bell Tolls? Robert Jordan or the Spanish Civil War?Would the characters have any significance if there were no stories?

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We know that Adam and Eve are a fable because the human race didn't start from a population of two. Biology just doesn't work that way. We know that Noah is a fable because the flood story is physically impossible in numerous ways - and because there is not one single shred of evidence that such an event ever took place. So, if the Bible starts out with fables - i.e. more than just history - why wouldn't it continue in the same vein? Why would it lower its standards from larger-than-life to mundane?You seem to recognize that you're in retreat from a strictly literalist position. But your biggest concern seems to be fear of how far you'll have to retreat - not what is important or what is true.

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Should I be here?I haven't questioned beliefs about Jesus at all in this thread - the topic is Genesis, after all.It isn't a Christian's prerogative to judge whether or not I'm a "true believer". It probably shouldn't be an admin's either.

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