How do we know Genesis was intended to be a metaphor?

[Justin108]

Other than our current understanding of science clearly contradicting Genesis, what reason is there to believe Genesis was written as a metaphorical account of creation?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 4 by JehovahsWitness]

Can plants grow without sunlight?

Why do you ask?

Should be obvious. Genesis 1 says that plants are created and grow on the third day, yet stars are not created until the day after.

Genesis says nothing of the kind. Please provide the quote that says "the stars were not creatd until the day after".

JW

Seriously? I've had Genesis Chapter 1 open for the past couple of hours. Here, I'll even quote from the NWT

Then God said: “Let the earth cause grass to sprout, seed-bearing plants and fruit trees according to their kinds, yielding fruit along with seed on the earth.� And it was so. 12 And the earth began to produce grass, seed-bearing plants+ and trees yielding fruit along with seed, according to their kinds. Then God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

continuing

Then God said: “Let there be luminaries*+ in the expanse of the heavens to make a division between the day and the night,+ and they will serve as signs for seasons and for days and years.+ 15 They will serve as luminaries in the expanse of the heavens to shine upon the earth.� And it was so. 16 And God went on to make the two great luminaries, the greater luminary for dominating the day+ and the lesser luminary for dominating the night, and also the stars.+ 17 Thus God put them in the expanse of the heavens to shine upon the earth 18 and to dominate by day and by night and to make a division between the light and the darkness.+ Then God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

According to Genesis, even in the version that JWs use, plants are made on the third day, but stars on the fourth.
However, science says that the Earth formed out of star-dust from long dead stars, which was acted upon by the gravity from our own sun. So stars had to exist first for the planet Earth to exist, never mind plant life.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 21 by rikuoamero]

There is no mention of the stars being created after the plants. I don't see those words in any of the verses you copy pasted. Which verse are you quoting when you say "the stars were not created until the day after"?

Genesis 1 says that plants are created and grow on the third day, yet stars are not created until the day after.

JW

[JehovahsWitness]

The Genesis account gets the origin of humans wrong, we don't descend from dirt for instance but from the Great Apes.

The bible doesn't say we "descended" from dirt, it indicates we descended from humans. This is completely in line with Mendels laws of genetics.

What the bible indicates is that the human body was made out of previously existing elements found in the ground/the earth which is scientifically sound.

JW

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 21 by rikuoamero]

There is no mention of the stars being created after the plants. I don't see those words in any of the verses you copy pasted. Which verse are you quoting when you say "the stars were not created until the day after"?

Genesis 1 says that plants are created and grow on the third day, yet stars are not created until the day after.

JW

Is that your tactic here? To say that I was quoting the literal words "yet starts are not created until the day after" from Genesis?
When I originally brought up the plant/star problem, (post 19), I did not quote anything because I thought that the order of events in Genesis was common knowledge.
I then provided quotes to back up my summation of the plant/star problem, and yet here you are, trying to discredit my own claims by saying I quoted a very specific phrase with no source.
Well good sir/madam, I have provided you with the necessary quotes. Genesis 1 has God creating plants on Day 3, and then, on Day 4, he creates the stars.

So either you think I quoted "yet stars are not created..." (which I didn't, I never intended that phrase to be a quote), or you are not familiar with the literal first page of your own holy book.

[rikuoamero]

The Genesis account gets the origin of humans wrong, we don't descend from dirt for instance but from the Great Apes.

The bible doesn't say we "descended" from dirt, it indicates we descended from humans. This is completely in line with Mendels laws of genetics.

What the bible indicates is that the human body was made out of previously existing elements found in the ground/the earth which is scientifically sound.

JW

So you're comfortable pointing to genetics when it suits you here...but what about other aspects of genetics, such as the fact that Adam and Eve being our two ultimate ancestors would have created a bottleneck that would have killed off the human race?

[JehovahsWitness]

I then provided quotes to back up my summation of the plant/star problem

Well you may see a "problem" somewhere but that has yet to be proven.

This is not an attempt to "discredit" you simply to get you to post the specific reference so it can be discussed. I am simply which specific verse in your opinion deals with the "creation" of "stars" since the word creation is not actually mention in any of the verses you quoted.

JW

[JehovahsWitness]

So you're comfortable pointing to genetics when it suits you here...but what about other aspects of genetics, such as the fact that Adam and Eve being our two ultimate ancestors would have created a bottleneck that would have killed off the human race?

Adam and Eve were supposedly perfect. There have been no scientific experiments conducted with two genetically perfect individuals so we cannot say what such procreation would have resulted in. It seems reasonable to conclude that results would be different with such test models.

JW

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 26 by JehovahsWitness]

This is not an attempt to "discredit" you simply to get you to post the specific reference so it can be discussed. I am simply which specific verse in your opinion deals with the "creation" of "stars" since the word creation is not actually mention in any of the verses you quoted.

So you're hung up on the word 'create' now. Interesting. Is your hypothesis then that God did not create anything at all?
I've already given you the relevant verses from your own JW version of the Bible. It has God saying let the earth grow plants (this is a paraphrase and not a quote, by the way, since you seem to be a stickler for these things), and that is what happens, on Day 3.
Then it says God said let there be luminaries and that's what happened (again, a paraphrase), and then he made the sun and moon and stars, all on day 4.

So, in true Blastcat style,
1) Do you treat the word 'made' as a synonym for creation?
2) Is your point that since the word 'create' wasn't used, that therefore, Genesis is not an account of God creating the world/universe?
------

Adam and Eve were supposedly perfect.

Yet are somehow able to sin...

There have been no scientific experiments conducted with two genetically perfect individuals so we cannot say what such procreation would have resulted in.

Correct, we have no examples of supposedly 'perfect' DNA (what would it even look like? No junk DNA?).

It seems reasonable to conclude that results would be different with such test models.

How is it reasonable to conclude that Adam and Eve having 'perfect' DNA would negate the problems of inbreeding? How do you know that that is what would actually happen with 'perfect' DNA?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 26 by JehovahsWitness]

This is not an attempt to "discredit" you simply to get you to post the specific reference so it can be discussed. I am simply which specific verse in your opinion deals with the "creation" of "stars" since the word creation is not actually mention in any of the verses you quoted.

So you're hung up on the word 'create' now. Interesting. Is your hypothesis then that God did not create anything at all?

Not at all, I do believe the word "create" is mentioned in Genesis 1:1 but it most certainly is not in any of the verses you mention. So my request as to what in the verses you quoted leads you to believe that the stars were "created" after the plants is, in my opinion far from unreasonable.

Then it says God said let there be luminaries and that's what happened (again, a paraphrase), and then he made the sun and moon and stars, all on day 4.

Well what He really is reported as saying is "Let luminaries come to be in the expanse of the heavens to make a division between the day and night" (1:14) you'll notice what he did NOT say is "I'll now create them"... you may be interested to know that in Hebrew "make" (as in "make" the stars or the luminaries Heb: waiya'as) does not have the same meaning as "create" (Heb bara). This is the reason why Genesis 1:14-16 does not contain the word "create". In the light of this, why are you suggesting that the stars were created on the fourth day when that is not what the bible actually says at all.




JW

[bluethread]

The insistence on looking at Genesis as a scientific treatise has caused the OP to be ignored. Though I would not call the account a metaphor, I do note that it was not recorded before the time of Moshe'. Therefore, unless this was an entirely new revelation, it was indeed an oral mythology, that was transcribed in the context of the time of Moshe'. If one looks at the artifacts of Moshe's time, one sees that the serpent mythology was dominant and time was circular, not linear. Therefore, it appears to me that the significant parts of the accounts were the refutation of the serpent myth and circular time.

Many of the modern criticisms of the passages presume a transcription in the context of the current time period. Since, most modern theories agree with linear time, the importance of that distinction is overlooked and details, unrelated to purpose of the writings, are analyzed based on modern scientific theory. This focusing on details that do not comport with a modern scientific account also distracts from the refutation of chaos theory, which is at the root of much modern scientific theory. One example of this is the criticism of Gen. 2:7, "Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." The refutation of this is that given enough time "star dust" can gather and random interaction can cause that star dust to become life and that life then, again through random interaction, become more and more complicated resulting in human beings. The former is referred to as mythology, meaning without justification, while the latter is referred to as theory, if not fact, meaning justifiable. Then when one addresses the truly mythological nature of random matter and motion over long periods of time, one is characterized as an unsophisticated dolt. In short, IMO, this elitist approach was no doubt the same one that Moshe' faced in challenging the chaos theory of his time. That I believe is the true significance of the book of Genesis, not that it be presented as an article to a modern scientific journal.