Reading Genesis literally

From AIG this week:

Q: AiG teaches that we must take Genesis as written, but should we take the whole Bible literally?

A: We’ve got to be very careful here. It’s true, for example, that Jesus quoted from Genesis when he talked about the foundation of marriage. Thus, he took Genesis literally. Paul quoted from Genesis when writing about the first man and the Last Adam, so he accepted Genesis literally, too.

We can accept a literal Genesis because it was written as typical Jewish “historical narrative.” But there are other passages that aren’t meant to be taken literally, such as those in the book of Psalms. We know the psalms are poetic songs.

So we should take the Bible the way it was meant to be taken. Some of the literature was obviously written to express things symbolically and the Bible explains this to the reader. For instance, when Jesus spoke in parables, He told us they were stories and He explained their meaning. You really can’t go wrong if you take any part of the Bible in a straightforward or “natural” way (i.e., according to the way it was written). Because Genesis was written as literal history, we take it as literal history.

JB
Received on Sat, 22 Apr 2006 19:37:00 GMT