Re: Reading Genesis literally

Comments interpolated.

> 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.

I agree with George that this passage contains obvious non-sequiturs.

>
> 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.

There is a major failure in genre recognition. The writer fails to
distinguish between historical narrative and narrative used for a solely
theological purpose. In fact the writer fails to recognize that this
distinction is a possibility.

Don
Received on Sun Apr 23 00:26:10 2006