Re: Reading Genesis literally

In a message dated 4/22/2006 3:40:07 PM Eastern Standard Time,
burgytwo@juno.com writes:
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.

Mario Liverani describes a cycle that affected the transition from the late
bronze age to the iron age involving the centralization of agriculture which
found free farmers in all the developed states losing their farms as agriculture
was centralized. He says (and Finkelstein also says) this process caused
tension between urbanized states and rural farmers and also affected the
pastoralists who depended upon the rural farmers for essential trade.
The centralization of agriculture moves formerly independent farmers to the
cities, just as in the Joseph story which revolves around Joseph's
centralization of Egypt's agriculture which DB Redford, the Egyptologist, calls a
"novella."

Was Genesis written as literal history? Or was it written primarily as
religion rather than history?

"The post exilic stage of the editing of the bible recapitulated many of the
key themes of the ealier seventh century stage that we have discussed in much
of this book. This was due to the similar realities and needs of the two eras.
Once again the Israelites were centered in Jerusalem, amid great uncertainty
without controlling most of the land that they considered theirs by divine
promise. Once again a central authority needed to unite the population.

--
And once again they did it brilliantly reshaping the historical core of the 
bible in such a way that it was able to serve as the main source of identity 
and spiritual anchor for the people of Israel 
--
as they faced the many disasters, religious challenges, and political twists 
of fate that lay ahead."
From The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, 
Touchstone, NY 2001, p.313
rich faussette