Re: Reading Genesis literally

What does literally mean?

I have read loads of stuff from the 19th century which claims to take
Genesis literally and nearly all of it supports geological time .

So my definition of "literally" is "literally literalism does not literally
mean what literal literally means" . What they really meant was the plain
meaning of scripture but in fact tempered that with some accommodation.
After all they accommodated Genesis to heliocentrism and did the same for
geology and then evolution was no further problem.

A root cause is the introduction of warfare model of science and religion in
the 1890s and the fallout from that.

Michael

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Hamilton" <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com>
To: "Mervin Bitikofer" <mrb22667@kansas.net>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 1:09 PM
Subject: Re: Reading Genesis literally

> For a really eye-opening example of how literalists of the past exegeted
> Genesis, take a look at "On the literal meaning of Genesis" by St.
> Augustine. I
> would hardly characterize Augustine's interpretation as literal. However,
> it is
> a valuable reference.
>
> --- Mervin Bitikofer <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
>
>> From "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman (or was it Cutler's
>> work about N. Steno -- I may be conflating two recent readings of mine),
>> I recently learned that what we refer to as "literalism" or
>> "literalists" today is probably an unfair caricature of what the word
>> used to refer to. Back in the reformation days, those known as
>> literalists freely acknowledged literary devices in their many
>> appearances throughout scripture -- beyond just those parts that are
>> obviously or explicitly acknowledged to be parables or poems, etc.
>> Even today's literalists are probably not quite so literarily shallow as
>> they are often painted. But it does sound if the term did have deeper
>> nuanced meanings historically than gets packed into it today.
>>
>> I was interested to learn in Cutler's work "Seashell on a Mountaintop"
>> that Christian geologists (in the then fledgling profession) and
>> certainly many Christian scientists in general had little objections to
>> the departure from the young-earth time line in and around the 18th
>> century -- in some ways precipitated by the pious Steno himself. It
>> wasn't till Darwin's common descent which did evoke stronger reactions
>> -- and perhaps well after that even that old earth timeliness came to be
>> seen as ammunition in the science vs. religion warfare model.
>> Apparently some who would have identified with "listeralism" back then
>> saw no conflict in reading Genesis 1 timelines metaphorically. I can't
>> get more specific without checking out the book again to find names, but
>> others here probably know who's who.
>>
>> --merv
>>
>> There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
>> returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. --
>> Mark Twain
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> gordon brown wrote:
>>
>> >On Sat, 22 Apr 2006, burgytwo@juno.com wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >>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 tend to give the term 'literally' a meaning that is not literal. Even
>> >the so-called literalists do not take everything in the Bible literally.
>> >The passage referred to above that Jesus quotes is Gen. 2:24 that speaks
>> >of two becoming one flesh. Does AiG take one flesh literally?
>> >
>> >Gordon Brown
>> >Department of Mathematics
>> >University of Colorado
>> >Boulder, CO 80309-0395
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>
> Bill Hamilton
> William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
> 248.652.4148 (home) 248.303.8651 (mobile)
> "...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
>
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Received on Mon Apr 24 12:37:03 2006