(Snip)
> but that is not the way the passage was interpreted
> by most throughout the ages.
You realize, of course, that the fact that a passage was interpreted in a
certain way throughout the ages does NOT show that this is the correct
interpretation of that passage.
> Genesis either happened as descibed or it didn't.
Maybe so, but that's not what the discussion is about. The discussion
concerns the proper meaning or understanding of that description. There is
*no* interpretation principle or scheme (or hermeneutic, to use the
three-dollar word) which wears its worth or obviousness or justification
on its sleeve, so to speak. This does *not* mean that every one is as good
as every other. But it *does* mean that there is no such principle which
is obviously or naturally or unchallangeably superior to any other.
Believing otherwise is the hallmark of fundamentalism, and fundamentalism
becomes self-refuting in the face of competing and different fundamentalisms.
Lloyd Eby
leby@nova.umuc.edu