(All my posts up to now have been foundational to my blog. This is the first one to deal with how to deal with a controversial topic on the Bible)
When
reading a book, knowing the genre is extremely important. For instance, when
reading (the late) Tom Clancy, you have to keep in mind that it is fiction. The
plot is made up, though the details are very realistic. But while it is fiction,
it is meant to be literal. To understand the plot, you have to understand the
writing style.
Contrast
that to a poem. It is meant to be symbolical. Maybe some of the details are
literal, but overall, the meaning
becomes apparent when you understand the objects or feelings and what they
represent. When I say “my love is like a fire”, I do not mean my love will burn you into a crisp. It is symbolic.
Can
you take this logic to the Bible? Yes, you can, otherwise anyone could read it and
come up with his or her own conclusions. “Well, I like to murder people,
therefore the Ten Commandments can’t be literal. All God was saying is that
human life is valuable, and when possible, try to preserve it.” No, once the
genre is established to be literal (as the book of Exodus is), there is no
symbolism or wishy-washy generalities in that area of the Bible. It is to be
understood as 2 + 2 = 4 is to be understood.
Paul’s
writings are literal, though there is some symbolism. Overall, the symbolism is
dependent on the literal truths
established in the surrounding verses (context). Proverbs, on the other hand,
contains poetic language full of general truths. For instance, it talks about
parenting. When you train up your children in the Lord, when they are old they will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6). But this can't be true. Some of the greatest bashers of Christianity were raised in the church and/or by godly parents. Does that make Proverbs wrong?
No, because it is not to be taken literally (as in 2 + 2 = 4), though what it
states will generally come true. So… what does this have to do with Genesis?
Everything, as it will be shown.
I
do not pretend to be an expert in the writing styles of different cultures. But,
from what I have heard and read, the beginning books of the Bible were meant to
be literal history. You will not find people who read the following
books and believed them to be similar in style to Job or Psalms. Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, etc, were written as if they actually
happened, and they happened in the manner described in their own books. If you don't believe me, read a psalm or a proverb, then read the beginning of Genesis. Yeah, they aren't similar at all. What
does this all mean for Genesis 1-11? It means, quite simply, that the author of
Genesis (Moses) wrote the beginning of the universe exactly how he (inspired by God) thought it happened.
Now
this is where I would normally lose the evolutionists. They would say,
“Evolution has shown” or something like that, and then stop reading the rest of
the post. WE ARE NOT GOING IN THAT DIRECTION. A discussion on science is for
another time (I’ll get there eventually). All we are talking about is the best
way to read a book, then applying that same logic to the Bible. It’s really
that simple.
Part II
Now
that we’ve established that it is necessary to know the genre of a book
(including books of the Bible) to understand its meaning, let’s move on to the
resulting inconsistency of those who like to mesh the literal with the symbolic
within a single book.
Imagine
this conversation:
“Hey
Jimmy, I want to make money one day.”
“Well,
Rob, the only way to become rich is be a Christian. We have eternal riches.”
Rob
says, “I know, I know, but I want to make a lot of money running a restaurant,
then maybe I can branch out and have multiple restaurants, and–”
“No,
Jesus said to fulfill the Great Commission. The goal of life is not to make
money–”
“I’m
a Christian too, you know. I’m talking about the physical means of taking care
of myself.”
“But
you are aiming to build riches in a place where they won’t last!” Jimmy says.
And
so on, and so forth. You see, Rob is talking about physical money and success.
Nothing is wrong with physical things. Jimmy is looking at things from a
spiritual perspective. Yes, money ultimately doesn’t matter in the big scheme
of life, but Rob wasn’t talking about eternity. But because Jimmy was looking at things from the wrong
perspective, he understood the conversation differently. While this is far
from a perfect example (people will probably love to poke holes in it), I will
try to use it to illustrate a point.
Because
Christian evolutionists look at something that was meant to be literal the
incorrect way, they end up with the wrong result. They look at Genesis 1-11 and
say, “I believe it is meant to be symbolic” because they do not understand the
genre behind Genesis. Genesis was meant to be taken as literal as your dad when
he says, “You’re grounded.” Imagine responding, “Oh, I don’t think you
really mean that, because I don’t like it." Would you do that? No, you will take that punishment at face
value. Why? Because that is how the
speaker (or writer) intended it to be taken.
If
you are a creationist, you can expose this error by asking a Christian
evolutionist if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were literal people. Most likely,
they will say yes. Why? They would say because Genesis was being literal there.
Then you can ask them why Moses was being symbolic in the first 11 chapters
(give or take a few chapters), and literal the rest of the way? There is no
logical answer to that. By logical, I mean a chain of reasoning you can apply
across the board to other books and speakers and so on. It basically comes down
to:
1. All of Genesis was literal
2. None of Genesis was literal
3. Genesis is wrong either way
Some
Christians will try to mesh the first two, but the method in which they do that
is arbitrary. Why is the first chapter symbolic? Why is the 12th chapter not?
The method in which they decide what goes and what does not is completely
inconsistent with how they read other books. Why would they turn around and do
that to the Bible?
When
a writer makes a literal point, he is either correct or incorrect. Once you
understand the genre behind Genesis (literal history), Moses is either correct
or incorrect to say the earth was created in six days. There is no other
option. Why? Because Moses left no other option. Some don’t like what Moses
said, so they have to try to create
another option. But why do they do that to the Bible when they don’t do that to
any other author they disagree with? They just stop and say he or she is wrong.
They don’t proceed and try to force a correct meaning out of the author’s text. Again, this is being inconsistent.
P.S. A great website to go to for more on this subject is Answers in Genesis: http://www.answersingenesis.org/
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