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Christian theologian goes all-in for evolution & finds room 4 paleolithic Adam & Eve

#11
Magical Realist Online
(Jan 6, 2022 09:15 PM)Syne Wrote:
(Jan 6, 2022 09:10 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: fig·ur·a·tive
/ˈfiɡyərədiv/

adjective
1.
departing from a literal use of words; metaphorical.
"gold, in the figurative language of the people, was “the tears wept by the sun.”"


Even cherry-picking the definition, "the tears wept by the sun" still represents something real, e.g. gold. That would make the things represented by the snake, garden, and tree real things, contrary to your claim.

And that would make the things representing real things unreal.

Unless you actually think talking snakes and trees with magical fruit exist?
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#12
Syne Offline
(Jan 6, 2022 09:52 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:
Quote:Even cherry-picking the definition, "the tears wept by the sun" still represents something real, e.g. gold. That would make the things represented by the snake, garden, and tree real things, contrary to your claim.

And that would make the things representing real things unreal.

Unless you actually think talking snakes and trees with magical fruit exist?

That's the whole point of allegory. Why does this seem so hard for you to understand?
Yes, the representations, themselves, aren't real, but the things they represent are. That's completely trivial.
But you surmising "maybe God wasn't real either" simply doesn't follow, as god is referenced throughout the Bible without allegory.
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#13
Leigha Offline
This could be a worthwhile read, as it opens up the dialogue a little further to could it be possible for the Adam and Eve creation story to take place alongside evolution? As an aside, the Bible doesn't need to reconcile with science, necessarily...it's not meant to be a science textbook. And just because we have more knowledge today of science and history, doesn't mean that Adam and Eve didn't exist (at least from a genealogy perspective)

Might want to check this out, it's an interesting hypothesis.

https://readingreligion.org/books/geneal...am-and-eve
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#14
Syne Offline
(Jan 6, 2022 11:12 PM)Leigha Wrote: This could be a worthwhile read, as it opens up the conversation to could it be possible for the Adam and Eve creation story to take place alongside evolution? As an aside, the Bible doesn't need to reconcile with science, necessarily...it's not meant to be a science textbook. And just because we have more knowledge today of science and history, doesn't mean that Adam and Eve didn't exist.

Might want to check this out, it's an interesting hypothesis.

https://readingreligion.org/books/geneal...am-and-eve

The OP article references that book.

IMO, Adam and Eve were likely when hominids first developed (under theistic evolution) the judgement necessary to have things like morality, as opposed to just operating on instinct, like all the animals before.
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#15
Magical Realist Online
Any explanation for the 4 million year gap between the first hominids and modern day humans..(Noah?)..
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#16
Syne Offline
(Jan 7, 2022 07:41 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Any explanation for the 4 million year gap between the first hominids and modern day humans..(Noah?)..

Try reading? I didn't say "first hominids." I said "when hominids first developed...judgement." You do know that that presumes hominids previously existed, right?
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#17
Leigha Offline
(Jan 7, 2022 07:41 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Any explanation for the 4 million year gap between the first hominids and modern day humans..(Noah?)..

If you view it strictly from the Bible, there can be no gap (before Genesis 1:1?) because God hadn't created anything prior to those six days. God created the heavens, the earth, the sea and all that was in them. Theistic evolution is an interesting idea but I think it conflicts with this passage in that if God created everything (as Genesis lays it out), then evolution wouldn't make sense, really. If we're just viewing Genesis for what it literally states.

For a very long time, most believers viewed Genesis as literal, probably until the theory of evolution was introduced. Humans are very good at compartmentalizing though, even though science and spirituality/religion can coexist in my opinion.
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#18
Syne Offline
(Jan 7, 2022 08:25 PM)Leigha Wrote: If you view it strictly from the Bible, there can be no gap (before Genesis 1:1?) because God hadn't created anything prior to those six days. God created the heavens, the earth, the sea and all that was in them. Theistic evolution is an interesting idea but I think it conflicts with this passage in that if God created everything (as Genesis lays it out), then evolution wouldn't make sense, really. If we're just viewing Genesis for what it literally states.

For a very long time, most believers viewed Genesis as literal, probably until the theory of evolution was introduced. Humans are very good at compartmentalizing though, even though science and spirituality/religion can coexist in my opinion.

"Most believers" have not been aware of the orthodox Jewish view, of the creation story being figurative. And even if you want to take it more literally, there's plenty of way to reconcile it with theistic evolution. As the Bible says, one day to god is as a thousand to man (2 Peter 3:8). And if that's true, one day to god could just as easily be trillions of years to man. Plenty of time (6 days for god) for a prolonged theistic evolution (on a human timescale), especially since man wasn't created until the end of that period. Or if you still want it more literal than that, god could have simply created the world to look like it evolved, with lifeforms sharing genetic patterns, etc..
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#19
Leigha Offline
(Jan 7, 2022 10:23 PM)Syne Wrote:
(Jan 7, 2022 08:25 PM)Leigha Wrote: If you view it strictly from the Bible, there can be no gap (before Genesis 1:1?) because God hadn't created anything prior to those six days. God created the heavens, the earth, the sea and all that was in them. Theistic evolution is an interesting idea but I think it conflicts with this passage in that if God created everything (as Genesis lays it out), then evolution wouldn't make sense, really. If we're just viewing Genesis for what it literally states.

For a very long time, most believers viewed Genesis as literal, probably until the theory of evolution was introduced. Humans are very good at compartmentalizing though, even though science and spirituality/religion can coexist in my opinion.

"Most believers" have not been aware of the orthodox Jewish view, of the creation story being figurative. And even if you want to take it more literally, there's plenty of way to reconcile it with theistic evolution. As the Bible says, one day to god is as a thousand to man (2 Peter 3:8). And if that's true, one day to god could just as easily be trillions of years to man. Plenty of time (6 days for god) for a prolonged theistic evolution (on a human timescale), especially since man wasn't created until the end of that period. Or if you still want it more literal than that, god could have simply created the world to look like it evolved, with lifeforms sharing genetic patterns, etc..

Bolded by me - yes, true. Good points.

I don't think anyone's faith should be in doubt, if he/she believes in theistic evolution.

So, I'd say that theistic evolution takes into consideration that Adam and Eve were the first humans to be ''created in the image of God.'' And the tree of life (eating the forbidden fruit, whether taken literally or figuratively) is what introduced mortality.

Does theistic evolution suggest that before 'the fall,' (other humans existed prior to Adam and Eve) there was immortality? (eating the forbidden fruit caused Adam and Eve [and all of humankind thereafter] to be mortal beings)
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#20
Syne Offline
(Jan 7, 2022 10:59 PM)Leigha Wrote:
(Jan 7, 2022 10:23 PM)Syne Wrote: "Most believers" have not been aware of the orthodox Jewish view, of the creation story being figurative. And even if you want to take it more literally, there's plenty of way to reconcile it with theistic evolution. As the Bible says, one day to god is as a thousand to man (2 Peter 3:8). And if that's true, one day to god could just as easily be trillions of years to man. Plenty of time (6 days for god) for a prolonged theistic evolution (on a human timescale), especially since man wasn't created until the end of that period. Or if you still want it more literal than that, god could have simply created the world to look like it evolved, with lifeforms sharing genetic patterns, etc..

Bolded by me - yes, true. Good points.

I don't think anyone's faith should be in doubt, if he/she believes in theistic evolution.

So, I'd say that theistic evolution takes into consideration that Adam and Eve were the first humans to be ''created in the image of God.'' And the tree of life (eating the forbidden fruit, whether taken literally or figuratively) is what introduced mortality.

Does theistic evolution suggest that before 'the fall,' (other humans existed prior to Adam and Eve) there was immortality? (eating the forbidden fruit caused Adam and Eve [and all of humankind thereafter] to be mortal beings)

Yes, Adam and Eve would have been the first "created in the image of god," which is generally accepted to mean in the image of god's mind, capable of understanding more than just instinctual reaction, including the ability for moral judgement...figuratively granted from the tree of knowledge. Mortality, or more likely the awareness of mortality, was when they were barred from eating from the tree of life (I think I may have conflated those two trees as well, earlier).

I'm technically using the term "theistic evolution" in its original sense, where god has a guiding hand in evolution, rather than the modern sense, that god only set evolution in motion. The latter, IMO, isn't as easy to reconcile with the Bible and presumes predeterminism (which has implications for free will). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_e..._positions

Theistic evolution, in any sense, doesn't really speak to the details too much. IMO, the primitive hominids that existed prior to Adam and Eve were not modern humans, capable of moral judgement and the necessary mental capacities. So the Young Earth Creationist objection to death and suffering before the Fall is really only an objection to the death and suffering of animals, which the Bible doesn't say ate of the tree of life.

I think that primitive humans weren't aware of death, so they had no conception of mortality. The earliest evidence of human burials were modern humans. The "image of god," trees of life and knowledge, snake, etc. are all ways to explain this transition to modern humans in a way early Jews could understand, and they seem to have always been aware that it was figurative.

Christianity suffered from a period of having to rely on priests, who could read Latin, Greek, and/or Hebrew and didn't always pass on the deeper theological meanings. They kept it simple and literal for a more simple time and people.
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