Are Adam and Eve figurative people?

Discussion in 'Sacred Scripture' started by Pax_Christi, Mar 27, 2013.

  1. Mercy

    Mercy Member

    Posts:
    49
    Likes Received:
    98
    What is the distinction?
     
    Servos and Scottish Knight like this.
  2. Robert

    Robert Active Member

    Posts:
    93
    Likes Received:
    61
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Anglican (Anglo-Catholic)
    Interesting points. I will have to wait to look at the original text. I was speaking about a reference in Genesis in particular. But i am glad that you have qouted a verse in genesis that I possibly over looked.

    Now onto the bolded part of your response. Is the opposite also possible? And how does this touch upon the God always being the same? iwould think that if something is an affront to God it always would be.
     
    Scottish Knight likes this.
  3. Scottish Knight

    Scottish Knight Well-Known Member

    Posts:
    498
    Likes Received:
    569
    Country:
    Scotland
    Religion:
    Christian
    Good point, I'll need to think a bit on that. On a note on the prohibition on incest, if we were to assume there were other human communities aside from the Adamic one, it wouldn't remove the problem, since Abram married his sister and this was the line God blessed and made his covenant with. :think:

    I'm going to go away and ponder a bit...
     
  4. Robert

    Robert Active Member

    Posts:
    93
    Likes Received:
    61
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Anglican (Anglo-Catholic)
    http://oca.org/questions/teaching/st.-augustine-original-sin

    This should explain. They are similar indeed except for guilt. Of course I am sure you can find more in depth sources on this subject. This distinction is the EO rejected the newly added Dogma of the Immaculate Conception because it hinges on the concept of the BVM otherwise being guilty.
     
  5. Robert

    Robert Active Member

    Posts:
    93
    Likes Received:
    61
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Anglican (Anglo-Catholic)
    I am glad I am not the only one that needs to ponder :)
     
    Scottish Knight likes this.
  6. Mercy

    Mercy Member

    Posts:
    49
    Likes Received:
    98
    Well, we don't keep kosher...
     
    Servos likes this.
  7. Mercy

    Mercy Member

    Posts:
    49
    Likes Received:
    98
    Thank you, Robert. :)
     
    Servos likes this.
  8. Robert

    Robert Active Member

    Posts:
    93
    Likes Received:
    61
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Anglican (Anglo-Catholic)
    Here is a part I am having trouble with as well:

    8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
    10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
    11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

    What does it mean that God was walking in the Garden? Is God bi or quad pedal? Or is He Spirit and have no legs at all? My other issue is why does it seem that God doesn't know what has happened when we attribute the power of omniscience to God?
     
  9. Jeff F

    Jeff F Well-Known Member

    Posts:
    377
    Likes Received:
    371
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Conservative Believer
    The problem with the slippery slope of doubt from modern scholarship is that it knows no end. Everything is allegory and nothing is literal, and it infects their New Testament opinions as well. The Jesus Seminar folks are a prime example, and their opinion is anyone who believes in inerrancy, inspiration, and/or literal interpretations are theological simpletons. The fact that our human understanding can't fathom a literal 6 day creation doesn't make it any less possible. I an curious though if Adam and Eve were imagined figures in scripture, do we then hold to the big bang theory and evolution as an answer?

    Jeff
     
  10. Robert

    Robert Active Member

    Posts:
    93
    Likes Received:
    61
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Anglican (Anglo-Catholic)
    I see your point. I don't think there is anything wrong with asking questions, being skeptical, or having reservations but sometimes it does go to far but I do not feel that the answer resides at the other end fo the spectrum. Does it make a difference if God made all of creation in 6 days vs 6 mins vs 6 billion years? To me it does not. Does it make any difference if Adam was made out of dust or came about through evolution? to me it does not because either way God is the cause and willed it to be so. Even the Big Bang Theory does not explain everything. Do we believe that a literal vs allergorical interpretation of creation is a matter of salvific importance? will we denied entry into the Kingdom? I don't think so. Just because I do not interpret it literally does not mean that I deny that God could have done it that way if he so chose.
     
  11. Jeff F

    Jeff F Well-Known Member

    Posts:
    377
    Likes Received:
    371
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Conservative Believer
    Robert, we've been reading Bart Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus for the last several weeks at church, and it sadly is an autobiography of his step by step destruction of his own belief system. He found no way to place barriers or safety nets in his distinction between literal and allegory, and now denies anything literal, Virgin Birth, Resurrection, Diety of Christ, or Heaven. Although he is the head of the religion department at North Carolina, he classifies himself an agnostic and has stopped going to church. Sad indeed.

    Jeff
     
    Old Christendom and Stalwart like this.
  12. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

    Posts:
    2,723
    Likes Received:
    2,563
    Country:
    America
    Religion:
    Anglican
    Jeff we support you in your struggle!
     
    Jeff F and Old Christendom like this.
  13. Old Christendom

    Old Christendom Well-Known Member

    Posts:
    476
    Likes Received:
    571
    Religion:
    Reformed
    These are generally considered literary anthropomorphisms. It means God was present in the garden in an immediate way, perceptible to man, in a way He's no longer present today since our sin has separated us from His holy presence.

    Or, if you prefer, these anthropomorphisms could be an early reference to the Incarnation. The Son of God, the eternal Word, could have appeared in the garden in a human form, as a pledge of his future Incarnation, and that not only as a Judge, to arraign, examine, and condemn the parties concerned in this act of disobedience to God, but as a Saviour of men.
     
    Thomas Didymus and Toma like this.
  14. Toma

    Toma Well-Known Member Anglican

    Posts:
    1,402
    Likes Received:
    1,128
    Country:
    Canada
    Religion:
    Anglican
    I once heard that the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" is so-called because it was at that tree that man's eyes were opened (for the worse). Its name during the events of Genesis was not something silly like that "The Tree of...", as if God would give such names to inanimate objects. The name comes from the fact that this tree was where man learned good and evil.

    Things are often named in retrospect by the writers of Scripture. It doesn't mean they're just symbols... though they are types. :)
     
  15. Robert

    Robert Active Member

    Posts:
    93
    Likes Received:
    61
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Anglican (Anglo-Catholic)
    Ok SK I looked at Genesis chapter 4:1 and yes in English it is translated as wife but that is purely up to the interpreter. In both the Greek and Hebrew text the same word is used for woman and what is being translated as wife even though a more specific word for wife existed (at least in Greek) and could have been used. So it just says verse after verse "man and woman" but the meaning of the connotation is too vague to be assured that it is a wife. And since the term for wife does exist I have to wonder why it was n't used instead of the term for woman which could have applied to any woman in a plethora of possible interpersonal relations.
     
  16. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

    Posts:
    2,722
    Likes Received:
    2,488
    I wonder if this is a reference to the pre-incarnate Christ. He always existed. Perhaps He existed in the glorified body prior to his incarnation as he did in his glorified, resurrected state. Man is made in the image and likeness of God. Christ is God. Perhaps he was the blueprint for man not only Spiritually but physically as well.
     
  17. Jeff F

    Jeff F Well-Known Member

    Posts:
    377
    Likes Received:
    371
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Conservative Believer
    Hence the problem, one Hebrew word for every seven Greek. The same debate rages about the Hebrew word "Almah used in Isaiah 7:14. Virgin, maiden, young woman, girl, or woman? :cool:
    Jeff
     
  18. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

    Posts:
    2,723
    Likes Received:
    2,563
    Country:
    America
    Religion:
    Anglican
    The word is maiden. :) That is the only word in antiquity to describe young females. It implied virginity, but does not imply that now.

    By the way, Jerome translates it as "Virgo" the Latin equivalent, which, you guessed it, does not mean virgin, but maiden. People are correct to protest against giving translations for old Hebrew using modern words. Virgin is a purely modern word that has no cognates in antiquity. At the same time we know that virginity was an implied state of all maidens, all "Virgo's" in antiquity, as any specialist in the ancient languages will tell you.

    Thus we both avoid imputing modern words to the prophecy in Isaiah, and still know the precise state meant in the prophecy, defending orthodoxy thereby :)
     
  19. UK Anglican

    UK Anglican Member

    Posts:
    72
    Likes Received:
    87
    Country:
    England
    Religion:
    Church of England
    I agree that other humans were developed, although the bible teaches that Adam and Eve were the first humans made by God, it doesn't say that they were the only humans made by God.
     
    Toma likes this.
  20. Weston Letson

    Weston Letson New Member

    Posts:
    5
    Likes Received:
    6
    Country:
    United States
    Religion:
    Future Episcopal
    I take Genesis as a parable, a story used by ancient humans to describe how God created everything. I believe in the Big Bang and Evolution, but I do believe in Adam and Eve, that they caused sin to enter into the world we they, by their own freewill, disobeyed God Almighty.
     
    Gordon likes this.