Now I'm sure some may have noticed one major flaw in my hermeneutical approach that may be cause for concern, which I would prefer to address now. When contemplating the meaning of scripture in a purely abstract sense (I tend to abstract heavily in other areas of my life) the question becomes increasingly obvious with continued contemplation, that is, where do we draw the line of where metaphor ends and when the literal begins? If everything becomes merely a symbol in Genesis, a story arch that God is using to deliver us spiritual truth and that is the way in which we begin to interpret the events in the account, what then becomes of the resurrection of Christ from the dead?
Genre is important to consider and the gospels do seem to portray the events of Christ's life as historical, pointing to a literal resurrection from the dead. The testimony of history also suggests that this was perceived as a literal event by the apostles who endured persecution and suffering, some even death for proclaiming this belief and so we can be confident they meant a real physical Risen Savior was in front of them whom they experienced with their physical senses.
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
2 Peter 1:16
We can appeal to Josephus, Tacitus, the Pilate stone and the bones of Yohannan to strengthen the historical case for the gospel accounts and so my question in terms of Genesis is, how do we tell it is a historical account embedded with metaphor and that the Gospels are not? At what point do we shift our hermeneutical glasses and start taking Balam’s donkey literally (Numbers 22:21-39), but not the snake in the garden?
If I am prepared to think the writers of Genesis were not trying to make us believe in talking snakes, but as a representation of Satan, how am I justified in not doing the same with Balaam’s donkey? I believe this is a fair objection and one criticism someone with my view is usually accused of is that we are starting with our modern scientific understanding of the world and imposing it on Genesis, rather than letting the text speak for itself. Whether or not this is the case, I want to offer a bit of push back up front by appealing to the early church fathers.
Now, please don't misunderstand me, I'm not appealing to authority as I reference the early churches beliefs, rather if it can be shown that even in the early days of Christianity, metaphorical and non-literal readings of Genesis were present coincided with a believe in the literal resurrection of Christ from the dead also maintained, it only gives credence to the idea that both views were held simultaneously, regardless if one believes this type of reading is built faulty hermeneutic (as I may be charged with).
Personally, I would find it hard to interpret Christ as a metaphor if He physically appeared in front of me and the testimony of the apostles demonstrates this was shared as a literal event, with a literal resurrection from the dead, with a literal empty tomb, with literal experiences and interactions with our Lord.
Two thousand years after the resurrection of Christ from the dead, progressive Christians now want to say it's an event that did not literally happen, because the huge time gap between the event and our modern time allows them to think that way and so I believe it's possible Genesis is could a literal event, but the early church being so far removed Genesis allows for speculation.
This however is not the case for the early church! 2,000 years from now we could cast doubt on whether George Washington was the first president of the United States or if he even existed and was merely a symbol of the American revolution and not a historical real figure, but in our current time you would be considered an imbecile for denying history if you attempted such nonsense. Likewise, to deny the resurrection of Christ from the dead in the early centuries of the church and to try to impose the entire event as symbolic metaphor would be seen as similar foolishness and so while they may be interpreting Genesis allegorically due to the the philosophy of their time, they would not be able to do so with the resurrection of Christ as it was taught as a literal event, similar to George Washington in our day.
So while I grant the skeptics of my view their cake in that Genesis could be literal history and some in the early church may have been interpreting it wrongly due to the Greek philosophy of their time, I do not permit them to eat it too in the sense that people were already interpreting Genesis in a similar way I am, way before the findings of modern science and that even if my hermeneutical approach were flawed, I can still maintain my belief in the literal resurrection while “butchering Genesis” (so to speak) based on the accounts of the early church's believe in a literal resurrection!
I can have my cake and eat it too. They can not.
“For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years [Gen. 5:5]. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression ‘The day of the Lord is a thousand years’ [Ps. 90:4] is connected with this subject” (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 81 [A.D. 155]).
- Justin Martyr
“And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist? . . . That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: ‘This is the book of the generation, also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth’ [Gen. 2:4]. For the expression ‘when they were created’ intimates an indefinite and dateless production” (Miscellanies 6:16 [A.D. 208]).
- Clement of Alexandria
“For who that has understanding will suppose that the first and second and third day existed without a sun and moon and stars and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? . . . I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance and not literally” (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:1:16 [A.D. 225]).
- Origen
“Therefore let the philosophers, who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, know that the six-thousandth year is not yet complete. . . . Therefore, since all the works of God were completed in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages, that is, six thousand years. For the great day of God is limited by a circle of a thousand years, as the prophet shows, who says, ‘In thy sight, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day [Ps. 90:4]’” (Divine Institutes 7:14 [A.D. 307]).
- Lactantius
Now for a more personal confession, I admit that my mind is extremely reductionistic and I tend to favor non-supernatural explanations of events over supernatural ones, preferring to explain phenomena with the simplest answer naturalistically than appeal to something seemingly magical outside of my senses. Now of course, I am not opposed to supernatural explanations of events, I believe God is real and can and still does miracles, I believe Jesus Christ is God and rose from the dead and is Lord of all creation and accept the miracles in the Bible… Let me put it this way.
If a soda can falling off of a ledge at night around 3 a.m. can be explained by an evil demon leaving a cat hair behind to deceive us into thinking Mr. Scribbles strolling in the kitchen as the cause while you were sleeping explains the data equally as well as a cat being a cat, who shed a hair while walking on counters if should not have, then of course I am going to prefer the simpler explanation and assume no ghost.
Now, if you propose to me that there are eerie creeks at night however and the cat stares at the same corner for exactly 6 seconds before the soda can falls, I may be more intrigued (although not fully convinced and so I'd start my investigation with a few questions.
How do I know you are telling me the truth? What would gain from convincing me of this?
Have you ruled out other explanations for the cat's odd behavior, like catatonia?
Are you sure the cat hair may have just fallen off randomly as cats shed? Why assume a ghost?
Most importantly, why would a ghost go through all of this effort to disguise its poltergeist activity? Seems like a lot of work to hide a haunting and conceal your presence when you're invisible… it's an absurd story you would be asking to believe. What possible motive would a ghost have to go through all of this trouble? A boring afterlife? I could think of a bunch of fun things to do as a ghost and certainly wouldn't waste my time trying to convince you a cat was the cause of my shenanigans...
Now could what they are saying be true? Sure anything is possible. Is it reasonable? Of course not!
When I read Genesis describing the “greater light” and the “lesser light”, talking snakes and Adam not dying in the literal 24 hour day he ate the fruit, I suspect Genesis is trying to point to something deeper than just a surface level reading…
Still, I acknowledge my reductionistic framework may be causing me to favor more metaphorical or allegorical interpretations of such events than absolute literal interpretations that I may find absurd like the ghost conspiracy described above. Even so, I am not alone in my approach to Genesis as the early church demonstrates and with the textual hints within the text itself hinting to deeper meanings, with the arguments presented above, I feel confident in holding to a literal bodily resurrection of Christ, affirming the essentials of the Christian faith while interpreting elements of Genesis non-literally… all that's left now is to interpret it!
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