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Suspicion Against Scientists?


thomas t

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Guest shiloh357
20 minutes ago, one.opinion said:

I agree with this conclusion, but we must read the passage at something other than face-value to make that determination.

Yes, and I never read a passage a face value.  Never confuse "literal" with "face-value."

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Guest shiloh357
22 minutes ago, masonlandry said:

Just wanted to point out, since I've been watching this side convo. This whole exchange is interesting because it stems from a disagreement about how literally to take the Bible and what is or isn't important. But a lot of the people who have a contention with one.opinion's allegorical reading of the creation account use allegorical understanding themselves in so much of the rest of the Bible, like to determine that Satan was animating the serpent or that the Sabbath is allegorical to Jesus as our rest from sin. It really seems like the only differences the two of you have are where to use an allegorical understanding and how to apply it. 

Allegory isn't an interpretative tool.   Allegory is a teaching method.  Nothing I said is "allegorical."  An allegory would be if you took the five stones that David put in his shepherd's bag before killing Goliath and assigned five truths to those stones in order to teach about those five truths.   

The Bible clearly teaches that the serpent spoke to Eve, but we know that God was speaking to the serpent prophetically about his destruction meaning that God was speaking to Satan.  That is not allegory.  It is prophecy.   

Saying that Jesus is our Sabbath isn't allegory.  Sabbath is a type  of Christ.  It typifies or foreshadows our spiritual rest in Christ.

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13 minutes ago, one.opinion said:

Thanks, Mason, but just be forewarned - you are painting a target on yourself if you even seem to be acknowledging that I have reasonable arguments. ?

The best I can do is say what I believe to be the truth. If I'm wrong, please correct me. If it upsets anyone, my apologies. That's all I've got to work with. But I'm unorthodox enough on my own to be putting my foot in dangerous water on any forum with a majority of orthodox believers. I can say though, while I have had good conversations with people who disagree with me, nobody has been unkind, so I'm quite happy with this forum. 

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I'm taking a pause to share a Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize-winner in Physics) quote:

"Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain."

Not all scientists approach their work with the same humility.

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3 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

Allegory isn't an interpretative tool.   Allegory is a teaching method.  Nothing I said is "allegorical."  An allegory would be if you took the five stones that David put in his shepherd's bag before killing Goliath and assigned five truths to those stones in order to teach about those five truths.   

The Bible clearly teaches that the serpent spoke to Eve, but we know that God was speaking to the serpent prophetically about his destruction meaning that God was speaking to Satan.  That is not allegory.  It is prophecy.   

Saying that Jesus is our Sabbath isn't allegory.  Sabbath is a type  of Christ.  It typifies or foreshadows our spiritual rest in Christ.

I was under the impression that an allegory is a symbolic representation. Something that foreshadows something else would be symbolic of it, would it not? If not through allegoric interpretation, where do you draw the link between the thing foreshadowed and what foreshadowed it? 

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Guest shiloh357
Just now, masonlandry said:

I was under the impression that an allegory is a symbolic representation. Something that foreshadows something else would be symbolic of it, would it not? If not through allegoric interpretation, where do you draw the link between the thing foreshadowed and what foreshadowed it? 

Allegories are subjective.   Interpretation is objective.  Allegories are tools that teachers use to assign symbolism to something in order to teach a moral lesson.   It is not a means of interpreting.  

Foreshadowing and typology are not the same as symbolism.   Foreshadowing are usually prophetic.  For example, in Genesis 3:15 we see foreshadowing in reference to the virgin birth of Jesus and the destruction of Satan.   

Typology would be seen in the Passover Lamb, or in the person of Moses, or Melchizedik, or King David.    

I don't know if that answers the question, but I am happy to provide a better answer if need be.

 

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1 minute ago, shiloh357 said:

Allegories are subjective.   Interpretation is objective.  Allegories are tools that teachers use to assign symbolism to something in order to teach a moral lesson.   It is not a means of interpreting.  

Foreshadowing and typology are not the same as symbolism.   Foreshadowing are usually prophetic.  For example, in Genesis 3:15 we see foreshadowing in reference to the virgin birth of Jesus and the destruction of Satan.   

Typology would be seen in the Passover Lamb, or in the person of Moses, or Melchizedik, or King David.    

I don't know if that answers the question, but I am happy to provide a better answer if need be.

 

I'm not really understanding the distinctions. That's not necessarily a problem with how you phrased it, but I think we both have different understandings of many of the words used there. One thing I'm not clear on is what you mean by "interpretation is objective." Because that seems to me like the exact opposite of what interpretation is. 

Also, I wouldn't say my position was that an allegory is a tool for interpreting. You don't use allegory to interpret, allegory would be the use of the author, and you as a reader would interpret the allegory and what it means. Also, it doesn't always teach morality. It can, but a broader definition is that it is a symbolic abstraction of a truth or generalization about human existence, moral or not. 

As far what a prophetic foreshadowing is, I'm completely lost there. I understand that people draw links between an event, usually one in the Old Testament, and another event in the New Testament. If these foreshadowings are not literally explained, how can you get to the point of understanding that one thing was prophesied by another unless you view the foreshadow as symbolic of the prophesied event? If the text doesn't explicitly say, you have to do some kind of non-literal interpreting to understand it to mean anything at all, right?

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Guest shiloh357
Just now, masonlandry said:

I'm not really understanding the distinctions. That's not necessarily a problem with how you phrased it, but I think we both have different understandings of many of the words used there. 

Foreshadowing is about what will come to pass in the future.   Typology is how certain features of biblical characters reflect the nature and character of Jesus    

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One thing I'm not clear on is what you mean by "interpretation is objective." Because that seems to me like the exact opposite of what interpretation is. 

The purpose of interpretation is to get at the meaning the author is trying to communicate.  There are object rules of literary analysis we apply to that end.  Interpretation isn't subjective where I assign meaning to the text.  The task of the reader is to interpret a text in the light of the object the author has in view.    That's objective.  It means that I want THE meaning of the text.    Objectively, a text can only have ONE meaning, one interpretation.    

If interpretation is subjective, the text has no meaning.   If everyone in the world interpreted the Bible subjectively, then you would have, potentially, an innumerable "interpretations" and no one would know what the text actually means.

It is important not to confuse interpretation with application.    Interpretation determines what the text means.  Application is about how that meaning applies to my life and how I live it out in my own context.  Application is subjective, but interpretation is objective.   

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Also, I wouldn't say my position was that an allegory is a tool for interpreting. You don't use allegory to interpret, allegory would be the use of the author, and you as a reader would interpret the allegory and what it means. Also, it doesn't always teach morality. It can, but a broader definition is that it is a symbolic abstraction of a truth or generalization about human existence, moral or not. 

The Bible uses allegory, but when it does, it unmistakable.  Examples would be: I Cor. 10:1-4 and Gal. 4: 21-27.    

But the issue with allegory is often raised by those who refuse to accept Genesis 1-3 as literal history.  They tell us that the story is allegorical or it is metaphorical or in some other way non-literal despite the fact that there is no non-literal devices in play within the text itself.  That's why I mentioned it not be a teaching tool.

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As far what a prophetic foreshadowing is, I'm completely lost there. I understand that people draw links between an event, usually one in the Old Testament, and another event in the New Testament. If these foreshadowings are not literally explained, how can you get to the point of understanding that one thing was prophesied by another unless you view the foreshadow as symbolic of the prophesied event? If the text doesn't explicitly say, you have to do some kind of non-literal interpreting to understand it to mean anything at all, right?

No, that is not right.   That's because prophecy is never fulfilled non-literally.  All of the foreshadowing regarding the first coming of Jesus was fulfilled literally.    Prophecy is always fulfilled literally and all 300 or so prophecies of Jesus first coming were of literal future events that actually occurred.  There is nothing non-literal about that at all.

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14 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

Foreshadowing is about what will come to pass in the future.   Typology is how certain features of biblical characters reflect the nature and character of Jesus    

The purpose of interpretation is to get at the meaning the author is trying to communicate.  There are object rules of literary analysis we apply to that end.  Interpretation isn't subjective where I assign meaning to the text.  The task of the reader is to interpret a text in the light of the object the author has in view.    That's objective.  It means that I want THE meaning of the text.    Objectively, a text can only have ONE meaning, one interpretation.    

If interpretation is subjective, the text has no meaning.   If everyone in the world interpreted the Bible subjectively, then you would have, potentially, an innumerable "interpretations" and no one would know what the text actually means.

It is important not to confuse interpretation with application.    Interpretation determines what the text means.  Application is about how that meaning applies to my life and how I live it out in my own context.  Application is subjective, but interpretation is objective.   

The Bible uses allegory, but when it does, it unmistakable.  Examples would be: I Cor. 10:1-4 and Gal. 4: 21-27.    

But the issue with allegory is often raised by those who refuse to accept Genesis 1-3 as literal history.  They tell us that the story is allegorical or it is metaphorical or in some other way non-literal despite the fact that there is no non-literal devices in play within the text itself.  That's why I mentioned it not be a teaching tool.

No, that is not right.   That's because prophecy is never fulfilled non-literally.  All of the foreshadowing regarding the first coming of Jesus was fulfilled literally.    Prophecy is always fulfilled literally and all 300 or so prophecies of Jesus first coming were of literal future events that actually occurred.  There is nothing non-literal about that at all.

I think I'm with you on everything but the last point, and maybe that's because I wasn't clear enough on what I meant. A literal prophecy would be something like, "In 1000 years, God will send his son, who will be called Emmanuel, to be born of a virgin in Bethlehem." When I say literal, I'm specifically talking about the prophecy. As in, if it isn't literally worded as "such and such thing will literally happen like this" the prophecy itself must be understood in some way other than literal in order for it to be a prophecy. So like, in Jeremiah 25:11 when it says Babylon will become a desolate wasteland and these nations will serve the King of Babylon for 70 years." That's clearly literal. The fulfillment of that prophecy would be the literal words coming true in the future. 

Perhaps foreshadowing has a different meaning in Biblical study and prophecy that I'm not aware of. What I know of foreshadowing is what I learned about it in school and studying literature, where something symbolically related points, as a sign, to something that will happen in the future. Not literally telling the audience that literally such and such will occur, and not the same thing happening twice. For example, a cloudy sky foreshadowing some event that causes the main character emotional turmoil in a novel. Is this different than what you are talking about?

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2 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

Everything in the Bible is essential.   God did not give us anything that is not essential.   Is it a salvation issue?  No.  But that is not mean it is "non-essential."   We don't get to sit in judgement on the Bible as to which parts are essential and which parts are expendable.

Essential for what? And who is saying this is a binary choice - essential vs expendable? How about "essential vs important"?

For my car to function, gas in the tank is essential. Shock absorbers are important.

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