Literal or not?

I was wondering how many here believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis? How about it? Was the first man on earth named "Adam?" Is the KJV the only reliable, accurate version? Why/why not?

Mark Norby said:

I was wondering how many here believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis? How about it? Was the first man on earth named "Adam?" Is the KJV the only reliable, accurate version? Why/why not?

A wonderful story, but absolute myth.

Mark Norby said:

I was wondering how many here believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis? How about it? Was the first man on earth named "Adam?" Is the KJV the only reliable, accurate version? Why/why not?

This is a _myth_. An ancient nomadic people's way of explaining the world around them. It was from their oral tradition and was written down quite a long time later. "Adam and Eve" has the same relationship to reality as "Pluto and Persephone," "Orpheus and Eurydice," etc., etc.

If you beleive that this is literal truth, it is incumbent upon you to provide some evidence of that. "It is in my holy book" is not evidence.

Mark Norby said:

I was wondering how many here believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis? How about it? Was the first man on earth named "Adam?" Is the KJV the only reliable, accurate version? Why/why not?

"I was wondering how many here believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis? How about it?"

I do, at least to the point that the universe, the earth, all life, and we are here by God's act of creation, and that every character in Genesis from Adam and Eve through Noah to the twelve patriarchs were real.


"Was the first man on earth named 'Adam'?"

Yes. IIRC the word "Adam" means first man.


"Is the KJV the only reliable, accurate version? Why/why not?"

No. There are others, including but not necessarily limited to the ASV, NASB, and ESV. As to the "why" for this, the original books are certainly infallible and the above named versions are as good as the KJV in terms of being high fidelity translation of the earliest codices on hand. All of the above are endorsed by individual ministers in my demonination (Presbyterian Church in America).

Mark Norby said:
I was wondering how many here believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis?

We're talking about a story that has a talking snake. Seriously, how could anyone make the mistake of taking this literally?

The Genesis creation story cannot be literal. I do think it is more than just nomadic tribe stories. There is truth about creation and history in these books.

The KJV was a decent version of the Bible for its time, and changed the way people were able to read the Bible. It was not handed out of the burning bush to Moses. Most folks I know use the NIV translation. I've read about four translations. The translations do not matter without a proper understanding of the material. We used to get some good posts going about this.

Was the first person named Adam? Adam was the father of Cain and Able (or the equivalent name in whatever language they spoke). Was this the first man? For the purpose of the Bible this is who God called the first man. To me it seems there were other humans on the planet at the time. It would appear that God did not consider them to be man.

Parts of this can easily be tested through an experiment.

1. Find a snake.
2. Find an apple.
3. Hold conversation with snake and ask it to give your wife the apple.
4. Observe snake to see if it present apple.
5. Observe wife to see if she eats the apple provided by snake.

Hypothesis:
Since the snake cannot talk, has no arms with which to present an apple, and does not have the language skills needed to understand your request, the snake will not present the apply to your wife. Your wife will probably also scream and run like hell thereby making it impossible for the snake to present the apple if it were so inclined. It is impossible for a snake to present a forbidden fruit to a woman.

Test:
Crikey, I'm not touching a snake. The result is intuitively obvious.

Conclusion:
A snake cannot literally tempt a woman with a forbidden fruit. Therefore, the bible is using the snake as a metaphor for something else. The bible is not literal.

Policy Implication:
As an English major, it is my expert testimony that snakes are typically a phallic symbol for part of the male anatomy. The bible is not suitable for children.