Originally posted by @sonshipWhat about the two questions I asked you about your claim that the "talking snake" was a "historical event"?Thanks for all the stuff you typed. I am still more interested in the question I asked you, which is: Is the way you distinguish between what's literal and figurative in the Bible the correct way, by any chance?
I will humor your question. But I think we have two different missions here.
I am into helping people to believe the Bible. ...[text shortened]... indicates that even a sent apostle of Christ was not one totally without some questions himself.
From gotquestions.org
Question: "Why didn't Adam and Eve find it strange that a serpent was talking to them?"
Answer: Interestingly, the serpent/snake speaking to Adam and Eve is not the only instance in the Bible where an animal speaks. The prophet Balaam was rebuked by his donkey (see Numbers 22:21-35). We have to remember that while animals are not capable of speaking, there are powerful beings out there (God, the angels, Satan, the demons) who are capable of the impossible, including enabling animals to speak. Most scholars hold that it was Satan in the Garden of Eden who was speaking through the snake, not the snake itself speaking on its own. Thus, the Genesis 3 account it is not suggesting that snakes were of an intellect that would have enabled them to speak coherently.
Still, why didn’t Adam and Eve find it strange that an animal was speaking to them? It is unlikely that Adam and Eve had the same perspective we do on animals. In our era, we know from experience that animals are incapable of speech on the same level as humans. Adam and Eve did not have a childhood, nor did they have other humans to learn from. Given that Adam and Eve had probably only been alive a matter of days, it is not unreasonable for them to believe that animals were capable of speech. It is also possible that this was not the first talking animal Adam and Eve had encountered. Perhaps Satan or even God Himself had used animals to communicate with Adam and Eve before. There are so few details given in the account that much is left to speculation and presumption.
Lastly, it was not unreasonable for Eve to answer the snake. After all, the snake was evidently speaking in a language that she understood and asking an intelligible question. It is also likely that Adam was nearby and could verify that she was not imagining things. It was not the serpent speaking that should have alarmed them. Rather, it was the fact that he was causing them to doubt God’s instructions (Genesis 3:1), contradicting God (Genesis 3:4), and calling God’s motives into question (Genesis 3:5). That should have been enough to cause both Eve and Adam to stop talking to the serpent.
Originally posted by @secondsonSurely, if the tree of life is to be understood metaphorically, then the eating of the fruit would be similarly emblematic?
Do you think the tree of life is metaphorical? Why?
If the tree of life is metaphorical, then how are you going to eat its fruit?
I get the feeling you're high minded. Well smarty pants, what is the tree of life? Answer that if you can.
It's like reading Matthew 18:12-14, 'If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?' And then asking, 'Ah, if the sheep are parable,..how are you going to feed them?'
Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
Surely, if the tree of life is to be understood metaphorically, then the eating of the fruit would be similarly emblematic?
At this point I lean toward those trees actually being physically real.
It could be actual eating. the eating of a morsel physical food by Judas had terrible consequences the night he went out to betray Jesus.
"Then he [John] , while reclining on Jesus' breast, said to Him, who is it? [to betray Jesus]
Jesus answered, it is he for whom I will dip the morsel and to whom I will give it. And dipping the morsel, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
And at that moment, after the morsel, Satan entered into him.
Jesus therefore said to him, What you do, do quickly. ...
Therefore having taken the morsel, he went out immediately, and it was night." (See John 13:25-30)
it could be that in a crucial juncture in history the decision of a man was fateful and momentous spiritually. Here the hypocritical eating of a meal with the Son of God tipped the balance in the spiritual realm. After the physical food was taken the evil spirit entered into a man.
Originally posted by @fmf
It would seem you have chosen to intervene without bothering to take a look at the conversation you've chosen to intervene in.
More not-so-subtle evasion of a completely accurate description of your standard 'schtick'.
-Removed-
The interesting point for me in all this is your cognitive dissonance, or is it selective abstraction...
The Bible is not always easy to understand.
Perhaps you mock some of that as my "cognitive dissonance" and "selective abstraction."
Let's see if you have a point here.
You firmly believe that the tree of life is a real tree with real roots and leaves and fruit and yet you accept that it is also a "sign" because it is in Revelation which you say is full of "signs"
That's right. There is nothing wrong with that.
The things in the Old Testament were written for examples for the saints in the New Testament age to learn from.
"Now these things occurred as examples to us, that we should not be ones who lust after evil things, even as they also lusted." ( 1 Cor. 10:6)
Things occurred in ancient times by God as moral examples to latter generations of believers. "Cognitive dissonance?" Selective abstraction?"
I would say evidence of God's transcendence over time and consistency of His purposes.
"Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our admonition, unto whom the ends of the ages have come." (v.11)
In Paul's discussion he include the ROCK in the desert from which water flowed to quench the thirst of the Isrealites on their way to Canaan. Paul says:
1.) the rock followed them.
2.) the rock was Christ.
"And all ate the same spiritual food, And all drank from the same spiritual drink, for they drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ.
Now these things occurred as examples to us, ..." (1 Cor. 10:3-6a)
See Divegeester, You old cautious soberheaded Unitarian.
The Apostle Paul spiritualized a physical rock which provided spiritual drink. In the new covenant age his wisdom realizes under God's guidance that the symbolism pointed to the real Rock of the Son of God.
So why not an actual "tree of life" also point to the Son of God Who said "I am ... the life" ?
However you do not ask where this real tree is now, you simply accept that it somehow no longer exists.
Well, I don't put any priority on finding a physical artifact since it is so much more crucial that we take into our being Jesus Christ as the divine and eternal life.
You didn't read ?
"God, having spoken of old in many portions and in many ways to the fathers in the prophets, Has at the last of these days spoken to us in the Son, ... "(Hebrews 1:1,2a)
God's economy is very profound. And through dispensations and ages He unfolds this deep eternal purpose.
Back to the skeptical Unitarian drawing board with you.
Try again.
You are a mess of contradictions, twisted logic, and flawed reasoning sonship.
I don't think so so much. Though conciseness leaves out some room for further explanation. (You'd be the first to whine that there is too much to read).
Jesus spoke of the manna that the Israelites ate as allegorical of Jesus Himself.
"Jesus therefore said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses has not given you the bread out of heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread out of heaven.
For the bread of God is He who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world." (John 6:32,33)
1.) He is not saying that Moses was not involved in the manna coming down in Exodus. He is saying the present truth of Christ's incarnation supersedes that old miracle.
2.) He is not saying He fell out of the sky like the manna did. He means He "came down" out of heaven by way of incarnation.
3.) He is not saying there was NO physical manna in the wilderness for the Israelites at the Exodus. He is saying He Himself is the more real bread from heaven from God.
4.) He is not saying everybody on the planet must physically eat His physical body. He is saying giving His body in His redeeming act on the cross will give divine life to all those believing in the world.
5.) He is not saying because Moses was involved in real heavenly bread from the sky therefore they should dismiss the llfe and work of Jesus.
6.) What IS HE SAYING then?
He is saying very much the same as Paul wrote, just before Paul wrote it.
"Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our admonition, unto whom the ends of the ages have come." (1 Cor. 10:11)
Back to the Unitarian Skepto Board with you. Re-group and try again.
Furthermore, the reasoning of why you think this tree is a "sign", you subsequently ignore when applying thought to eternal torture ideas which are also described in visionary terms in the book of revelations; according to your own testimony full of "signs"
I do not insist that there is no lava, magma, sulfur, hot brimstone and fire of a lake of fire. That is what you may want to push me into saying. But I have not said that there is NO brimstone and hot volcanic material associated with God's final judgment.
I just recognize that it would only be the tip of the iceberg of reality. I think an actual lake of fire is involved but that that is not the entire nature of the punishment. It is the part that most dramatically communicates its punishing nature.
Correspondingly, I do not insist that there will be no marvels of vegetation associated with that age. I expect fantastic trees and fantastic plants with fantastic fruit. But they would only be the tip of an iceberg of more profound realities of God living in man and man in God.
Originally posted by @fmfFMF?
You have been overly preoccupied with your out-of-joint nose and not following the exchanges and the topic.
The question is about the story of the "talking snake/serpent" in "the Garden of Eden" featuring the first humans called "Adam and Eve", and, more specifically, the issue is whether the talking snake was a historical event as sonship and many Christian ...[text shortened]... ? [2] How did the people who finally wrote it down establish that the story was not allegorical?
[1] How many hundreds of thousands of years passed after this "historical event" occurred before the account of it was written down?
I don't know how long this was an oral tradition.
[2] How did the people who finally wrote it down establish that the story was not allegorical?
I didn't say anything about how everybody took Genesis 3.
i didn't say a certain percentage decided at some date Genesis 3 was not allegorical.
Checking the plethora of rabbinical writings it would be interesting to see the spread of ideas and emphasis.
I think i said:
1.) I take it as a historical record.
2.) Here are some reasons why I do so.
3,) Things can be historical and allegorical in God's ways.
4.) I advised everyone to seek God's wisdom in reading the Bible, a profound book not always easy to understand.
Now a question or two for you FMF:
1.) Does holier than thou have to mean that someone wishes "thou" would never be made holy ?
2.) Could one person saying "holier than thou" one day be even happier that "thou" has become holier than "himself" ?
3.) Lets take one conceivable definition of holy as being set aside or dedicated to God.
If so what is wrong with a person being "holier than thou" ?
In many cases the "thou" is boasting that he himself is "less holy than thou". Of his decision he is less set aside for God.
He has what he wants and the other has what he wants.
Right? So why pout?
Maybe that is exactly what you WANT - to be less holy.