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NASB | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God (Elohim) created [by forming from nothing] the heavens and the earth. [Heb 11:3] |
Subject: Bible and evolution both? |
Bible Note: Well, yes, I did mean "parable" - defined in my favorite dictionary (Webster's New International, 2 ed. 1944) as "a comparison; similitude; specif. a short, fictitious narrative of a possible event in life or nature, from which a moral or spiritual truth is drawn; as, the parables of Christ". Possible - God might have done it the way Genesis 1 says or he might have done it another way; but he did it. Spriritual truth - God created the heavens and the earth; the specific mechanism is unrelated to the spiritual truth of who came first and who created what. Perhaps it would help if I explained my approach to the Bible. For reasons that are too lengthy to detail here, I accept without reservation that the Bible is the inspired word of God. (I once took a entire 20-minute sermon - as a layman - explaining the reasons for my belief.) When studying the Bible (trying to understand what is history, what is a parable, what is poetic, what is imagery, what is metaphor - it can't all be taken literally) I work backwards from my faith in Jesus. Faith makes no sense if Jesus lied about himself or his ministry, so his words must be true. The NT writers were inspired by God to testify to Jesus and his ministry - the only contemporaneous witness we have - so what they said about him must be true. What he and they said about scripture must be true (including 2 Timothy 3:15-18). Jesus referred to Adam and Eve (and Noah, and Jonah, etc.) so they must have existed in history. So too with David, and Rahab and several prophets and a host of others. His words and the NT writers' words and the OT writers' words would be false if nearly every event from Adam and Eve forward was not historically true. But I don't believe there are any instances where anything in the Bible - any words of Jesus, any matter of faith, any theological principle - depends upon the historical accuracy of Genesis 1. If God were to reveal to us today that Genesis 1 really was a parable, nothing would change. It would still be a fallen world, God's covenants with Abraham and his descendants would still have been made, God's intraction with the Israelites would be the same, the law would still have been given, the messianic prophecies would still stand, Jesus would still fulfill them, and he would still be Savior and Lord of all. Jesus taught in parables; he wasn't a liar and he didn't disobey his father, so we must accept that God sometimes uses fiction to teach spiritual truths (see the dictinary defintion above). If Genesis 1 is a parable, it doesn't negate scripture or make God a liar. And if it isn't, then a very large body of credible scientific evidence is wrong. That's Ok too. My faith is unshaken either way. Peace and grace, Steve |