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NASB | Genesis 8:7 and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 8:7 and he sent out a raven, which flew here and there until the waters were dried up from the earth. |
Bible Question: Ok so back in the early part of Gen, God lays out an herbivore diet (1:29-30) and outside of the addition of dirt to the serpent’s diet in his curse He doesn’t change this until next chapter (9:3-4)… so when Noah sends out the raven and it doesn’t really return are we to presume its newly become a scavenger due to the likely near fast aboard the arc and the desperation of hunger or was it already carni/omnivore preflood and just chose to eat what it could find floating? If it's a postflood attribute is it symbolic of the desperation of giving up hope/not having faith that life will return and food will be provided/that God will provide; as in the raven's not returning meant there was an option (as the tree of knowledge was an option) but Noah held on to his faith that he could trust God and didn't need to take drastic action to solve the problem himself as the raven did? Was this to contrast this new beginning with the previous way of life where evil prevailed or perhaps even with Adam/Eve? |
Bible Answer: Spiritualizing the Bible "Pure fantasy...it goes on all the time..." ____________________ "It's a very dangerous thing to allegorize or spiritualize Scripture. What it means is what it says when rightly understood in its historic context." ____________________ "And once you say that something in the Bible is an allegory, that is it is only a symbol of the reality, you have just made it impossible to know what that reality is because if that reality cannot be discerned through the normal understanding of language, how can it be discerned?" ____________________ '...And then thirdly, another thing just to mention by way of avoidance...avoid spiritualizing or allegorizing the Bible. Spiritualizing or allegorizing the Bible. This is that which gives to the Bible some kind of mystical meaning. In other words, what is on the surface is not the meaning, but what is hidden becomes the meaning. This is very popular. We could talk about allegorizing, it's quite...it's not quite as popular today as it used to be, although it's finding a resurgence. Allegorizing means to say that the historical meaning is not the real meaning, and in fact may be nothing but a fabrication. The historical meaning is not the real meaning, the real meaning is the spiritual meaning hidden beneath the surface. And once you say that something in the Bible is an allegory, that is it is only a symbol of the reality, you have just made it impossible to know what that reality is because if that reality cannot be discerned through the normal understanding of language, how can it be discerned? 'For example, a book was written a number of years ago called If I Perish, I Perish, it was purported to be a commentary on the book of Esther. And in it, Esther, it was allegorizing the book of Esther so that Esther became the Holy Spirit and the whole story of the book was the operation of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer in the battle between the flesh and the Spirit and spiritual warfare and so forth. Much of what was in the book was true New Testament truth but it had absolutely nothing to do with the book of Esther so it therefore convoluted the meaning of Esther and no person reading the book of Esther ever would have understood that meaning. No normal understanding of Esther would have yielded that. (...) 'I went from that to the series on Nehemiah in which [someone might claim that] Nehemiah was the Holy Spirit. The king's pool which is in the city, you know, when they were building the wall, he mentions the king's pool, was the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the building of the wall, the mortar between the bricks was tongues. And the whole point of Nehemiah is that God wants to send the Holy Spirit to baptize you with the Spirit and build the fallen walls of your human personality through speaking in tongues. 'Now, you see, if you're going to do that with the Bible you can't get that from the text. It's pure fantasy. But it goes on all the time and I've often said...sometimes I say to our pastors, "You don't need the Bible for that, if you're going to do that you can use anything...you can use anything." You can preach Little Bo Peep, you could...you could start off by saying...Little Bo Peep, oh she was only little but God can use the little ones. And her name was...her name was Bo Peep...what a name of insignificance, what a name of ridicule, but God uses those who have been ridiculed. Little Bo Peep, she lost her sheep, all over this world sheep are lost. Doesn't know where to find them. The only part I couldn't figure out was what you do with wagging their tails behind them. 'It's a very dangerous thing to allegorize or spiritualize Scripture. What it means is what it says when rightly understood in its historic context.' ____________________ (http://gty.org/ resources.php?section[equals sign]transcripts) Grace to You Transcipts GC 90-157 "How to Study Your Bible: Interpretation" by John MacArthur |