[Pablo Rafael]

Originally Posted by krobbyzw

Cool, thanks, Pablo. Have you had the time to check out Answers in Genesis or Creation Science evangelism?

I have not had a chance to check this out. I will have to do so.

I wondered if you thought Jesus was merely 'conveying ideas rather than give facts' when He said 'I am the way, the truth and the life.'

I think that statement is an major principle of the Bible. A principle is much more substantial than a simple fact. Whether Jesus actually said those exact words doesn't make any difference. I believe that the Bible tells us what God wants us to know, whether it be in figurative or literal language.

I can see the point that if we 'chip away' too much at the book of Genesis by defining it as 'stories' then we deny the literal history of it. If we do that, then it becomes easier to dismiss more and more of the Bible as 'not necessarily factual' and that, I would say, works to Satan's advantage.

I feel that if we take the Bible literally, we must start "chipping away" at it. When a literalist comes across the contradictions in the Bible they must choose what to believe and what to discount. For example did Judas hang himself or throw himself off of a cliff? The Gospels have different stories of this event. They can't both be factual. Literalist have to ignore one of the events.

The flood is a good example of the impossibility of a literal interpretation. If the flood happened around 3500BC, which is just a second in geologic terms, we would see evidence of it all over the earth. Why is there no evidence? The Americas were inhabited thousands of years before 3500 BC. Why were native Americans not destroyed in the flood? How did Noah get all the animals of the earth on the ark when many animals did not even live in the Middle East? Trying to explain the flood literally brings up a multitude of problems. A figurative interpretation of the story eliminates the need to make up false "science" to explain things. It allows one to focus on what message is God trying to show us in this section of Genesis.