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*This 'symbolic' approach of course can go on endlessly, and is very useful if you take an inerrant view of scripture, and you have to explain away certain passages which appear to have a 'scientific' feel to them.
Which ones would those be, please?
Joshua making the sun stand still,
We could have an interesting discussion on this one...
Isaiah referring to "the circle (not sphere) of the earth" - that sort of thing.
Why do you think Isaiah is teaching that the Earth is circular here?
When the findings of science eventually do away with any possibility that such scriptures could have any literal sense to them - just say "It's all symbolic" - and hey presto! the authority of scripture is rescued yet again.
Well, I don't claim that the Scriptures teach any science. Neither did people like Calvin, who wrote in his commentary on Genesis 1, "He who would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere..."
I'm very glad to hear it, and so long as Christians stick with the interpretation of Genesis simply expressing the idea that God is the source of everything, I've nothing to gripe about. Nonetheless, you yourself have been known to go to extreme lengths to explain what the nature of the Flood may have been.
But my claim on those threads has been that Scripture does not necessarily teach that the Flood was planet-wide. I have argued from Scripture itself, pointing out how the various Hebrew and Greek words are used in Scripture and, on occasion, elsewhere. I have speculated (yes, speculated) what the actual extent might have been, but if you look at my posts I have been boringly consistent in calling it "not planet-wide". I've not even called it "non-global".
Now this may not be taking the view that Bible actually teaches any science, but your approach certainly takes in modern views of geology and knowledge of the material world to demonstrate that the traditional literal approach is not true.
Oh, yes, I agree with that. On the Flood, it could be taken either way, i.e. planet-wide or not planet-wide, but as I say I have argued from Scripture about the use of the words like
eretz and
adamah. Bunging in the science as well should surely make it flipping obvious that it was not planet-wide and that it is wrong to insist from Scripture when Scripture itself is ambiguous on its physical extent and the science, honestly looked at, shows it definitely was not planet-wide. If we don't een look at the science, no biblical Christian should insist the Flood was planet-wide when Scripture does not clearly teach it so. My opinion is that a good number of Christians try to insist it was planet-wide because they would otherwise lose "evidence" against an old Earth.
And this is still to rescue some truth from scripture, rather than saying "I'm afraid this did not happen". It's just a funny old story, trying to make the point that if you do bad things, you'll get it in the neck - and in this respect, the writer of Job (for instance) was much more realistic and sophisticated, since he knew that this simple moral equation was not true.
But Genesis 6-9 teaches more than that. It teaches that a whole civilisation had gone bad and God judged them.
