171 truthseeker,

As an outsider, I think it could be helpful for Don and Cheryl, at the least, (others are welcome, too) to give a simple explanation on how one determines what is allegory, poem, fact, expression, etc. as a way of defining the basic ’playing field’ or parameters.

I think that Paula has given a very good answer to this question, but I would like to add my 2 cents worth. The books of the bible are named for the material that is in them. For example the books of Psalms means “A sacred song; a poetical composition for use in the praise or worship of God”. The book of Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings or precepts.

So when we read this:

Psa 91:4 He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may seek refuge;…

we can understand that it is a poetic way of saying that God is the one who gives us protection. We do not make this poetry prove that God has feathers and wings.

When we come to the book of Kings and read this:

1Ki 1:1 Now King David was old, advanced in age; and they covered him with clothes, but he could not keep warm.

we can understand that this is a historical fact and the “clothes” that David was covered with were literal clothes and the fact that “he could not keep warm” is not poetry or a song to be song, but a historical fact. We can also understand that the people and places that the book of Kings documents are real people and real places. Zadok the priest and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada are not abstract toledots in a mass of words that have no set meaning. The book is a historical writing that we are to take as fact. This is the way that we would classify any book whether it is the bible or not. Otherwise we have writings that have no meaning and every man will see something different in the writings as if the author had no care that people would understand him.

Genesis is the book of beginnings. The very word Genesis means origin, creation, beginning. It is a history book that starts with the historical account that is beyond what humans could know without God’s revelation. As it progresses it gives the names Adam and Eve’s descendants and the ages when they died. This is history. There is nothing here that would prompt us to see it as anything other than history. We can ask ourselves, if God wanted to write actual history how would he do it? He would do it exactly as he wrote the creation account in Genesis. When God wrote Genesis 1 he used specific words to express the historical account.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The term “in the beginning” means :

the beginning, first of time, i.e., a point of time which is the beginning (non prior) in a duration (Ge 1:1) Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew

The very first Hebrew word expresses a point of time. It is not an abstract “song” that has no historical meaning in actual fact. It is what we use to define the origin of man, the origin of sin, the origin or death and the origin of our salvation. If we look at the book of Genesis as if he was written to mean something other than the ordinary meaning of the words that were used, then we can easily do away with many key doctrines in the Christian faith. If we do away with the promise the the “seed of the woman” would bruise the serpent’s head, then we can easily do away with the virgin birth. And those who create a myth out of Genesis by calling it something other than a historical writing do not agree on the meaning of the words. It may as well be cut out of the bible if we cut out the history and replace it with a “creation myth” or a “creation hymn”.

One thing that I regularly do when I am looking deeply to study scripture is that I do not look just at one chapter. I start by going back a chapter and going ahead one chapter. I also methodically look back chapter after chapter until I get the big picture. Genesis is one big picture of the historical creation of the universe, the world, the plants and animals and man and from there man takes precedence and the generations of man are documented. Those who wish to remove the documentation have no foundation whatsoever to do this. And none of them can agree on the meaning of the book and all its words if it isn’t historical. That should say volumes. If God wanted to show us our history but gave us nothing concrete about the past and creation how can we trust him to be accurate about our future? Perhaps the new heavens and the new earth is mere poetry and a post-creation myth. Maybe all just a song to be sung as we die and become non-existent.

My point is that we start with the purpose of the book and we read the content with that purpose. We take historical accounts as literal in the standard of literal (i.e. it is considered historical and literal to say that there were 3,000 men when there were actually 3,027 men because rounding is not outside of the standard of literal).