Friday, June 20

In an attempt to undermine a literal understanding of the Book of Genesis in conservative Evangelical circles, the argument is being put forward that the scientific implications of the Biblical origins account (especially the consideration of the timeframe involved) should not be considered a major issue. Instead, these texts are to be viewed as a corrective to the Egyptian polytheism from which the ancient Israelites emerged under the leadership of Moses. But if that is the case, just where does the contemporary believer draw the line? If death really didn’t enter into the world through the singular act of Adam, why should we take seriously the Bible’s claim that only Christ provides an escape from this curse? For that matter, if we are to not take seriously as literal the whole seven day time frame because the ancients apparently couldn’t wrap their minds around basic astronomy and geophysics but rather as the allegorical understanding of the Hebrew pastoralists, can we be assured that talk of the risen Christ just wasn’t concocted to mirror the tales of anthropomorphized deities that the Greek and the Romans had a penchant for in a time when the intricacies of biology where still a mystery?