anthony_is_ t1_iwltyee wrote
Eden is part of a symbolic worldview, and the literal-materialist interpretation that 19th-20th century fundamentalists have applied to it did not exist until fairly recently.
Read Genesis symbolically.
AwfulUsername123 t1_iwluosd wrote
> the literal-materialist interpretation that 19th-20th century fundamentalists have applied to it did not exist until fairly recently.
The Hebrew Calendar is based on a literal reading of the story.
codyd91 t1_iwmbt49 wrote
And why not? People out here saying it's allegory, which is kinda fckin rude to say about a culture's creation myth. Pretty sure Genesis is just the Jewish story of creation.
Interpretation is how we get Christian absurdities like Satan in the Garden. It's just a snake.
RyeZuul t1_iwlxqsd wrote
They didn't distinguish between material and mythical back then. However, they did have parables which were understood to be fictive morality tales and the origin story was not to be understood simply as a parable, but a depiction of the cosmology of a bronze age people. Biblical and traditional theism involves an active god in world events, not simply a detached symbolic god and parables. Josephus referred to various events in Genesis as real and authentic in his histories of the Jews, for instance.
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