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AwfulUsername123 t1_iwlwo1j wrote

Reply to comment by Melodic_Antelope6490 in Defending myth as truth - The Garden of Eden — The Unconscious Self and a Moral World by Melodic_Antelope6490

> As in, his argument hinges on symbolism not "I can prove it, travel to so and so and you'll see where it was".

But doesn't that simply presuppose its truth, rather than disregard its truth? They all took the Torah as authoritative, so Paul didn't see the need to back up his claim that Adam and Eve were real people and their lives happened as described.

> the true/false distinction in a text is a product of a separation of language into the 'literal' and the 'metaphorical' where the literal is objectively factual and the metaphorical is subjective and arbitrary

Are you suggesting that the distinction is a product of our culture? I don't think that's right. The idea that a story can say something false isn't a novel concept. The Bible itself talks about people not believing in it.

> in other words to use the text symbolically did not mean it had to first be separated as non-literal, partly because other explanations (e.g. darwinism) didn't really exist.

It is certainly true that Paul believed Old Testament stories had hidden messages for Christians, but as you say, that isn't the same as believing they didn't happen. The literal meaning is important if you want to take the text as authoritative, because you can read meanings into whatever you want, as Paul himself demonstrated.

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Melodic_Antelope6490 OP t1_iwm0dot wrote

I think several things are going on here.

  1. I do believe the split is the product of our culture, of a scientific process being hypertrophied into an epistemological worldview thus 'literalising' the world into the true and the subjective, through postmodernity when the scientism of modernity that brought this about has been dropped by most people and we are left with absurd debates such as "I feel like a woman on the inside vs you're a man because of your body", or "a fetus is a life objectively" vs "it counts as a life based on my choice".

  2. We also have forms of knowledge from science itself (e.g. evolution, archaeology etc) that cause us to actually have to ask questions about what kinds of text we are dealing with directly, so as you pointed out, Paul wrote to people who took the Torah as authoritative so was just not interested in arguing about creation or Eden as symbolic or literal and did not have to, no one would question his taking it symbolically because they accept it as true. The poet T. S. Eliot said about poetry that "the surface reading of a poem is like meat thrown to a guard dog by a burglar" in other words, the distraction that allows the real work to be done. This is in some sense true of just taking a text as 'literal', it allows a door into its meanings without you having to first deal with this question of is it true and then ok what kind of truth is it, is it literal, is it arbitrary and subjective, etc etc.

If you're really bored or that way inclined I did write an essay series on this:

https://medium.com/atlas-writes/the-meaning-crisis-and-language-bf7200daf682

https://medium.com/atlas-writes/the-meaning-crisis-and-language-ii-do-we-need-to-believe-myth-and-metaphor-in-order-to-6544c07f826d

https://medium.com/atlas-writes/the-meaning-crisis-and-language-iii-myth-faith-ethics-and-aesthetics-c25b2b626076

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Melodic_Antelope6490 OP t1_iwm0k2z wrote

I am in no way arguing by the way that Paul thought it was not true. Just that the question does not occur to him.

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AwfulUsername123 t1_iwm20bx wrote

I strongly disagree with the idea that it's a modern concept, but I'll check out your articles.

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[deleted] t1_iwm4z53 wrote

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