When Should the Bible Not Be Taken Literally?

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Hi! Genesis chapter 1 says that plants were growing on the 3rd day of creation, whereas chapter 2 says that there were no plants growing until a man was made. How do you reconcile this apparent inconsistency?

Hi Rudy,
Gen 1:11
Then God said, "Let the land sprout with vegetation--every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came." And that is what happened.

Gen 2:5
neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. For the LORD God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil.

Gen 2:6
Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land.

Now let's look at
Gen 2:4
This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

Now I know you are Using Gen 2:7-9 as your argument....not saying you are arguing.

Let's look at Gen 2:7
Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person.

OK now man is created and has life

2:8
Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made.

2:9
The LORD God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground--trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So one must Grasp that Eden or The Garden
Was One Area here on earth.

So God had already given earth life and with plants etc.

And in the midst of this He Created Man And Created a Special Place For Him and this is Thee Garden Area That He Planted.

The Garden with its special trees was planted in an earth that already had plants.

So my loving brother in Christ,
Critic's have tried to use this as some big inconsistency in God's Word and Truth Be Told these critics simply lack in one area and it is a very important area......Understanding.

So don't follow the way of the critics my brother but follow the way of God and accept what is written and believe what is written and in everything get Wisdom from within God's Most Holy Word.

I hope this sheds light on this for you sir.
Blessings and love in Christ
FCJ
 
Hi Rudy,
Gen 1:11
Then God said, "Let the land sprout with vegetation--every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came." And that is what happened.

Gen 2:5
neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. For the LORD God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil.

Gen 2:6
Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land.

Now let's look at
Gen 2:4
This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

Now I know you are Using Gen 2:7-9 as your argument....not saying you are arguing.

Let's look at Gen 2:7
Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person.

OK now man is created and has life

2:8
Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made.

2:9
The LORD God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground--trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So one must Grasp that Eden or The Garden
Was One Area here on earth.

So God had already given earth life and with plants etc.

And in the midst of this He Created Man And Created a Special Place For Him and this is Thee Garden Area That He Planted.

The Garden with its special trees was planted in an earth that already had plants.

So my loving brother in Christ,
Critic's have tried to use this as some big inconsistency in God's Word and Truth Be Told these critics simply lack in one area and it is a very important area......Understanding.

So don't follow the way of the critics my brother but follow the way of God and accept what is written and believe what is written and in everything get Wisdom from within God's Most Holy Word.

I hope this sheds light on this for you sir.
Blessings and love in Christ
FCJ

Hi again, FCJ.

As you pointed out, Gen. 2:8 says, "THEN the Lord God planted a garden..." Clearly, the planting of the garden happened AFTER man had been formed.
 
Hi! Genesis chapter 1 says that plants were growing on the 3rd day of creation, whereas chapter 2 says that there were no plants growing until a man was made. How do you reconcile this apparent inconsistency?

I really feel that fcj did a great job of getting in depth with Scripture to show that it is not an inconsistency.
And in my simple words.... when one reads Genesis 1 and 2 by faith that they are the truth, then one realizes that chapter 2 is an indepth recount of chapter 1...it says so in Genesis 2:4
Blessings
 
Hi again, FCJ.

As you pointed out, Gen. 2:8 says, "THEN the Lord God planted a garden..." Clearly, the planting of the garden happened AFTER man had been formed.
Yes sir and that's what I said as well.
However your missing the key here.

If you decide to go make your friend a special garden for her frogs to live in.

One... you will make it specially formed to give the frogs a special place different from the rest of the back yard.

Two... the back yard and all its growth Was Already There But You created and Planted the garden within it.

Same as in Genesis
God created plants and such first. The covered the earth.

Then He created Man

Then He Planted a Garden for man within the earth and the plant life He already created.

It can not be any more clearer then that.
Blessings
FCJ
 
It certainly appears that you are simply confused about the meaning of the terms 'literal' and 'metaphorical

Rudy,
The only answer I am going to give you is this......

I Do Not Allow My Self To Bring literal' and 'metaphorical into the Written Word Of God.

I allow the Holy Spirit to Teach me what He wants me to see, grasp, understand and put action to in everything He shows me in God's Word.

I have ears to hear.....so I hear
I know my Shepherds voice and I follow it.

Blessings
FCJ
 
Rudy,
The only answer I am going to give you is this......

I Do Not Allow My Self To Bring literal' and 'metaphorical into the Written Word Of God.

I allow the Holy Spirit to Teach me what He wants me to see, grasp, understand and put action to in everything He shows me in God's Word.

I have ears to hear.....so I hear
I know my Shepherds voice and I follow it.

Blessings
FCJ
Amen..I second this decision
 
I really feel that fcj did a great job of getting in depth with Scripture to show that it is not an inconsistency.
And in my simple words.... when one reads Genesis 1 and 2 by faith that they are the truth, then one realizes that chapter 2 is an indepth recount of chapter 1...it says so in Genesis 2:4
Blessings

Perhaps I concluded too much from the fact that you liked my post wherein I noted that Gen 2:8 demonstrates that the garden was planted AFTER Adam was created. Do you disagree with this?
 
Perhaps I concluded too much from the fact that you liked my post wherein I noted that Gen 2:8 demonstrates that the garden was planted AFTER Adam was created. Do you disagree with this?

Please make sure you use the bold or colors feature instead of all caps. Due to many people think that all caps constitutes yelling, and is against our policy's
Thank you

Blessings
 
Rudy,
The only answer I am going to give you is this......

I Do Not Allow My Self To Bring literal' and 'metaphorical into the Written Word Of God.

I allow the Holy Spirit to Teach me what He wants me to see, grasp, understand and put action to in everything He shows me in God's Word.

I have ears to hear.....so I hear
I know my Shepherds voice and I follow it.

Blessings
FCJ

What exactly do you mean when you say that you do not allow yourself to bring literal and metaphorical into the word of God? In order for us to have a meaningful discussion, we need to agree on the definitions of the words we are using to convey our thoughts. On that note, I remind you that you still have not agreed to the definitions of these terms that I offered in post #3 (it really would help our discussion if you responded to all of my points and questions in post #3). Here again are the definitions:

Literal:
in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaningof the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical: the literal meaning of a word.

Figurative:
of the nature of or involving a figure of speech, especially a metaphor; metaphorical and not literal: The word “head” has several figurative senses, as in “She's the head of the company.”

Do you agree with these definitions?
 
As I read the verses that fcj brought into view...I realized that the garden was made after man, however in your original post (which i have quoted above) you were talking about plants and not the garden.
Blessings

Gen 2:5 states that there were no plants growing on earth until man was formed:

"When no bush of the field[fn] was yet in the land[fn] and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground,"
 
Gen 2:5 states that there were no plants growing on earth until man was formed:

", When no bush of the field[fn] was yet in the land[fn] and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground," "

Yes that is true that, that verse says that, however we cannot stop at the end of that verse, we have to include vs 6 as well which helps us to understand that God had a special way to water the plants that were growing.

When the Bible was written, it was not written in chapter and verse, so all the punctuation, chapter numbers and verse numbers in there were added when it was translated in the 15 hundreds. So just because there is a period or a new verse number...does not mean that is the end of the thought that the original author had.
 
ALL: He's baiting you to see a contradiction that doesn't exist. Ignore him, lest he rend you.

That's an unfortunate attitude. There's absolutely no baiting going on here on my part. I have been very to the point and have supplied scriptural evidence for the points I'm making. If you disagree with my position, that is, of course, fine, but can you at least either engage my points or not say anything at all? There is no need for you to attack me.
 
Yes that is true that, that verse says that, however we cannot stop at the end of that verse, we have to include vs 6 as well which helps us to understand that God had a special way to water the plants that were growing.

I am afraid you are reading into the text. Verse 6 says that the mist (or spring) watered the earth; it does not say that it watered the plants. Indeed, the reading verse 6 in the way that you are proposing leads to a blunts contradiction with the preceding verse, which states that there were no plants growing at the precise time that these mists (springs) were watering the land.
 
What exactly do you mean when you say that you do not allow yourself to bring literal and metaphorical into the word of God? In order for us to have a meaningful discussion, we need to agree on the definitions of the words we are using to convey our thoughts. On that note, I remind you that you still have not agreed to the definitions of these terms that I offered in post #3 (it really would help our discussion if you responded to all of my points and questions in post #3). Here again are the definitions:

Literal:
in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaningof the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical: the literal meaning of a word.

Figurative:
of the nature of or involving a figure of speech, especially a metaphor; metaphorical and not literal: The word “head” has several figurative senses, as in “She's the head of the company.”

Do you agree with these definitions?
Rudy I am not trying to be rude here but I know what the words mean.

I Refuse to look at the word of God with that kind of mind set. Yes looking for issues within the word of God is a mind set.

Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.
So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

So if we want to please God we need to throw money and hang our selves.

Now that's nothing but stupid and lies but we can make God's word say anything we want when we only pick bits and pieces and build a doctrine or belief.

That is Exactly What We Do When We Try To Prove Error or Inconsistency in God's Word.

For now I am done responding in this thread sir, I won't allow myself to be a part of trying to show mistakes in the bible.

Looking forward to other topics with you.
Have a great night
FCJ
 
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