AstroAg17 said:
I must have misunderstood you, my mistake. The literal text of the bible and prevailing scientific theories are at odds, however. One must either reconcile that somehow (usually by interpreting passages as allegory), or choose between them. To paint them as authorities which can coexist in non-overlapping domains, one has to view parts of the bible as allegorical, as far as I know. I don't know of any other method of reconciliation.
Sorry I didn't see this when you originally posted it.
Interpreting texts can be tricksy. As a text, there is greater complexity to interpreting the Bible than just literal vs. allegorical methods.
For my money, I think authorial intent matters for the meaning of a text, that is, meaning relates to what an author intends to say to an audience through the text he or she has written. This would include studying the literary, historical, cultural, and even theological context.
Let's briefly dive into the implications of interpreting Genesis 1-3 in light of authorial intent for the creation/evolution debate. Perhaps the most obvious observation to make is that Genesis 1-3 was written before evolutionary theory. That being the case, the context within which or the background against which we should interpret the meaning of the text is not evolutionary theory. To interpret the meaning of Genesis 1-3 with modern categories or as though Genesis 1-3 is seeking to answer our scientific questions violates the author's intent. He is not providing a scientific account of creation.
Against the backdrop of the ancient Near East, especially in comparison to other Egyptian and Mesopotamian creation narratives, he is providing an alternative definition of God, humanity, and the purpose for which humanity and the rest of the world exists. When set against the backdrop of other ancient creation narratives, it doesn't seem that the conclusion and ancient reader would come to is "Man, those must have been six literal 24-hour periods." Nor would they think it important if they were literal, figurative, allegorical, long, short, or just a literary convention to organize the material. After reading this account of creation, the question an ancient reader would likely be asking is, "Hey, could we discuss the fact that it seems that there is one God doing all this. I'm not sure I get that" because all other creation narratives involve multiple gods in a polytheistic culture. Or, they might be asking about humanity functioning as the image of God and the fact that work is valuable and honorable over against other ancient narratives in which humanity is created to do work because the gods are tired of doing their laborious tasks.
Literarily they would also likely notice the parallel structure of the six days of creation. This is a structure that reveals days 1-3 as God creating realms and 4-6 as creating rulers for those realms, with humanity ruling over creation and God ruling over all things. In light of that, they would likely recognize the language of God "resting" as his resting on his throne after setting up his kingdom, not as needing a nap. (I could expand on all this, but might be better to do in a new thread?)
In light of all this, it seems to me that Genesis 1-3 is answering the questions of why the world exists, but answering them in the categories an ancient audience would understand. It seems to me, therefore, highly unlikely that the author provides a scientific account (as we would think of it) in this context.
We could also ask the question of what does it mean that God said they would surely die if they ate of the tree? Are Adam and Eve the first two people on the earth? Are they intended to be historical figures according to the genre? Does the Hebrew word for "create" necessarily mean creation out of nothing? And one could go on. The way we come to valid answers to these questions is not "Should we interpret literally or allegorically?" I think the question is something more like, "What did the author intend to communicate to his audience through the text?"
I'm not sure that this way of interpreting things would fall into what is generally labeled as literal or allegorical. But I do think it's the way we get at the meaning of the text. Once we've come to some valid interpretations of the text, then we can begin to talk about the significance of those interpretations for the creation/evolution debate, or more generally, the religion vs. science conversation.