04 Jun '12 15:31>
Originally posted by jaywillFictional movies give details, locations, ages of people, when someone was born, etc. This does not make it 'journalistic data'.AF is fable; Genesis is a mix of history and fable. I have not argued they are the same genre.
Genesis, rather, is history some of which you don't believe.
So some of it is not easy for people to believe. But in the reading of the history the clock does not stop and the teller transfer to some existential realm. The flow of detai ...[text shortened]... tional history as well as crucial details on the history of the world.
With Genesis, the further back we go, the more totally mythical it sounds. The time of Eden is not given (yes, it is in the realm of 'once upon a time' vagueness). The feeling I get from the story is watching several scenes spread out across different times, with unspecified gaps in between. For example, how long did God wait before he decided that it wasn't good for him to be alone?
Am I right in thinking that we don't know where all four of those rivers are today? (IIRC, we know two of them.)
Finally the genealogies establish a sense of timing. Very well. But we still have at least some myth mixed in: men living to be 800-900 years old.
Noah's Ark is the most obvious myth in the entire Bible. Any impression of historical journalism or meticulous keeping of time is drowned out by the absurdity of what happens. Bringing times back in to the discussion only serves to highlight the absurdity further.
(Sidebar, again: I hear stories on this forum of the Jewish tradition of interpretation of scripture. You are not just supposed to hold to a party-line view. You are supposed to bring your own Torah to the Torah (sincere apologies to vistesd if I get any of this wrong!) Alternative interpretations of the stories are not only welcome, but expected!
I cannot help but wonder if these traditions continue back to the ancient Jews. Maybe it simply isn't true that they perceived the stories as pure history?! Maybe that whole idea came later on?!)