From: maier@romulus (Chuck Maier)
Subject: Re: Some answers for Chuck (on allegory)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 15:06:37 GMT

In <1992Jul21.130420.8629@bcrka451.bnr.ca> seanna@bnr.ca (Seanna Watson) writes:

>Chuck Maier:

>-That's the problem.  People just want to dismiss SIN as some vague notion
>-whose meaning is subject to anyone's opinion and whose existence is best
>-demonstrated by someone else's action.
sw
>I do not see how this follows.  Just because one uses an allegorical description
>of SIN (why are we capitalizing?) does not mean that they do not believe that
   
 SIN is a capital offense.

>SIN is real.  Allegories frequently provide a better understanding of difficult
>and important subjects than real life stories.  *Jesus* spoke in parables.  
>Does the story of the prodigal son tell us nothing of sin and forgiveness
>because it is an allegory?  Did Jesus not really believe in the Kingdom of 
>heaven because he spoke about it metaphorically?

see below

>Chuck also writes (in response to me):

>-Once again, how can these verses mean anything if A & E were not real
>-people, just like u and me?

>[followed by a list of probably all the verses in the New Testament which
>refer to Adam and Eve]

>Is it really impossible to see that the NT statements are still valid 
>even if the events they refer to are allegorical?   

This is just the old problem of 
where do you stop allegorizing.  Was the resurrection a real event?
Did Jesus really take his blood and sprinkle the heavenly altar as
the final atonement for our sin (Heb 9:24 I think)?  Is He really
seated at the right hand of the Father?

There are ministers who frankly don't believe that these things happened.
They don't believe the Bible.  They don't believe that people are sinners
by nature.  This leads to a watering down of SIN and situations like
I've mentioned in the marriage thread up ahead.  If Adam was real and 
the Fall was real, I know what SIN is - me!  It's very simple.  Otherwise
you get whole movements teaching falsities like 'venial' SINS and 'mortal'
SINS.  This is foreign to the scriptures.  In such a system SINS become
a matter of human opinion.  And we know who commits the mortal SINS -
someone else....

>And I must respond to your last verse:

>        54  73.    5:4    Adam begat other sons/daught.  (Where'd Cain get 
>wife?)

>A short time ago you were holding up Adam and Eve as a model of monogamy.
>Did you now want to hold up Cain (and Seth) as models of sibling incest?

If Eve was mother of all the living, then these chaps certainly had to
marry a close relative.

Again the Bible has a clear (and scientific answer) to this question.
As sin and the 'bondage of corruption' were not a part of the created 
order, marriage of close relatives would not have been a medical, spiritual,
or cultural problem.  Note that Abraham married his half sister (both fathered
by Terah, by separate mothers).  Lot's shenanigans with his daughters also
took place before the Law.  Prohibitions against incest did not come in 
until the Mosaic covenant (Lev. 18-20).

Here again we see the remarkable insight of the 
Bible in addressing the problem of genetic defects due to close interbreeding
before science could address the issue.  Certainly there were social problems
associated with close intermarriage due to SIN in the world.  But the Bible
also provides the answer to the increasing disintegration of the genetic system
by prohibiting close intermarriage. 

>-- 
>Seanna Watson   Bell-Northern Research, 
>(seanna@bnr.ca) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

>Opinions, what opinions?  Oh *these* opinions. | Occam's razor split 
>No, they're not BNR's, they're mine.           | hairs so well, I bought 
>I knew I'd left them somewhere.                | the whole argument.


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