Please forgive me, I'm not Christian but I have wondered: Why do Christians seem to try to prove Noah's flood or a young earth? Considering the overwhelming evidence for human and geologic history that there was no global flood that wiped out life on earth or civilizations and that modern humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, can an allegorical reading of the beginning of Genesis be allowed?
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4It is always good to read both sides of the issue. While it is true that many secular scientists claim that the evidence is overwhelming, that just is not so. I would encourage you to read books like "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist", "The Case for Faith", "The Case for a Creator", "Tornado in a Junkyard", and other books like that. You will be very surprised to see how underwhelming the evidence really is. And there really is a lot of evidence for the flood.– NarnianCommented Nov 14, 2013 at 20:09
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1This is also highly relevant: Who decides if a verse is to be read literally or metaphorically?– Affable GeekCommented Nov 14, 2013 at 20:18
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2As an example... dinosaurs died out millions of years before mankind... but... somehow... mankind created these: genesispark.com/exhibits/evidence/historical/ancient/dinosaur (They don't include these things in secular books)– NarnianCommented Nov 14, 2013 at 20:21
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1Depends really on the Christian you are talking too. For more liberal Christians, there is no problem. For more conservative ones, they'd probably ask, why so little faith? As one of the conservative ones, I've answered way too many questions about the flood - and I think it stands up.– Affable GeekCommented Nov 14, 2013 at 20:21
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1There are plenty of Christians who interpret those parts of the Bible, and many others, as allegorical or metaphorical, rather than as primarily expressing what we now think of as historical factual truths. You might want to edit your question to make it clear you are specifically addressing Biblical literalists, since many professing Christians do not fall in that category.– Chris SunamiCommented Nov 14, 2013 at 21:49
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1 Answer
Seeing as it is almost impossible for bias to not slip into our research, we will always see what we want to see or at least try to. Scientists will find reasons that such things aren't true while we believers will believe because we want to. Until 100% undeniable proof is found we will always debate this question.
As for my opinion on the matter, no we should not try to find a deeper meaning of the scriptures. We should read in the lines of the scriptures and not necessarily between them. There are a few exceptions to this such as the book of Revelation which uses heavy symbolism, but most of it is explained so again I think we should let the bible translate itself. Here is some research into the wording of the days and so on.
In Genesis the day's may or may not have been 24 hours. That doesn't matter because there could have been any length of time after the earth was finished that god made man. If you look at Genesis 2:4-7 we see that there was no time span given between the finishing of earth and the creation of man. Man may have lived for only the past 6000 years, but because of the lack of details the earth may be much older.
My answer then is no, the bible should be read as it was intended and thus as it is written.
