Muslims, racists, individuals and attitudes.

[TANGODANCER]

Here's a Wickipedia statement that caused a frown of surprise:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (or CCC) is a catechism promulgated for the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II in 1992
That's rather strange. I could have sworn I had a printed catachism in junior school in the late 1940s. In fact, I know I did.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Here's a Wickipedia statement that caused a frown of surprise:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (or CCC) is a catechism promulgated for the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II in 1992
That's rather strange. I could have sworn I had a printed catachism in junior school in the late 1940s. In fact, I know I did.

You had a catechism but what is known as the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" is of recent vintage. A new edition if you will by JP2. For a fuller history:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church originated with a recommendation made at the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in 1985. In 1986 Pope John Paul II appointed a Commission of Cardinals and Bishops to develop a compendium of Catholic doctrine. In 1989 the Commission sent the text to all the Bishops of the world for consultation. In 1990 the Commission examined and evaluated over 24,000 amendments suggested by the world's bishops. The final draft is considerably different from the one that was circulated in 1989. In 1991 the Commission prepared the text for the Holy Father's official approval. On June 25, 1992 Pope John Paul II officially approved the definitive version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. On December 8, 1992 Pope John Paul II promulgated the Catechism with an apostolic constitution.

[TANGODANCER]

Ah,okay, cheers Monty. That old "Word of God" and word of man thing again.

[Prufrock]

Really made me giggle the idea of a seven-year long global e-mail chain (I know, I know) with a load of grown men arguing about a talking snake.

[thebish]

Really made me giggle the idea of a seven-year long global e-mail chain (I know, I know) with a load of grown men arguing about a talking snake.

not unlike a 7yr long forum chain with grown men arguing the toss over whether megson, coyle or freedman was the sh*ttest....

[Prufrock]

Nah, this is pathetic, not bathetic!

[TANGODANCER]

Really made me giggle the idea of a seven-year long global e-mail chain (I know, I know) with a load of grown men arguing about a talking snake.

Ah, that old talking snake again hey? Pops up almost "religiously" every time faith gets mentioned.

[LeverEnd]

[Worthy4England]

Really made me giggle the idea of a seven-year long global e-mail chain (I know, I know) with a load of grown men arguing about a talking snake.

The talking snake, which spoke only to the woman, clearly exists. It's the same one that says "G'wan you NEED that £250 handbag" and "No, you're bum won't look big in that".

It is important to understand how the talking snake works.

[thebish]

^ Pru ain't been in that relationship long enough to really understand yet!

[bobo the clown]

Here's a Wickipedia statement that caused a frown of surprise:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (or CCC) is a catechism promulgated for the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II in 1992
That's rather strange. I could have sworn I had a printed catachism in junior school in the late 1940s. In fact, I know I did.

Printed in Farnworth you'll find Tangs.

.... oh, & bish, it's Freedman. Though Coyle was the one who fkd us over.

.... & if a horse can talk Pru I see nothing mysterious about a snake doing and I've SEEN a talking horse on TV. So there.

[thebish]

Here's a Wickipedia statement that caused a frown of surprise:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (or CCC) is a catechism promulgated for the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II in 1992
That's rather strange. I could have sworn I had a printed catachism in junior school in the late 1940s. In fact, I know I did.

Printed in Farnworth you'll find Tangs.

.... oh, & bish, it's Freedman. Though Coyle was the one who fkd us over.

.... & if a horse can talk Pru I see nothing mysterious about a snake doing and I've SEEN a talking horse on TV. So there.

I saw a dog talking too - before Pru's time, maybe - on Esther Rantzen... it said "sausages" - so there...

slightly more seriously, though, and Pru's excitable 6th form debating humour aside... dismissing talk about biblical accounts in Genesis as "men arguing about a talking snake" is as literarily ignorant as dismissing George Orwell as a crazy loon writing about talking pigs...

[Prufrock]

Well it's not, for the subtle yet significant reason that one of the two was *meant* to be an allegory, and the other has been reverse-engineered.

Though in fairness the sixth form humour is still about my level, and I'm happy with that. Talking snakes are funny.

And LE, I'd forgotten that glorious bit of Partridge.

[thebish]

Well it's not, for the subtle yet significant reason that one of the two was *meant* to be an allegory, and the other has been reverse-engineered.

Though in fairness the sixth form humour is still about my level, and I'm happy with that. Talking snakes are funny.

(presuming that you don't believe the allegory is "reverse engineered" in Orwell)

can I press you to explain how it is that you have come to such an apparent firm conclusion that it is "reverse engineered" in Genesis?

[Prufrock]

It'll just be the hundreds of years of preaching that the bible is literally true, the torturing of Galileo, then the slow realisation and the denials, the suppression and the rest before it got too much, "Guys, have you seen this carbon dating, and the fossils, and the book this Darwin fellow has written?" "Yeah it's fine, Adam and Eve isn't literally true dummie, it's an allegory!".

The bible is neither special nor original. It's creation myth, large parts of which are nicked, were the genuine attempts of people who didn't know what we know to explain what they couldn't. When they were written down, they weren't sitting on the knowledge that the earth it's 4.5bn years old but instead decided to write a nice metaphor about a talking snake and an apple (or fig or whatever).

You can find allegory in the bible of course you can, you can find allegory in Nellie the Elephant if you want, but that it was meant as one? Behave.

[TANGODANCER]

It'll just be the hundreds of years of preaching that the bible is literally true, the torturing of Galileo, then the slow realisation and the denials, the suppression and the rest before it got too much, "Guys, have you seen this carbon dating, and the fossils, and the book this Darwin fellow has written?" "Yeah it's fine, Adam and Eve isn't literally true dummie, it's an allegory!".

The bible is neither special nor original. It's creation myth, large parts of which are nicked, were the genuine attempts of people who didn't know what we know to explain what they couldn't. When they were written down, they weren't sitting on the knowledge that the earth it's 4.5bn years old but instead decided to write a nice metaphor about a talking snake and an apple (or fig or whatever).

You can find allegory in the bible of course you can, you can find allegory in Nellie the Elephant if you want, but that it was meant as one? Behave.

And then. thankfully, along came Pru to overturn centuries (even milleniumms) of myths and fairytales.

[LeverEnd]

Well it's not, for the subtle yet significant reason that one of the two was *meant* to be an allegory, and the other has been reverse-engineered.

Though in fairness the sixth form humour is still about my level, and I'm happy with that. Talking snakes are funny.

And LE, I'd forgotten that glorious bit of Partridge.

There was no appropriate link for old Stewpot I'm afraid.

[thebish]

It'll just be the hundreds of years of preaching that the bible is literally true, the torturing of Galileo, then the slow realisation and the denials, the suppression and the rest before it got too much, "Guys, have you seen this carbon dating, and the fossils, and the book this Darwin fellow has written?" "Yeah it's fine, Adam and Eve isn't literally true dummie, it's an allegory!".

The bible is neither special nor original. It's creation myth, large parts of which are nicked, were the genuine attempts of people who didn't know what we know to explain what they couldn't. When they were written down, they weren't sitting on the knowledge that the earth it's 4.5bn years old but instead decided to write a nice metaphor about a talking snake and an apple (or fig or whatever).

You can find allegory in the bible of course you can, you can find allegory in Nellie the Elephant if you want, but that it was meant as one? Behave.

the Bible isn't a "creation myth" - but one early part of genesis is...

I don't believe for one moment that the multiple authors of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 believed in a talking snake in much the same way that I don't believe that the authors of pretty much any of the many creation myths took a literal view of their "truth" - the many and various creation myths (of which the early part of Genesis is one) are pretty much all varying combinations metaphorical/symbolic/allegorical/ritualistic/poetic storytelling.

I don't believe they were attempts to answer the question "how did the earth and all that is in it come into being" - they are not at odds with evolution, they are asking different questions

Appeals to how such tales have been used at various periods in history are no evidence at all for what they were at first intended to be... I don't doubt that many people have argued that they are literally true - clearly they have - but I think they are wrong (as you are) to imagine that this is what they were actually originally for... that's very lazy thinking indeed.

[Prufrock]

The first bit, I know, that's autocorrect putting an apostrophe where there shouldn't be one.

Otherwise, bollocks! Humans have always tried to explain what they don't know. The idea that the creation myth of how the earth was made is not an attempt to explain how they thought the earth was made but a subtle attempt to write an allegory under the guise of writing a story about how the earth was made, which they still didn't know, an allegory made up of a patchwork of other creation myths by other people who themselves who didn't know how the earth was made (were they also writing allegory? Was no-one back then trying to figure out where things came from, rejecting that instead for instructive metaphors?) , all the while, subtly anticipating fossils and carbon dating by ostensibly dipping their hand into a competing magisterium whilst actually trending separate and figurative. I think if they'd been writing a subtle self help book that the modern loose interpreters claim the bible and genesis to be, happen "thou shalt not rape" as ugly and literal ad it might be, may have made it in there.

[thebish]

The first bit, I know, that's autocorrect putting an apostrophe where there shouldn't be one.

Otherwise, bollocks! Humans have always tried to explain what they don't know. The idea that the creation myth of how the earth was made is not an attempt to explain how they thought the earth was made but a subtle attempt to write an allegory under the guise of writing a story about how the earth was made, which they still didn't know, an allegory made up of a patchwork of other creation myths by other people who themselves who didn't know how the earth was made (were they also writing allegory? Was no-one back then trying to figure out where things came from, rejecting that instead for instructive metaphors?) , all the while, subtly anticipating fossils and carbon dating by ostensibly dipping their hand into a competing magisterium whilst actually trending separate and figurative. I think if they'd been writing a subtle self help book that the modern loose interpreters claim the bible and genesis to be, happen "thou shalt not rape" as ugly and literal ad it might be, may have made it in there.

all of the above looks like a "Pru reckons" to me - and (with respect) a Pru who doesn't really know much about what he's talking about.

When I asked, I thought you might appeal to the obvious way of determining the genre of a text - which is the discipline of literary criticism. I have spent a good number of years reading a lot of literary criticism and form criticism in respect of various chunks of the bible - and it is pretty much universally acknowledged by serious and respected scholars that the text of the early part of Genesis is as I have described it. If you were interested I could list for you some of the things they identify in the genesis text that identifies it (among other literature from a broadly similar age/milieu) in terms of genre. But - no... you make no argument at all beyond an "I reckon" argument...

The belief that early parts of genesis (and other creation myths) are allegorical/metaphorical/poetic/liturgical/ritualistic is not "modern" at all - it massively predates science as we know it. If anything is "modern" in the broad sweep of biblical interpretation it is the notion of biblical literalism. Societies back then were fuelled by very sophisticated storytelling traditions - many would say much more complex and varied than ours today. The idea that they were a bit simple and didn't understand the subtlety of genre as you do is (I think) misplaced. The early parts of genesis are a Jewish text - you don't have to have studied judaism for very long at all before you realise that the notion of biblical literalism isn't a comfortable bed-fellow...

Of course, biblical literalism is now fairly wide-spread (not least in america) - you appear to be one yourself - and, of course, it is the simplest vein of biblical interpretation to mock and attack - I do it myself - I can see why it very much suits you to characterise genesis that way - you have an agenda. But to imagine that what seems currently to be in vogue across large parts of america is how it has always been is (I think) a noob (but maybe understandable) mistake.

a further question.. which "modern biblical interpreters" are you talking about who claim that the bible was written as a "subtle self-help book"? (cos I haven't come across them, and i like to keep myself up to date...)