Posted: Oct 18, 2010 12:38 pm
nunnington wrote:Your middle of the range liberal Christian probably doesn't accept a literal virgin birth, takes a spiritual or symbolic view of the resurrection, and so on. It's possible that the same views were found in very early Christianity - at any rate, we find Paul arguing with those who denied resurrection completely, and he himself has a less than fully physicalist view of it, doesn't he?
It's possible, yes. But why? Why would these people believe that? Some Christians told me that ancient Christians understood that Genesis was not supposed to be taken literally because of the writing style. The writing style of Genesis resembles more of a fable or poetry, whereas the NT bits about Jesus was written like a historical record. Another explanation is that early Christians knew that Genesis was written long after the patriarchs were gone, while the Jesus stories were written by contemporary eyewitnesses. I don't know what to make of this since I lack knowledge in this field.