Is the tree of life a real tree?

@divegeester said
Interesting to note that KellyJay, Josephw and sonship, those who claim that everything in the Bible is literal, are avoiding this thread.

The whole of the Book of Genesis cannot be a historical, factual, description of events which really happened. Noah's flood, for example, never happened. Not globally, anyway; certainly there were localised floods which no doubt left a deep impression on the collective memory, but there was never a global flood which covered the Himalaya and the Alps and the Andes and the Rockies, and which wiped out all life except for seven of each species on board a boat. The amount of water required would more than double the volume of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans combined. No such volume of water exists under the Earth's crust. Eladar's laughable solution to that problem is to claim that the Earth was flatter then, and the great mountains grew up after the great flood. [!] How did species native to So. and No. American continents get to the Noah's Ark? How did species native to Australia get to Noah's Ark?? How did kangaroos and racoons and alpacas get to the Middle East to be rescued from the rising waters? Eladar's laughable answer to that problem is: The continents weren't separated then -- and he cites Pan Gaea theories to support his contention. [!!] How did antelopes and gazelles survive after debarking on dry land again? They would have been eaten by lions and tigers and panthers within days. The gestation periods of antelopes and gazelles is too long to stay ahead of lions and tigers -- they cannot reproduce fast enough to not go extinct. Eladar's laughable answer to that problem is claim that big cats were vegetarians then -- and he cites the example of a lion which was kept in captivity and fed milk. [!!!] Where did the food come from to feed seven elephants? Seven oxen? Seven water buffalo? Do you have any idea how many kgs these animals eat every day? Nowhere near enough space on board to feed all those animals. And they don't eat fish or seaweed!!

Need I go on? The contortions necessary to maintain a literalist interpretation of Genesis simply don't stand up to an elementary understanding of how nature works. Lion's cannot live on grass, not because they don't like it, but because they aren't ruminants and cannot digest it. If the great mountain ranges were lifted up several thousand feet only since the flood (i.e., in the last 3,000 years or so), the seismic rumblings would have been so far off the Richter scale (a mag. 10 earthquake is registered by movement of only a few cm), that every civilisation on the planet would have been flattened. And there is no subterranean ocean which could have accounted for the flooding -- what's under the crust is molten rock, not water. Yes, there was a Pan Gaea supercontinent, but long long before kangaroos and racoons and alpacas evolved on this world. Like hundreds and hundreds of millions of years before, not a few thousand ago. Elementary facts refute a literalist interpretation at every turn.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
That part of Genesis (at the very least) is entirely metaphorical.

No kidding! I was there at the time and what a spin the reporter put on the story from the get-go!

@divegeester said
Is the Tree of life literal or not?

Literal.

Is heaven a place? Is the earth real? Is light an illusion? Did Jesus literally rise from the dead?

Etching against the words of scripture by questioning its "efficacy", veracity, inerrancy and immutability is akin to adding to or taking away from it.

YOU are not the authority. The word of God IS the authority.

Genesis 2:9
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

A tree is a tree is a tree. Any attempt at metaphoricalizing the word "tree" in the context of the Genesis account of creation, and the clear language of it, is a blatant failure of faith in God, and an act of trusting in ones own discordant intellect and subjective feelings.

@josephw said
A tree is a tree is a tree. Any attempt at metaphoricalizing the word "tree" in the context of the Genesis account of creation, and the clear language of it, is a blatant failure of faith in God, and an act of trusting in ones own discordant intellect and subjective feelings.

Your insistence that seeing the story/the tree as allegorical - and not literal - is a sign of a "discordant intellect" is disagree-with-you banter entirely swimming in your own "subjective feelings".

@josephw said
Etching against the words of scripture by questioning its "efficacy", veracity, inerrancy and immutability is akin to adding to or taking away from it.

Interpreting certain things in the Bible as metaphorical rather than literal neither adds nor subtracts any words from scripture.

@fmf said
Interpreting certain things in the Bible as metaphorical rather than literal neither adds nor subtracts any words from scripture.

If Mossad has a bead on you, maybe you shouldn't post at all.

@fmf said
Your insistence that seeing the story/the tree as allegorical - and not literal - is a sign.

How cognitively dissonant of you. I didn't say that. Your eyes obviously clouded over after you read the first word of my post.

@josephw said
How cognitively dissonant of you. I didn't say that. Your eyes obviously clouded over after you read the first word of my post.

You have doctored the text you are quoting.

@fmf said
Interpreting certain things in the Bible as metaphorical rather than literal neither adds nor subtracts any words from scripture.

Changing the meaning by "interpreting" the clear language of scripture to conform to ones preconceived ideas is no different from adding to or subtracting from the words.

@josephw said
Changing the meaning by "interpreting" the clear language of scripture to conform to ones preconceived ideas is no different from adding to or subtracting from the words.

"Interpreting" is about finding the meaning, it's not "changing the meaning". Clear language can be used to describe literal things and allegorical things. You are, of course, entitled to your own personal, subjective opinion that the "tree" is literal and not a metaphor.

@fmf said
You have doctored the text you are quoting.

You said "Your insistence that seeing the story/the tree as allegorical - and not literal -.."

When and where did I say that?

@josephw said
You said "Your insistence that seeing the story/the tree as allegorical - and not literal -.."

When and where did I say that?

Stop doctoring what I am posting.

Read the whole sentence and don't be so silly.

@fmf said
"Interpreting" is about finding the meaning, it's not "changing the meaning". Clear language can be used to describe literal things and allegorical things. You are, of course, entitled to your own personal, subjective opinion that the "tree" is literal and not a metaphor.

Coming from someone that has no faith at all, to say that, is about as hypocritical as it gets.

You don't have an opinion of any credibility to be describing what "interpretation" means relative to the Bible.

Your argument is moot. Besides that my original post was to the author of the OP. Are you a spokesperson for divegeester? Or are you giving preliminary talking points for divegeester before he arrives?

@fmf said
Stop doctoring what I am posting.

Read the whole sentence and don't be so silly.

If you think I mischaracterized what you said, then rephrase the comment so that what you say is what you mean.

@josephw said
Coming from someone that has no faith at all, to say that, is about as hypocritical as it gets.

I don't think you are using the word "hypocritical" correctly.