@BruceAlderman : B/c for more than 45yrs I have studied the whole Bible, some parts many times. 1 day God showed me that the whole Bible is solidly tied together like a seamless garment, that its truth from God & Jesus is only fully proved if the entire Bible is true, including the Genesis account is factual. Both Jesus & the Apostles acted in full on their stance that the whole OT is historically & factually correct. Both the OT & NT treat Adam & Eve, Noah & their families
as real people in their geneoligy accounts & other statements (also see Prov 30:4-6). I know Jesus, is the true Son of God & through Him the Bible was written. Though He didn't have full access to the whole OT what He did & said that became the NT proves that He had to have known all that is written in the whole OT & the NT didn't exist while Jesus was here. Moreover, Jesus said in Jn 3:12, "If I have told you earthly things & you do not believe how can you believe if I tell you Heavenly things?
Upon examination of the whole OT I realized that the almost everything in the OT is concerning "earthly" things & actions in a physical environment, that is on the earth, that Jesus came to explain the true connection & real relationship btwn what took place in the OT, God, Heaven & Himself with respect to imperfect man & his sinful dilemma & that there is no hope w/o Jesus as your personal Savior.
This I can also say w/o hesitation. If the Genesis account was to only be taken allegorically too many other thing in the Bible wouldn't make sense. Furthermore, if it was only to be used for allegorical or a "moral of the story" purposes, one of the writers (in at least the NT) would have at least mentioned this in some way since Genesis is so important, regarding understanding other things in the Bible. I have found none & in fact, if its not true then it calls into question
many other things in the Bible & I would have to say that, that would call into question God's very existence. How could we trust Him or what He said? On the other hand, if I started with the premise that the Bible is true & began with looking for things easy to see as true & worked from there I might find out whether its all true or not. Then I thought it really came from God then He must have included instructions for how 1 goes about finding out why God wrote it
& what we are to do to understand what God wants from us, what the Bible is about. Since Jesus said He came from & no one can know God w/o Him (Jn 14:6) then it would seem logical to start with what He said in the NT. It would also be logical that He would have provided instructions for us to find Him since He is not here, which He did -how I found out that the Bible is in fact true.
@user9712 Interesting. But the NT writers did often understand the OT allegorically. How could you have missed these:
Jonah is a sign to an evil and adulterous generation; Hagar and Sarah are an allegory; Adam is a type of one who is to come; the sanctuary was a sketch and a shadow of the heavenly one.
All five of those terms--sign, allegory, type, sketch, and shadow--indicate allegorical readings of the OT. Now I'm not saying the NT writers took it allegorically exclusively, but they certainly could recognize the value of the OT while at the same time using it for "moral of the story" purposes. Allegorical readings do not diminish the truth value at all.
@BruceAlderman : I think you're misunderstanding what I am saying. They fully understood allegory application that Jesus taught them (see Lk 24:45). My point is that OT genealogy & other statements in the Bible point to & rest on the full validity of the OT, its history being factually true. Again, having studied the whole Bible, seeing the way the whole Bible is solidly connected tells me that the OT is in fact actual historical fact, including the Genesis account (Prov 30:5).
@BruceAlderman : While proper Biblical allegory is extremely important for understanding things in the Bible, I can state with absolute certainty that the whole Bible goes to the OT being a historical fact, the only exception is the parables that Jesus told, which He told based in His full knowledge & understanding of the OT, even parts that He had no access to while on earth (& their were no concordances or other research tools available & again the NT did not exist yet).
@BruceAlderman : Yes, all these things are very important & must be properly applied (which many do not do). You also need to add the word prophecy to that list as the whole Bible is concerning prophecy for the end-times (see Is 46:10 -God declared the end from the beginning, i.e. God shall once again divide the waters from the waters, this time permanently). Again, the OT is concerning historical fact & most OT writers weren't allowed to understand its future allegorical meaning as Jesus was needed.
