I did not argue a false choice there.
If they are making literary allusions, then what they said is not evidence one way or the other. So my understanding of the status of Adam cannot be based on those statements.
Not so. Why would you posit that their thinking about the relation between literature and actual history is deficient to your own? Their assertions have no warrant within reality if theyâre not true, historically --and they knew that.
Unlike you, I do not posit anything about their thinking. I go only on what they are reported to have actually said.
Well, we have Paulâs actual writings, which contains, rather than merely reports, what he said⌠and in them, his assertions rely heavily on the historicity of the events he takes up by way of his own commentary on them. Itâs not as tentative as you seem to want. To each his own.
What you are reading is 2000 years ago Judea. No matter how educated one was, the state of knowledge of the world was minimal. You are trying to think like a person in an impoverished land 2000 years ago. You canât do it.
Ahh, yes⌠the old âprimitive thinkers were unsophisticatedâ shibboleth. Just the opposite of what you want to demonstrate among the Neanderthals. Even people from this day and time knew the difference between symbolic myths and actual history. Paul says as much, in places like this:
âand if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.â - 1 Corinthians 15:17-19 NASB