Replying to Avatar Liberty Gal

I believe it is all literally true and am very involved in my church, read my whole Bible through every year (+ other Bible reading) donate a large portion of my income to our church and to over 20 missionaries and have been growing closer and closer to God over many years. My belief in a literal 6 day creation and a literal worldwide flood have greatly increased my faith in my God and helped me understand why He has authority over my life and the world and why He can be trusted in all things. Genesis, especially the first 11 chapters, is the foundation of everything else in the Bible (sin, marriage, men/women, clothing, death, punishment, etc.). Without this foundation, the rest of the Bible is on a very shaky foundation. If you don't believe in a literal 6 day creation, do you believe in the virgin birth? If you don't believe in a worldwide flood that wiped out every person and animal that wasn't on the ark, do you believe that Jesus was really raised from the dead on the third day? If you can pick and choose which parts are real and which parts aren't, how can you be sure that Jesus's birth, life, and resurrection are real? I believe building my faith on a foundation of stone and not a foundation of sand.

The girls who talked big about a literal Bible and drifted away were people whose foundation was men (even if they were biblical leaders) instead of on faith and the Bible. There is no direct link between a literal interpretation and leaving the faith even if you know some people who claimed to believe one thing and left the faith. Sometimes culture influences people rather than the Bible and the Spirit.

Revelation, parables etc. are not literally true. This is a feature not a bug and in no way invalidates Jesus’ life. What Genesis is exactly is a hermeneutical question. We don’t have to freak out about it.

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I should clarify myself. I believe all of the passages that don't have strong reason to be taken allegorically, are literal. Passages like Genesis 1-11 are written in a very literal way, but most people today take them as allegorical. When AI is trained on literal and allegorical passages where there is no disagreement and then asked if Genesis 1-11 is literal, it says literal. Jesus and the disciples refer back to Genesis 1-11, creation, Adam & Eve, and the global flood and consider them literal. There is zero textual reason to take them allegorically.

Revelation is harder. There are images, like the harlot on a red beast, that are clearly meant to be taken allegorically. I, however, think that much of the prophecies described in Revelation will be fulfilled literally. As technologies are created that make these predictions possible, I become more an more convinced of this reality.

Can someone still conclude the bible is the literal Word of God even if they believe the whole thing is allegory? Once that is concluded, the logical next question for them to ask would be, "Why would God lie?"