From the small impression I got from reading the last few posts, it seems that some Christians are under the impression that Genesis is literally factually historical (if not "inerrant"). It also seems to me that some of the non-Christians are seeing "Creationism" or the fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis to be the Christian theory.
The problem with this is that it's not. The Nicean Creed says, "We believe in one God the Father, Creator of the Heavens and the Earth" not, "We believe in one God the Father, Creator of the Heavens and the earth in 7 days, 6000 years ago". Contemporary intelligent Christians, the ones that actually get published in scholarly journals and philosophical journals, take a very different interpretation of Genesis, they see it as myth, and "myth" in a technical sense of a story written in order to convey a particular identity to a particular people. In fact, my favourite interpretation is that Genesis 1 describes the creation of the Jewish Temple and the Jews saw their Temple as the universe in microchasm. This interpretation is one of my very good friends, a Biblical scholar, Dr Michael Carden. As such, the continuity between the identity myth of Genesis 1 with Christian high ecclesiology is very evident and the Eucharist can be interpreted as a ritual which heals the entire universe. I think this is very beautiful imagery.
Now, the reason why most intelligent Christians think that Genesis is mythological is because of the large amount of scientific evidence which simply cannot be interpreted any other way than the contemporary scientific theory of evolution. Also, because the mythological motifs are just so evident in the text itself, to interpret them otherwise would not take their intention or their reception seriously, (this for me is a very important reason); Wirkungsgeschichte is one of the most important hermeneutical methods which sheds the most light on the meanings of text.
Contemporary fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible are thus limited to possible meanings of only post-Darwinian, post-Enlightenment and post-Reformation times. Their meanings rests on contemporary idealizations of "historical accuracy", "logic and reason" and "science". These interpretations are riddled with Romantic neo-colonial imperialist ideologies, in that they attempt to express a truth or a meaning under which they can hold every culture and every person accountable; a truth and meaning which they attempt to argue everyone into; a truth and meaning which they see as anulling all other sorts of truth and meaning that exists in other religions, other cultures and other ways of life.
This is just the impression I got, I'm sure that most people here know that fundamentalist Christianity is itself a contemporary religio-political phenomenon and not an historical, traditional expression of Christian truth, myth and ritual.
Allan
