Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

In The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Augustine of Hippo wrote:

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

Say what you will, HS, Augustine did not support a literal reading of scripture, but rather, called for interpretation of scripture which did no violence of an understanding of the natural world, and science as it was known in his day.

Setanta - am somewhat baffled by your post on Augustine; how does it contradict anything I posted?

I had inferred that this was a refutation of what i had written to the effect that Augustine favored interpretation of scripture over a literal reading. I now realize that that was something i wrote in a different thread, and not in this one.

I do beg your pardon.

Sorry - should have made it clear I was correcting my own original post on Augustine!

No, you were justified in the way you had posted. I responded, and then went back to the page previous to the post in which you corrected yourself, and it was at that time that i realized that i hadn't even posted about Augustine in this thread. Your post was clear and unambiguous.

Not well equipped to read either Greek or French. To which of my asseverations are you referring- White horse ridden by Jesus, or Satan the ruler of this world?

The Wikipedia link posted by Amigo is a fair statement of my understanding of the white horseman.

As far as the ruler of this world is concerned, there exists ample scriptural evidence.

What are you talking about? There's never been written a book about me. A police rapport maybe, a few concert reviews in the local newspaper, but that's about it. :wink:

So far I'm not really seeing any answers, though I must admit that the rider of the white horse can be seen as being Jesus, although there's nothing to confirm that idea either.

P.S. The rider of the pale horse is blatantly Death.

Are you Pinky or the Brain?

How about the four shetland ponies of the Tax audit?

Neo
I'd rather not say. My success at ruling this world is mostly due to the fact that nobody knows I do it. Including myself most of the time..

You are making the BIG mistake of trying to find sense and reason where there is none. In my fledgling days I tried to do so in Genesis. Seriously, there is no logical metaphor in there, or any logic at all.

By the way, how do you know that the four horses are what you say they are?

Consider this: we assume that the fruit of original sin was an apple; it's common knowledge, but where does it actually say in the Bible that it was an apple?

Digression coming...
What's the lump that men have on their throats called in english? The one that goes up and down when we speak or swallow?
In norwegian it's called "adamseplet", which translates directly as "adams apple"...

But I disagree with your comment about genesis. It can be viewed as a meaningful metaphor if.... :

God is a metaphor for all the forces of the universe as a singularity.
Adam is not the first man, but the first living organism, an amoeba.
God made Eve from Adams body -> cytogenesis. Even amoebas today do that.
The forbidden fruit and the wisdom gained by eating it -> refers to the event of becoming self aware.
So adam and eve, now a metaphor for the entire species, were cast out of eden. -> Having attained a sense of self they were now able to know about the dangers of predators and other things, even when they were not actually threatened.
And the seven days were not really seven days. That's just something added to provide a sense of time passing between the various events, with no regard to how much time actually passed...

How is that proof that the fruit was an apple?

I doubt it. Genesis isn't tidy. It switches between names for God, switches between monotheism and polytheism, backtracks, contridicts itself and just doesn't make sense. It is ignorant ("tame animals, wild animals and reptiles" - what kind of groups are those?) and badly written. If you say that Genesis is a metaphor, it's a pretty crappy one. It teaches inferiority of women, for one, and the Cain and Abel story just shows that God is being unfair, and I will honestly give you my life savings if you can come up with a decent metaphor for that long and detailed line of descendants.

Do yourself a favour: go out to a bookstore and buy "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. There's a whole chapter on the Bible there. (O, btw
I didn't plagarize the above from it).

aperson

I am not saying that genesis is a metaphor. I am saying that it can be seen as a metaphor on the processes of evolution such as we know them today. I am not saying that this was intended.

And I am not saying that there's any evidence that the fruit was an apple. The adams apple thing was just a comment to show how ingrained the thing is in our various cultures and languages.