You're not qualified to say that without providing either citations or credentials.

Only if you read early Genesis as literal history.  Since it was written before "history" as we think of it, was even a literary form, this is a doubtful paradigm from which to interpret these passages.

This can be demonstrated by the utter lack of non-mythos historical documents unearthed dating prior to the 1st millennium BC.

I agree with all of this.  Good post.

I can't get behind that last sentence.  Entropy seems to be a constant of existence - mathematically, everything seeks to go back to a zero sum (nature abhors a vacuum).

No animals died before there were people?  The evidence against it in the fossil record alone is somewhat overwhelming.  For instance, the article in that other thread about the lemur-monkey transitional form.  Mathematically, the population explosion of animals would have overrun the earth.  But then, I suppose if you're saying that man was literally created only 3 days after the first animals, you don't have that problem.

Jarrod

Gen 41:57  And the people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the earth.

That must have been some famine and it was really a long walk from the americas over there to Egypt to by grain.  As you said, it means what it says.

Ok, I'll bite.  So how did the Mexicans get to Egypt?

Figure of speech?  That would be irrational.

Poem...that's easily identifiable by just looking at the text.  If it contains features of poetry then its a poem.  Genesis 1:1 - 2:2 is a poem.  The rest of Genesis is not.  Being a poem doesn't necessarily mean that the whole account isn't a recollection of fact, though it does mean that we should look for poetic devices and interpret them within the framework of being a poetic device.

Allegory...the Jews of most of the major sects interpreted this either allegorical (spiritual meaning only) or typological (literal, but with a spiritual meaning, or future application).  The New Testament writers clearly followed this precedent, by looking at how they use citations of the OT, in the NT.

Historically, there is no differentiation between history and mythology when you go back far enough.  Further, the account of the Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge of G&E bears striking similarities to mythos coming out of Assyria during the period this would have been written.  To be exact, it's an inversion of them.

So, no it didn't take 5800 years to figure out it means something other than what you were taught.  Rather, it seems that interpreting Genesis 1-9 in a fully literal paradigm is an innovation of the RCC, as the vast majority before that point viewed it either typologically or allegorically.

Does it matter that we can geologically / archaelogically demonstrate both the scope and duration of the famine in question? 

If it doesn't include Russia and Argentina does that invalidate the data?

I was (facetiously) asking, if the scientific data doesn't show that the famine was global (which it doesn't), should we throw out the data because it's at odds with the statement of "all the earth."

No we really can't throw out the data.  But we need to invent a bunch of things so that we can take a literal view of it.  Maybe, for example, the split of the super continent, Pangea, actually happened after Joseph's time in Egypt. Maybe even Pangea was much much smaller than was thought because there was still a lot of water left over from the global flood that hadn't evaporated away yet.  Maybe at the time of Joseph, the only land was the middle east.

Shoot, with a little imagination I am sure we can figure out a way for that to happen.  I mean if God could bring all the animals to Noah's ark from all the countries and continents on the earth, surely he could bring the people to get food.  Or we could just call it a miracle of God too wondrous for man to understand.  After all some things about God aren't meant for man to  understand.

Exactly!! I mean when God said the "windows of heaven" were opened I really believe there were white paned windows in the sky complete with curtains.