Why does my answer not answer 'Does Genesis 1 creation contradict Genesis 2 creation?'

Question

In asking this question the actual question asked whether the asker was taking an irrational idea that the question might be allegorical as I read and reread the question. In my answer I showed that the question was as far as the Moses account definitely was an alleged story as it had no proof at the time of writing.

The question itself was put on hold as asking for an opinion. Where there is reasonable explanation to the question I cannot see that it fits into the opinion category. Especially when a little research into word meaning can eliminate confusion.

Can we discuss this? I am not bucking site rules, only confused.

The content of my answer is as follows:

The only eyewitnesses to the creation are known as the Trinity. The account of creation is part of the teaching of Moses during the 40 years on the mountain. That fact alone lends the Creation story to be alleged; which means something asserted without proof.

Therefore; the story of creation as far as proffered by Moses is allegorical.

Even so recent discoveries of Space depending on observations through Far Space telescopes have proven that terrestrial bodies such as planets and stars are created in the exact process alleged in Genesis chapter one. You can check that for yourself at the Hubble site. Other discoveries have also lent validity to Genesis in learning the formation of stars and many other bodies in Space Comets etc.

Hope this helps.

Answer 1

Thanks for bringing this up here. I hope what follows gives you some idea of the thought process behind the deletion and how to avoid similar scenarios in the future.

The reasons Lee gave for flagging this as NAA make some sense, but as the moderator who handled the flag and finalized the deletion I actually wasn't nearly as concerned with the answer not answering the question as much as I was the whole question being off the rails. Lee was spot on about that:

And specifically, the issue of whether there are, in fact, contradictions between the Creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 is hotly debated among Christians and Christian scholars. That is why the question was rightly closed as being primarily opinion-based.

At the time I handled the flag, the question had already been closed as "Primarily Opinion Based". Keep in mind that that cookie cutter close reason is what the SE site offers us, but more specifically to this site, the question was what, for lack of a better term, we've been calling a Truth Question. Rather than asking about what Christianity or some branch thereof believes about an issue it asks about the issue itself — thereby attempting in the space of a question to resolve something that not all so-called Christians agree on. Inevitably that turns the site into a debate platform. We tried allowing it but it got too messy, so now we don't allow them. Sure it limits the scope of the site some, but it also makes us friendlier and more useful for the scope of things we do handle.

I think your answer is a good illustration of why this question fits the category of Truth Question. Note for example this absolute truth statement you made in your answer:

Therefore; the story of creation as far as proffered by Moses is allegorical.

Yes, a lot of Christians believe this. But there are also a lot of Christians who believe this is false statement and not representative of their beliefs. In other words you gave a "Truth" answer about an issue which could only be backed up with your reasoning as opposed to a statement about some identifiable set of Christians that could be backed up with the statements by those Christians.

Letting this question stand would have let to somebody else posting a dissenting view and votes on the answers would quickly start reflecting agreement or disagreement on this theological issue rather than usefulness or quality of the posts.

Given that the question was closed and nobody else was allowed to answer, that debate was going to come up in comments and +/- voting on the singe answer. The -3 vote score out of the gate should be an indication of that: the quality of the content wasn't the issue so much as people felt it didn't represent their views on the issue. When Lee's flag brought the post to my attention I realized that if I didn't do something now that we would be back at some point in the future to moderate the debate that would be spawned in comments — a debate spawned by a question format and answer type that we don't allow in the first place. Hence I went ahead and deleted it.

Edit: I had not observed this at the time but see now that you yourself voted to close the question and then proceeded to answer it while the closure was pending. Please don't ever do this! If a question is not properly scoped for this site and should be closed, then it should be closed and not answered. On the other hand if you think you can answer it according to site guidelines and that others can do the same, then don't VtC it. Obviously there is room to change your mind, but you should at least comment with a reason to rescind your vote or vote to re-open. Answering and VtCing should be mutually exclusive actions.

Answer 2

I was one of the people who flagged your answer for possible deletion as "Not An Answer." I can speak only for myself as to why I flagged it.

My reasoning was that the question does not ask only generally whether the stories are allegorical or literal, but asks quite specifically whether the prima facie contradictions between the Creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 indicate that the stories are allegorical rather than historically literal. The whole question revolves around the presence of contradictions between the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 accounts of Creation, whether they really are contradictions, and whether this indicates that the story is allegorical.

Your answer didn't address the specific question asked. That is why I flagged as NAA. Basically, you were answering a different, more general question than the specific one that was asked.

As for whether the question itself is opinion-based, this whole subject of the literal historicity vs. metaphorical nature of the early chapters of Genesis is a massively debated point among Christians and Christian scholars. And specifically, the issue of whether there are, in fact, contradictions between the Creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 is hotly debated among Christians and Christian scholars. That is why the question was rightly closed as being primarily opinion-based.

Answer 3

I am not one of the flaggers or voters for your question and I am also unable to see it now (though I did previously and I can imply some of the content from the discussion here). As you asked it it was about doctrine, but it may also have been somewhat off-topic.

The formulation of doctrines surrounding and interpreting Genesis is driven in large part by the literal and non-literal hermeneutic frameworks. Were the question tweaked to be a hermeneutics question, while off topic for this SE, it could have been migrated to the appropriate SE. In this case, however, we have already examined the topic several times. While we love answering questions migrated from the Christianity Stack Exchange, we don't like answering duplicate questions, so the mods were probably correct in not migrating this one. If you are interested in this topic, you may wish to read some of the Q&As at the Hermeneutics SE.

Keep in mind however, that practical theology and teology that does not fall under the umbrella of Hermeneutics and is not directly related to a specific passage is off-topic.