The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)

Nick Park wrote: »

Scholars would all agree that the writer did not intend this story to be taken literally, nor would the original readers have understood it as literal, nor does anyone today.
The Bible is full of non-literal language such as figures of speech, parables, poetry. Even the person who claims to 'take everything in the Bible literally' realises and accepts that. The only people who don't get that, apparently, are a few atheists.

I wish that were true. A lot of "born agains" take it literally. No matter how obvious it may be that the particular tract is not supposed to be taken that way.

Nick Park wrote: »

That is flat out untrue. I've met tens of thousands of born-again Christians (I am one myself) and I have never met a single one who took everything in the Bible literally.

For example, when Jesus says "I am the vine and you are the branches" (John 15:5) I have yet to meet anyone who took that literally and believed they were a literal branch of a literal tree.

Fair example Nick. I think that is an obvious metaphor. But when Jesus broke a piece of bread and said "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." Luke 22:19, A lot of people took that literally. The bread was actually Jesus. So anything is possible.

But I take your point. There are obvious tracts like the one quoted, which are metaphors and have to be treated as such. But I think you know that is not what I was referring to.

Safehands wrote: »

Actually, when I think about it, the example you give is excellent. The bible is full of parables, metaphors and legends. Some are so obviously so, such as the vine and the branches, that it would be very difficult to present a case for it being factual. Others are clearly untrue, such as Noah and the Ark, but these are regarded as being true rather than just being a great story. Where does one draw the line about which to take factually and which to put down as legend?

The key question to be asked is, "How would the first hearers or readers of these stories have interpreted them?" Only once we have answered that question should we move on to how we should interpret them.

If we try to apply our own standards of interpretation first, without taking that initial step, then we are likely to end up missing the point of the texts entirely and thereby totally misunderstanding the Bible.

As you say, some types of literature are immediately clear and biblical scholars are pretty much unanimous, irrespective of whether they are people of faith or not.

So, for example, the idea of Jesus being the vine and us being the branches is clearly a metaphor. The story of the Good Samaritan is obviously a parable with no necessity to believe the Samaritan actually existed or that the events in the parable are historical fact. When the Psalmist talks about the trees of the fields clapping their hands he is obviously speaking poetically. The accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, whether you believe them to be true or not, are obviously intended to be read as historical narrative.

The problem is, of course, that the further back in time we go, then the less we have in common with the original hearers/readers and the less we know about their styles of speech and writing. So it gets harder to immediately identify the oldest parts of the Bible (say the first 11 Chapters of Genesis) as being intended as poetry, parable or history.

Genesis Chapters 1 to 3 were not written as a scientific text book, and to apply the methodology of a text book to them is folly. They are trying to convey a theological idea, and one that was revolutionary and radical at the time.

Other religions taught that the gods were pretty much like men with supernatural powers - they fought, quarrelled, stole, raped etc. They lived in an already existing universe from which their activities shaped new forms.

So, for example, some ancients believed that a god masturbated in heaven because his wife was giving him the cold shoulder, and his semen fell to earth and gave rise to the first men.

The first chapters of Genesis tell a radically new story - that one almighty God actually created the universe. So the universe had a starting point. And this one God created everything we can see 'ex nihilo' (out of nothing). They also teach that man was created to have a special relationship with God, and that human life had a special dignity and value.

If we could put ourselves in the place of the first readers/hearers of this cosmology, then we might appreciate how these ideas would be mindblowingly revolutionary to their first hearers. They weren't looking for scientific papers that could be peer reviewed in journals. They were looking to answers to the most basic questions of all - Who am I? Is there a purpose to my life? When I die am I nothing but a hunk of rotting meat like the dead animals I see in the fields? Or does my life mean more than that?

And, it seems to me, a story like the first few Chapters of Genesis is a great way to address those questions - just as Jesus used parables to address similar questions in the New Testament.

So, for me, it doesn't matter one way or another whether God created the world in 6 days or over billions of years. It doesn't matter whether He made man in one go or through a process of evolution. To argue over those things is to fundamentally misunderstand the whole point of the first few Chapters of Genesis.

The Bible was not written to give scientific explanations. It was written so we can know who God is, know who we are, find salvation in Jesus Christ, and live in a good relationship with God.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Um, Jesus using analogy to describe his position doesn't mean the bible is not meant to be taken literally.

Otherwise every book that included, for example, Lemass' "a rising tide lifts all boats" quip would have to go into the fiction shelves.

Biblical literalism, as you would know if you knew anything about bible study, means accepting that the bible's own description of every event chronicled therein is true and correct. Therefore biblical literalism would commit you to accept that Jesus said those words exactly, where he said them as an analogy to explain his proselytising, not as you would have us believe that he was saying that he was literally the trunk of the grape vine while we were literally branches of that vine.

So your example fails to back up your assertion that the bible was never meant to be taken literally as has been exhorted by every branch of christianity we should do at some point in its history.

Sorry for not replying earlier, your example was so silly that for a while I felt it was beneath both of us to point it out.

You said "why was the bible written (both old testament and new) as if everything in it .. were literally true?"

You also said, "You cannot read the bible and say the writers of all these stories meant them allegorically".

You were clearly wrong in both those assertions.

The Bible is not written as if everything in it is literally true. It includes parables and allegories which are clearly not written as if they were literally true.

It is perfectly clear to anyone that the story of the two women in Ezekiel Chapters 23 and 24 is intended to be interpreted allegorically.

Now you are dancing around to avoid admitting that you were wrong.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

You have, and never had, nothing of value to add to the discussion. That is obvious from your posts.


Goodbye.

Don't you mean 'anything of value'?
Presuming you do mean that, then you are wrong. You however, keep repeating the same tired 'it must be taken literally because it was meant to be taken literally' thing. Despite clear evidence that not only was the bible never meant to be taken literally but it's not even one book that we could have this argument over. It a collection of books put together at a specific point in time.

To claim as you do, that because Joshua to Ester are clear historical accounts (allowing for the quality of history at the time of their creation) therefore Genesis must be history. A position no biblical scholar has taken ever. Insistence on a literal or historical reading of the Bible will ultimately lead to mistakes and missing the entire point of the bible.The bible is a testament to the religious experiences of people from a different age, a pre modern age when stories had to be big enough to carry big messages. Reading the bible as historical narrative is an exercise in futility.

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

When he tries to refute biblical literalism by pointing out an allegorical story told by one of the characters in the bible, and then elides and ignores my point that allegories told by biblical characters in no way refute the idea that the writers meant the book to be taken literally, he has nothing to add to the discussion.

Once again, what you post is untrue.

I never tried to refute 'biblical literalism'. That phrase was never used in the post I responded to. If it had been I wouldn't even have bothered responding since the phrase is ambiguous, being used to denote two very different concepts. It is usually only used by those who are uninterested in reasoned discussion and who wish to straw man others.

I actually responded to a claim you made about the Bible that it was written as if "everything in it ... were literally true."

That was refuted by my quoting an extended allegory from Ezekiel. It was not, btw, told by 'one of the characters in the Bible'. It is contained in a prophetic book and is represented as a direct word spoken from God to the prophet.

I often think that the world would be a better place if everyone kept their sincerely held religious beliefs and didn't try to compel others that they should share those beliefs.
The problem is religious beliefs are a shared experience by nature. As long as their no compulsion in either direction all is good.

Safehands wrote: »

Yes, and all sorts of religions tell people if they don't believe they will be damned to hell. That is a kind of compulsion.

I must say that I find no element of compulsion at all in a Muslim telling me that I have to believe in their religion or else I'll go to hell. I'm quite happy for them to believe what they want and talk about it as much as they want.

Of course if the 'compulsion' involves legal sanctions, or the threat of violence, that that is a different matter entirely.

Nick Park wrote: »

And yet I suspect that even unbelievers would see the world as a worse place if Martin Luther King had kept his sincerely held religious beliefs concerning racial segregation to himself.

I think that is for another thread, I'll just comment that social injustice has nothing to do with religion.

Safehands wrote: »

I think that is for another thread, I'll just comment that social injustice has nothing to do with religion.

You don't expect that statement to pass unchallenged in the Christianity forum, do you?

Peregrinus wrote: »

You don't expect that statement to pass unchallenged in the Christianity forum, do you?

I thought I may escape, but unfortunately its not for this thread.:rolleyes:

Safehands wrote: »

I think that is for another thread, I'll just comment that social injustice has nothing to do with religion.

Ah, but if you read his writings and his speeches, Martin Luther King himself saw his understanding of the Bible as the entire underpinning of his campaign for civil rights. That's why he quoted Scripture continually in his speeches.

We could easily cite hundreds of other similar examples (eg Wilberforce fighting slavery, William Booth and the Salvation Army fighting for clean and healthy working conditions for factory workers, Elizabeth Fry and the early Quakers who campaigned for penal reform, Corrie ten Boom's family going to concentration camps for protecting Jews in the holocaust). And, to be fair, we could easily cite hundreds of cases where people have relied on their religious views to spread misery and ignorance.

The fact is that people spreading their religious views can be a force for good or for ill, just like people sharing their political views or their philosophical views.

Certainly there can be a legitimate debate about whether such sharing of religious views has, overall, produced more evil or good.

But it is inconsistent to sweepingly dismiss the sharing of religious views as detrimental and then, when someone mentions a very positive example of someone sharing his religious views (eg MLK) to say, "Ah, that wasn't really religion at all".

I guess there's also the question as to why, if you think the world would be a better place if people didn't share their deeply held religious views, that you encourage them to do so by participating in a discussion on a Christianity Forum?