Can you give me a few references?
Not exact ones. Its been nearly 20 years since I did much of my study on the subject and I can't remember names very well (unless they are highly unusual). Since then I have read things from time to time but never kept track of what they were by name.
And in a way I'd almost feel like I was not helping you by simply pointing to specific books. Contra was right in that nothing will show you
exactly how people thought, but rather you have to study many different things from and about cultures at that time to get a feel for what truth meant back then.
But I will try to guide you in the right direction for sources.
First of all you can seek out writings from around or before the time of Jesus. They will write about Gods and expectations of Gods and what knowledge is.
A really good Greek example would be Plato, specifically Plato's
Republic. There he deals with truth as a commodity that can be altered in order to serve the interests of the state. They were seeking to create ideals to reach for, not truths of human nature or exact models of the world.
You can of course read Homer and other fictonal writers which show doubt in Gods as well as facts regarding their abilities.
And Contra was also right in pointing to Roman annals. That would be good even for after Jesus. They observe the flaws within their own pantheons and how xianity operated as a religion back then, when it was one of many many more religions.
You might also want to read books on how the scientific method evolved over time, and the effects the clock and time keeping in general had on how humans viewed the world. We have become more concrete in our thinking and acting, more expectant that truth is an objective
reality, rather than an objective
ideal.
Second, and I think this may even be a better place to start so as to focus on people within your own religion (though they were within those same regions), look to histories about the creation of the Bible. The Bible did not exist before Jesus, and even the Torah and Talmud were not always around in the same form. You have to remember that the printing press is a relatively new phenomenon. How was the Word spread then? Much like everything else, word of mouth and local transcriptions.
Before the Bible or the Torah there were many writings about God and all were held to be important by some groups or others. There was no set right or wrong writings. Then for Jews and later Xians, events took place where powerful groups of
men, not Gods or angels, gathered much of the writings together to canonize a set of writings as most important.
Well what does this act say about their belief in the literalness of the texts? Decisions weren't always unanimous either. Yet the final product was accepted as a good standard. What does this say about their feelings with regard to
literalness?
More so, with the writings of Xians one can see direct ripoffs from other Gods and demigods before Jesus (like Mithra). Roman historians observed this at the time of its rise. This was not cheating either as that was a common practice, adapting stories from other mythologies to create a more interesting/acceptable figure for worship.
And certainly if you study the history of your church and all of its holidays you will see the practice of absorbing local religion into Xian belief continued throughout the rise of the Church. What does this say about the desire for literal truth, if other religious doctrine can be adopted?
If you don't know where to start to look for titles on the subject, I would suggest going to a library or googling.
If one specifically wants to look at literal elements within the Old Testament (as that is what impacts creationism), then look to Hebrew scholars on the nature of the Torah and Talmud. There are many different beliefs regarding what they were, including some that believe in a sort of gnostic version where what is written is not important or truth (it is superficial) because the language itself is a code for something more important. This is supported by the fact that the Torah had to be written in a specific way, and that numbers and letters were interchangable.
That last fact also fell into Xian writings and may account for what satan being 666 really meant. It turns out that that was more than likely a reference to the Roman Emperor and not a supernatural nomenclature for the Devil.
I believe Kabbalah are big practitioners of reading the Bible beyond the simple "what does it say" for finding the actual truth.
You could even rent the movie Pi. It was a pretty good flick and introduced (in a fictional story) the quest for some jews to find the name of God as a number within the Torah.
I think simply accepting the Bible as literal truth actually undermines one's own religion as it demands one reject looking back at the history of that religion. Isn't that observable and recorded truth important
before stating literal truth of the writings you have as a result of that historical process?
I mean really I could reedit and start up my own press for a new version of the Bible. There is nothing that could stop me from doing so, and if I keep the changes from being overtly devisive it could become quite popular. Does having a printing press and a popular following mean I have a divine source of literal truth? If not now, why then?
Given the way they lived back then with acceptance and rejection of various texts now all bound up (and some excluded) from the Bible, it just seems patently false to claim literal truth was the measure of why something was believed.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)
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