Metaphor vs. Literal

In the Random God Rant thread me and Faith were having a (quite heated) discussion about the inerrancy of the bible and the relevance of myths and so on.Basically the argument got to a point where the question essentially became when can we regard something as literal vs. metaphorical.It seems to me that when concrete, indisputable evidence is presented, the retreat for the Christian becomes "Oh, well then that's a metaphor." This seems to me to be intellectually dishonest.It is based on the foregone conclusion that the bible is inerrant and cannot contain any error. Thus if a factual error is presented, it becomes a metaphor, safe from scrutiny.Now this is my view, perhaps I am mistaken. What is the criteria inerrantists use when determining whether or not something is metaphor or literal? Is it the level of believability of events? Or something else. Fix spelling. --AdminThis message has been edited by Admin, 09-23-2005 04:13 PM

Please, can this be limited to Faith and Yaro initially.The first issue to be addressed should likely be what will be the standards of evidence and whether or not there will be limitations of conclusions.

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The idea that something is a metaphor rather than literal isn't a "retreat" from your argument, but is orthodox/traditional biblical interpretation. I suppose I could try to find Christian commentaries on those passages to demonstrate that, but since this dispute isn't usually on the minds of the commentators I don't expect it to be easy. You should first find out what the traditional interpretation of a passage is before you assume there's a "factual error" involved. This has already been discussed many times at EvC and has proven to be a difficult thing to pin down as it has so many subjective aspects. All I can say is that there's just about NO disagreement among inerrantist Bible commentators about which passages are literal and which metaphorical.It appears to me also to be obvious but of course this doesn't sit well with the critics here. It seems to me to require nothing more complicated than a basic ability to recognize literary categories (narrative history, poetry, allegory, or whatever). You would probably not have any trouble recognizing those forms in any literature other than the Bible, but when it comes to the Bible people seem to lose their ability to read ordinary English.This message has been edited by Faith, 09-25-2005 05:15 PM

Super point, and if I may add the sudden inability to read ordinary English in the Bible stems from the fact that the person does not like what it says because they have an ulterior motive which is usually the preservation of something the Bible does not support.But Yaro is not blind. The Bible contains literally hundreds of translation and grammatical errors. The word of God in the Bible is perfect as words from God, if they are indeed from God; cannot be anything but inerrant.Herepton

You mean, like the way you were unable to recognize the clear and obvious poetic signals in the book of Genesis?

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...the clear and obvious poetic signals in the book of Genesis?

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From Christian Answers dot Net:

Nonsense.The repetition of form? The "magic number" 7? Genesis is obviously poetry, and any source that asserts that "these are not Hebrew forms of poetry" is simply mistaken. The entire chapter is in the structure of epic poetry. Take it from a literature major. Or take the word of the translators of the NIV bible, who specifically indent much of Genesis as poetry. Or the majority of Hebrew scholars who recognize Genesis as poetry in the "antithetical parallelism" form."Parallelism"? You know, like the two concurrent creation stories of chapters one and two? Or the other forms of sequential repetition?Naturally "Christiananswers.net" ignores the clear signals in genesis, and so do you - in order to promulgate your agenda of creationism, the assumption of a literal, non-mythical Genesis must be preserved at all costs. It's no wonder you're able to deny the poetic nature of Genesis; the wonder is that you expect us to consider you credible in the least in regards to matters of recognizing the literative category of any element of the Bible. If you can't be trusted to get the first book right, how can you expect to be taken seriously about any of the rest?

Protestant Biblical exegesis treats Genesis as history. I'm with them. Also, the NIV is a questionable translation. But tell you what. Even true history can be written in epic poetry form so I don't see that it matters a whole lot anyway. That part of Genesis was probably orally transmitted down through many generations, as was often done in pre-literate societies, and poetic forms help in the memorization process. It was done that way in early Europe too. But who knows. In any case, there is no doubt that Genesis 1-11 is history.This message has been edited by Faith, 09-23-2005 10:09 PM

In your mind, I'm sure that's the case.To anyone not slavishly devoted to the promulgation of a hollow theology? It's readily apparent, by any means one might choose to identify true history, that Genesis is not.

A Protestant translation, funnily enough.

literal adj 1 : adhering to fact or to the ordinary or usual meaning (as of a word) 2 : unadorned; also : prosaic 3 : verbatimmet”a”phor n : a figure of speech in which a word for one idea or thing is used in place of another to suggest a likeness between them (as in "the ship plows the sea") ” met”a”phor”i”cal \'me-tOf course, believers by definition presuppose that God exists. There is no proof to the contrary, and why should the burden of proof be on them? Facts are not defined soley by scientific proof. Facts have an element of experience relative to the individual that verifies them....for THAT individual, anyway. As a believer, I do not consider that the Flood was a literal event...but it COULD have been. Why is it intellectually dishonest to say that the reason that it was recorded is to convey an idea of Gods expectatons with humans? I do think it rather un necessary to kill all the animals, however. Perhaps the metaphor was deeper.

Hi Faith, I wouldn't say that "there is no doubt", but I do agree that Genesis 1-11 is 'history' inasmuch as it is a narrative about the past.However, Genesis is false history as there is no doubt that most of it has been made up primarily for didactic reasons.One of the main problems with treating Genesis 1-11 as real history (apart from the obvious supernatural elements) is the inability to date many of the events. Take the Patriarchs as an example, there is nothing in any of their tales that can be dated to any unique time period, and much of the material that can be dated appears to contradict the biblical chronology.Another huge problem with accepting Genesis 1-11 as history is the fact that not a single event or person mentioned can be verified from any external sources, hardly inspiring.So, yes Genesis is treated by many as history (mainly theologians), however, historians/archaeologists do not treat Genesis as real history.Genesis 1-11 is as historical as the epic of Gilgamesh, or the Tale of Two Brothers.Brian.This message has been edited by Brian, 09-24-2005 04:16 AM

no no the reason is because people like to move the goalposts, when it comes to this, I would love to see a real reason other than "everyone told me this is history, so it must be true!"isn't it on the inerrantists to show what is literal, so people under stand it?

Some of the philosophical/theological discussions about stories pertaining to God will never be settled. What happens when an irresistable force meets an immovable object? We can conceive of an irresistible force. We can likewise conceive of an immovable object. What we cannot conceive of is the coexistence of the two. Reality cannot contain both-an irresistable force and an immovable object.But what of an omnipotant God and an unconvincible mind?If God is all powerful and yet allows for humans to freely operate independant of Him, does this minimize His power? He still would hold all potential power over His creation, allowing our
actual power to remain independant of Him for a time.Can God make a rock so big that He cannot lift it? Answer: NO, because He would then be creating something over which He had no power. (Thus destroying His own omnipotance!)We can even convince ourselves that He does not exist! Our concept of proof and belief can be an image (imagination) within our own minds. Quite logical. Quite rational. And yet...is it the completeness of reality?

No doubt in your mind I guess. It reads like straight history to me and many others. this is by design. God isn't interested in our knowing anything about His word by such means. He very sparingly allows external verifications from time to time, simply to counter the effects of the debunkers. We are to believe Him, not have external proofs of Him. What is written is so that we might believe. What is written is straightforward and honest and obviously so to those who truly seek God. Some do. However, God wrote His word for those who have an ear to hear and trust Him, not historians and archaeologists.