Why read the Bible literally?

quote:

---

...It's really quite clear when parable or poetry is meant compared to narrative.

---

This is wonderful! Let's take several verses (from the NRSV): Genesis 1:6Genesis 7:11Genesis 8:2So here are three verses that literally describe the sky as a dome separating terrestrial waters from celestial waters, and that the rain falls through openings in this dome.What are the clues that inform us whether this is narrative or metaphor?

Hello, Faith.

quote:

---

It just seems obvious to me. Isn't it to you?

---

No, it is not obvious to me at all. That is why I am asking. If I knew nothing about the true nature of the sky, or of the hydrological cycle, it wouldn't even occur to me to read those verses as metaphor at all. And since it was a common belief at the time Genesis was written, that the sky was a solid dome that literally separated waters above from waters below, I can't see any reason to assume that these verses were meant as anything other than a literal description of cosmology.

Hello again, Faith.

quote:

---

However, there's nothing in the passage that describes a "solid" dome, whatever you may know about what people believed at one time -- and do you get the idea from some source outside scripture that such a thing was believed or only from scripture?

---

Yes; do a google search -- use the words "cosmology Babylonian Mesopotamia firmament" or some combination thereof -- maybe you can even come up with a better set of search words than I.And there is plenty in the passages themselves to suggest a solid dome -- the fact that there are openings in it for rain to fall through, for one.For another, there's the word "dome" or "firmament" in Genesis chapter 1. This is from the Hebrew word raqiya'. It is difficult trying to pin down the meaning -- it seems that everyone is trying to make it conform to their eisegesis -- I even found one web site trying to claim that it describes the process of solar system formation from the nebula!At any rate, I keep running into this etymology: So, the word used for "dome" does seem to suggest something solid that was made through a certain familiar method.

Oh no, don't give up! Some of my greatest personal insights have come from my attempts to find a way to express something I thought that I understood.