Why read the Bible literally?

Do you have any evidence that the Children of Israel took the stories literally? Did they actually believe in talking trees? I used to believe this as well, but it is inaccurate.Allegorical means of interpreting the Old Testament had previously been suggested by Philo Judaeus, but the main exponent of this approach was the Church Father Origen (186-255 CE).When faced with an apparent difficulty in the text, Origen proposed that:Whenever we meet with such useless, nay impossible, incidents and precepts as these, we must discard a literal interpretation and consider of what moral interpretation they are capable of, with what higher and mysterious meaning they are fraught, what deeper truths they were intended symbolically and in allegory to shadow forth. The divine wisdom has of set purpose contrived these little traps and stumbling blocks in order to cry halt to our slavish historical understanding of the text, by inserting in its midst sundry things that are impossible and unsuitable. The Holy Spirit so waylays us in order that we may be driven by passages which, taken in the prima facie sense cannot be true or useful, to search for the ulterior truth, and seek in the Scriptures which we believe to be inspired by God a meaning worthy of him (Conybeare Frederick, C. and Bible (1910) History of New Testament Criticism, Watts & Co., London. 14-15). I don’t think there is enough information to come to this conclusion. Remember as well that Jesus did not resemble the Jewish concept of the messiah, so I think there was reinterpretation going on even in Jesus’ time. The real doubts arose a little earlier, I would say that it was Martin Luther’s insistence on a literal reading of the texts that ultimately led to the Bible being openly criticised and shown to be greatly in error on many points.Luther wrote that:The Holy Spirit is the plainest writer and speaker in heaven and earth, and therefore His words cannot have more than one, and that the very simplest, sense, which we call the literal, ordinary, natural sense. (Quote in Kummel, W. G. (1973) The New Testament: the history of the investigation of its problems, S.C.M. Press, London. 20)Historians, on both sides, concentrated on the intensive study and use of documents to argue their stances. In some cases, this study of documents by the reformers and Catholics was even more intense than that of many ‘humanist’ historians. As a result of this use of historiography as a support for a particular viewpoint, ecclesiastical history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries displayed a greater sophistication, a more thorough analysis of sources, and a more historiographic complexity than secular history. The Bible suggests a 6000 year old Earth, history itself demonstrates this to be nonsense. For example, Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) was inhabited 9000 years ago. The Flood was supposed to be 4400 years ago, the Egyptian civilisation has an uninterrupted history gong back about 7000 years. Why were they not all killed in the Flood.Sorry, but a literal reading of the Bible does the Bible a disservice. It is still 50% ahead of the Bible though.Brian.

But, what evidence do you have that the Israelites took the Tanakh literally? It doesn’t matter what it says, do you know if it was taken literally or not? Well, the messiah of the Old was to be a warrior who would free Israel from her enemies. Jesus didn't do this, and oif anything, Israel was even more persecuted after Jesus died. Nothing he says suggests that we take it ALL literally. Why is it unfortunate? He certainly defended the faith strongly enough, have you read his Contra Celsum?Which Church Father would you say is the best representative and does he take the Bible literally? I don’t think it was out of unbelief. I think that they were genuinely trying to understand God's word.It actually mentions several talking trees:Judges 9:7-15 When Jotham was told about this, he climbed up on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, "Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, so that God may listen to you. 8 One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, 'Be our king.'

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9 "But the olive tree answered, 'Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and men are honored, to hold sway over the trees?'
10 "Next, the trees said to the fig tree, 'Come and be our king.'
11 "But the fig tree replied, 'Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?'
12 "Then the trees said to the vine, 'Come and be our king.'
13 "But the vine answered, 'Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and men, to hold sway over the trees?'
14 "Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, 'Come and be our king.'
15 "The thornbush said to the trees, 'If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!' I don’t normally make mistakes when I post something that is in the Old Testament. I tend to be very careful and even double check information even when I am 100% certain about before I post it.But, to be fair, I don’t think that the ‘talking trees’ episode is that well-known, and it doesn’t seem to be discussed that often. Yes, and I really wouldn’t such a simple mistake with something that is extremely well-known.Brian.

So, what is the problem with that? Why have I slandered the text?If you want to be a literalist then you have to stick to the rules of literalism. Martin Luther explains it well: The Holy Spirit is the plainest writer and speaker in heaven and earth, and therefore His words cannot have more than one, and that the very simplest, sense, which we call the literal, ordinary, natural sense.

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All heresies and error in Scripture have not risen out of the simple words of scripture All error arises out of paying no regard to the plain words and, by fabricated inferences and figures of speech, concocting arbitrary interpretations in one’s own brain.

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In the literal sense there is life, comfort, learning, and art. Other interpretations, however appealing, are the work of fools. (Quoted in Kummel, W. G. (1973) The New Testament: the history of the investigation of its problems, S.C.M. Press, London. p.22)If you want to be a literalist, then be a literalist, but as soon as you start involving allegories you are no longer a literalist.It appears that the literalists like their ‘gimmick’ until something is presented to them that they do not want to take literally and then they make fabricated inferences, or concocts arbitrary
interpretations, which is contrary to the literalist stance.Are you also saying that there was no prodigal son?Brian.

I had such a surreal experience last year at Covent Garden market.I saw Rohl's Test of Time on the shelf of a second hand book shop for a fiver. I took it to the counter and Jerry Sadowitz was about to serve me when the shop assistant took over. The book itself is even more surreal. Brian.

Did David wear the teffilin?Brian

Hi, What does this have to do with dating Jericho to 7000 BCE? Creationists have a habit of ignoring evidence though, C14 dating is extremely accurate up to about 50 000 years, even the deviation of + - 40 years isnt really that disastrous. Anyway, C14 is only one of many different dating techniques that can be employed. The funny thing is, all of the known dating techiniques come up with roughly the same results, it is pretty weid that they should all be flawed in such a way as to arrive at the same conclusions.You could let me know how the suggested problems with C14 have anything to do with Kenyon's date for earliest Jericho. Or, to be more accurate - a Christian Egyptologist. It isn't actually 'improved' at all, it is 'improved' if you are a fundamentalist Christian, however, it is completely rejected if you are an objective historian/Egytologist. Only Rohl and fundy Christians think that Rohl's hypothesis is credible. no mainstream archaeologist or Egyptologist gives Rohl a second glance. Are you saying that Rohl proposes that Egyptian history only goes back to 2400 BCE? If you are the could you give me a reference to where he said this?As has ben pointed out, the Hittite and Assyrian chronologies negate the 'New Chronology'. I woudl agree that the Bible chronologies have been the most studied chronologies, but, all this study has just proven bible chronology to be a mess. But, the Bible wasn't written to be a history book, it was written to explain one nations relationship with their God. Indeed, they can be seen because they have been shoe-horned to fit! But the Egyptian chronologies arent the only things that make a 6000 year old Earth an impossibility. Evey science known to man negates a 6000 year old earth.If you wish to discuss how implausible Rohl's chronology is, then I'd be happy to discuss it in another thread.Brian.

I really do not see the connection here. How can a song about Israel’s prehistory prove that all of the Israelites took the Tanakh literally? Even if they believed that there was an Exodus and Conquest, it is still a huge leap to declare that all Israelites took everything about these two events literally. Just because someone decided to write a song about theses events (and I know it was supposed to be David) in no way demonstrates that the entire nation took everything about these events literally. Because that is what any historian investigating any historical event has to do. You cannot keep using a book to prove itself, it is not the way that historical investigation is done. Now the Bible claims there was a unified military conquest of Canaan, do we just accept that or do we look for external confirmation of it? If external evidence shows that the conquest as narrated in the Bible text could not have happened, then what do we take as the most reliable record, primary sources that are in the archaeological data, or stories in a book written as much as 700 years after the event? Yes it is, and I have argued that here myself many a time. It is an historical record, however, most of what is recorded is false history. Many oppressive regimes have written historical records that portray them in a better light that what real history would have. There is nothing to stop the Israelites inventing a history that makes them out to be special or gives them a claim to a land, or makes an excuse for their God when things go wrong. Humans invent history all the time, all histories are invented by the human mind because all artefacts are mute, they do not come with a context, they are only given a context and meaning by the human brain, thus a history can be completely false. Jesus only really repeated what could already be found in the Tanakh, he didn’t say that we were to take things literally.If you want to take a story that Jesus referred to literally then lets look at the Jonah story, and take that literally and see how we get on.Now, Jesus said that just as Jonah was in the belly of a huge fish for three days and three nights, the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Now, if you want to take this literally then Jesus didn’t die on the cross, Jesus was alive and well in the heart of the earth, just like Jonah was alive and well in the belly of the fish!Also, just because Jesus referred to something in the OT doesn’t mean that the referred to event actually happened. He could be referring to an event simply because it was familiar to his audience.Again though, archaeology and science has completely undermined the historicity of the Jonah event. We know from science that a man cannot live inside the belly of a fish for three days, there’s a whole variety of conditions queuing up to kill him.As far as history goes, there are some real problems with the Jonah tale, it certainly doesn’t read like an historical account, in fact it is absolutely nothing like an historical record, it is full of horrendous historical errors and misinformation. For example, who on earth was the ‘king of Nineveh’? Historical accounts normally include the name of the kings, there are problems with a ‘King’ of Nineveh as well because there are no contemporaneous references that support that the term ‘King’ was in use in Assyria at the time Jonah was supposed to have lived.The Book of Jonah lacks every basic component of an historical record and it contains every element of myth and legend. For example, Nineveh is stripped of all historical detail, no geographical details are given and we have stories about a man being swallowed whole by a great fish and surviving, we have God intervening, we have plants that grow in one day, we have a worm that carried out a mission, and most ridiculous of all we have animals that repent! This isn’t history.This commentary from James Limburg (Jonah, SCM Press LTD, London 1993 pages 22-23), explains nicely that the Book of Jonah is not written as a historical record. The book of Jonah begins with the Hebrew conjunction and verb wayehi, often translated elsewhere as "and it happened" or "now it happened." Eight other biblical books begin with this same wayehi. In each instance that word introduces a narrative book (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, Esther, Nehemiah) or a narrative section of a book (Ezekiel). The King James Version translated seven of these eight occurrences as "and/now it came to pass" (all except 1 Samuel). The wayehi the beginning of the Jonah book thus suggests to a reader or hearer that a narrative or storyis to follow.

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The book of Jonah begins:

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Now the word of the lord came (wayehi) to Jonah son of Amittai, saying: "Get up, go to Nineveh." . . . But Jonah got up. . . . (Jonah 1:1-3)

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The closest parallels to this beginning are found in the Elijah narratives in 1 Kings.

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The Elijah cycle is introduced:

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Now the word of the lord came (wayehi to him, saying: "Go . . . ." So he went .... (1 Kings 17:2-5, my translation)

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The same pattern is repeated a few verses later:

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Now the word of the lord came wayehi) to him, saying: "Get up, go to Zarephath . . . ." So he got up and he went .... (1 Kings 17:8-10, my translation)

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The same formula with a command is also found in 1 Kings 21:17 and 28; see also the similar formulation in 18:1.

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This wayehi formula in 1 Kings occurs in a section of the Old Testament that contains a high concentration of miracle stories connected with prophets, especially miracle stories involving nature: ravens bring food (1 Kings 17:1-8); bread and oil multiply (1 Kings 17:9-16); fire and rain appear (1 Kings 18); wind, an earthquake, and fire come (1 Kings 19:11-12); a lion kills a man (1 Kings 20:35-36); fire comes down (2 Kings 1:10, 12); the Jordan is parted, a whirlwind carries Elijah to heaven, water is purified, bears kill boys (2 Kings 2); oil is multiplied (2 Kings 4:1-7); stew is purified (2 Kings 4:38-41); bread is multiplied (2 Kings 4:42-44); and an axe head floats (2 Kings 6:1-7).

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The Jonah narrative, with its miraculous events involving the storm, the fish, the plant, the worm, and the wind, fits well with these materials. The Book of Jonah reads better as legend, the fish, the plant and the worm are all mythological elements. It is written in the same style as other mythological narratives, by ignoring the theological intent of the book you are missing out on a great deal.Do you think historically plausible that a plant that can shadow a man grows in one day and then get killed by a worm?Is it historically plausible that animals can repent and not only that, they also put on sackcloth?The size of Nineveh in the Jonah narrative is incorrect as well.
Archaeological excavations have proven that the city was nowhere near the size that the Bible claims it was.The Bible says that it would have been a three day walk across the city, this is undoubtedly wrong. Excavations beginning in the mid 1800’s reveal a walled city, somewhat trapezoidal in shape, with a perimeter of about seven and one half miles. (Lloyd S. The Archaeology of Mesopotamia Thames and Hudson, New York 1984 pp187-201) The longest distance across the city was about two and three quarter miles. Limburgh page 78.)There is no way that a three-day walk across a city can only cover two and three quarter miles, the size of Nineveh is greatly exaggerated for a reason, that reason is the author is not interested in recording accurate history he is only concerned with trying to stimulate his reader’s imagination into thinking about a ‘great city’ and obviously the greater the better in order to show God’s power.
Jonah 4:11 further mythologizes the narrative: But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"The 120 000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left is a reference to children. Now, if we have 120 000 children staying in Nineveh, what would the total population be, 500 000 or so? It is utterly impossible for Nineveh to accommodate this large population, can you think of any city in the near east at that time that could accommodate this huge population?This exaggeration undermines the book as a historical record as well. Wolff provides even more negative evidence to the historicity of the book when he writes:The narrator lends the city specific form by giving it dimensions which were unheard of in the world of the time (the book was of course written up to 500 years after the events it is claiming to present — my addition [Brian]), ‘the extent of three days march.’This means that the city had a diameter of about 40 to 50 miles. Sennacherib’s Nineveh was 3 miles wide at its greatest extent (from north to south). Attempts to verify these dimensions historically miss the point of what the writer is trying to say. The reader is not supposed to do arithmetic. He is supposed to be lost in astonishment so that he can take in the events that follow in an appropriate way. (Page 148)Another point about historical narratives is that historical accounts normally include things such as genealogies and the place of birth etc of the characters, certainly of the main character. The Book of Jonah however, does not include these basic historical requirements.
I am not convinced that Jews even consider the Jonah adventure as being true, Josephus, for example, only speaks of Jonah as being a narrative that can be found in scripture, he doesn’t say if it was true or not.It is also related that Jonah was swallowed down by a whale, and that when he had been there for three days, and as many nights, he was vomited out upon the Euxine Sea, and this alive, and without hurt upon his body; and there, on his prayer to God, he obtained pardon for his sins, and went to the city of Nineveh, where he stood so as to be heard, and preached, that in a very short time they would lose dominion of Asia; and when he had published this, he returned. Now I have given this account about him, as I found it written [in our books].
Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews in Complete Works , translated by W. Whiston Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids 1960, pages 207-208.) I am simply asking for evidence that Jews took the Tanakh literally during the time you say they did. You have only given your opinion, you THINK that they did, but there is nothing you have posted that suggests that all Israel took the tanakh literally.There’s an easy way to check, why is it that very few Jews wear the Teffilin?If all Jews took the Tanakh literally then they should all be going around (or all should have went around) wearing the small boxes on their heads and hands. But they didn’t and they don’t. Truth is, some Jews take it literally and some Jews take it figuratively. True Jews rejected Jesus because he simply wasn’t the Messiah, he didn’t fulfil a single messianic prophecy. People can believe that their history is accurate, but they don’t have to take it literally. Just because a few things are beyond reason doesn’t mean that anyone should reject the whole account.
This is the problem with the literalists, they think that if Noah’s Flood didn’t happen then Jesus didn’t rise from the dead and that the Bible is worthless. It is an insane stance to take, because, as you admit, there are parts of the Bible that HAVE to be taken figuratively. This is actually a great example that demonstrates the absurdity and inconsistency of the literalist position.They say that Jesus is literally portrayed in the servant songs but when the song says that the servant will live long and see his children born, they immediately jump into the figurative camp. In Isaiah, The Servant will literally live a long natural life and will literally have biological children, but the literalists say that Isaiah is talking about Jesus' eternal life and the children referred to are only symbolic and refer to all mankind. They want it both ways. Can you give me one reference where the Messiah is said to be God Himself?My understanding was that the Messiah would not be a supernatural being at all, and that his birth would be purely natural. He referred to them in his teachings; he could just be giving examples from stories that were familiar to this audience. But, even if Jesus did take the Old Testament literally, it doesn’t mean that anyone else did. Whether it is true or not is highly debatable. The fact that a lot of the Old Testament cannot be proven true or false isn’t inspiring. It was one of the first ever apologetic writings. I don’t think any of the Church Fathers took the text literally, but I could be wrong. And the creation stories are clearly symbolic as well, the Flood is symbolic, Jonah in the fish is symbolic, crossing the Reed Sea is symbolic It was an example to show that ALL of the Bible cannot be taken literally.Brian.Edited to sort final quoteThis message has been edited by Brian, 06-16-2005 11:49 AM

If you remember correctly, your argument was that Jews took the Tanakh literally! That was exactly what you claimed. You didn’t say one or two Jews or one or two groups of Jews took the Tanakh literally.Also, taking something literally doesn’t mean that you only accept certain parts as being literal, it means that you take everything literally. There you go again, making unsupported assumptions. You have posted nothing to support what you are claiming! Who is the ‘they’ you are talking about? Is it a few Jews, all Jews, half of the Jews? Be a bit more specific.Now, say we grant that a Jew takes the Exodus as a literal historical event, does it follow that that same Jews takes everything associated with the Exodus as literally true? Pharisees are only a small percentage of the Jewish population Excuse my language, but this is utter garbage. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. I suggest you actually go and speak to some Jews.This is simply what you would like to be true, if you don’t actually know something then you would be advised to either admit it or stop making stuff up. This is infantile.Why bother coming to a discussion board at all if you aren’t going to consider anything that contradicts the Bible?Admit it, there is nothing at all that anyone here could post that you would accept if it contradicted the Bible, is there?Maybe I am wrong. Can you tell me how anyone could prove to you that something in the Bible is incorrect?You have a closed mind, and you are not in the slightest bit interested in what anyone else has to say. I don’t know why you bother posting anything Of course you reject it, you have no clue why you reject it, but you reject it because you think Joshua wrote it!! You have no idea what the ‘revisionists’ base their arguments on, but they must be wrong because it contradicts your view. Forget that the ‘revisionists’ contain a great many Christian scholars, forget that ALL of them know a great deal more about the Bible than you do, forget that they ALL know a great deal more about Ancient Near Eastern history than you do, forget that they ALL know a great deal more about archaeology than you do, forget that most of them have dedicated their the majority of their lives to studying the subject, they are all wrong for one simple reason, because you say so. This is pathetic and insulting to the memories of the thousands of scholars who have dedicated their lives (not to mention actually dying in the field) to illuminating the biblical texts and the biblical world. This actually makes no sense whatsoever!All we find is what we find, and we haven’t found the majority of it How do you know that we haven’t found the majority of it unless you know what the total is that we are looking for?????Are you saying we haven’t found the majority of things at Kadesh-Barnea despite it being excavated to virgin soil by Cohen?Are you saying that we haven’t found the majority of things at Tell es-Sultan despite it being excavated to bedrock by Kenyon?Why do you make such absurd statements about areas of research when you clearly have no idea what you are talking about?Your endless droning on and endless infantile excuses are becoming extremely boring. It will take a very long time to find them.Brian.

Thank God!

Hi, You’ll notice how that particular question has not been answered yet, despite the fact that the poster already knows that this is logically sound. It shouldn’t do. Genesis does contain a lot of *plausible* history, but it also contains a lot of mythical language. I don’t see the problem with accepting that the Israelites used ‘picture’ language to describe the unknown, they had to use language that the majority of people would understand. Is it rational to believe that eating a fruit can suddenly fill your head with a lot of new knowledge? Of course it isn’t, the eating of the fruit has to be describing something else. Perhaps the fruit represents the limited freedom that God had given humans. Humans were free to do anything they wanted except disobey God, the fruit was the boundary of human freedom, they broke down that boundary when they ate the fruit. There are many other interpretations of ‘eating the fruit, for example, some people think it represents intercourse. After years of discussions with literalists or inerrantists, or whatever you want to call them, I have came to the following conclusion.Literalists have an extremely weak faith. They do not have enough faith in Jesus to save them, so they NEED the image of a perfect and inerrant Bible to support their lack of trust in Jesus’ words.Think about it, if the path to salvation is through belief in Jesus and His victory over death, His sacrifice so that all sins can be forgiven, if this information is included in a book that has a less than perfect track record then why should we trust anything that it says?This is basically their mentality, ‘if people could not live to a literal age of 969, if the world wasn’t completely flooded and all life on earth (apart from that on the Ark), if the sun couldn’t stand still, if the universe is more than 6000 years old, then Jesus may not have conquered death at all. If the Bible contains one single solitary piece of information that can be shown to be incorrect, then it allows the possibility that there are other claims that are equally incorrect. This, of course, would open up the possibility that certain (or all) claims about Jesus could also be incorrect. Which, to be fair, it actually does, but they forget that Christianity is a faith, it requires that you BELIEVE without having 100% supporting evidence.Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29)Christianity demands faith, if Jesus resurrection was a fact that was supported from all sources then we would all be Christians, but this would mean that Christianity isn’t a faith and this is where the literalists weak faith in Jesus comes into play. They do not trust His words on their own, that isn’t enough for them they NEED confirmation and this confirmation for them comes in the shape of a book that has no errors in it. Now, if you start at the beginning of the Bible and work your way through it from Genesis to Revelation, while you are doing this you ‘discover’ that everything in the Book of Genesis is true, then everything in the Book of Exodus is true, then everything in Leviticus is true, and so on, then everything in Matthew is true, then when it come to the resurrection then that HAS to be true because everything so far in the book is true. It makes perfect sense, it is a logical and reasonable argument. However, the problems arise when other people start saying things like wait a minute, people cannot live to 969 years of age, in fact in ancient times people lived a relatively short time, or wait a minute, extant Egyptian texts and artefacts produce an uninterrupted history that continues through he Flood period of 4400 years ago, why weren’t the Egyptians all killed in the Flood?The truth of the matter is, the Bible has been shown to contain a great deal of incorrect information, granted, a lot of this information is only incorrect if it is taken in a literal sense. Many apparent contradictions disappear when allegory is considered, or when ancient mythical motifs are acknowledged. For example, the fact that there was no world wide Flood that wiped out everything is only a problem when your faith is too weak to accept that the Flood myth isn’t trying to describe a real historical event. The Flood myth presents many ‘Truths’, it illustrates God’s power over nature, it illustrates God’s disappointment at mankind, it represents God’s willingness to give humans (and individuals) a second chance. It represents too may things to list here, but the important thing is, it only becomes a problem when people try to take it literally when there is no actual need to do this. The Flood myth exists because ancient peoples liked stories; they liked stories because they can get across to everyone an idea that represents an ultimate truth in a form that all can appreciate.But, what happens when a literalist happens upon a website or happens to try and convert someone on a university campus, or on the high street who informs them that it has been proven that the Bible has mistakes in it? Well they employ all sorts of childish, banal, inane, and embarrassing arguments. This is all to do with keeping their own weak faith intact and has nothing to do with whether or not the potential convert will believe them or not, it is pure and simply self-delusion.You can see some of the apologetics we have had here at EvC over the last few years.Try claiming that there was no Red Sea crossing, you will be told that there are ‘chariot wheels in the Red Sea’ so there was a Red Sea crossing. Now, try being rational and explain to the literalist that a chariot wheel (if indeed it is a chariot wheel) in the Red Sea only proves that at some time in the past a chariot wheel ended up at the bottom of the Red Sea, and see how far you get. Although, from an archaeological perspective, it is indeed true that this only proves that at some time in the past the wheel found its way into the Red Sea, to a literalist all sorts of little bells ring and wheels spin in their heads and they make completely unfound conclusions from this single piece of information. From this ‘wheel’ they can conclude that Moses was real, there was 2-3 million Israelites in Egypt, all of pharaoh’s armies died at the Red Sea, the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years etc. In other words, if one single artefact is found that they think supports any biblical event, then that automatically ‘proves’ that everything else about that event is true! In the real world, of course, this is not how archaeology and history actually work. In the real world of archaeology all artefacts are mute and are only given a context and meaning by the mind of the archaeologist/historian. Take the Red Sea chariot wheel as an example, an archaeologist/historian would never claim that a chariot wheel in the Red Sea proves anything in the Bible, how do we know that the wheel even comes fro the same period as the ‘exodus’ when we don’t even know when the exodus was meant to have taken place because the Bible gives conflicting information regarding its date? An archaeologist would realise that there are many different reasons why that wheel is down there, and an archaeologist who is familiar with the Bible would realise that the Bible doesn’t say that the crossing was at the Red Sea so anything found in the Red Sea has nothing to do with the exodus anyway.But, literalists make these huge leaps in logic all the time, any single solitary piece of information that appears to support a said event will be latched on to and held up as proof. Remember the so-called ‘Ossuary of James’ the brother of Jesus? The literalists were on cloud nine, declaring the truth of the Bible again, where are they now that it has been shown that the ossuary is a fake?How many literalists still point to Wyatt’s rock formation as being Noah’s Ark?There is one over riding feature of a literalist stance, it is a psychological condition that allows them to keep this inerrant view of the Bible when all rational people, Christians and atheists alike, know for certain that the Bible does contain errors, but these errors should not have undermine the Christian faith.This psychological phenomenon is called ‘cognitive dissonance’.From here Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation. It therefore occurs when there is a need to accommodate new ideas, and it may be necessary for it to develop so that we become "open" to them. Here are two very relevant observations about cognitive dissonance:1. if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge they are likely to resist the new learning. 2. andcounter-intuitively, perhapsif learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are less likely to concede that the content of what has been learned is useless, pointless or valueless. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned". How amazingly applicable is this psychological phenomenon to the literalist position?Look at point 1.It is very easy to apply this to the literalist when we consider how they normally conduct their lives as a believer in an inerrant Bible. If we consider someone who converts to this stance, it may be after some deep and meaningful religious experience, they invariably either surround themselves with people of a similar stance, be it at a church, or a friend’s house, or it may now be at an internet site or newsgroup discussion. Now, these new converts are constantly bombarded with ‘evidence’ supporting every single event in the Bible, they trust these people and they soak up all the information provided. Now, to them, all of this information is completely plausible, they aren’t critically analysing what they are being told, they are open to any possible explanation that supports the biblical account. Does the chronology of the ancient near east allow for an exodus and conquest, of course it doesn’t, however, it only takes one literalist to latch on to David Rohl’s ‘Test of Time’ book and his ‘New Chronology’ which accommodates and exodus and conquest is al they need to support the Bible, thus, David Rohl’s book is 100% accurate. It doesn’t matter if there isn’t a single archaeologist or Egyptologist (apart from Rohl) who accepts his chronology. It doesn’t matter that his chronology has been utterly destroyed by the experts, the fact that he proposes one is enough for the literalist, it simple has to be true because it supports the Bible! Normal people, when presented with something that appears to support their particular stance, would investigate the source before accepting it. For example, if someone e-mailed me with new information that ‘disproves’ the conquest of Canaan as portrayed in Joshua 1-11, I would examine the information and see how it fits in with what I already know, then maybe I would accept parts of it, or all of it, or I may even dismiss it all. But the literalist doesn’t do this, they accept everything in the source as being true because it supports their views. They more than likely haven’t even heard of the Babylonian and Assyrian King’s Lists, but these lists are wrong because they (amongst other things) disprove Rohl’s chronology, forget the fact that the literalist hasn’t heard of them, if it contradicts the source that supports the Bible then they are wrong!Now, there is another factor that comes into this. The literalists who don’t surround themselves with people of a similar stance will surround themselves with material written by people of a similar stance. If they don’t really mix with others then they will submerge themselves in books written by literalists, or videos, audio cassette tapes, dvd’s, cd’s, everything that they can get their hands on. They will absorb all this information which is not information that is accurate, the people who peddle this stuff have not carried out any objective research into it, they simply just state things and the new convert sucks it all up like a sponge. Now, if all that the literalist does for year after year is to pollute their minds with this drivel then there are obviously going to believe that they have the truth, this information is perfect because no one has disproven any of it, forget the fact that they aren’t studying anything that has been critically analysed, They are studying information that has been debunked countless times, but the producers of the material aren’t going to admit that are they. They simply do not address that problems, or they are too stupid to be able to research an issue properly, or they are like David Rohl and they knowingly leave out the information that destroys their arguments.No, armed with all of this new information, and because all of the information is completely biased towards a literal view of the Bible, the new literalist ‘knows’ that they have the truth, the Bible is 100% inerrant, it has to be look at all the hundred even thousands of book, tapes, videos that I have that confirm this. Thus they are committed to that information, they haven’t been exposed to the arguments that decimate their view of the Bible, I mean, why would they look at anything that is contrary to what they believe? Haven’t that people who produced the hundreds and thousands of books, tape, videos, already done that anyway? Of course they haven’t, they only pick a few examples of data that supports the biblical stories, and they ignore all of the arguments that terminate a literal view of the text.Thus, the new literalist is committed to the information that they already have, they know the text is inerrant so why bother looking at contrary information? But, when they do decide to look at contrary information for themselves out of curiosity or when someone points out a problem to them, they are so brainwashed by the inferior materials that they have been polluting themselves with for years that they are unable to accept that the Bible may have an error in it. So, what do they do when archaeology proves that Jericho was uninhabited when the Bible says Joshua’s armies were supposed to be destroying it (this is true regardless of which of the two popular dates you subscribe to)? They say that archaeology is at fault, they haven’t found evidence yet, the evidence is there but archaeologists have just misinterpreted it, the evidence has been washed away, Bryant Wood says there is evidence so there is evidence. They are incapable of accepting any information that is contrary to their stance. They are literally ‘brainwashed’.The second factor related to cognitive dissonance is equally clear. andcounter-intuitively, perhapsif learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are less likely to concede that the content of what has been learned is useless, pointless or valueless. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned". Think about life here at EvC for any literalist who appears. Their experience here easily fulfils the criteria of ‘difficult, uncomfortable, and humiliating’, and this is just at an internet forum. How many times will a literalist be humiliated in real time, how any people will laugh at them in the streets when they preach?It is difficult for anyone to admit that they are wrong; I actually think it is a sign of a strong character if you can admit that you were wrong about something. But the literalist stance is not like admitting that your football team is basically shit and that you were only fooling yourself when you thought they had a chance of winning the cup, the literalist stance is far more important than that. Their whole life, since they proclaimed an inerrant Bible, has focussed on keeping this belief intact, and it would take immense strength and character to admit that they were actually wrong all along, although some people can and have done this.Thus, the cognitive dissonance of the literalist makes their brain unable to accept any contrary information. Their ego will not allow them to admit that all the hundreds or thousands of sources that cost thousands of dollars or pounds are all absolute drivel, but the brain’s self-protection mechanism (cognitive dissonance) kicks in to prevent them having to accept that the Bible does contain a great deal of error. On the point of hunting thought the Bible this actually brings up an issue that demonstrates how ignorant and embarrassing a literalist view of the Bible actually is.When Catholic and Protestant scholars were arguing over whose view of the Bible is most historically sound. The French priest, Richard Simon, highlighted a fundamental error in the literalist stance when in 1693 he wrote: The great changes that have taken place in the manuscripts of the Bible -as we have shown in the first book of this work — since the first originals were lost, completely destroy the principle of the Protestants and the Socinians, who only consult these same manuscripts in the form that they are today. If the truth of religion had not lived on in the church, it would not be safe to look for it now in books that have been subjected to so many changes and that in so many matters were dependant on the will of the copyists. It is certain hat the Jews who copied these books took liberty of adding certain letters here, and cutting out certain letters there, according as they judged it suitable, and yet the meaning of the text is often dependant on these letters So, the basic problem for the literalist is that they are not following the original texts! No one knows what the original texts looked like, and the extant texts that we do have show that the text has been tampered with. Look at the case of the long ending of Mark, or the story of the adulteress, these are only two examples.So literalists say that they follow the King James version, and that it is the one error free copy of the Bible, but how do they know? Do they accept that there used to be such a think as a unicorn? Don’t they know that the KJV has went through many editing processes as well?The whole stance is embarrassing to adults and especially so to Christians, you must cringe every time you see one of these clowns making a mockery of your faith, because that’s what they are doing. When others see these people either posting messages at a forum, preaching in the street or on TV, they just laugh at them and think to themselves what a ridiculous faith Christianity is.When I see a literalist walking away from a discussion it just supports what I believe about them, they do not have an open mind and they are not intellectually competent enough to defend their faith. Their faith, by the way, is not in Jesus Christ at all, their faith is in a book that they think is perfect, Jesus Christ comes second to the book that speaks of Him. If the book that speaks of Jesus contains one error then they wouldn’t have faith in Jesus, all their energy goes into making up crazy excuses to keep the book one hundred percent accurate. This accuracy is only in their own mind of curse as anyone who has studied the Bible, or history or archaeology knows that the Bible isn’t perfect, there is no doubt that it contains errors, but is that really that important to someone’s faith? It is if all your faith is in a book and not in Jesus. Why else would they defend the Bible so vehemently?So, it is quite an obvious conclusion, a literalist is a literalist because their faith is weak, their primary object of worship is the Bible and not Jesus Christ.Brian.This message has been edited by Brian, 06-19-2005 01:14 PM

I thought you were supposed to be ignoring me?

You are doing it again.It is always easier to ignore than to actually address issues, thanks for being a great example for post 116, it certainly keeps my faith strong.

Yes, they have strong faith in the Bible, but that faith is only strong because they think that the 'evidence' produced by fundy scolars is credible. Their strong faith in the text is built on faulty premises, the belief that the material used to support their stance is in accurate. Their faith in Jesus is not so strong though or they wouldn't perfrom the embarrassing contortions of brain cells. Indeed, they think more of the text than they do of Jesus. All their efforts are directed at keeping the text 100% accurate, they are concentrating too hard on the wrong thing.Although it is sometimes amusing to read their 'apologetics' there comes a time when reality hits home. These are adults we are talking about, people who really ought to know better, I findit quite sad in a way. It is a great shame and such a waste of life.Brian.

Of course it isn’t how YOU think you think, that is where the cognitive dissonance comes in. The thing is, everything I said in the post is completely accurate.
I you knew this is how you are living your life then it wouldn’t be cognitive dissonance, and if it wasn’t for cognitive dissonance you would not be a literalist, pure and simple fact. But you don’t KNOW this, you THINK it is, you BELIEVE it is, and the reasons why you think it is because you have absorbed so much pro materials that you are unable to open your mind up to the possibility of accepting anything that contradicts your view of the Bible.Answer this simple question:What could I, or anyone else, show to you that would disprove something in the Bible?But, the fact is, for you to KNOW that the Bible is 100% accurate you would be required to be very well educated in a whole range of disciplines, from theology through to Syro-Palestinian archaeology, and no one, not even you has mastered all the subjects related to studying the Bible.Another fact of the matter is that you will never learn even the basics of any of these subjects because to learn the basics requires someone to be open minded and to look at the evidence before they come to a conclusion. You will never grasp even the basics of, let’s say Syro-Palestinian archaeology for one simple fact, and it isn’t because you are not capable, it is because you will not study objectively, you will not read a wide range of materials. No one can grasp the basics of anything if they don’t look at the pros and cons during their introduction to a particular subject.You may believe that you have looked at arguments against your stance, but you really haven’t looked at that many because you leave far too many questions unanswered and show in certain posts that you don’t know the basics of a particular subject, yet you still declare that the experts are wrong because what they say contradicts the Bible! It is pure unadulterated ignorance Faith for you to turn around and dismiss someone’s life work, say someone like William Albright, a conservative Christian scholar who devoted so much of his life to excavating the Near east and trying his best to fit the Bible into an historical context, is completely and utterly wrong simply because you say so! You have not got a clue about archaeology in the near east, yet the ‘Father of Biblical Archaeology’ was wrong about the date of the destruction of Jericho, or he was wrong about the date of Ai, or Lachish. But no, this guy has got to be wrong because you can click a mouse button and find a website written by some nutball who thinks he has refuted all the archaeological findings at Jericho in the last 140 years! You should be ashamed of yourself, insulting the dedication and lifetime works of thousands of academics who have devoted their lives to clarifying the historical and social world of the Bible and to make matters worse MOST of these archaeologists were CHRISTIANS! Albright was a conservative Christian, as was George Wright, Callaway is a Christian, Dever was a Christian, Glueck was a rabbi, the list goes on and on. Why don’t you give these people some credit, why don’t you read some of their works, why do you dishonour their work by so easily dismissing their work without having a fraction of the knowledge or dedication that these people had? Now, I am not a lover of William Albright, the man was a bigot and a racist, but I have to take my hat off to him when I realise just how much work he did in advancing the knowledge of the ancient near east. But what you are doing is basically the same as a ten year old kid going up to someone like Bill Dever and saying Oi Bill, your claim that there was no unified military conquest of Canaan is wrong.Why? says Bill.It just isThat is exactly what it is like.And it continues through almost everything we have TRIED to discuss, you dismiss textual criticism because I don’t believe that anyway.
What sort of stance is that to base anything on?You have made your mind up that the Bible is error free, despite the FACT that hundreds of thousands of CHRISTIAN scholars have shown exactly where there are errors in it. You cannot claim that the Bible is error free, you can claim that you BELIEVE it is, but to make an absolute statement like you have would require you to look objectively at the texts, and you are incapable of doing so. Faith, you are over 200 years behind the times, the Bible died in the 18th century. It doesn’t mean that it is a worthless collection of texts, it isn’t, but it certainly isn’t a perfect collection of texts when you take these texts out of their original context. The authors were not interested in recording accurate history, it was only in the 6th century BCE that anything resembling a critical history was being written by Hecataeus. The Bible is a minority report, it was written for specific purposes and accuracy of information was not high on the agenda. BINGO! And here we have the confirmation. Faith worships her bible before she worships Jesus the Christ. Absolutely amazing! You continually put the Bible before Jesus, it is clear that you NEED an inerrant text because if there is one error in it then that opens up the possibility of more errors, and one of these errors might just be the resurrection of Jesus. I cannot imagine a weaker faith in God than you have. Well, Faith, in the real world, not the fairytale land that you live in, people normally side with the strongest evidence. For example, we know for a fact that people don’t live for 969 years, and the remains of thousands of excavated tombs and graves confirm that even a few thousand years ago humans were lucky to live for fifty years, then how can you blame Christians for concluding that Methuselah didn’t live for 969 years. No doubt you will have some crazy excuse for that one, let me see, is it because genes were purer then, or was there a different atmosphere then, or some other equally ridiculous excuse, I am sure there will be something. But, you see, that is all that you require, any straw to grasp on to at all is fine for you, it’ll do nicely, it doesn’t even matter if it has any support or that it even sounds plausible!The BIG advantage that science has over the Bible is that science can show you time and time again that what it says is true, or at least the best explanation we have based on the available evidence.
Then you say that people fold up in the face of science, fold up from what, from living life inside a fairy story? Do you seriously expect Christians to ignore the vast amount of evidence that contradicts the Bible texts? The Bible does not even ask you to take the texts literally, and as you agreed with the example of the talking trees, YOU even admit that some of it is not to be taken literally! Unprovable?????????Why would anyone like to hold on to anything that is unprovable? You say that it is 100% accurate and you cannot prove any of it? Indeed, but that isn’t what you are showing in the literalist stance you are taking. What you are showing is that you faith in the bible means to ignore the evidence, stick your fingers in your ears and shout la-la-la, and then denounce the hard word and devotion of thousands of scholars because YOU don’t agree with them, despite the fact that you haven’t got a clue about the majority of the related subjects! It is breathtakingly, astoundingly ignorant. But Faith, you spend your whole life LOOKING for empirical proof of the Bible events! Why else do you post so much unsupported crap in response to criticisms? When faced with a problem such as the one I mentioned abut Jericho why don’t you just say that you have faith that God’s word is accurate and you don’t need evidence. You never do this, all you did was dismiss it with some silly worn out excuses.For someone who doesn’t require empirical proof you have a strange way of showing it, you try to counter every argument about the Bible with empirical proof! Its not that you WON’T admit you are wrong, you are incapable of admitting it, you are so self deluded that your brain’s self protection system kicks in and rejects any negative information.Also, I haven’t turned anything upside down, your faith in the Bible is paramount, because it is paramount you will accept any garbage that maintains this position, it doesn’t matter how puerile the information is, if it keeps this inerrant faade up, you will grasp it with both hands, all literalists are exactly the same so I am not singling you out. You have read and absorbed so much misinformation that you probably would require some serious psychiatric help to deprogram your self-delusion. They aren’t betraying Christ, they are using the brain that Christ gave them. You may be surprised to know but you are the one betraying Christ, have you any idea how many people that you scare away from Christianity when they read some of the stuff you post? If anyone should be worried it should be the literalists.As for answering a challenge, well there’s answering a challenge and there’s answering a challenge! To answer a challenge in the way that literalists do is really, most of the time, not really and answer at all. Saying that a coupe of 14C samples were flawed thus all samples are flawed is not an answer, giving an answer that we expect a ten year old child to come up with is not really answering the challenge either! Do you think it is an easy decision to admit that you need to review your stance on the Bible? It took me three years of anguish to finally reject God and the Bible, I bet it takes many Christians quite sometime, and some soul searching to alter their views. But, why should they be ashamed to fit the Bible into what they know to be true from the natural world, why should they have a frontal lobotomy in order to keep an inerrant Bible? So, the guy has matured as a person, he has looked at the evidence and decided what is best for him, it’s his decision and I bet he based it on some very strong evidence. That is strong faith, he knows that he wont be saved by worshipping a book, he puts Jesus first, the book won’t save you. It is putting up with constant humiliation that has psychologically altered you. The constant humiliation has made you unreceptive to anything that contradicts your belief. See how well it fits in with my post, these psychiatrists are clever people, we can see their findings unfolding before our eyes here. It doesn’t take faith to believe in a literal flood, it takes cognitive dissonance, if any event in the Bible has more evidence against it then the Flood I would like to know what it is. There was no Flood Faith, every single related discipline we have has turned its back on it. It doesn’t take faith to believe in the Flood, it takes stupidity, because your lot never just say I have faith in a literal Flood, they always come out with complete shit to try and prove a literal flood! You don’t have faith in the Flood itself, you have faith in nonsense like water canopies, or comets full of water, or some other mindless drivel! My conclusion is perfectly reasonable and supported. What does it take then when something has been shown to be 100% wrong? But, your problem here is that you do not have the original word of God! For fuxake, even Sunday school kids know that we have no original documents, no one knows exactly what the original texts said. And it is has been shown through extant texts that there are many manuscripts that have been altered.Look at this table as an example:

 Text	MT		LXX		SP
​
Adam		130 + 800 = 930	 130 + 800 = 930   230 + 700 = 930
Seth		105 + 807 = 912	 105 + 807 = 912   205 + 707 = 912
Enoch		 90 + 815 = 905	  90 + 815 = 905   190 + 715 = 905
Kenan		 70 + 840 = 910	  70 + 840 = 910   170 + 740 = 910
Mahalalel	          65 + 830 = 895	  65 + 830 = 895   165 + 895 = 895
Jared		162 + 800 = 962	  62 + 785 = 847   162 + 800 = 962
Enoch		 65 + 300 = 365	  65 + 300 = 365   165 + 200 = 365
Methuselah	187 + 782 = 969	  67 + 653 = 720   167 + 802 = 969
Lamech	          182 + 595 = 777	  53 + 600 = 653   188 + 565 = 753 

Now, what age was Lamech when he died, 777 as the Masoretic text claims, 653 as the Septuagint (Alexandinus), or 753 of the Samaritan Pentateuch?You see, your stance is fundamentally flawed, you are taking a book as literally being God’s word when the truth of the matter is that the Book you have know has went through upteen editings, you are reading what men THINK should be in there, you are reading a Book that has had something taken out and some added purely because some guys changed it to suit their own particular views. But, you will still not even consider them! They cannot be correct at all can they if they contradict your folk tale book. Yes, back to the drawing board to see what embarrassing claptrap you can make up, any nonsense will do as long as it solves an immediate problem. Thank the Lord that all Christians are not literalists, you would drag us back to where you did before, the Dark Ages. Yes, we have read their work, and most of the time we have pissed ourselves laughing at it. But, they don’t have the knowledge, this is the problem, they look to you as if they have the knowledge but they don’t. The real experts ALWAYS tear them to shreds, if the Evo v Creo debate was a boxing match, the referee would have stopped it long ago. There is when you misunderstand everything I say.Brian.This message has been edited by AdminJar, 06-20-2005 02:28 PM

I think when I asked you:What could I, or anyone else, show to you that would disprove something in the Bible? When you replied (which you have now removed): Nothing whatever.This is just one example from your deleted post that informs admins that there is no point in you entering into a discussion that requires that evidence be produced to support you arguments. A thread, for example, like the census one that Ramoss and Paulk are involved in, requires historical evidence to back up positions, you have more or less stated here that it wouldn't matter what Ramoss or Paul posted you simply wouldnt even consider their arguments.Do you think it is fair that someone could spend a lot of time on a post to you, gathering sources, constructing arguments, using up their valuable time, only to discover that there is nothing that you will accept as evidence against the Bible anyway?You have stated your ultimate position regarding evidence, it is immaterial where you state it because your stance will be the same regardless of which thread you are on.I wish I had copied and pasted your reply into Word as I normally do with posts here, because some of your remarks were priceless. A great example, and some great insight into the tortured mind of a fundy.I was going to nominate it for POTM as well!!Finally, for your information, science did not lead me away from my Christian faith.Brian.