Why read the Bible literally?

Brian, you said that "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."We dispute both the carbon dates and the Egyptian chronologies.For example, creationists have presented clear cut evidence of systematic anomolies in C14 dating (see my 'Helium retention' post of yesterday) at a mainstream geology conference in Dec 2004.On the Egyptian chronology front, the conservative statement is usually to about 4000BC and David Rohl - a mainstream archeologist - has offered an improved chronology that only goes back to about 2400BC because by taking into account OVERLAPPING dynasties he can fix up inconsistencies with the Hittite and Assyrian chronologies! Best of all it perfectly ties in with the most detailed chronology we have ever had - the Bible. In particular plausible Jospeh and Moses influences can be seen in the revidsed chronology.The Bible was probably right all along and those archeologists that went along with the naive Egyptian chronologies going back to 4000BC were wrong!

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.

Your Judges trees reference is clearly a parable!! It couldn't be in more modern language!"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.'"Why would you try to slander a text with such systematic integrity with such statements?This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 06-15-2005 07:43 AM

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.

Rohl is a fringe figure - he has legitmate qualifications but his views are far from the mainstream.It is also far from clear that Rohl's chronology is improved. And according to statements I have read it is completely false to say that his view fixed problems with the Assyrian records - it failed because it CREATED major problems dealing with the Assyrian records.e.g.
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Curious. I have studied the Bible quite a bit in the last few years and am not very clear on the differences that you are so sure of.What telltale signs should I look for to differentiate between metaphor, parable and fact? Maybe you could give me some examples from, say, Jesus' parables. Which ones are fact, which metaphor/parable and what clues does the Bible give to tell the difference?

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.

It says that Jews of the period did not take the OT literally.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You keep repeating that but so far you've never shown any evidence that anyone ever took the Bible literally.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Did David wear the teffilin?Brian

Why is it important to not read the Bible literally? I'm interested in the truth and I use all the information that I can to find what I believe to be truth. I believe it becomes a problem when children are raised in the faith to accept that the Bible is to be read literally. As adults many come to the conclusion that the Bible can't be read literally and as a result they throw out the truth of the Christian faith along with what I believe to be a distortion of the faith.My faith is the central focus of my life. I believe that Christianity is the ultimate truth in our world. I believe that literalism is discrediting the faith. We have been given the Bible so that we can know this truth and to weaken the message by reading it as if it were a newspaper or science book detracts from the truth. When we allow truth to be distorted people are driven away from the faith.I don't know enough science to suggest that I trust it one way or the other. I do know that there are many scientists who are born again Christians. I do believe that in some cases there is an anti-faith bias in science but I also believe that the vast majority of scientists are looking for the truth in the natural world regardless of where it leads them. (Which doesn't mean that they aren't going to come to some false conclusions.)I would point out though that you didn't answer the question! I quoted my own post to give you another opportunity to answer the question. You make the case yourself because we always have to make decisions about what is to be taken literally, or not, as you did in another post in regards to the talking trees in Judges. Why is it obvious?God has given us wisdom and I believe he intends for us to use that wisdom when we read the Bible. We should be using that wisdom to look for the truth that is found in the Bible.

I have to admit that I find this so obvious that questions such as yours make me very impatient, but I will try to give you the benefit of the doubt that you really do have a problem with this. The details will have to come from you, however -- I can't guess which ones you have a problem with as I do think there shouldn't be a problem at all.Here's an attempt to point to some likely "telltale signs:" Parables and metaphors are basically ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE rather than their own content, that is, they are intended to point the hearer to a general principle rather than the story itself. Perhaps a clue is that they don't contain unique detail but generalizable details, and another clue in most cases is that somebody is telling the story to make the generalizable point. They are to be applied to similar cases in general or perhaps something else in specific, the story being completely incidental, a pattern rather than a literal factual situation.The talking trees story is so obviously a story told with symbolic images to make such a point that it's very annoying that anyone would suggest it could have been intended to be historical in itself. ALL Jesus' parables are stories of this sort, not intended to be factual but to be patterns to follow or symbolic tales to be understood to refer to something else they stand for.Which ones do you have a problem with? Please be specific about a specific problem you have determining what is historical and what is fictional illustration of some sort, or some other form of literature.In the case of Genesis I don't see any clue that it's anything but historical narrative. The whole thing reads like history. It goes from the Creation to the Flood to the stories of Abraham and the patriarchs one after another like straight history. I guess to follow through with what I'm saying about a generalizable pattern, there's nothing to generalize in any of it, except of course the usual lessons that can be learned from the mistakes of others in real life, but in any case it's all unique events.

The point was that the psalms themselves show the Israelites in David's time or thereabouts to be taking literally the record of the Pentateuch of their own history. Why is it you feel a need to get OUTSIDE the Biblical record to see such a point? It is a historical record in itself. When Jesus refers to Old Testament passages as literal history that's an even LATER record of Jewish regard of the OT as literal history.But you want me to give you evidence AFTER THAT? But that would require me to be a scholar of post-Christian Jewish history. That's rather a tall order isn't it? The evidence is clear as given FROM the scriptures, all of which were written by Jews (unless Luke wasn't a Jew). And there's another problem with this -- according to CHRISTIAN history the TRUE Jews who understood their own scriptures were the ones who followed Jesus, hundreds of thousands of them who made up the earliest Church; and the ones who rejected Him were followers of the "traditions of men" that Jesus denounced, putting the Talmud above the scriptures, who went on to develop reinterpretations of the scriptures in some cases to specifically try to exclude the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah. In other words what the post-Christian Jews thought about the literalness of their scriptures is not necessarily reliable anyway -- BUT orthodox Jews today take all the references to their own history as literal though they may allegorize the Creation and Flood stories (for no good reason based on the text itself, just that like so many others they are in thrall to science). First, my point was intended to be that Jesus and others in the NT SPEAK OF THE OT in literal terms.As far as the Messiah goes, no, the Messiah in the Old Testament is a very complex portrait. He is the kingly warrior based on David, but He is also the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 52 and 53 that Jesus referred to when he spoke of the scripture's requiring the Messiah to suffer. He is also to be God Himself according to many OT references. The rabbis found so many different elements of the Messiah in their scriptures that some postulated that there would have to be two Messiahs, some even saying three (Christian theology reconciles the two portraits in the two advents of Christ, the first as suffering servant, the second as the conquering king). I quoted a book on this subject on a couple of threads a while back, The Messiah Texts by Raphael Patai. I'll see if I can link to it again. {Edit: I seem to be unable to locate the reference using the Search feature.} Well, He refers to a few of the most contested parts of scripture as if they were historical fact -- the Creation, the Flood and the story of Jonah. Because it's true and they are missing the truth obviously by imposing extraneous standards on it. I don't remember if I read Contra Celsus, I simply remember reading that there are problems with Origen's complete orthodoxy. I wish I knew which of the Church Fathers would be relevant to search in, but there are so many of them and I've only read bits of some of them and forgotten who said what by now. Perhaps some day I'll read through them all. Early Church Fathers - Christian Classics Ethereal Library Yes, but the reasoning apparently went the familiar way, imposing an external standard of their own on it: "Well, THAT can't be true, therefore..." rather than simply believing what it says. Clearly a symbolic tale. Well now that I know what you were talking about I knew about it but didn't think of it, and find it very odd that you would claim it could be taken literally. It's clearly a symbolic tale about the choice of Abimelech for king. I'm sorry, I should have known. I simply didn't think of the other example.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-15-2005 12:47 PM

You mean besides Jesus and his disciples and his first followers, and Paul and the author of the Letter to the Hebrews (see chap 11) and whoever wrote psalms 105 and 106? That's a few who took it literally I'd say. And then among the Church Fathers I guess I'll have to do a search but certainly they took the life and death and resurrection of Jesus literally.

The talking trees flood story is so obviously a story told with symbolic images to make such a point that it's very annoying that anyone would suggest it could have been intended to be historical in itself.