To take it literally, or to not take it literally. That is the question.

[Lovley]

Okay, I was kinda arguing with a classmate today about religion (we were watching a video on spain, and religion was mentioned a million times). Somewhere in the argument, I brought up the question: "Okay, now explain to me the existance of dinosaurs, and how they were alive millions of years before humans. How is this possible when the Bible claims that Humans were made on what, the 6th day of the Earth's existance?"

he responded: "We are not sure if God's 'days' meant 'days' in the way we use them. For all we know, this could mean millions of years. You don't take that literally."

so I bounced back: "okay, then why is everything else in the fucking bible taken literally?"

his response: "I don't know."

owned. but anyway, what do you think? What's your explanation? When do we know when to take the bible literally, and when to not take it literally?

[Hexadecimal]

When you can get away with it without creating contradiction, you take it literally. If it conflicts with the truth, it is metaphorical or analogous.

[inquisitor_11]

Argh, you stole my thread!

Generally, its the same rules you apply when reading any text. You generally don't read a biography the same as poetry or a report on a game of footy or a novel.

Considering that the writings that makes up the bible are individual texts in themselves, theres a number of different text types. The authors reguarly use different literary techniques within texts, that we don't pick up on because were generally reading a translation i.e. the creation narrative of Gen 1 reads like poetry in Hebrew, which is quite different to much of the rest of Genesis.

Again, theres a school of thought which says that these changing writting styles and grammer etc. is evidence of multiple authors in the Mosaic documents (BS). But it demonstrates that there is a depth of meaning that you miss when you a)read in another language b)read from another cultural perspective.

To be continued....

[Lovley]

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

When you can get away with it without creating contradiction, you take it literally. If it conflicts with the truth, it is metaphorical or analogous.

almost everything in the bible is contradiction



[This message has been edited by Lovley (edited 04-30-2004).]

[Lovley]

quote:Originally posted by inquisitor_11:

The authors reguarly use different literary techniques

coercion, deciet, exxageration, etc etc

[evolove]

Your friend was right, the Hebrew word used for "day" in Gen. is, shit I've forgotten it, but it can be translated as day, or simply a length of time, depending on the context, sentence structure and other things I think, which the way a lot of Hebrew works. The context of Gen. more accurately designates the latter. Hindus use a similar abstraction, from creation to distruction of the universe is "Day of Brahman" or some such thing, night is when everything is pulled back into God.

Absolutely everything else can also be taken figuratively aswell. The story is that the events in the Bible are based in fact, well some of them (others are almost purely invented symbolism,) but when passed on by the writters the tales were imbedded with mystical allusions designed to teach those that could read them accurately, there are a number of these levels of allusions, which coincedntly coinside with the stations of the tree of life, classifed by (Rabbi's I think) and other Qabbalahist definately, you can read meanings up to the level of your developement, then I guess when the work is done you don't have to read anymore.

This serves a number of perposes I beleive, one is the above, this method is used because it is often easier to use metaphor or other symbolic language when you speak of things like feelings, and also paint a much broader canvas, as in poetry. Secondly it allows for ease of transmission, especialy when the majority of the people may not be able to grasp the higher meanings, if you turn them into tales they become like Homers Odessy and are never forgotten. It is also helpful that those that need guidence and cannot find it directly from God have some moral codes to live by, which also serve to unite people. So everybody gets what they need and what they can from the Bible.

[Dark_Magneto]

The Bible is not a manual on reality. It is actually far from it, in fact.

Don't take any of that shit in the book seriously.

[nevermind]

you have got to look at a scripture in its context to see if its to be taken literally, or just a metaphor. most of it is very clear cut, eg we know that when jesus taught, he often used illustrations. there are a few parts of the bible that are contencious, eg the part where Paul talks of jesus in Tartarus (cant be arsed to explain).

[Craftian]

Yeah, there's always the "well that's a mistranslation, in the original language it means..." cop-out too.

[inquisitor_11]

quote:Originally posted by Craftian:

Yeah, there's always the "well that's a mistranslation, in the original language it means..." cop-out too.

Yeah, but if you actually know the original language/ text you can show whether that is BS or not. Like I said, you can get data on those parts with questionable translations- many bibles have footnotes with alternate renderings of disputable passages.

e.g. the Latin Vulgate was given the same sort of treatment that the KJV gets, yet it, and many of the other early latin translations, had some major problems. I think it was Augustine who developed some doctrine (i think it was either to do with original sin or purgatory), but the whole thing was based on a passage that was mistranslated in the Vulgate.