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Debate:Should the first story of creation be read allegorically or literally? (view source)
Revision as of 23:36, April 30, 2008
, 23:36, April 30, 2008→Faith in Christ Versus Faith In The Bible
::: How do we determine with absolute certainty? Well, for a start, it depends on what you mean by "absolute certainty". Are you ''absolutely'' certain that your parents named you Ben? Perhaps the nurse wrote it down wrong, and your parents decided to stick with it? The point is that we can be ''sufficiently certain'' of many things, but if you are inclined to ''not'' believe, perhaps one can't be ''absolutely'' certain. But to be ''realistic'', as opposed to ''absolutely'' certain, then yes, we can be sure, in the vast majority of cases at least, what the authors meant. See for example in [[biblical creation account]], the sections titled "Length of the days" and "Narrative or poetry?".
::: How do we determine with absolute certainty? Well, for a start, it depends on what you mean by "absolute certainty". Are you ''absolutely'' certain that your parents named you Ben? Perhaps the nurse wrote it down wrong, and your parents decided to stick with it? The point is that we can be ''sufficiently certain'' of many things, but if you are inclined to ''not'' believe, perhaps one can't be ''absolutely'' certain. But to be ''realistic'', as opposed to ''absolutely'' certain, then yes, we can be sure, in the vast majority of cases at least, what the authors meant. See for example in [[biblical creation account]], the sections titled "Length of the days" and "Narrative or poetry?".
::: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 07:53, 30 April 2008 (EDT)
::: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 07:53, 30 April 2008 (EDT)
::::...then, really, we're talking about different things here. It seems as if we agree on most points. We accept the truth (that should really probably be Truth) of the Bible; we both accept that certain portions of that Truth are literal and certain portions are allegory. We simply disagree as to the specifics of which is which.
::::I really don't think that you can characterize those with different interpretations as "small groups." Going back to the Apocrypha (and, yes, I realize that you consider them a distinct issue, but I think the issue of whether a given book is Scripture inspired by God and useful for training in righteousness is a pretty large case of interpretation) consider the fact that the Roman Catholic canon embraces several books not considered canon by most Protestant denominations. No matter how you slice it, that's an interpretation which has led to a large group of people either wrongly embracing what should not be part of the canon, or wrongly excluding what should be part of the canon.
::::We can argue about whether practicing circumcision is in the "same league" as rejecting the Immaculate Conception or the Virgin Birth, but personally, I'd really rather not go down that road. I don't know how much weight God puts on one of His commandments over another. The consumption of shellfish doesn't seem like a particularly big deal to me, but it's referred to as an abomination in Leviticus, and that's pretty strong language.
::::Your points above really highlight what I've been saying: nobody (at least to my knowledge) reads all of the injunctions in the Bible with the same weight. A literal reading of the Bible would tend to lead one to believe that the dome of the firmament is solid, and that (as it says in Genesis) it separates "the waters above" from "the waters below." This is by no means an interpretation limited to those who lack understanding of the Bible; St. Augustine and Martin Luther, for instance, explicitly ascribed to the notion of an impenetrable and solid firmament holding back the waters above.
::::Despite this, very few prominent voices today in the Christian community continue to support the notion of a solid firmament. Most seem to accept modern astronomy as factual. What we have, therefore, is a situation where something that was clearly and evidently literal truth to some of the greatest minds in the history of Christianity is no longer clearly and evidently literal truth to many Christians today.
::::What are we to make of this? Is it that those who reject the solid firmament as literal truth are misguided? Or that even those who earnestly and painstakingly seek to know what is literal and what is allegorical in the Bible may, at times, be mistaken?
::::For that same reason, I have always been leery of relying too heavily on "what the leading commentators say." The Pharisees were the leading commentators of their day; we know what Christ had to say about their leadership, and about what happened to those who chose to follow their commentary.
:::: [[User:BenP|BenP]] 19:36, 30 April 2008 (EDT)