Biblical LIteralists

[Petrameansrock]

I am a Biblical Literalist and I would love to hear from people who are as well. I would also like to hear from people who aren't. Do you think it is a tenable position? Do you believe you can still be a Christian without being a Biblical literalist?

[bluethread]

Well, I avoid that label, because of the RCC overtones. However, I do think it is not only possible to be a follower of Yeshua(Jesus) without being a strict literalist, it is only reasonable to not hold to strict literalism. There is no such thing as a universal dictionary and dictionaries do not take idioms and context into account. In any translation something is lost in translation, so an understanding of historical, grammatical and cultural context is necessary to have a proper understanding of any given passage.

[Checkpoint]

I am a Biblical Literalist and I would love to hear from people who are as well. I would also like to hear from people who aren't. Do you think it is a tenable position? Do you believe you can still be a Christian without being a Biblical literalist?

Could you please explain just what you mean by "literalist", with some actual examples?

Thanks,

[Divine Insight]

I am a Biblical Literalist and I would love to hear from people who are as well.

I was, what I would consider to be a "Biblical Literalist" back when I was a Christian. It may be important to note that at that time I had not yet actually read the Bible in any depth myself. At that point in time I only knew what I had been taught in church sermons and Bible School, etc.

When I say that I was a "Biblical Literalist" I don't mean to imply that I stupidly demanded that every single word must be taken in an extremely literal sense. Obviously there are many passages in the Bible where it makes sense that analogies, metaphors, and parables are the intent. However, I still accepted the most practical meanings in those cases.

In other words, I accepted and believed that the Bible should make sense without any need to try to twist thing dramatically from how they were obviously intended. After all, why would a trustworthy God make his instructions cryptic or extremely difficult to decipher or explain?

So I trusted that the Bible could be read and understood without any need for making extreme leaps of unrelated interpretations. Especially if those interpretations are required specifically because the Bible isn't making any sense as written or might appear to have questionable morality if taken as written.

However, when I decided to actually teach the word of God I realized that I would need to read the Bible for myself to fully understand it. After all, how could I teach something if I don't first have a solid understanding myself?

It was when I began to read and study the Bible cover to cover that I quickly realized that it does not make sense as written. And that taking it for what it actually says is extremely problematic.

And this brings us to your next question:

I would also like to hear from people who aren't. Do you think it is a tenable position?

When I realized that the Bible cannot stand as written I actually did go down the path of "Abstract Interpretations". In fact, I was actually quite good at this. I was able to construct elaborate excuses (apologies) for quite a bit of the Bible.

However, this was very short-lived because it didn't take me long at all to realize that all I was really doing at this point was constructing my own "apologetic theology" for a Bible that doesn't actually make any sense when taken "literally" for what it actually has to say.

In fact, I found myself creating extremely elaborate apologetic interpretations. They are easy to construct and can become quite elaborate taking on a life of their own that is far removed from the original Biblical stories.

I quickly realized that this is nothing short of gross dishonesty on my part. Not even dishonesty aimed at others I might eventually teach, but obvious self-dishonesty if I were to continue to remain on this path.

I finally realized and concluded that the Bible simply cannot be describing any actual God. It necessarily can only be a collection of extremely flawed fables.

Do you believe you can still be a Christian without being a Biblical literalist?

No. And this is why I am no longer a Christian.

I do agree with the Biblical Literalists however, in that this is the only way the Bible could be held up as being representative of the God described within the Bible.

Obviously I do not agree with the Biblical Literalists that is makes sense to hold the Bible up as being literally true.

In other words, I agree the Bible would need to stand on its own literary merit if it is to be proclaimed to be the commandments, and instructions from a God. But I do not agree that it can stand in that capacity. Therefore I conclude that the Biblical God cannot be true, as described in the Bible.

~~~~~

Just for the record, I did not become an atheist after recognizing that the God described in the Bible cannot be true. To the contrary, I continued to "believe" in a God and searched for other religions that made more sense. I found religions that make far more sense in Eastern Mysticism and some forms of Buddhism.

I did not however, become a "Buddhist". I simply recognized that Buddhism has the potential of being true. In the meantime I became educated in the sciences and have since learned that secular materialists have extremely good arguments for a possible worldview as well.

I am current "Agnostic" on the question of whether there might be a mystical essence to reality or not.

I am obviously not "agnostic" with respect to the Bible. In fact, I personally refer to the Bible as "Hebrew Mythology" and view it to have no more merit than the Greek Mythology of Zeus and company.

So at this point it would be fair to say that I am an "atheist" with respect to the Biblical God, just as Christians are all "atheists" with respect to Zeus.

[Elijah John]

Well, I avoid that label, because of the RCC overtones.

Why do you associate the RCC with Biblical literalism? On some things like the Eucharist, yes, but do you realize that the RCC does not teach a literal, 7 day Genesis creation story? The RCC accepts a form of evolution now. One can be a Roman Catholic (or an Episcopalian for that matter) and still believe in dinosaurs.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by Petrameansrock]

As one of JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES I believe the bible it the word of God and as such constitutes and absolutely accurate history of mankind. We are not "bible literalitst" as we believe some passages in the bible are symbolic or metaphoric.

I don't believe one can have a correct understanding of God or his purposes if we reject parts of the bible as mere human thinking any more than if we believe there are no metaphors in it.


JW

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[JP Cusick]

I am a Biblical Literalist and I would love to hear from people who are as well. I would also like to hear from people who aren't. Do you think it is a tenable position? Do you believe you can still be a Christian without being a Biblical literalist?

I say taking the Bible literally is idolatry because it turns the Bible into an idol.

God is not in the Bible - the Bible tells us about the God in real life outside of the Bible.

And seeing the Bible for its flaws and its inaccuracies makes the real God more understandable.

As like the story of Jonah being swallowed by a big fish is not meant to be taken as literally true, and it probably started as a children's nursery rhyme, just as today we have the fable of King Arthur and the Round Table.

[bluethread]

Well, I avoid that label, because of the RCC overtones.

Why do you associate the RCC with Biblical literalism? On some things like the Eucharist, yes, but do you realize that the RCC does not teach a literal, 7 day Genesis creation story? The RCC accepts a form of evolution now. One can be a Roman Catholic (or an Episcopalian for that matter) and still believe in dinosaurs.

Sorry, I was referring to the term "Christian" which is associated with issue in the OP. Also, you are talking about current RCC doctrine. The fact that the RCC is an authoritarian organization has caused it to have a rather inconsistent record on literalism over the years, sometimes insisting on literalism and other times rejecting literal interpretation.

[Divine Insight]

We are not "bible literalitst" as we believe some passages in the bible are symbolic or metaphoric.

I personally feel that's it's ultimately insulting to Biblical Literalists to even suggest that they can't recognize symbolic and metaphoric passages too. This doesn't mean that they are abandoning literalism, it simply means that they recognize that this is the literary intent of those particular passages.

A literalist would (or should) however, IMHO, try to take those symbolic or metaphoric passages in the most straight-forward and obvious interpretations based on context.

Where "non-literalists" go awry is when they try to read symbolism and metaphors into a lot of the Biblical passages in an obvious effort to create apologetic excuses for why those symbols or metaphors actually negate the obvious context and represent something entirely different. This is often done in an attempt to create an imaginary larger overall story that really has absolutely nothing at all to do with the actual stories of the Bible.

And by the way, often times their arguments for their interpretations are based on already having a specific picture that they are attempting to "bring out" of the Bible.

This is especially true in Christianity where the Christians attempt to push their conclusions about Jesus back onto the entire Old Testament and start claiming that stories as far back as the Garden of Eden were actually symbolically predicting the coming of Jesus. When they get that far off in to the la-la land of extreme symbolism I think it's time to recognize that they are the ones who have totally abandoned the literary content of the Bible.

[Petrameansrock]

[Replying to post 3 by Checkpoint]

Sure, by Biblical literalist I mean I interpret the Bible at face value. If it uses an idiom or a figure of speech I obviously do not take that literally, but I believe in every so called "Bible story". I believe that Adam and Eve were real people, I believe that Noah and his family boarded an ark and survived a catastrophic flood, I believe in David and Saul and all the kings of Israel. God cannot lie, and if the Bible is truly God's Word, as it claims to be, then it cannot lie.