Biblical literalism

[an anarchist]

I've seen it said on RF that biblical literalism it a relatively recent phenomenon.

Where does biblical literalism come from? Did the Hebrew/Jewish people not believe in the literal stories of Moses? What about the early Christians? Was everything interpreted symbolically? If so, why wasn't the Jesus story considered a metaphor too?

I grew up a biblical literalist. I find myself wanting to fall back to it. Just, the stories are so cool! Having an awesome personal God like the one in the Bible is an amazing feeling.

Side question that I've asked before: how literally do you take the Bible, Christians?

 

[John D. Brey]

I've seen it said on RF that biblical literalism it a relatively recent phenomenon.

Where does biblical literalism come from? Did the Hebrew/Jewish people not believe in the literal stories of Moses? What about the early Christians? Was everything interpreted symbolically? If so, why wasn't the Jesus story considered a metaphor too?

I grew up a biblical literalist. I find myself wanting to fall back to it. Just, the stories are so cool! Having an awesome personal God like the one in the Bible is an amazing feeling.

Side question that I've asked before: how literally do you take the Bible, Christians?

Is there a difference between "literalism" versus "inerrancy"? Inerrancy is the claim the scripture is literally true. If it's literally true, it's inerrant.

As far as being simply literal, didn't Nicodemus put that to rest?




John

 

[PureX]

Reading a story, or partaking in any act of artifice, is an interpretive process. The artist commits to and records his experience of being in some medium, and then the 'viewer' must interpret the 'design' of the artifact to try and regain the creator's experience. The point being that there is no objective way of reading any story, or of engaging with any creative artifact. Subjective interpretation is required by the process.

We can choose to be aware of this interpretive engagement, or not to be, I suppose. Though I personally can't see the advantage of ignoring it. Those ancient stories didn't write themselves. And the people that created them did so for a reason, and with a purpose in mind that may or may not now even be applicable to us. So I would want to try and see how their experience of being a human, then, can inform my experience of being a human, now, even after thousands of years and many translators have passed between us. And that requires a lot of honest though subjective interpretation on my part.

 

[John D. Brey]

Reading a story, or partaking in any act of artifice, is an interpretive process. The artist commits to and records his experience of being in some medium, and then the 'viewer' must interpret the 'design' of the artifact to try and regain the creator's experience. The point being that there is no objective way of reading any story, or of engaging with any creative artifact. Subjective interpretation is required by the process.

We can choose to be aware of this interpretive engagement, or not to be, I suppose. Though I personally can't see the advantage of ignoring it. Those ancient stories didn't write themselves. And the people that created them did so for a reason, and with a purpose in mind that may or may not now even be applicable to us. So I would want to try and see how their experience of being a human, then, can inform my experience of being a human, now, even after thousands of years and many translators have passed between us. And that requires a lot of honest though subjective interpretation on my part.

The one thing I would add, from my perspective and belief, is that there's a living entity (other than the writer himself) engaged with, and through, the thoughts, actions, and writing of the authors of scripture. There's a voice that's not the author's alone guiding the author's voice or pen.



John

 

[Brickjectivity]

Where does biblical literalism come from?

The scriptures were translated to English and German controversially out of a sense of desperation. The people who translated felt the church needed reform and wanted to stimulate that by translating and publishing. In their defense the church did need reform. They did stimulate reform, however the churches split. There was a lot of animosity between the roman catholics and those who left. There were also political wars about the split, and in war truth is one of the first casualties. Some people wanted to heavily demonized the roman catholic institution and so devised a scheme to make Revelations a literal book in which the catholic church was an evil player in the story. They made this foundational doctrine in their church(es), thus enshrining literal scripture interpretation. They came up with systems of interpretation to account for or to alleviate the seeming contradictions which resulted, and they way they used future English translation techniques also helped to hide some of these.

But there have been other times previous where people would try to make it all very literal and an accurate portrayal. It wasn't only during the Reformation.

 

[PureX]

The one thing I would add, from my perspective and belief, is that there's a living entity (other than the writer himself) engaged with, and through, the thoughts, actions, and writing of the authors of scripture. There's a voice that's not the author's alone guiding the author's voice or pen.

Whether there us or isn't; for any message to be transferred from writer to reader the text must be interpreted, and that can only be done by seeking some resonance within ourselves, to whatever resonance within the author guided his arrangement of the words. This is simply not an 'objective', nor an automatic, unthinking, process. (As some biblical ideologues want to assert.)

 

[John D. Brey]

Whether there us or isn't; for any message to be transferred from writer to reader the text must be interpreted, and that can only be done by seeking some resonance within ourselves, to whatever resonance within the author guided his arrangement of the words. This is simply not an 'objective', nor an automatic, unthinking, process. (As some biblical ideologues want to assert.)

The actual life of a thought lasts only until it reaches the point of speech: there it petrifies and is henceforth dead but indestructible, like the petrified plants and animals of prehistory. As soon as our thinking has found words it ceases to be sincere or at bottom serious. When it begins to exist for others it ceases to live in us, just as the child severs itself from its mother when it enters into its own existence.

Schopenhauer.

Properly conceived of, language is something persistent and in every instant transitory. Even its maintenance by writing is only an incomplete, mummified preservation, necessary if one is again to render perceptible the living speech concerned.

Wilhelm von Humboldt.​

I think the Catholic scholar Jean-Luc Marion said it best:

The text escapes the ownership of its literary producers . . . Indeed, in what does the production of a new theology consist? In a new way of leading certain words from the Scriptures back to the Word, an interpretation rendered possible, more even than by the talent of a mind, by the labor of the Spirit that arranges a Eucharistic community in such a way that it reproduces a given disposition of the Word-referent, and is identified with the Word, interpreted according to this relation. Coinciding with this new persona, the community . . . realizes a new dimension of the original event, thus accomplishing a new hermeneutic of some words, signaling a “new” theology. This endless fecundity depends on the power of the Spirit that gives rise to the Eucharistic attitudes . . ..

Jean-Luc Marion, Professor of Philosophy University of Paris.​

John

 

[exchemist]

I've seen it said on RF that biblical literalism it a relatively recent phenomenon.

Where does biblical literalism come from? Did the Hebrew/Jewish people not believe in the literal stories of Moses? What about the early Christians? Was everything interpreted symbolically? If so, why wasn't the Jesus story considered a metaphor too?

I grew up a biblical literalist. I find myself wanting to fall back to it. Just, the stories are so cool! Having an awesome personal God like the one in the Bible is an amazing feeling.

Side question that I've asked before: how literally do you take the Bible, Christians?

In most of Christian history, the bishops and theologians have generally been educated men who had read the classics. They were quite used to reading poetry, ancient Greek and Roman myths, etc., and interpreting them to extract meaning, at various levels. They were not so naive as to expect the face value meaning of the words on the page to be the whole meaning of the text. They saw layers of meaning behind the words. Of course they took the New Testament to be a series of historical accounts, but even these would have been read as, well, historical accounts, i.e. records written by individuals with partial recollections of events and various interests and biases, even though divinely inspired. The older parts of the Old Testament would have been seen as partly historical and partly as allegory, poetry or whatever, again divinely inspired.

 

[PureX]

I'm a lot more 'matter of fact' about this stuff. There is nothing in the Bible but a lot of squiggly marks on lots of pieces of paper. There are no ideas there and no communications from God. There is no truth but this truth.

So any ideas that occur to us while we're looking at all those squiggly marks are not coming from the marks. They are already within us. They are within us in the form of language and in the texts that represent our language. They are in us in our awareness of relationship, and in our ability to interrelate information to create elaborate conceptual constructs. The squiggly symbols on the paper are just inviting us to call upon all this information and context, within ourselves, and to perhaps arrange them in ways that may or may not have occurred to us before.

It's the 'magic' of literature and nothing about it is set in stone (objective). It's very much an individual and subjective process. Because there is no message in the book. There is only the message within us, being called into our consciousness by the squiggly marks in the book. This is why I don't hold to the idea of sola scriptura.

 

[Sand Dancer]

I've seen it said on RF that biblical literalism it a relatively recent phenomenon.

Where does biblical literalism come from? Did the Hebrew/Jewish people not believe in the literal stories of Moses? What about the early Christians? Was everything interpreted symbolically? If so, why wasn't the Jesus story considered a metaphor too?

I grew up a biblical literalist. I find myself wanting to fall back to it. Just, the stories are so cool! Having an awesome personal God like the one in the Bible is an amazing feeling.

Side question that I've asked before: how literally do you take the Bible, Christians?

It is a more recent phenomenon. Probably after the Enlightenment, like many other types of changes. I used to think the Bible was literal, but that changed over 10 years ago.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I've seen it said on RF that biblical literalism it a relatively recent phenomenon.

Where? I do not recall ever hearing such a position articulated. Could you give us a reference?

 

[an anarchist]

Where? I do not recall ever hearing such a position articulated. Could you give us a reference?

Do you think
Post #2
It gave me the idea for this thread, but I’ve seen it said more than this. And this thread people are articulating the position

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Do you think
Post #2
It gave me the idea for this thread, but I’ve seen it said more than this. And this thread people are articulating the position

Thanks - I stand corrected.

 

[metis]

What about the early Christians? Was everything interpreted symbolically?

The early Church well knew there were often variations found within the scriptures, but that didn't stop them from selecting the canon.

Side question that I've asked before: how literally do you take the Bible, Christians?

Some parts more literally, and some parts more symbolically. With Jesus' parables, for example, did these events really occur or are they symbolic?

 

[pearl]

Is there a difference between "literalism" versus "inerrancy"? Inerrancy is the claim the scripture is literally true. If it's literally true, it's inerrant.

I believe Inerrancy has more to do with Scripture as a whole, not in every detail.

 

[exchemist]

Where? I do not recall ever hearing such a position articulated. Could you give us a reference?

Here are a few (relating chiefly to Christianity, though the second one comments on Jewish traditions also)

How biblical literalism took root | Stephen Tomkins

The Great Myths 11: Biblical Literalism - History for Atheists

Biblical Literalism

A number of commentators have seen Christian biblical literalism as a product of the interaction of the Protestant Reformation with, perhaps paradoxically, the development of science - a new determination to get to the truth, instead of being satisfied with mystery.

 

[syo]

how literally do you take the Bible

How? Very.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Is there a difference between "literalism" versus "inerrancy"? Inerrancy is the claim the scripture is literally true. If it's literally true, it's inerrant.
As far as being simply literal, didn't Nicodemus put that to rest?
John

Dear John,

Perhaps I’ve got this completely wrong but maybe you’re able to shed some light on it for me.

From a belief that Scripture was given [by God] exactly as is written, I thought that inerrancy was about it not being able to be incorrect unless its wording was somehow altered.

Literalism however - though it most likely includes the idea of inerrancy - goes further, because it is about the meaning of the words in Scripture being literal.

For example, he who reads Scripture as being inerrant may say that:

• What God said, cannot be incorrect
• God said “…and there was light”
• God did not there say something else
• Let no one say that God there said something else

But while he who reads Scripture as inerrant very well could be open to alternative ideas about what God meant by “…and there was light”, he who reads it as literal, is not.*

To a literalist “light” cannot signify a state of mind, an emotion or anything else, other that simply “light”.

Inerrancy on the other hand, says nothing about not interpreting words symbolically. Am I mistaken?

*) The chosen example is poor, I agree. But you get what I mean, yes?


Humbly,
Hermit

 

[metis]

Inerrancy on the other hand, says nothing about not interpreting words symbolically. Am I mistaken?

Correct.

Where "inerrancy", on the other hand comes in, it deals with do all the narratives on the same event match, and the answer to that is clearly no.

 

[pearl]

Here we go folks. You can watch it on Fox.
Bible's New Testament to be spoken aloud from memory, word for word, at Texas event

AMERICA NEEDS A RELIGIOUS AWAKENING