That might make sense to me if morality was unchanging. However, it just isn't. The Bible, for example, condemns some things as immoral (like working on the Sabbath) that the modern world in general rejects, and either implies or outright condones many things we now see as immoral (such as polyamory, marriage within families, stoning people to death, slavery, and so on).

If the Bible had an actual comprehensive, unchanging understanding of what was right and wrong, that'd be pretty impressive. But it doesn't.

Even a casual amount of research into morality throughout history and morality within Christianity shows wild changes and fluctuations throughout the ages.

Seems to me the evidence is pretty clear that society shapes morality, and some cultures just happen to take religious texts along with it.

Being an atheist doesn't mean being immoral. I'm an atheist, but I don't need the threat of eternal punishment or the promise of eternal reward to want to help an old lady across the street or refrain from punching a baby in the face. One of my favorite quotes on the topic:

"Do not wonder at those who do good without God. Pity those who need God to be good."

I'm confused. This post is about whether or not the entire Bible is literal, but it's in response to something I said about the Bible being divine.

Those things aren't the same and they aren't words I use interchangeably. A text doesn't need to be literally true to be divinely inspired.

From my perspective it is fairly clear that the messiah of OT is a reference to a future king and leader, who will (supposedly) unite the world under Israel's influence. I don't see how Jesus fits the narrative of the OT. But then again, I am not religious either.

It is well known that the references of hell in OT originally refers to "sheol", or the place of the dead, as in the place of all dead. Hell as an evil place we know entered Christianity also around the 3rd century as a result of Greek influences (the concept of hades). In fairness it should be said that Judaism before this also had developed concept of parts of sheol being for the wicked only, but this is still a far cry from the typical understanding of "hell".

This is admittedly glib (I think that's the right?), but if key details of the Bible (NT) are not true and divine in nature, what is the point of Christianity?

A lot of fundamentalist / YEC / protestant types are basically practicing Bibliolotry, which is alarming, but I can at least understand how that grounds their beliefs. Where are self-identifying Christians, who hold fluid beliefs that could be described as cafeteria theology, getting a grounding? Is there much of a difference between them, and the humanism movement, suggesting that the supernatural difference is redundant.

It's too broad to discuss here, and I'm simplifying drastically (not to mention that the reason different atheists popularise this critcism varies enormously, and will include poor reasons too). But why is the Bible so important? Does it actually contain special revelation? Is it not particularly different than one of countless divinely inspired literature, art etc, including ones own thoughts?

"True" may not be the right framework. It's also a question of what details are "key details," and this question is tied to theology. For many Christians, a literal 6-day creation story is not a key detail. The key detail is that God created the heavens and the earth, and God is the one who got this whole process rolling.

See also: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...1&postcount=63

The grounding is in the reasoning that helps to make the pieces fit together. The gap between "cafeteria theology" and a more robust theology is that one chooses to ignore things that they don't want to pay attention to and the other is willing to struggle through the reconciliation process.

There's a difference in claims, goals, outcomes, and the like.

Short answers:

1) The value of the Bible to the Christian is similar to the value of reading works from past philosophers to a philosopher. It's a tool for learning how ideas have progressed to this point, and serves as a guide for framing and understanding contemporary matters. It's just a (very) different subject matter.

2) What do you need for it to be "special revelation"? Whether it actually contains it is probably unanswerable in any way that would invoke a measurement of something or another.

3) It's different in the sense that a group of people have deemed these writings to be of especially good value and that this collection of writings is the foundation upon which other ideas are built. It's not different in the sense that other Christian authors could be described as having the same divine inspiration in some of their writings. It's just that the group of people conferring it special status have not conferred it special status.

I believe that Jesus' message was that there is a quality of life (heaven) available to us IN THIS LIFE that we are unaware of. But the amount of pain and struggle that must be endured to get there is significant. His message was not a continuation of the OT, the God he describes is not the God of the OT, and his message has very little in common with the Christianity of today.

I would speculate that there were probably two views that branched off shortly after the death of Jesus: the one that is more in line with his message and then the other that was engulfed with Jewish understanding of the time and what is close to modern Christianity. The latter became more popular because the requirements and amount of investment and sacrifice are so much less; it appeals to the ego. There is a reason why the Gospel of Thomas, which I believe contains the more accurate view of Jesus, was not contained in the canon and had to be buried in order for us to find it in 1945.

So, to address your question I believe Christianity exists because there is something there at the core but it exists in the form that it does and the reason why it endures even with all the problems is because of emotional reasons. Not being able to overcome our emotional barriers in favor of pursuing truth and self realization is the reason for all the problems.

I apologize if this wasn't clear in my post, but by "this criticism" I was referring to the entire passage that I quoted, not just the bolded section. Specifically, you said, "The main issue is that once you say that the Bible isn't infallible/100% God's Word, you have no real way to determine any sort of message from the divine." Maybe I'm misreading you, but I took this to be saying that if you don't take the plain meaning of entire Bible to be infallible that since there is no good way to distinguish between the infallible and fallible bits that it becomes impossible to use it as an authoritative text.

The bolded was just that I wanted to respond specifically to that point when I referenced it.

Well of course, I can't give a single answer to this as there are a multitude of reasons depending on the group or individual involved. But here are a few suggestions:

-To commune/communicate with God.
-To become a better person.
-To have a better life.
-Because it is better for society.
-To fully engage and appreciate modern culture.
-For a hope of heaven/immortality.
-As a way of becoming a new person.

As a general rule, atheists don't ground their beliefs on an infallible book. But yet, they are still able to develop and maintain coherent philosophies of the world. I don't see why, if atheists can do this, Christians and other religious people are not also able to do so.

I think there is an unexamined assumption here: that religion is in some way inherently anti-intellectual, so that anyone that takes an intellectual approach to forming their beliefs will not be religious. This is a false assumption.

Again, this would depend on the specific theology of the Christian in question. But sure, most Christians will think that it is in some way a special revelation from God. This doesn't mean that what God means to be revealing to us is necessarily obvious. It also doesn't mean that every detail is exactly how God wanted it--it would be the book as a whole that is inspired.

Also, it is worth pointing out how very Protestant this dichotomy is. In Catholicism you have non-canonical writings that are also authoritative, or inspired by God (in some sense).

I guess a good question is if a story is metaphorical, like Job, does that imply that Job did not exist? That's the problem with taking portions of the OT as metaphors, that if you eliminate people you end up making it difficult for Jesus to have descended from David.

I can't argue with that perspective, the Messiah's identity has always been disputed. I do think that Jesus meets the mark, but there is no way to prove it, and there is room for debate, especially from the Jewish perspective.

Again, this perspective is valid, I just think that there are enough implications in the OT about heaven, even if the emphasis is not primarily on individual salvation.

As for hell, I'm in the process of reviewing the actual doctrine of it in the bible, and your point is perhaps another good reason why conditionalism makes sense.

This seems to me confused about the role of interpretation in revelation. Sure, let's suppose that expert scholarly knowledge of the cultural, literary and historical background of the books of the Bible is good enough to give us definitive answers about the how the books were meant to be read by their authors (I'm more skeptical than you on this front). That doesn't answer the theological question of what meaning or use God wants us to draw from that text. More accurately, it could answer that question, but only if we also accept the substantive theological position that the meaning God wants us to draw from the text is the meaning the original authors meant us to draw from it. Certainly many Christians do accept this view, but many others reject it in whole or in part. As long these two things remain distinct, there will always be a limit to how much historical-critical scholarship of the Bible can tell us about its religious meaning.

Don't see how this presents a major difficulty. Jesus's kingship is already partially a metaphor anyway, so I don't see why it should be such a big deal to say that his descendence from David is metaphorical as well.

Orp, appreciate your thoughts here itt in general. Please expound and clarify on quoted portion above.

That's fair, but at what point do we endanger Christ from not existing, by making his ancestors only metaphorical?

Not sure what you're saying here. The evidence that Jesus existed is fairly strong, which is why almost all biblical and historical scholars accept that he existed. This doesn't depend on whether the elaborate genealogies listed in Matthew and Luke are accurate.

Using a topical example, during her campaign for Senate Elizabeth Warren got in trouble for claiming a Native American heritage that might not have been genuine. If it ended up being false, would that mean she doesn't exist? Of course not; it would just show that some family myths are not true.

Wouldn't his identity be subject to dispute if his genealogy was proved to be false? If the characters in the OT were purely metaphorical, then Jesus could still stand alone as a person, not unlike Elizabeth Warren, but now he's just someone named Jesus claiming to be divine. I think his genealogy is relevant to who he claimed to be, if you erase it all, he at least loses credibility as the Messiah.

even bronies?

Jesus was just someone named Jesus (maybe) claiming to be divine. I don't see why he loses credibility if he wasn't actually descended from David. Maybe if you believe in some divine right of kings, or some magical quality passed through the kingly bloodlines, or you've read too many fantasy books this makes sense, but it seems not that important to me.

Anyway, this is all just playing the game of "well, if this part is metaphorical, then who is to say if this other part isn't as well, and that would be horrible." Nah, don't buy that argument.

Not trying to make any special point here. Jesus is not a literal king in the sense that you won't find any country on earth where Jesus is a king that rules or presides over it in the sense that other kings do.

I don't think it would be important (or as important) if Jesus himself had not made references to where he descended from, and if he had not spoken of OT saints as people. Paul also makes many references to these in addition to who Jesus was, which imo, makes it less credible if it turns out that they were "wrong" or only metaphorical.

I should clarify that I mean this is a problem only for those who want to take some things as metaphors, but still retain other things as literal at their own discretion. It all could be metaphorical, including salvation, but you won't get many Christians to concede that, even if they want claim that other parts are metaphors. My point is that if someone wants to believe that some things are metaphors, then it's more difficult for them to argue that heaven and hell literally depend on faith in Christ.

Not horrible, just up for debate.

Okay, again, I'm still not sure what you think is at issue. For those who believe that everything is metaphorical, then that's their view. You seem to be claiming that for people who think some part of the Bible is historical that it would be a problem if it ended up all being myths that didn't actually happen. Of course that is true, but so what? Presumably those people don't accept the claim that the Bible is all myths that didn't actually happen, and if you persuaded them of that view then they would change their mind and it would no longer be a problem!

But more to the point: what would actually change for you in your religious practice if, say, Moses is a legendary figure that didn't actually do all the things he is said to have done in the Torah? Would your relationship with Jesus or God be different? Your relations with other Christians? Your moral views? I'm sure there would changes, but I tend to think they would be less important than you might think.

Fair, but I don't think these people will so easily change their mind. I've heard Christians, even on this forum, claim the stories are metaphorical, but still claim Christ is literally the divine messiah. I have no problem with claiming some things are metaphors, or even the entire book, but if that is the case I don't think you are in the position to argue what is literal.

I guess it depends on the specifics, but yeah, I don't think it would make a great difference.

As much as I hate it when this forum devolves into semantics I'm not sure it can be helped here. Does a text need to be divinely inspired to be used authoritatively? If so, I don't see how you can use the text authoritatively if only part of it is authoritative, and you don't know which bits are and which bits aren't.

I mean, it's worth noting that most of the famous OT figures - King David, Solomon, all the minor prophets, Moses, etc. - are seen as real people who took part in real historical events, and if it were somehow discovered they were mythical/literary/metaphors, it'd be a pretty huge shake up. But not because of genealogies of Jesus, specifically.

We already know that the genealogies of Jesus are inaccurate, and that's fine, if you understand why Jews at the time used genealogies.

A ancient Jewish genealogy is kind of like a "highlight reel." It's like if I tell you that I'm related to Ghengis Khan, King Arthur, Martin Luther, George Washington, and Henry Ford. I tell you this as a way of establishing pedigree, of showing you that I mean serious ****. I don't mention I'm also related to some guy named Otis Dunkledorf from Georgia, because well, who gives a ****.

Saying you're descended from Abraham, David, Solomon, etc. is a literary device, almost a code, signaling to Jewish readers who you are and what you're about.

They were never intended as stone accurate. Dbags and nobodies were happily left out. So, discovering that a particular famous figure in one of the genealogies didn't really fit in that genealogy in the literal sense doesn't really matter.


The key here is consistency and scholarship. If someone says, "Psalms is poetry, therefore, it is not literally true, and here is my evidence that they are poems," that's one thing. If someone says, "Esther is a morality play, therefore, it is not literally true, and here is my evidence that it is a play," that's fine. That's what usually is happening when someone is claiming a piece of scripture is a metaphor, even if they're not articulating why it's a metaphor.

If someone is saying, "This is a metaphor, because it's a problem for me if it's literally true, so it must be a metaphor even though I have no evidence or research or reason to believe that," well, then it's time to call bull****.

Isn't the answer obviously no? After all, I would regard, say, The Battle Cry of Freedom as an authoritative book on the history of the Civil War, but I don't think it is divinely inspired.

Anyway, your final sentence continues to misstate the view of non-fundamentalists. They generally are not claiming that only some of the text is divinely inspired, but that only in some cases is the plain meaning of the text meant to be read as being true.

I am not sure what semantic issue you think is at stake here.