Quote:
Originally Posted by Arouet
You'll get no disagreement from me. The only thing is whether the ENTIRE bible is figurative, to one extent or another. The prof in that online OT course described the OT as a collection of stories designed to define a communities relationship with their God, and to define themselves, not really as any kind of history. She seemed to indicate that original adherents wouldn't themselves have taken these stories to be literally true. The OT makes much more sense in this context, IMO.
As an aside: are you a theist?
The entire bible is without a doubt not figurative, if one spends time and studies scripture you can see one way or another. There are situations where this isnt as clear, but at the end of the day I dont believe that if it is figurative or litural it takes anythin away from the intention of it.
I think you would be hard pressed to find a person trying to say that the parabels that Jesus taught where true, but we cant imagine any of the other people involved in the evolution of Jewdasim and christianity to use this same method of teaching? And once again, the parable of the good samaritan is as powerful weither you see it as a parable or actual event.
I am a christian 100%
That outline I used, if you found the right one, had some good stuff to say but was also somewhat misguided.
Honestly I think the point of this whole post is about "do you take everything literally", I'm not going to lie and say that I know the answer to all of the questions above, but my answer is, to me it doesnt really matter if that is what happened or it was used to convey a specific message.
Do I think that miricles can happen? yes. So I cannot automatically assume that everything that seems a bit crazy to me (virgin birth) isn't possible, but it wouldn't smash my world if it wasnt the case either.
There is a lot of writings about stuff like this: look up rob bell, velvet elvis is really good, but all of his are great, or Brain Mc Claren.
Sorry about my spelling guys.