You're welcome to find it as preposterous as you'd like. That doesn't mean that your befuddlement is grounded in anything other than your own ignorance on the topic.

Notice that you've changed: Yes, it is a *part* of the discussion about the true meaning and accuracy of the Bible. This is very different from saying that the purpose of literalism is to "claim that the intended meaning is clear and authoritative" or that "Literalists are saying that they are right because they take the Bible literally rather than interpreting."

Yes! But not in the way you think. And this is obvious to anyone who knows anything about this. You're no better at arguing your point than Mightyboosh is able to accurately parse between methodological and philosophical naturalism.

The short answer is that you are clearly ignorant, and if you were smart you would just shut up for a while and watch the conversation progress so that you can learn something. Otherwise, you will simply continue to prove abject ignorance, but then go further to show yourself to be intentionally so. You've obviously done no work reading anything about Biblical literalism. Either that, or you have and happened to find some obscure version of it that nobody actually adheres to but because you read it on the internet you think that this is what's actually happening in the minds of literalists.

No.

I did not mean to sound pedantic about it, that Jesus grew leaves. My position is that self-described literalists are not -- that they constantly interpret. But is not the point of the stance to CLAIM a reduction in interpretation? And literalism therefore sticks closer to the author's intent? Because the more you accept room for multiple interpretations, the less authority your own version has.

I mean, I'm going by decades of reading people saying that six days means 144 terrestrial hours, and that Eve was made from Adam's rib, and that lizard's lost their legs because one tempted Eve. Is there a separate strain of literalism which uses the term to mean the Old Testament is the literal word of God, although our understanding and his meaning may be obscure and can only be accessed through interpretation?

That does not strike me as a common stance. From the first result of a Google search "bible literal word god":

" Not only can we take the Bible literally, but we must take the Bible literally. This is the only way to determine what God really is trying to communicate to us."

And:

"There are figures of speech in the Bible which are not to be taken literally, but those are obvious. "

It then takes the utterly fatuous and contradictory stance:

"when we make ourselves the final arbiters of which parts of the Bible are to be interpreted literally, we elevate ourselves above God." Translated, this is an assertion of power, you must accept your pastor's word on what's literal and what's a figure of speech, cause there ain't no burning bushes giving clues.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-literal.html

Aaron, you are a self-contradictory tool who cannot even hint at what deep insight I am missing. You are boxed in so resort to the lame, arrogant, "you just don't get it." You just can't explain it, because your position is fatuous.

Aaron is not a literalist. You know that, right? He is simply responding to your misunderstanding of what literalism entails.

I read the link you provided in its entirety, and it said nothing about accepting your pastors word for anything. It didn't even mention anything about pastors. If this is your "translation" of what was said, then in my opinion you either have some serious reading comprehension issues or an inability to implement elementary principles of logic in your thinking.

edit: Or maybe you're not seeking after truth, but are just trying to be argumentative.

Sure. But that's still entirely *different* from the things you've asserted previously that I quoted back to you.

Again, there are no literalists that say that the Bible doesn't need to be interpreted at all. Any form of reading anything requires interpretation. That's just how language works.

This might be one of the few true things you've said.

Okay. But this doesn't exactly match any of your previous statements. Notice that there's still an attempt to interpret the text here. I don't think anyone denies that.

Again, there's interpretation that's required here. Nobody denies interpretation.

As far as I'm concerned, that's just a failure of reading on your end. Notice that *YOU* are interpreting a quite literal statement in your own way. Maybe you should reflect on that more to understand what's happening here.

You're welcome to make whatever claims about me you want. I'm not at all bothered by it. I've not just "hinted" at the insight. I've straight up told you several aspects of it. I'm leaving some behind as I wait for lagtight to proceed forward with his argument. (Not intending to rush him at all...)

But you're just so anxious to prove your own ignorance to everyone that you just want to charge ahead. So be it. Please feel free to continue telling me other things that I believe and other things that literalists believe. Because you're clearly the foremost authority on both.

Quote:

Quote:

Translated, this is an assertion of power, you must accept your pastor's word on what's literal and what's a figure of speech, cause there ain't no burning bushes giving clues.

I read the link you provided in its entirety, and it said nothing about accepting your pastors word for anything. It didn't even mention anything about pastors.

Where to begin here. Of course that is my claim, it was not presented as a quote. They allege that the Bible is to be taken literally. Then they say some things should not be, because they are figures of speech.

So I am not to believe that Jesus grows leaves, but I am to believe a reptile spoke to Eve. Who's to say that was real, rather than a figure of speech representing Eve's own base desires?

There is NO sound way of determining which is literal or figurative.

So when they say the Bible is to be taken literally, they do not actually mean it. But they will be telling you which things, in their opinion, are figurative or literal. So they are making a claim of authority (the pastor role), of which is which. And you are supposed to accept that.

No one claims they interpret literally based on what they do, because they don't. The CLAIM of literalism is a rhetorical strategy for establishing credibility. But that is baseless because no one practices it.

I know you claim literalism is not a power move. But none of you actually are literalists, you are rainy day figurativists. So what is it you are doing with the "Hello I'm a Literalist" badge? You are asserting your accuracy.

How about a spontaneously combusting bush? Did that happen, or does it just mean that Abraham felt an especially powerful message from God? Or that God put the image in his mind?

Literalism cannot be made viable, except by claiming that you have special insight into what's real or figurative.

This is a flaw in the literalist approach, not in my understanding of what the word means or what people mean when they claim it.

This is a flaw in the ignorance approach, not in anything having to do with Biblical interpretation. You clearly don't actually care what people mean when they say it, and you have clearly failed at your attempt to construct a meaningful argument.

Thanks for playing.

So the horn sound makes literalism work? Does that mean the bush really burned, or was figurative?

Or you weren't being literal, you just can't make words go?

If you wanted to hear what your analysis of literalism sounds like, it's more like this:



You're kind of all over the map in your understanding and your criticisms. Your criticisms don't actually make sense, and it's full of asserting things about what others think.

You go even further and take statements that people make about literalism and then reinterpret it to mean something quite significantly different from what the original statement was. Not only that, you *openly admit* that you did this and you seem to have *no problem* with the fact that this is what you did.

You quote one person, then redefine the quote by adding in your own meaning, and then act insulted when you're called out on it and seem to be utterly confused as to why this is a problem.

You really should just bow out of the conversation so you don't embarrass yourself further.

Edit: By the way, I think there are lots of reasonable criticisms of Biblical literalism. And they don't require the construction of a strawman.

I am sympathetic to your general case. I also think "literalism" is an inaccurate way to describe the hermeneutical approach adopted by people like lagtight and other Christian fundamentalists/evangelicals. That being said, I don't think you are being charitable to the views of literalists as I understand them. In my view, "literalism" combines a couple theses:

1) The meaning of a text in the Bible is the meaning intended by the original author.

2) Most texts in the Bible should default to the surface, literal meaning as the intended meaning.

(1) is intuitively appealing to a lot of people (in jurisprudence also). It also makes it possible for an interpretation to be wrong or right. It makes it so that the interpretation is not just a power move, but instead at least partially constrained by the literal sense of the written words, plus facts about history and literature that guide and constrain our considered view about what the authors meant to say.

(2) derives (imo) from the lack of hierarchy in evangelical and fundamentalist churches. Overarching clerical bodies, like the Vatican allow more creative ways of reading Scripture to be generally accepted by placing their imprimatur on them. For decentralized versions of Christianity like evangelicalism, who are not in communion with a global Christianity in the way that Roman Catholicism is, it is intellectually appealing to instead jettison the more outré interpretations of the Bible and instead claim to hold an everyman "literal" or "plain meaning" hermeneutic.

Where I think you are correct is that many (most?) evangelical Christians either reject or are uncomfortable with using the historical-critical method of interpretation to determine the meaning of the Bible - yet this method would seem implied by (1). This should make us skeptical that this claim is really meant in good faith. In my experience among Christians, a more functionally accurate description of (1) is:

(1a) The meaning of a text in the Bible is the meaning intended if written by a modern, ordinary <insert nationality> Christian.

As for (2), this seems driven more by theological than interpretative imperatives as well. A Scripture that is difficult to understand or interpret, or where our confidence-level in the accuracy of our interpretation remains low, is just not as useful for guiding people's beliefs. When I read the Bible, I often find it confusing and unclear. Even when what is being said is clear, I'm often at a loss as to what message, if any, we are supposed to draw from it. It is also quite obvious to me how much my philosophical and theological assumptions (eg about how universal a claim is supposed to be) determine what this message is supposed to be. As a theological belief, fine you can accept (2). But it is not self-justifying, nor is it particularly supported on Scriptural grounds or historical grounds, nor really any grounds except pragmatism.

^^OP thanks for your learned and measured contribution.

I have learned that the folks calling themselves literalists rarely mean it that way. They acknowledge constant interpretation, but strive to do less of it than everyone else.

I still think it is a self-contradictory approach since there is no consistent way to distinguish parables from miracles, or figures of speech from errors of fact. They believe they get a more consonant interpretation by sticking to the text, but go figurative if a passage is troublesome. I think it undercuts the authority of literalism whenever you aren't literal.

And in common usage, people regularly do not acknowledge that literalism is another school of interpretation. They still think they are escaping interpretation, though the more sophisticated moderate the claim.

I think that this has been stated about fifty times ITT (give or take), so I'll put in bold since you apparently missed it the other fifty times it was said: No literalist (that I am aware of) thinks that they are "escaping" interpretation by being literalists! Please either prove otherwise or recant your statement and apologize for wasting everybody's time on this point. Thanking you in advance.

Have a blessed day!

No.

What's actually contradictory about it? You can say that it might be difficult, or that there may be disagreements... but contradictory?

Literalism isn't even the authority. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean other than you're just making up meanings again.

Nobody rejects that reading the Bible requires interpretation.

Nobody rejects that reading the Bible requires interpretation.

You've really got to get a better analysis game. We've already got a Mightyboosh. We don't need a MB knock-off.

You've just attained willful ignorance status. Congratulations!

I think you're wrong. While it is true that theologians and more thoughtful Christians won't say the Bible doesn't require interpretation, I remember this claim being a common trope among evangelicals when I was growing up. The idea was that interpretation was something people did when a text wasn't clear, or to create a different meaning for the text. This was both obviously false in the sense intended (the Bible in fact isn't always clear) and also a misunderstanding of what people meant by "interpretation." Nonetheless, they would still say this as a kind of political slogan, especially when talking about liberal Christians. From my perspective now, I would say they said this because they recognized this assertion, if true, makes their own views more attractive, and so weren't concerned to be too careful in examining its meaning or truth.

Of all the Christians I've met, I've never had any of them assert that the Bible doesn't need interpreting, either in the sense of actual interpretation or as a slogan. The closest statement to that I've heard is that "The Bible interprets itself" but that's used more as part of the exegetical method of trying to use Biblical concepts to interpret Biblical passages. So that still doesn't fit.

I will admit that "nobody" is probably an overstatement because there's always *somebody* out there doing something silly. I did google the exact phrase "The Bible does not need to be interpreted" and it does exist out there in the Christian world.

But even in all of those settings, there's a particular emphasis on interpreted, almost like the true in true Scotsman. It's still not actually a denial of the common role of interpretation that happens every single time you read a passage, but rather putting a spin on the word to emphasize a pushback against a particular perspective as you've described.

So I still maintain my position with perhaps a minor modification: (Virtually) nobody rejects that reading the Bible requires interpretation.

The objection you raise is narrowly constructed (applies to only specific passages and not the Bible as a whole book) and the word usage is different from the meaning I'm placing on it, and certainly different from the meaning that Bill is trying to place on it.

"when we make ourselves the final arbiters of which parts of the Bible are to be interpreted literally, we elevate ourselves above God."

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-literal.html

That quote doesn't mean what you think it means. There is no "escaping" of interpretation in that phrase. Interpretation is explicitly acknowledged as part of the process.

The entire context of that answer is built from the question "Can / Should we interpret the Bible as literal?" Do you see the word "interpret" there? You'll also notice that the answer to the question isn't, "You don't interpret the Bible." The answer is "Yes, you should *interpret* it this way."

Yes, you interpret in the sense of "I subscribe to literal interpretation of the Bible."

But this school seeks to reduce the number of reader qualifications, additions, connections, etc. added to the text. But this attempt to escape injections by the reader does less than meets the eye. Accepting the miracle of the loaves, while rejecting the perspicuous reading of six day creation, is inconsistent. Genesis clearly meant literal days because the lord rested on the seventh, and that established the week for ever after. Context is permissible when Jesus says he's a vine, but not when the day for the sabbath was established? Nuh uh. That is intensive reinterpretation. We hope we are done.

Good. At least you've been able to accept that.

Okay. But this is again an entirely different argument than what you've been saying all the way up until this point of the thread. Here is a collection of your assertions:

* "My point was that when statements are vague and flexible there cannot possibly be a literal, single meaning."

* "My position is that self-described literalists are not -- that they constantly interpret."

* "They still think they are escaping interpretation, though the more sophisticated moderate the claim."

None of these things say what you're saying here. And what you're saying here isn't necessarily intellectually objectionable. When you read what someone else writes, don't you think it's a reasonable task to try to reduce the number of external attachments you give to the meaning of what they write, and that it's a reasonable goal to understand the text as close to the original intent as possible?

And once again, you're sounding off like someone who knows absolutely nothing about what they're talking about. You need to not do this. It's as if you think the end goal of literalism is literalism itself. This would be consistent with your earlier statement about "undercutting the authority of literalism." Literalism is not some rule that one blindly follows. There's no checkbox next to every Biblical passage where one must check off that they've chosen to interpret a passage literally in order to earn their literalist merit badge. None of this works like that.

But since you've at least gotten yourself away from claiming that interpretation is NOT part of literalism, I suppose I can at least declare that there's an intellectual win there. Maybe there's a distant hope for you to understand the rest of this.

You took me too literally. I always understood that literalists did not think Jesus grew leaves. But literalists do desire a single, radiant, unimpeachable interpretation. It's a dead end, because they have to do violence either to the text or scientific fact to get there.

We are talking from very different intellectual environments and do not always know which things need ten qualifications to avoid being taken the wrong way.

Radiant?

Literalists desire the correct interpretation, and they do tend to believe that there is a singular interpretation that is correct. It's not so clear that they desire one that in unimpeachable. They just want to be right.

Sure. I don't deny this.

I take your words as they appear, unless there's reason for me to think otherwise. Literally, as it were. The reason I do that is because I trust that you mean the words you say, and that my best approach to understanding you is through those words. And that's why I quote back your words to you, because it provides that context for my interpretation (and response).

And yet... I'm not a literalist when it comes to reading the Bible. And at no point did I ever believe that you believed that literalists believe that Jesus had leaves. Do you understand how that works?

Pleez esplain me Massa.

I'm not sure if an explanation that you will understand is possible, given your ability to understand it thus far despite multiple explanations.

I agree with your interpretation of Genesis here, but to Aaron's point, there are reasonable Christians (such as Dr. Hugh Ross) who would argue that when properly understood, the "six days" could be "six epochs"(or whatever), since the Hebrew word translated into the English word day is yom which can refer to a unspecified period of time. My point is, literalism per se is not necessarily the issue when interpreting Genesis 1. Two literalists can have separate interpretations of the relevant verses.
Context is never merely permissible, it is pretty much nearly always necessary.

Question for Aaron:

Do you believe that Adam and Eve were people who actually existed?