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It’s the same old objections which Christians have been answering for years.
The main issue seems to be what Christians mean when they describe the Bible as literally true. Speaking for most educated evangelicals, the Bible can and does use figures of speech, and that is what we mean by literal; it’s like literature.
Of course, there’s the old written by God vs. written by men thing. Of course the Bible was written by men; it’s just that the Holy Spirit superintended what was written. Again, the theory does not rule out literary interpretation.
@JK: So you don’t think Noah’s Ark happened? What about everything in Egypt? Do you believe God killed the firstborn of all Egypt because of Pharoah’s sin — even though there is no evidence at all that the Israelites were ever near Egypt?
Many (most) Christians I know take Genesis to be literal. Some of the more intelligent ones at least can laugh at that.
Which of course leads to the thorny issue that the parts of the bible that modern theologians still like, including the gospels, include information that has flatly been proven to be false. For example, the gospel accounts of the murder of all male children ordered by Herod, and the gospel account of a Roman census that required all Israelites to return to their city of birth.
In addition, how do you deal with the fact that Jesus spoke of the flood as being literally true, when you believe that 1) he was a god man who should know whether it was or not, having existed for eternity, and 2) there never was a literal global flood. So what was this god man referring to? Literary interpretation?
It always boils down to, “We keep the parts that tell stories that we like, even if they have no connection to historical reality.”
Meh. You can keep it.
“Speaking for most educated evangelicals, the Bible can and does use figures of speech, and that is what we mean by literal; it’s like literature.”
So, when you say it’s literal, you mean it’s not really literal? That makes no sense whatsoever, which is perfectly typical of most people trying to claim that it’s divinely inspired/guided. . . .
J. K. Jones: “that is what we mean by literal; it’s like literature.”
TheOtherOne is spot on, you have just deliberately changed (or completely misunderstood) the meaning of the word ‘literal’.
To everyone other than ‘most educated evangelicals’ the word ‘literal’ means ‘without interpretation or embellishment’. You seem to be confusing ‘literal’ with ‘literary’ which is a completely different concept meaning ‘of or relating to literature’.
The Bible is certainly ‘literary’ but if you think that this means that it is ‘literal’ then you need to consult a dictionary. If being ‘literary’ made something ‘literal’ then all works of fiction would be factually correct, do you really think that ‘Lord of The Rings’ and ‘Peter Pan’ are literally true?
How can any reasonable person fail to see that “Lord of the Rings” is literally true? Why must you atheists always attack our faith?
I was raised a Protestant Christian. I am an atheist. I did howeverattend a religious college and have studied the Bible with a professor who was also a minister. Before college, I did a paper on comparitive religion showing the similarities of various theist stories-much like Bill Maher in Religilous. I do believe that some of the stories in the Bible are true, though. as the “Muslims say All Praise to Allah” the authors of the Biblical stories are telling there stories to solidify the History and explain the unexplainable. A recent television show on the History channel explains every one of the “miracles ” of the Exodus and demonstrates a reasonable explanation of the Israelites in Egypt.. The show is narrated by an Israeli military man.
I think it does all atheists a disservice to say the Bible is a wrong. It has some historical context. The TV show I mentioned explains even the death of the first born scientifically and anthropologically.
It seems we are told by evangelicals that God opened up the sky and Handed the Bible to one of their members. Though there is disagreement about the First Council of Nicaea (325AD), It is where the New Testament originates and re written by monks through the Dark Ages and rewritten agian by King James to solidify his power over the illiterate by giving the King authority through God.
@Will: There isn’t even any evidence the Israelites were in Egypt, much less all the firstborns be killed by God. Why would you want to believe such things, even though there is no evidence?
I’m sure there is some truth in some of the stories. But a good majority of it is just fiction. And that’s fine — no big deal. But the problem is people actually think it is literally true and believe crazy things because of it.
@Will – are you referring to the Exodus Decoded? Jacobovici’s “explanations” of the Exodus miracles don’t even come close to holding water.
Here’s one debunking of the show:
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2006/09/debunking-the-exodus-decoded.aspx
Here’s another (lengthy and thorough) one:
http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?cat=86
I’ll tentaviely stand corrected.
There are better authorities than Penn Gillette out there. He’s not exactly science-based, nor the voice of reason.
Still, this was fun to watch.
Jesus, I love Penn & Teller ;) :::::wiping eyes::::
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