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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. . . .
@TheOtherOne.
Hey there! To respond, the way that a person should read the Bible is similar to when you watch a weather report saying that the sun will rise at 7.10 am. You don’t question what the speaker is saying even tho’ the sun doesn’t really rise [we revolve around the sun]. Its a figure of speech that we all understand. The Bible is a book with all the facets of literature [too many to go into here] and must be read with that in mind. So, yes there are things that are absolutely literal [such as Jesus being born in Bethlehem - to be taken literally] and other things that are historical events/actually happened, but are not to be taken absolutely literal – [Jesus saying that if your eye causes you to sin you should gouge it out - figure of speech to emphasis the seriousness of sin]. Hope that helps! danj
How do you know that is the proper way to read the Bible?
So, yes there are things that are absolutely literal [such as Jesus being born in Bethlehem - to be taken literally]
But that’s a clear fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy. Since Matthew and Luke have completely different lead-ups to the birth, and then different follow-ups, doesn’t it make more sense to conclude that this is a midrashic retelling of the OT passage rather than a real event? Or by “facets of literature” do you mean modern literature, and we should ignore the techniques of ancient writers?
Jesus being born in Bethlehem is not a literal fact. You assume it’s true because you accept the authority of the Bible. There is no supporting, independently verifiable evidence for him being born there. In fact, there may good reason to doubt he was, according to the bible itself…
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/12/was-jesus-born-in-bethlehem.html
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 Powers
Hi there! Thanks for your comments, but you are incorrect about the 1st Council of Nicaea. The NT didn’t come from there. i recommend a book called “Reinventing Jesus” to get a great historical perspective on these events. Take care, danj
@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::::
I do have some rebuttals (mainly in the form of questions) to the specific arguments in the article. I will limit myself to the Noah’s ark myth.
Was the water surrounding the earth salt water or fresh water? The answer will limit the ability of the survival of both amphibians and fresh water fish species, with very narrow tolerances to salinity.
When you release the animals from the ark how do you stop the lions eating the single “kind” of antelope and ruining the whole plan, repeat ad infinitum. Or do you just get them to eat the lovely damp grass.
The 4000 years that have passed since the ark is not enough time to turn the single “kind” in several species. The massive amount of dog sub species has only been created by human breeding programmes. Artificial selection was used to make already useful dogs even more useful.
I believe in evolution but if you believe in the “kind’s separate into species” idea you believe in more evolution than I do. For example if Noah took only one species of possum there is not enough time for the on “kind” of possum to split into all the kinds found today (fully 60-65 species) far to much adaptation to be explained away!
Im not actually too sure what a kind is, and I’ve looked into it! Some would assume it fits the level of Genus in the Linnaean taxonomic system others feel it resembles the Family or maybe even Order level. I tend to believe it is deliberately ambiguous in order to make my job of calling creationists to account over their figures harder. Please someone finally give me an answer what does it mean. There are 7 basic levels and several sublevels, choose one and stick to it.
Where did the water come from and go to? If it came from a canopy surrounding the earth (Kent Hovind theory) how did all the animals adapt to the change in pressure that removal of the canopy would cause. Secondly there is no peer-reviewed evidence for a canopy of water (in any form) surrounding the earth. Not in quantities enough to flood the earth deeper than Everest.
If the water came from the “fountains of the deep” (underground caverns filled with water) what filled those caverns? Magma? The resulting tectonic activity would be very dangerous and unpredictable. I do not care to think what would happen.
If the water did appear the tidal activity would destroy many plant species, as would the aforementioned salinity which would destroy many tree species. European mainland oak and beech species which I have studies are not tolerant of salt at all, as they live in areas of moving ground water i.e. steep slopes etc…
In addition, coral species require light from the sun. If the water gets too deep it damages the coral as sunlight can only permeate to certain depths. Some scientists believe that a rise in water levels of a few feet could damage corals. Not to mention the effects of increased pressure on fixed bottom species of soft bodied corals and sponges and the species that live amongst them.
Dendrochronology shows no evidence of a global flood. All wood rings of 4000 years old would show the dateline for the flood and subsequent datelines of abnormal growth worldwide. There is no such consensus among ancient tree and wood samples.
To all Christians,
There is plenty of evidence of local flooding in the bible lands. The bible was written by humans and that area is the whole world to them (they didn’t know about Madagascar which holds a full 5% of all species on earth of any of Australasia or Asia, America) our understanding of the world does not fit with theirs, it is much grander. Believe in the bible as a literal tale if you wish but many Christians believe that the local flood is more probable. Personally I think the idea of a man saving his family livestock and other belonging from a local flood is more credible. It’s better to have a belief that opens the doors to your religion to others and doesn’t shut them out if they question the validity of the documents. Your insistence for belief in archaic myth is barring the church to rational thinkers and can make people (quite rightly) question their own belief.
The above comments are hurried, I would love to talk about this more and given time I could produce a detailed destruction of the myth and the “evidence” gathered by Kent Hovind, Ted haggard, Ken Ham et al. I hope this has satisfies the anonymous who quite rightly wants us to engage in intelligent conversation.
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