Literal Reading of the Bible

[Remus]

Just wanted to get some TE opinions on this topic. What portions of the Bible do you consider literal? I know it's a pretty open question, but I'm not looking for anything specific.

Thanks & God bless

 

[Amalthea]

I'm pretty sure Pilate was the governor of Judea.

 

[herev]

I hate to be picky, so don't interpret this answer that way--it's not meant to be. What do you mean by literal? For example, in the Gospels, we find the same account from different perspectives--they all tell the same basic story, so I believe it is literal, but at times there are differences that to me, show they cannot all be literally word for word accurate, so I need a little help in the question
Tommy

 

[gluadys]

I hate to be picky, so don't interpret this answer that way--it's not meant to be. What do you mean by literal? For example, in the Gospels, we find the same account from different perspectives--they all tell the same basic story, so I believe it is literal, but at times there are differences that to me, show they cannot all be literally word for word accurate, so I need a little help in the question
Tommy

Good point. Sometimes I think "historical" would be a better term than "literal". We know even today, that eye-witnesses to an event can differ on details, yet that doesn't make the event not real. Just so, the gospel writers sometimes differ in details about a particular event or about the exact words Jesus said. (Compare the Beatitudes in Luke to those in Matthew for example.) Yet I have no difficulty accepting the feeding of the 5,000 as an historical event or the preaching of the Beatitudes as an historical event.

So my answer would be:

I accept as historical any event in the bible which is confirmed by extra-biblical sources to be historical. e.g. that Pilate was governor of Judea and could have (very likely did) order the crucifixion of Jesus.

I accept as probably historical any event in the bible which does not present difficulties with historicity, even though there is no extra-biblical confirmation. e.g. most of the gospels and book of Acts, most of the books of Samuel and Kings in the OT, and some other similar passages.

I accept as possibly having a historical core stories which are presented in scripture with a large overlay of legend. e.g. most of the stories of Genesis. I find too much legendary overlay to take most of the stories of Abraham as accurate historical accounts, but I have no reason to believe Abraham was not an historical person and that some factual reality forms the foundation of the stories as we have received them. But I would certainly not press for every detail to be literal fact.

 

[Remus]

Just in general really. I'm just trying to get an idea how some scripture that I would consider literal might be dealt with from a different point of view. I know that the first chapters of genensis wouldn't be literal, but how many chapters? The flood? Literal/semi-literal (local, etc...)/not literal? That sort of thing.

 

[Remus]

Good point. Sometimes I think "historical" would be a better term than "literal".

"historical" is good. Thank you gluadys. And thanks for the reply. Seems I was writing when you responded.

 

[herev]

I think the history books of the OT are historical to a degree, as are the gospels and acts. But if you look at Luke and compare to other historians of the same time period, historians didn't view thier job as the same as historians today. For example, they wold readily impose quotes on sayings. For us, that means this is EXACTLY what he/she said. But then, when they said, so and so said, they were concerned with the general idea. Also, they would admittedly fill in details where missing to make the story make sense. With the OT histories, it is also important to understand that the writers were interested in presenting a particular world view and theological view, so it must be read in that regards.
Hope that makes some sense?

 

[Vance]

Just a quick reminder, the debate over which Scriptures to read literally and which to read allegorically, or as expressing God's Truth even if not strictly historically accurate, has been going on since the earliest days of the Church (and even earlier among Jewish Rabbis). You will find the lines drawn all over the place, just as you will find interpretive issues even among literalists all over the place. You can take any two groups who consider themselves "literalists" and find that they interpret this "plain, literal" interpretation differently (Calvinists and Evangelicals, for example, on the issue of predestination, which is actually more impactful to salvation issues than origins issues). If it is plain and obvious, then how can there be thousands of different denominations based on differing interpretations?

While some start on non-historicity and only accept historicity if shown from outside (like any good historian), I approach it from the other side. I assume historicity unless there is a compelling reason NOT to. And this comes from a person with a degree in history (just a BA, since I chose law school rather than go forward to my doctorate in history). In scholarly terms, then, I would be what they call a "maximalist" where Gluadys sounds like she would represent the "minimalist" school (although she can correct me of this is not correct).

The important thing is that we all accept that what we read in Scripture is God's TRUTH, meant for us yesterday and today. It need not be historical to be a powerful and TRUE message for us directly from God.

 

[Remus]

I want to thank everyone that has responded so far. Does anyone mind if I ask a few specifics? These can be yes or no, but it goes without saying that you are free to qualify your answers in any way.

Was the flood local, WW, or didn't happen at all?
Were the people of Israel enslaved by Egypt as is told in the Bible?
If yes, how accurate do you think the story of exodus is?
Again, if yes, do you believe that Moses parted the Red Sea?
Do you believe the story of Jesus' death and resurrection to be accurate?
Do you believe that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born?

I guess that'll do. Thanks again

 

[Vance]

The following are my own opinions on all these, some held with greater certainty than others:

Was the flood local, WW, or didn't happen at all?
I think there definitely was a local flood, and I believe that there was a righteous man saved named Noah saved from that flood by God. Now, as for the details, I am not nearly as certain, but I would not doubt the basic Truth that God is telling us by this Scripture even if most of the details were not historical.

Were the people of Israel enslaved by Egypt as is told in the Bible?
Yes, I have no doubt at all that this was an historical event. Again, the story *may* contain some non-historical details, and this would not effect is status as Scriptural Truth, but as someone with an extensive education in history (even a degree in the subject) I have no reason to doubt the historicity of the account.

If yes, how accurate do you think the story of exodus is?
Same as above. Some of the details, such as the numbers involved, etc, may or may not be accurate, but (and, yes, I will keep restating this point), it is still Scriptural Truth, regardless.

Again, if yes, do you believe that Moses parted the Red Sea?
Actually, the Sea of Reeds, but yes, I think that there was a miracle of God that allowed them to cross on dry land.

Do you believe the story of Jesus' death and resurrection to be accurate?
Absolutely, without a doubt.

Do you believe that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born?
I believe this is true, but not as absolutely as Jesus' death and resurrection. There are a number of issues that give me pause on this one, though:

1. the original prophecy referred to by the evangelists did not mean a virgin necessarily, but just a young woman.

2. Mary did not (at first, any way) seem to regard Jesus as God incarnate, and may even have thought he had lost his mind a bit at the beginning of his ministry. She did not at all act as one would if she knew (intimately) that this was God's own son.

3. Mark, our earliest gospel, did not include it (when it would seem likely that he would have if he had heard it and believed it).

4. It messes up Jesus' lineage in the line of David on his father's side, and the concept of "adoption" into the line by Joseph seems like a weak "work-around" to this problem.

5. Lastly, there is much evidence from the earliest teachings of the Apostles that they did not know that Jesus was actually God incarnate (read Peter's first sermon, in Acts II, with this possibility in mind and see what you think). They believed he was the Messiah, and the annointed one sent by God, but it seems fairly clear that they only came to realize His divinity later. This would not be the case if they knew he was born of a virgin in a supernatural event. And I would wonder how they got to know this after the fact in order to include it in the gospel accounts.

But, regardless, I have not seen or heard any other alternative reading that is satisfactory. One suggestion is that Jesus was born wholly human, but then "adopted" by God as His Son, and "annointed" as the Messiah, the Christ. This was actually one of the strong beliefs in the early Church, competing directly with the "pre-existing deity" idea. This debate raged for three centuries until the Church officially ruled that the "pre-existent deity" concept was the correct one. This, then, became orthodox belief, and the other considered heresy. Kind of a shocker to the very large number of Christians who believed the other way!

 

[herev]

I want to thank everyone that has responded so far. Does anyone mind if I ask a few specifics? These can be yes or no, but it goes without saying that you are free to qualify your answers in any way.

As with VAnce, these are my current opinions, but I'm always open to learning more.
Was the flood local, WW, or didn't happen at all? I think it happened...was it local or worldwide--I don't know, evidence seems to suggest it was localized and would have been the "whole world" of the people affected.
Were the people of Israel enslaved by Egypt as is told in the Bible? Evidence here is very slim, but yes, I believe it.
If yes, how accurate do you think the story of exodus is? As accurate as any other piece of "history" in the Bible--see my above post to clarify
Again, if yes, do you believe that Moses parted the Red Sea?--Yes
Do you believe the story of Jesus' death and resurrection to be accurate? Absolutely
Do you believe that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born? Definitively

 

[gluadys]

In scholarly terms, then, I would be what they call a "maximalist" where Gluadys sounds like she would represent the "minimalist" school (although she can correct me of this is not correct).

Actually, I am not familiar enough with the scholarly discipline of history to say just where I would fit in the spectrum, though I agree it would not be maximalist.

I tend to approach scripture with more of an eye to the literary form and genre. But that doesn't really help with deciding historicity, because history is the basis for many a good story or epic or poem. The literary form may be frequently associated with non-literal subject matter, yet still be a vehicle for recounting history. Just because Shakespeare writes a great play about Julius Caesar in the same sort of form as about a fictional King Lear doesn't mean Caesar was not an historical figure or that he was not assassinated by Brutus, et al.

At the same time, if the truth God wishes us to hear is in the story as story, the question of whether or not it is also history is not terribly important. I would say it is an open question whether Job, for example, is an historical or fictional person. Because whoever wrote the book of Job wrote a powerful story exploring one of the key questions of theodicy "Why do the good suffer?" Whether the person s/he wove that story around was real or not, is, in my perspective, an almost irrelevant question.

That would be one extreme. And from that we get a whole spectrum of differing levels of confidence in the historical aspects up to the point where the importance of the history cannot be dispensed with.

Story is important though because it brings history alive (though not always accurately) and makes it memorable. To the extent we have an image of Julius Caesar in our culture, it probably owes more to the less than accurate portrayal produced by Shakespeare than to a more historically accurate biographer. Yet that literary icon, that image, is not untrue either.

 

[Remus]

Again, thanks for your time.

 

[createdtoworship]

Exodus 20:11 makes one of the most unbelievable statements of the Bible: "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day." It is hard to imagine a clearer statement defining how long God took in creating the entire universe. However, this simple statement has presented a seemingly impossible dilemma for Christians. On one hand, modern cosmology teaches that the universe has taken billions of years to form. On the other hand, if this clear and straightforward statement of the Bible can not be trusted to mean what it says, how can we know that any statement of the Bible can be trusted to mean what it says?

This was the dilemma which Dr. Russell Humphreys (physicist at Sandia National Laboratory) set out to solve as he studied what the Bible had to say about the formation of our universe. Most people have been taught that the universe is the result of a gigantic explosion called the "Big Bang". During this explosive expansion, all the matter of the universe supposedly expanded outward from a tiny pinpoint. All modern cosmological models start with the assumption that the universe has neither a center nor an edge. When these assumptions are plugged into Einstein's general theory of relativity, the result is an expanding universe which is billions of years old at every location.


Rather than start with these arbitrary assumptions (a universe having no center and no edge), Dr. Humphreys decided to take the most apparent meaning of the Biblical text and see what model of the universe developed. He reasoned that if the Bible was inspired by God, as it claims to be, it should not have to be twisted to be understood. It should have the same straight forward meaning for a "man on the street", a brilliant physicist, or a theologian.

The Bible clearly indicates three things about God's formation of the universe. First, the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. By implication, the earth may also be located near the center - perhaps so man can see the glory of God's creation in every direction. Second, the universe (both matter and space itself) has been "stretched out"(1) Third, the universe has a boundary, and therefore it must have a center. If these three assumptions are plugged into the currently accepted formulas of physics, and the mathematical crank is turned, we find that we live in a universe in which clocks tick at different rates depending on your location.

Furthermore, the time dilation effect would be magnified tremendously as the universe was originally expanding. As the universe expanded, there was a point at which time was moving very rapidly at the outer edge and essentially stopped near the center. At this point in the expansion of the universe, only days were passing near the center, while billions of years were passing in the heavens. This is the inevitable conclusion based on our current knowledge of physics and starting with Biblical assumptions instead of arbitrary ones.

Albert Einstein rejected the idea that Bible could be literally true. He wrote that, "Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that many of the stories in the Bible could not be true."(2) How ironic that the most ridiculed Biblical story (about a recent, literal, six day creation of the universe) is exactly the story which Albert Einstein's work has shown to be entirely possible. A comprehensive explanation of Dr. Humphreys work, can be found in his book.(3)

1. Job 9:8, Psalm 104:2, Isaiah 40:22, Jeremiah 10:12, Zechariah 12:1, 2 Sam. 22:10, Psalm 144:5, Ezekiel 1:22, Isaiah 48:13, Job 26:7, Isaiah 42:5, Isaiah 51:13, Job 37:18, Isaiah 44:24, Jer. 51:15, Psalm 18:9, Isaiah 45:12.

2. Joseph Schwartz, Einstein for Beginners, Pantheon Books, New York, p.31.

3. Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time, Master Books, 1994.