(August 22, 2018 at 12:55 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: As for Abraham, did God's voice actually sound from the skies and order Abraham to kill his son? Or was that story written allegorically, to convey some sort of message for the people of the time? When it comes to OT stories, I take the latter approach.
Taking an allegorical approach is a pragmatic answer, but then you have to wonder what could possibly be gained from such a story. When you throw Abraham and Isaac, the Serpent, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Tower of Babel, the Flood, Elisha and the Bears, etc, into an allegory box, from my point of view makes the authors of the Old Testament look like nasty bloodthirsty old men and people with a self interest who are simply saying "don't mess with my God or you will suffer rather badly" (i.e. don't mess with me).
Picking and choosing which part of the OT you accept as fact, which part is allegory, and which part is messages from above means that you are remaking the Bible and God into your own belief system and perhaps the whole thing should be tossed out a window. Some (many?) Christians do that as the only way to reconcile their moral compass with what the Bible says
Of course ignoring the OT cannot be done completely, because the Jesus story (allegory?) is so tied up with the Old Testament that little of what is claimed and written in the Synoptics would make any sense without the OT. Rock, meet hard place.
Norm
