Belief in white Jesus linked to racism

[Belacqua]

Unfortunately, most of the population between 1500 BCE to 1700 CE did not record a video stating whether they took the Genesis story literally or not. I’m not aware of any searchmonkey or askmonkey type of poll.
I don’t know. Is there such data available?

There is an enormous amount of data available, in the form of the books they wrote, the art and music they made. The detailed debates were well recorded. 

If one doesn't have an extensive knowledge of this, it wouldn't make much sense to issue pronouncements on what everybody thought.

It's a specialized subject with its own history and vocabulary. For example, when Augustine says that we should read a passage "literally," he means that we should read it in the sense that the original author intended. That means that if the original author intended a sentence to be a metaphor, then the literal reading is metaphorical.

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It's interesting to note that historical records have no use for allegory or metaphor so much as fiction does.

This is why we have to be careful, and not treat everything that's written as if it were intended to be a historical record. 

Some of the Bible is intended as history, though heavily weighted in favor of the writers. Most of it is not. 

There are other categories, besides history and fiction.