If you do not read the bible as if it was conveying literal truth, how do you know you are not misinterpreting the entire thing?
Do you know what the largest metaphor is in the Bible? God. He is a metaphor for authority and justice. To relay the precise concepts to an illiterate, ignorant population, you appeal to their propensity to superstition and create a 'living' embodiment of these abstract concepts, and give their ideas of right and wrong extra weight and appeal by attributing them to a supernatural monster who will get them for their 'crimes' even if real authorities never even find out. Before a fringe group of rogue Jews transformed him into an iron age hippie, God was not your father, your friend, or your guardian. He was your judge, jury and executioner. It was the only role God consistently plays in the Old Testament. Half of the challenge to Christian apologetics is the obvious fact that the Old Testament Yahweh and Jesus Christ are in no way similar to one another in temperament, behavior, or violence.
How do you get to decide that this part or that part is a metaphor, but God himself is certainly excluded from this analysis?
Do you know what the largest metaphor is in the Bible? God. He is a metaphor for authority and justice. To relay the precise concepts to an illiterate, ignorant population, you appeal to their propensity to superstition and create a 'living' embodiment of these abstract concepts, and give their ideas of right and wrong extra weight and appeal by attributing them to a supernatural monster who will get them for their 'crimes' even if real authorities never even find out. Before a fringe group of rogue Jews transformed him into an iron age hippie, God was not your father, your friend, or your guardian. He was your judge, jury and executioner. It was the only role God consistently plays in the Old Testament. Half of the challenge to Christian apologetics is the obvious fact that the Old Testament Yahweh and Jesus Christ are in no way similar to one another in temperament, behavior, or violence.
How do you get to decide that this part or that part is a metaphor, but God himself is certainly excluded from this analysis?
