[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Belacqua]

A proper reading of ancient texts always includes one informing himslef of the background of the time the stuff was written in, the person who wrote it and the possible audience. When i took latin classes and we translated classic roman literaure, 50% of the time was devoted to this background, in orde to be able to understand the text from the persepctive of the times it was written in.

It depends on what you mean by "proper." You are proclaiming what "proper" means for everyone, when it might be different for different uses of the text. 

Historians must know the background. That's their job. Interpreters of myth, on the other hand, use the text differently.

In your studies did you read Plato's Symposium? Do you recall how the different speakers use the mythical figure of Eros as a jumping-off point to think about love, without reference to the historical origins of the character? 

A teacher who intentionally keeps his disciples confused is an ass imho.

You would have voted to kill Socrates. 

If the subject is difficult it is false to pretend it's not confusing. Offering a too-easy solution is as bad as lying. We hope, in the long run, that students reach some kind of understanding, but part of teaching them (if I were Socrates, which I'm not) is first to show them that they don't know what they think they know. In other words, we have to reveal their actual confusion to them so they can get past it. Unless, like Boru, you just want to hand them the answer. But I think that what we find is more valuable to us than what we're handed.

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1. I quite like Blake's artwork, his poetry somewhat less.  I do admire his contrarian spirit, but I also agree with Wordsworth that Blake was somewhat off his nut.

As I said, Blake was intentionally very difficult, and the first response was to just assume he was nuts. No disrespect to Wordsworth, who didn't have the benefit of much familiarity. 

2.  But you said the writers intended to elicit a different prompt from each reader.  This is hardly compatible with a God who wants all to be saved.

Well, I say it is compatible. Because maybe each reader has to find a meaning which addresses his or her own situation. And maybe the hard work of finding that solution is part of the solution. 

3. I'm sure we can 'figure out how to be good' without benefit of holy texts.  We managed it for millennia without them.  And if a single clear statement can't cover all possible instances, why don't Levitical laws include the word '...except...'?  The writers clearly intended that their texts WOULD cover all possible cases ('Thou shalt not commit adultery' isn't 'Thou shalt not commit adultery unless her husband be away on a business trip.').

I agree that people can figure out how to be good without holy texts. On the other hand, people don't think in a vacuum -- we need dialogue, and the texts, whether we like it or not, have provided the basis for dialogue in European history. 

Jews will tell you that Levitical laws do have exceptions. You can start a fire on the sabbath if you're freezing to death. 

The change to Christianity (which is unfair to Jews) is that Moses' laws were TOO detailed, allowing people to follow them without thinking about how to be good. Christians say that Jesus made the laws more ambiguous -- and more difficult -- by writing one big law on the hearts of his followers. Basically, BE GOOD. And this is vastly more difficult because we have to think for ourselves about how to follow it. Each case, lacking a specific rule, must be considered on its individual merits.

4.  No, I'm defining 'holy' as 'promulgated or approved by God'.

Well, I don't know what's approved by god. 

I would define "holy" as -- that which is held to be holy by people.

[Acrobat]

The original comment was  a guide to live our life by

If we accumulated all the historical and scientific facts, all we’d have is what is and what used to be.

There’s no guide to live our life by among them. In fact there nothing that says I should live at all, let alone how I ought to live.

If history and scientific facts are no guide than what is?

You could do a lot better than the Bible as a guide by which to live your life (such as 'Meditations' or the 'Analects). 

Maybe, maybe not.

It seems to me that a guide to life, should be modeled on a life worth being guided to.

I guess if we wanted the air of the life of a particular Roman Emperor the mediations might be a good start.

It seems to me that if we look out about the vast number of human lives, the sort that compose our societies, very few of these lives appear aspirational. we look out, and what we see is a flat field, of pointlessness.

The life of Dawkins, or most scientist, seem
no more worthy of pursuing than that of my local mechanic.

If all life looked like most life, then all guides to life, are roads to nowhere.

It seems to me that a guide to life, would require a life profound enough to aspire to. There is a sort of life I do find profound, it’s rare but exist, a life that posses some profound moral quality, the life of Franz Jägerstätter, of Bonhoeffer in prison, Aloyosha in the Brothers Karamazov, in the life of a slave elation in hymn, the life of my poor immigrant mother, a life lived in the depth of love. If there’s a guide to such a life, than that would be the only guide worth having.

[Belacqua]

The life of Dawkins, or most scientist, seem
no more worthy of pursuing than that of my local mechanic.

One of Dawkins' revealing howlers was when he said the Noble Prize for literature should be given to science writing, because fiction is just a bunch of stuff that isn't true. 

Somebody should do a study of how much anti-religion sentiments coincide with ignorance about the arts.

[Acrobat]

A proper reading of ancient texts always includes one informing himslef of the background of the time the stuff was written in, the person who wrote it and the possible audience. When i took latin classes and we translated classic roman literaure, 50% of the time was devoted to this background, in orde to be able to understand the text from the persepctive of the times it was written in.

I don’t necessarily disagree with this.

But I’m curious when reading the Genesis account, do you read it with the assumption that the writer saw himself as writing a historical account? It seems like an odd assumption to make, but wondering if you think that?

[Acrobat]

“ who is so silly as to believe that God ... planted a paradise eastward in Eden, and set in it a visible and palpable tree of life ... [and] anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life?" - Origen of Alexandria.

You would think if literalism was valued the way many fundies do so today, that someone like Origen would have been hung or viewed as a heritical for expressing such sentiments, rather than regarded as one the most praised early church fathers.

[Fake Messiah]

Indeed, as branches of science—evolutionary biology, geology, history, and archaeology—have disproved scriptural claims one by one, those claims have morphed from literal truths into allegories. This is the big difference between science and religion: When a scientific claim is disproved, it goes into the dustbin of good ideas that simply didn’t pan out. When a religious claim is disproved, it then turns into a metaphor that imparts a made-up “lesson.” And the theological mind is endlessly creative, always able to find a moral or philosophical point in fictitious stories. Hell, for instance, has become a metaphor for “separation from God”. Or the story of Adam & Eve that is now some sort of a lesson how evil humans are.

Ah, here again, we have the unproven assumption that holy books start out as literal and then get re-interpreted as non-literal. Do you have some documentary evidence to show this? 

Ah, yes, but you ignored it as usual. Go figure.

[Deesse23]

A proper reading of ancient texts always includes one informing himslef of the background of the time the stuff was written in, the person who wrote it and the possible audience. When i took latin classes and we translated classic roman literaure, 50% of the time was devoted to this background, in orde to be able to understand the text from the persepctive of the times it was written in.

It depends on what you mean by "proper." You are proclaiming what "proper" means for everyone, when it might be different for different uses of the text. 
 

With proper i was referring to the method of analysing the text (by viewing it in its wider hostorical and sociologica context), not to the conclusion about its (alleged) exact meaning.

A teacher who intentionally keeps his disciples confused is an ass imho.

You would have voted to kill Socrates. 

How do you know? I wouldnt. I dont approve of killing people for mundane reasons and am offended by you suggesting i would. Isnt such a claim a bit, well, over the top? 

If the subject is difficult it is false to pretend it's not confusing. Offering a too-easy solution is as bad as lying. We hope, in the long run, that students reach some kind of understanding, but part of teaching them (if I were Socrates, which I'm not) is first to show them that they don't know what they think they know. In other words, we have to reveal their actual confusion to them so they can get past it. Unless, like Boru, you just want to hand them the answer. But I think that what we find is more valuable to us than what we're handed.

We are talking about a teacher who is intentionally ambiguous, and this teacher is a god. What topic should be hard to teach ...for an (omni-whatever-you-like) god? I would think a god had some better didactics than Socrates, or you, or any other non-deity. 

Puny god.

I dont know what shools and universities you attended, but my teachers were never trying to be intentionally ambiguous. The only instanes where they were is when they also left big time disclaimers to take anything with a grain of salt now. Is there any such disclaimer in the bible? Considering it is supposed to be inspired by a god, its general level of ambiguousness is lousy even compared to my worst teachers. God should take teaching lessons from my teachers.........or possibly there wasnt any god involved at all, just other people/teachers who were much less educated in educating other people. I know where to put my money on.

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A proper reading of ancient texts always includes one informing himslef of the background of the time the stuff was written in, the person who wrote it and the possible audience. When i took latin classes and we translated classic roman literaure, 50% of the time was devoted to this background, in orde to be able to understand the text from the persepctive of the times it was written in.

I don’t necessarily disagree with this.

But I’m curious when reading the Genesis account, do you read it with the assumption that the writer saw himself as writing a historical account?  It seems like an odd assumption to make, but wondering if you think that?

I dont make assumptions about the Genesis accout, and i am not basing any of my beliefs on that. How about you?

What i know is that a literal meaning wuld be objectively wrong, since science has long disproven it.

What a believer (which i am not) had to do now, is to show that it was meant in a non-literal way, in what way it was original meant and tell his findings. Good luck. If there may not way to figure out what Genesis´ background and intention was, then i will happyily keep suspending my belief(s) based on that. How about you?

[Belacqua]

Considering it is supposed to be inspired by a god, its general level of ambiguousness is lousy even compared to my worst teachers.

Your argument depends on your knowing what an omniscient existence would do. 

Not being an omniscient existence myself, I have to consider that it might proceed differently than human teachers do. As I said before, it might be important for human beings to figure things out for themselves.

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Ah, here again, we have the unproven assumption that holy books start out as literal and then get re-interpreted as non-literal. Do you have some documentary evidence to show this? 

Ah, yes, but you ignored it as usual. Go figure.

Both Origen of Alexandria (c.184 – c. 253) and Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430) said clearly that much of the Bible is not to be read literally.

The claim that the earlier a Christian is the more likely he is to be a literalist is false.

[Fake Messiah]

Ah, yes, but you ignored it as usual. Go figure.

Both Origen of Alexandria (c.184 – c. 253) and Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430) said clearly that much of the Bible is not to be read literally.

The claim that the earlier a Christian is the more likely he is to be a literalist is false.

Take Garden of Eden, the Fall, and Adam and Eve as our ancestors was accepted by early theologians and church fathers like Augustine, Aquinas, and Tertullian, although some, like Origen, were unclear on the issue. But, like I said earler, in 1950, however, Pope Pius XII affirmed monogenism in his encyclical Humani Generis insisting that a historical Adam committed a sin passed on to his offspring—as if sin were a gene that never gets lost—and those sinful offspring grew into all of humanity.

But yeah, what does Pope know about theology.

[Belacqua]

But yeah, what does Pope know about theology.

Well not much, apparently, since I'm constantly told on this forum that Real Christianity is sola scriptura literalist, and the Pope doesn't agree. 

As for what is to be taken literally and what isn't, exactly, that's a matter of dispute among Christians. The point is that from the earliest times they were comfortable with the mythical parts being non-literal -- something the Pope is fine with but Ken Ham isn't. If you'd like to do the research and figure out exactly what the percentages are in any given year, then it would no doubt go up and down over time.