[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Belacqua]

A purely literal reading of the Bible is the compliment that poorly-educated believers pay to science. They think that the only way to get important meaning from a book is to read it like a science text, so they read it that way. In this they ignore the history of their own religion and unknowingly agree that scientific statements -- ideally unambiguous, requiring no interpretation, and either true or false -- are the only good kind of statements. 

Though it's of historical interest, the original intention of the authors isn't important. We don't need Derrida to explain that for socially important books, the text is the text PLUS all the influential readings that have been made of it. No one can read like a first century Palestinian anymore -- we all read through the lens of our own time, which includes a history. It's doubtful that the authors of the Genesis creation story meant it literally, but even if they did it's of no interest to us, because things have moved on.

It's common to refer to the opposite of literal as "metaphorical" but this is, in itself, a kind of metaphor (actually synecdoche, I think). A metaphor is a specific trope, and there are a hundred other non-literal tropes that can be used as well. 

Some kinds of tropes have a single unambiguous meaning. For example, the ineffability topos is when you say something by saying you can't say it. "She is so beautiful that no one can put it into words." This means, pretty clearly, that she's really beautiful.

But other kinds of tropes are intentionally open-ended. For example, a real metaphor, like Baudelaire's famous "Nature is a temple," can't be restated in a non-metaphorical way. It is intended to open up ideas that aren't otherwise sayable. (Or at least, would require a hell of a lot more words to say.) Moreover, part of their value is that the prompt they give will be different for every reader, and that this is what the writer wants. The lack of precision is part why they are important. This is important for holy texts because they are often not intended to be precise, science-like statements, but open-ended provocations. 

There is some similarity in the visual arts. For example, the Japanese Post Office logo is not all that different in appearance from the Christian cross. (Just rotate the top line until it goes vertical, and it will be a cross.) But the Post Office logo has a single clear meaning, "here is a Post Office," while the cross has a whole range of meanings, variable and personal to whoever uses it. 

Holy texts use tropes intentionally, to enrich the meaning, sometimes to make it more difficult, personal, and intentionally ambiguous.

[The Grand Nudger]

Agreed, and this is both the source of those texts value and the reason that they are fundamentally inaccurate descriptions of reality. Failures to purpose.

Not just as a literal exercise, but as a literary one. As you note, no one can read like a first century Palestinian. Those tropes specific to their time and place have little, if any, relevance to us today. That’s what created the need for schismatic overlays of historic interpretation.

[onlinebiker]

It helps your understanding if you do the same drugs as the authors did while writing it.


Especially Revelations.....

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The idea that holy texts mean different things to different people ('Moreover, part of their value is that the prompt they give will be different for every reader, and that this is what the writer wants.') is a pretty compelling argument that these texts are human in origin, and not divine or even divinely inspired, taking 'divine' in the literal, narrow sense.

Using the Christian New Testament as an example - since it seems to be the one with which most members are familiar -, the goal of this work is to instruct people how to behave and believe in order to get to Heaven.  Since God wants people to get to Heaven (per the text), it would be in the best interests all parties concerned that the text be  interpreted in the same manner.  BUT...if the texts are intentionally ambiguous and open to as many interpretations as there are readers, the clear conclusion is that the texts were concocted by human writers who were writing from imperfect knowledge and the typical human emotions (greed, fear, prejudice and greed).

In short, the holy texts aren't 'holy' at all.

Boru

[Acrobat]

The idea that holy texts mean different things to different people ('Moreover, part of their value is that the prompt they give will be different for every reader, and that this is what the writer wants.') is a pretty compelling argument that these texts are human in origin, and not divine or even divinely inspired, taking 'divine' in the literal, narrow sense.

Using the Christian New Testament as an example - since it seems to be the one with which most members are familiar -, the goal of this work is to instruct people how to behave and believe in order to get to Heaven.  Since God wants people to get to Heaven (per the text), it would be in the best interests all parties concerned that the text be  interpreted in the same manner.  BUT...if the texts are intentionally ambiguous and open to as many interpretations as there are readers, the clear conclusion is that the texts were concocted by human writers who were writing from imperfect knowledge and the typical human emotions (greed, fear, prejudice and greed).

In short, the holy texts aren't 'holy' at all.

Boru

Why is this only applicable to holy texts, and not text in general? I mean we seem to have the same problems with philosophical works, novels, etc.., even the writings of the scientifically minded, like Darwin, or even Sam Harris, in fact such issues plague pretty much ever interpretation of posts between two people who strongly disagree with each other here.

Secondly in regards to the ambiguity of the NT, Jesus gave a huge middle finger to those seeking less ambiguity. He uses parables, riddles, and sayings that his own disciples had trouble understanding.

I’d say that’s because the understanding the meaning that’s trying be conveyed requires something far more fundamental than just reading words on pages, truths that are less understood by hearing, but more so by seeing.

I’d put it this way, there’s nothing wrong with the NT or the Bible being open to multiple interpretations, only in what motivates those interpretations.

And often times that motivation isn’t to discern the truth of meaning.

[Fake Messiah]

A purely literal reading of the Bible is the compliment that poorly-educated believers pay to science. They think that the only way to get important meaning from a book is to read it like a science text, so they read it that way. In this they ignore the history of their own religion and unknowingly agree that scientific statements -- ideally unambiguous, requiring no interpretation, and either true or false -- are the only good kind of statements. 

When I see that phrase “The Bible is not a textbook of science.”, I automatically translate it as, “The Bible is not entirely true,” for that is what it means. The “nontextbook” claim, of course, is a rationale for believers to pick and choose what they consider really true in scripture—or, for liberal Muslims like Reza Aslan, in the Quran.

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.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The idea that holy texts mean different things to different people ('Moreover, part of their value is that the prompt they give will be different for every reader, and that this is what the writer wants.') is a pretty compelling argument that these texts are human in origin, and not divine or even divinely inspired, taking 'divine' in the literal, narrow sense.

Using the Christian New Testament as an example - since it seems to be the one with which most members are familiar -, the goal of this work is to instruct people how to behave and believe in order to get to Heaven.  Since God wants people to get to Heaven (per the text), it would be in the best interests all parties concerned that the text be  interpreted in the same manner.  BUT...if the texts are intentionally ambiguous and open to as many interpretations as there are readers, the clear conclusion is that the texts were concocted by human writers who were writing from imperfect knowledge and the typical human emotions (greed, fear, prejudice and greed).

In short, the holy texts aren't 'holy' at all.

Boru

Why is this only applicable to holy texts, and not text in general? I mean we seem to have the same problems with philosophical works, novels, etc.., even the writings of the scientifically minded, like Darwin, or even Sam Harris, in fact such issues plague pretty much ever interpretation of posts between two people who strongly disagree with each other here.  

Secondly in regards to the ambiguity of the  NT, Jesus gave a huge middle finger to those seeking less ambiguity. He uses parables, riddles, and sayings that his own disciples had trouble understanding.

I’d say that’s because the understanding the meaning that’s trying be conveyed requires something far more fundamental than just reading words on pages, truths that are less understood by hearing, but more so by seeing.

I’d put it this way, there’s nothing wrong with the NT or the Bible being open to multiple interpretations, only in what motivates those interpretations.

And often times that motivation isn’t to discern the truth of meaning.

The chief difference being that Darwin and Harris aren't trying to lead people to salvation.  The stakes of a scientific theory (Darwin) and anti-theist polemics (Harris) are monumentally different than those of eternal salvation.  If God wants 'all men to be saved' and if the NT is indeed God-inspired, what is the point of intentionally making the Bible ambiguous and difficult to understand?

By way of analogy, suppose I own a treasure (gold, diamonds, stuffed dates, whatever) that I want you to have.  Even more, it is intrinsic to my very nature that I want you to have it - it is impossible for me to not want you to have it.  The catch is, you have to find it yourself.  To facilitate this, I give you a set of detailed instructions about the hiding place of this treasure.  The instructions are 1) ambiguous, 2) self-contradictory, 3) couched in riddles, the answers to which no one can possible agree on, and 4) can be interpreted as metaphorical, literal or allegorical with equal facility.  I go through all of these machinations to get you to the treasure, when I could have just as easily  made the instructions clear and unambiguous ('Go to such-and-such latitude and longitude, look under the rock that says, 'The Treasure Is Here').

Does it seem like I actually want you to find this treasure, or does it seem more like I'm just screwing with you?

Boru

[Acrobat]

When I see that phrase “The Bible is not a textbook of science.”, I automatically translate it as, “The Bible is not entirely true,” for that is what it means. The “nontextbook” claim, of course, is a rationale for believers to pick and choose what they consider really true in scripture—or, for liberal Muslims like Reza Aslan, in the Quran.

I think what this shows is that you’re a product of a particular cultural phenomenon, in which you see truth as reducible to a series of scientific and historical facts, a component and artifact of the scientific age, even further eroded by disintegration of communities, and relationships in people’s lives.

Scientific and historical truths are superficial. If all the questions of science were answered all the questions of human life would remain untouched, as Wittgenstein would put it.

If I think of all the really important things I want my children to know, it wouldn’t include some peer reviewed scientific study, or any set of historical facts.

These important truths might fall into a category we call “moral truths”, how to be and live in the fractured world in front of them. The sort of the truths that are important to communities, friends, families, to the nature of human life, but less important than the truths one derive in pristine laboratories, or an archeological dig.

Where are as you might say such truths, aren’t real truths, unlike scientific and historical truths, I say the opposite. That these are the things truly worthy of being called truth.

Its why Einstein would praise Dostoevsky, as giving him “more than any scientist, more than Gauss”.

It’s the nature of this more important thing being given, that’s neither science or history, that remains elusive to your type.

[Anomalocaris]

The idea that holy texts mean different things to different people ('Moreover, part of their value is that the prompt they give will be different for every reader, and that this is what the writer wants.') is a pretty compelling argument that these texts are human in origin, and not divine or even divinely inspired, taking 'divine' in the literal, narrow sense.

Using the Christian New Testament as an example - since it seems to be the one with which most members are familiar -, the goal of this work is to instruct people how to behave and believe in order to get to Heaven.  Since God wants people to get to Heaven (per the text), it would be in the best interests all parties concerned that the text be  interpreted in the same manner.  BUT...if the texts are intentionally ambiguous and open to as many interpretations as there are readers, the clear conclusion is that the texts were concocted by human writers who were writing from imperfect knowledge and the typical human emotions (greed, fear, prejudice and greed).

In short, the holy texts aren't 'holy' at all.

Boru

Why is this only applicable to holy texts, and not text in general? I mean we seem to have the same problems with philosophical works, novels, etc.., even the writings of the scientifically minded, like Darwin, or even Sam Harris, in fact such issues plague pretty much ever interpretation of posts between two people who strongly disagree with each other here.  

Secondly in regards to the ambiguity of the  NT, Jesus gave a huge middle finger to those seeking less ambiguity. He uses parables, riddles, and sayings that his own disciples had trouble understanding.

I’d say that’s because the understanding the meaning that’s trying be conveyed requires something far more fundamental than just reading words on pages, truths that are less understood by hearing, but more so by seeing.

I’d put it this way, there’s nothing wrong with the NT or the Bible being open to multiple interpretations, only in what motivates those interpretations.

And often times that motivation isn’t to discern the truth of meaning.

It is totally applicable to every other text.   But texts of value present themselves truthfully as the work of men, where as “holy” text pretends otherwise.   So the application shows which is the fraud, and which are not in this regard.

[The Grand Nudger]

If it were applicable to all text, Acro, an appeal to hypocrisy can only proceed from the acknowledgement that the offending criticism is valid in the first place.

Are you ready to make that commitment?