The Absurdity of Non-Literalism

[Perspicuo]

My idea is that non-literalism squarely contradicts the idea of revelation. Because in non-literalism, where is the flow of information directed, from the text to my head or from my head to the text?

A possible rebuttal to this is that the "Holy Spirit" inspires the reader to interpret the text. This is the case: Christianity is subdivided into innumerable theologies and prophecies (i.e. what the message is and what to do). Contradicting each other, they obviously cannot be all true, and there is no telling which is the true interpretation (since faithful Christians all over have not been inspired to the true interpreter/theology/denomination). The Holy Spirit is silently allowing faithful Christians to err and to perish, so either God is not good or well he just isn't there.

See? We can know positively if God doesn't exist, if we assume "God" refers to the Biblical God, and so on for every book-based theistic religion (Vedic Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, etc).

 

[Keith&Co.]

A possible rebuttal to this is that the "Holy Spirit" inspires the reader to interpret the text.

What an odd way to transmit a message.

God writes (inspires or dictates) The Word. But it's not really the Word. It's a code Word.
God wrote the rules for being a slave master.
And like all codes, there needs to be a way to decode the actual content. Some people have qualified to download the Holy Decoder Ring Wraith software, which reads the rules for being a slave master as the suggestions for being a kind master to no worse than servants.


In the mean time, those without the necessary decrypting software see what they think is The Word. This would include people who aren't really Christains. They're under the belief they have discernment, that they have the Holy Decoder Ring Wraith onboard, so when they see the rules for being a slave master, they KNOW that this is what God wants.

And the really odd thing is that there's no good way to decode the encrypted message. Nothing stable, anyway. Nothing that can actually be DECODED.
Which means that the Holy Decoder Ring Wraith HAS to have the entire WORD OF GOD loaded on board ITS software. So it can tell that when you read the rules for being a slave master you're supposed to understand the suggestions for being a kind master to no worse than servants.

So God has put His Word into every Christain, who says they understand The Books. But the Christains cannot access His Word unless they read The Books. But God hasn't put His Word into The Books. And, reading The Books is the same action non-Christains (or not-truly-christains) take to NOT access the Word of God.

So why can't he just make us know His Word?
Maybe by eating an Apple off the right tree...

 

[doubtingt]

Allegory and metaphor are just types of fiction. If the Bible is fiction, then anything goes - the genealogies of the Bible are not evidence that the authors believed the people depicted really existed, any more than the fact that Luke and Leia were Anakin's children is evidence that George Lucas thinks they are real people who actually existed. Mind you, he doesn't think Han shot first, so who knows what he thinks is real.

What other fiction has anything comparable to the level of detail of genealogy that is completely pointless and irrelevant to any kind of figurative messages or lessons that the fiction is about? It is nonsensical as a fiction rhetorical device, unless the author is attempting to convince the reader that it is non-fiction and that these are just the boring hum-drum realities of these historical figures.

 

[doubtingt]

Most non-literalists I know openly acknowledge the murky origins of the Bible. They know it's a confused mess with many authors and editors, many of whom had cynical political motives to make the changes they made.

They acknowledge that when cornered, but then disregard that knowledge and still believe in much of it anyway based upon nothing other than that it is in the Bible or they were told it by other people whom they know only said it because it was in the Bible. And it isn't just to factual claims but the morality that they blindly accept from the Bible. In the end every Christian from fundy to "liberal" only believes in anything that could be called Christianity because it is in the Bible. At least fundy literalists are honest about that.

If you ask me, the literalists are more incoherent because they have to deny a lot of biblical scholarship on top of having to believe in literal talking donkeys, or the thing about having animals look at stripes while mating.

But that isn't really incoherent. They just have to believe that Bible is what God spoke, and his words are more valid than any human scholarship or than what seems plausible to our feeble human mind. It is more incoherent to admit that Bible is a work of fiction written by political motivated literay hacks, but then believe in much of what it says which includes the ideas their parents taught them that they just blindly accepted from the Bible (this is what most liberal Christian do). The only coherent thing to do if you actually view the Bible as politically motivated fiction would be to use it for kindling, erase all belief in what you were taught, and start over and reexamine the questions of God, afterlife, and morality as though the Bible never existed.

 

[Underseer]

Literalism is less incoherent? The Bible contradicts itself in thousands of places, and the literalist has to believe that such a document was produced by a perfect being.

 

[dockeen]

Long and elaborate genealogies are quite important in pre-literate tribal societies. With no dating system, the only way they have to make sense of the succession of events in history is through the passage of generations....

Using the genealogies some Christians worked out when Adam was supposedly created. The Jews have a similar date for their age of the earth. Assuming the numbers aren't factual, what is their purpose.... using real numbers would have helped them date things. The traditional date of the earth's creation for the Jews and dating Adam sounds like many think the ages are literal. If they aren't literal what exactly is their purpose.... I disagree with bilby when he said that extra details can make a story "feel more realistic".

Their purpose is to present facts. They were presenting a family tree back to Adam in order to preserve history because they thought it was literal.

Yet, in Ge 4:16-17, Cain had found a wife, and got her pregnant; after being expelled for killing Abel. So at his point of being expelled, in a literal interpretation of Genesis, there was Adam, Eve, and Cain. Where did this new wife come from? Goat herders back in the day, must have been real stupid not to realize there existed more than this simple story....

or they viewed the notion of looking for realism as being roughly equivalent to looking for realism in a third season episode of Lost In Space. It became more and more plain to me that this is a story, told to children around the campfire to explain why people do bad, and why they die. The problem is that the xtians wrote a sequel to this story that relies on it being literal.

 

[Keith&Co.]

What other fiction has anything comparable to the level of detail of genealogy that is completely pointless and irrelevant to any kind of figurative messages or lessons that the fiction is about?

Tolkien's Elf Alphabet?
David Weber's long, long in-story expositionary lumps about the social and economic histories of four different space empires that alludes to the political changes made in distant history that end up taking four pages to say '...and that's why THIS space fleet is going to hammer the dogshit out of THAT space fleet, and now back to the action.'

Or better, Weber's explanations about the hard science of ship-on-ship interstellar space battles which work really hard to explain why his space battle will not resemble a Star Trek battle because they pretty much ignore physics. Man, he's angry about Star Trek.

 

[jonJ]

....Their purpose is to present facts. They were presenting a family tree back to Adam in order to preserve history because they thought it was literal.

It's the same reason that people used to warn against sailing out too far away from land. They were honestly worried that you'd fall off the side of the world. Just because you feel that you're presenting facts doesn't mean that what you're saying is related to anything factual.

If the audience thought the ages were literal ("facts") and they weren't, then surely God would know that the audience was being deceived.... This is different to God just agreeing with their existing beliefs about the shape of the earth, etc - the numbers involved would be conflicting with their existing beliefs.

If by 'God' you are referring to the traditional Christian God, he's never shown any concern about large numbers of his beloved constituents being massively and dangerously wrong.

 

[excreationist]

.....Yet, in Ge 4:16-17, Cain had found a wife, and got her pregnant; after being expelled for killing Abel. So at his point of being expelled, in a literal interpretation of Genesis, there was Adam, Eve, and Cain. Where did this new wife come from? Goat herders back in the day, must have been real stupid not to realize there existed more than this simple story....

Genesis 5:4
"After that, Adam lived another 800 years. He had other children"

So Cain married his sister. BTW the Bible only says you can't marry sisters later in the Bible...

Leviticus 18:9
"Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere."

Also there is this:
Genesis 20:12
"Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife."

 

[excreationist]

....Their purpose is to present facts. They were presenting a family tree back to Adam in order to preserve history because they thought it was literal.

It's the same reason that people used to warn against sailing out too far away from land. They were honestly worried that you'd fall off the side of the world. Just because you feel that you're presenting facts doesn't mean that what you're saying is related to anything factual.

If the audience thought the ages were literal ("facts") and they weren't, then surely God would know that the audience was being deceived.... This is different to God just agreeing with their existing beliefs about the shape of the earth, etc - the numbers involved would be conflicting with their existing beliefs.

The randomization of that response makes it fairly impossible to respond to.

You spend some points asserting that you're an atheist and then spend another post saying that the Bible can't be wrong about something because God wouldn't go along with the deception.

WTF?

I'm saying that IF God is real then it doesn't make sense that he would deceive the audience by putting in ages that aren't real.... I hope you can understand what I mean.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I'm saying that IF God is real then it doesn't make sense that he would deceive the audience by putting in ages that aren't real.... I hope you can understand what I mean.

Why not? This is a guy who slaughters the entire population of the planet except one family. The guy who tortures his loyal servants and slaughters their family to win a bet. A guy who murders thousands of children in order to make a point to their parents. All of a sudden a little deception is a line he wouldn't cross?

 

[excreationist]

What other fiction has anything comparable to the level of detail of genealogy that is completely pointless and irrelevant to any kind of figurative messages or lessons that the fiction is about?

Tolkien's Elf Alphabet?

That makes his stories seem more realistic I think.... (it isn't realistic for everyone to speak English) but I can't say the same about the genealogies in Genesis.

 

[excreationist]

I'm saying that IF God is real then it doesn't make sense that he would deceive the audience by putting in ages that aren't real.... I hope you can understand what I mean.

Why not? This is a guy who slaughters the entire population of the planet except one family. The guy who tortures his loyal servants and slaughters their family to win a bet. A guy who murders thousands of children in order to make a point to their parents. All of a sudden a little deception is a line he wouldn't cross?

This thread really is about liberal Christians... anyway what is the point of the deception in the genealogies - it doesn't seem like allegory or metaphor, just lies... in the case of Exodus the point is that it gives the Jews an epic history, etc.

 

[bilby]

What other fiction has anything comparable to the level of detail of genealogy that is completely pointless and irrelevant to any kind of figurative messages or lessons that the fiction is about?

Tolkien's Elf Alphabet?

That makes his stories seem more realistic I think.... (it isn't realistic for everyone to speak English) but I can't say the same about the genealogies in Genesis.

Why not? Both are excruciatingly tedious details that many other writers would gloss over. Readers can say "It isn't realistic for everyone to speak English"; they can also say "It isn't realistic for everyone to just be there in later stories, with no indication of how they are descended from the earlier characters". Most are more likely in both cases to simply skip the boring parts, and get back to the narrative. Or just to find something better to read.

 

[excreationist]

That makes his stories seem more realistic I think.... (it isn't realistic for everyone to speak English) but I can't say the same about the genealogies in Genesis.

Why not? Both are excruciatingly tedious details that many other writers would gloss over. Readers can say "It isn't realistic for everyone to speak English"; they can also say "It isn't realistic for everyone to just be there in later stories, with no indication of how they are descended from the earlier characters". Most are more likely in both cases to simply skip the boring parts, and get back to the narrative. Or just to find something better to read.

I didn't mean that it doesn't make sense for there to be genealogies in Genesis - I mean why are there 40+ random numbers? Though like I said earlier they also made sure that none of Noah's ancestors were alive during the flood (they died a couple of years before)

 

[bilby]

That makes his stories seem more realistic I think.... (it isn't realistic for everyone to speak English) but I can't say the same about the genealogies in Genesis.

Why not? Both are excruciatingly tedious details that many other writers would gloss over. Readers can say "It isn't realistic for everyone to speak English"; they can also say "It isn't realistic for everyone to just be there in later stories, with no indication of how they are descended from the earlier characters". Most are more likely in both cases to simply skip the boring parts, and get back to the narrative. Or just to find something better to read.

I didn't mean that it doesn't make sense for there to be genealogies in Genesis - I mean why are there 40+ random numbers? Though like I said earlier they also made sure that none of Noah's ancestors were alive during the flood (they died a couple of years before)

Why should there not be numbers - random or otherwise? It is fiction. ANYTHING goes. If the author feels like putting it in, he puts it in.

 

[doubtingt]

That makes his stories seem more realistic I think.... (it isn't realistic for everyone to speak English) but I can't say the same about the genealogies in Genesis.

Why not? Both are excruciatingly tedious details that many other writers would gloss over. Readers can say "It isn't realistic for everyone to speak English"; they can also say "It isn't realistic for everyone to just be there in later stories, with no indication of how they are descended from the earlier characters". Most are more likely in both cases to simply skip the boring parts, and get back to the narrative. Or just to find something better to read.

I didn't mean that it doesn't make sense for there to be genealogies in Genesis - I mean why are there 40+ random numbers? Though like I said earlier they also made sure that none of Noah's ancestors were alive during the flood (they died a couple of years before)

Why should there not be numbers - random or otherwise? It is fiction. ANYTHING goes. .

No, fiction is not just a bunch of random nonsense thrown onto a page. Authors put things into fiction for a purpose, not on fleeting whim without regard for coherence. The most plausible reason for something like the geneologies in such a dry, historical archival fashion that tells you nothing relevance to any metaphorical meaning in the stories is that the author is trying to create the impression of real historical people and actual events. This is just one countless feature of the Bible that do not fit within the fiction genre. The Bible simply doesn't fit with fiction of its or any time. It reads much more like what one would expect if someone went to great lengths to manufacture a false history in order get the reader to believe that its more fantastical and implausible elements actually did occur as told. It other words it reads like lies, which is different from fiction.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Why should there not be numbers - random or otherwise? It is fiction. ANYTHING goes. If the author feels like putting it in, he puts it in.

Ussher used the genealogies to figure the age of the earth, what if the author did it the other way?
Someone told him the age of the earth and he crafted the lists to flesh out how many generations that would have taken, and how old they were. Nothing about who was king when they discovered bronze, or who first domesticated the donkey... Just an OCD effort to fill in the time. Because 'and then time passed' was oddly unsatisfying.

There are large parts of the Books that, to me, make sense only if we assume the author had OCD, anyway. My cousin won't let the food on his plate touch, we're told God gets upset if you weave such that there's wool touching cotton.... Or if you have corn and beans in the same field (They're TOUCHING!). Terry won't wear a woman's coat if the only other choice is to frostbite, God doesn't like cross dressing...

 

[bilby]

That makes his stories seem more realistic I think.... (it isn't realistic for everyone to speak English) but I can't say the same about the genealogies in Genesis.

Why not? Both are excruciatingly tedious details that many other writers would gloss over. Readers can say "It isn't realistic for everyone to speak English"; they can also say "It isn't realistic for everyone to just be there in later stories, with no indication of how they are descended from the earlier characters". Most are more likely in both cases to simply skip the boring parts, and get back to the narrative. Or just to find something better to read.

I didn't mean that it doesn't make sense for there to be genealogies in Genesis - I mean why are there 40+ random numbers? Though like I said earlier they also made sure that none of Noah's ancestors were alive during the flood (they died a couple of years before)

Why should there not be numbers - random or otherwise? It is fiction. ANYTHING goes. .

No, fiction is not just a bunch of random nonsense thrown onto a page. Authors put things into fiction for a purpose, not on fleeting whim without regard for coherence.

Yes, of course. But this long after the author's death, it is effectively impossible to tell what that purpose was.

The most plausible reason for something like the geneologies in such a dry, historical archival fashion that tells you nothing relevance to any metaphorical meaning in the stories is that the author is trying to create the impression of real historical people and actual events. This is just one countless feature of the Bible that do not fit within the fiction genre. The Bible simply doesn't fit with fiction of its or any time. It reads much more like what one would expect if someone went to great lengths to manufacture a false history in order get the reader to believe that its more fantastical and implausible elements actually did occur as told. It other words it reads like lies, which is different from fiction.

IMO lies are a subset of fiction.

I tend to agree that this particular book appears to be deliberately misleading; and it is certainly currently used by people who are deliberately misleading others. But there isn't enough evidence to be completely sure that that was it's original intent.

 

[excreationist]

No, fiction is not just a bunch of random nonsense thrown onto a page. Authors put things into fiction for a purpose, not on fleeting whim without regard for coherence.

Yes, of course. But this long after the author's death, it is effectively impossible to tell what that purpose was.

Surely you could speculate - preferably something that sounds plausible.

....I tend to agree that this particular book appears to be deliberately misleading; and it is certainly currently used by people who are deliberately misleading others. But there isn't enough evidence to be completely sure that that was it's original intent.

I'm asking about plausible speculation - people do that all the time as far as the Bible is concerned.