The Absurdity of Non-Literalism

[bilby]

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.

Yes, they do. And far too often they couch their speculations as fact. Speculation is fine, but it should not be presented as, nor taken for, actual knowledge.

At this huge remove in time, the culture that spawned this particular work of fiction has long since ceased to be. We have some archaeological, and some historical, information that can be used to support an educated guess. We can look at outcomes, and make assumptions that these results were the intended result - but such assumptions, we know from the consequences of contemporary attempts to change the world, are badly flawed.

The law of unintended consequences dictates that we cannot be sure what the authors of the bible wanted to achieve; the sketchiness of the hard evidence means that the best speculations are not particularly compelling.

In short, there is little of worth that can be said about the reasons for the inclusion of any particular story or detail in the bible. It is what it is; and what it means to people today after centuries of more-or-less accurate translations, transcriptions, re-translations, re-inscriptions, edits for clarity, edits for obscurity, edits to achieve political ends, mistakes, typos, cultural shifts and misunderstandings is likely very different from what it meant to people when it was first produced.

It isn't completely valueless; but it comes close. It is certainly untrustworthy on pretty much every level, and any part of it not corroborated by other, independent, sources - and those rambling genealogies are a prime example - is pretty much useless.

People speculate all the time as far as the bible is concerned. They should probably stop doing that, it is almost always counter-productive.

 

[excreationist]

.....Ussher used the genealogies to figure the age of the earth, what if the author did it the other way?

It would be difficult to start with the age of the earth then separate the numbers into random amounts using many number systems - e.g. the Roman one... (well it could be done but I'd be annoyed with adding up the numbers in our Arabic number system) also only the age of the people when they fathered the next in line is relevant.... their lifespan is irrelevant in calculating the age of the earth. Also whoever did the numbers made sure that none of Noah's ancestors were alive at the time of the flood. I thought of that and assumed they didn't take that into account but they did.

...Because 'and then time passed' was oddly unsatisfying....

You could say "and then 310 years passed".

There are large parts of the Books that, to me, make sense only if we assume the author had OCD....

I think a major theme in OCD is extreme consistency. So there should be patterns in the ages - e.g. making them all divisible by 7 or something.

BTW this shows the copying errors in the numbers in the genealogies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogies_of_Genesis

 

[bilby]

You can read anything you like into it. So reading anything in particular into it is a waste of time.

 

[excreationist]

You can read anything you like into it. So reading anything in particular into it is a waste of time.

But some theories make more sense than others... e.g. they invented a detailed history where people before the flood had long lifespans which then reduced until they became normal.

 

[bilby]

You can read anything you like into it. So reading anything in particular into it is a waste of time.

But some theories make more sense than others... e.g. they invented a detailed history where people before the flood had long lifespans which then reduced until they became normal.

Yup. Some make more sense than others. But some of those are undoubtedly wrong, and there is no possible way to tell the dross from the gems. It's a dead end.

 

[Perspicuo]

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?

"You must spread reputation around before giving it to Tom Sawyer again."

Dang you, Mildred!