The Bible As Literature

[steve_bank]

I am sure there are books on this topic.



Learner

Could the OT writers have been using allegory and metaphor not interring to be literal? Maybe some of it was just entertaining fictional stories?

If you believe a reference in the bible to a behemoth means humans ran with T Rex why not believe the stories in Homer's Odyssey?

Fiction across cultures was well developed by the time Hebrews were starting to record their narrative and myths.

The OT was never a coherent work. It is a patchwork of different authors at different times.

The Old Testament: Various Schools of Authors Starting around the 7th century B.C., different groups, or schools, of authors wrote them down at different times, before they were at some point (probably during the first century B.C.) combined into the single, multi-layered work we know today.Jul 17, 2020

Odyssey - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ideologyhunter]

So, you're saying God did not let Moses see his butt, in Exodus 33? Well, there goes Western civilization.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I am sure there are books on this topic.



Learner

Could the OT writers have been using allegory and metaphor not interring to be literal? Maybe some of it was just entertaining fictional stories?

I've never been convinced that the writers "never intended" the stories to be literal. Do we actually know anything whatsoever about their intentions? I don't think we do.

 

[Politesse]

I am sure there are books on this topic.



Learner

Could the OT writers have been using allegory and metaphor not interring to be literal? Maybe some of it was just entertaining fictional stories?

I've never been convinced that the writers "never intended" the stories to be literal. Do we actually know anything whatsoever about their intentions? I don't think we do.

Yes, because we have a pretty good understanding of when "literal truth" as interpreted by modernist philosophies became a routine part of our social discourse. To push the idea far too back in time is to indulge in anachronism.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I am sure there are books on this topic.



Learner

Could the OT writers have been using allegory and metaphor not interring to be literal? Maybe some of it was just entertaining fictional stories?

I've never been convinced that the writers "never intended" the stories to be literal. Do we actually know anything whatsoever about their intentions? I don't think we do.

Yes, because we have a pretty good understanding of when "literal truth" as interpreted by modernist philosophies became a routine part of our social discourse. To push the idea far too back in time is to indulge in anachronism.

People never took creation stories as literally true thousands of years ago? I find that pretty hard to believe.

 

[Politesse]

I am sure there are books on this topic.



Learner

Could the OT writers have been using allegory and metaphor not interring to be literal? Maybe some of it was just entertaining fictional stories?

I've never been convinced that the writers "never intended" the stories to be literal. Do we actually know anything whatsoever about their intentions? I don't think we do.

Yes, because we have a pretty good understanding of when "literal truth" as interpreted by modernist philosophies became a routine part of our social discourse. To push the idea far too back in time is to indulge in anachronism.

People never took creation stories as literally true thousands of years ago? I find that pretty hard to believe.

It's more that it isn't a question that they would have asked. Every generation has its own way of thinking about things. If you ever have a chance to chat with someone who lives in a predominately oral culture, you'll see one major reason why some of the questions theologians ask of these texts would not have made as much sense to the "authors" who were initially passing it down. If you know the author personally, you can easily see the imprint of their ability and creativity on the resulting retelling of the old stories, even admire it. A myth is at its heart a conversation with the ancestors, not a historical claim. If you asked a crowd of Hebrew listeners in the 5th BCE whether the stories their people tell about the beginning of things were "true", they would likely nod affably, but they would not mean by it that "every word of this document here is an objectively proveable fact". Not their time, not their culture, not their questions. They didn't compare notes with the Phoenecians to try and figure out the exact calendar year of the Great Flood, or argue with visiting Amalekite scholars about the exact height of Job. Their stories were retold, not researched, and they were okay with that. If it came up at all, their instinctive commitment would probably have more to do with family loyalty than objective fact (as is secretly true of most in our time as well, if they were honest enough to admit it to themselves!)

 

[ideologyhunter]

People never took creation stories as literally true thousands of years ago? I find that pretty hard to believe.

Same here, although, honestly, I've never read an author who built a case either way. Adam and Eve certainly reads like a story. If you leave out the creation story, there are bushels of stories in the Bible that are constructed like folk tales -- Samson and the foxes, Jesus and the 2000 hogs, Jesus and the coin in the fishy's mouth (Ye gods). And then there's the bizarre nephilim in Genesis 6, thrown briefly into the narrative without any attribution and with no episodes, almost as if the writer told you, "Here's one I used to hear from Grandpap." In the RSV version, it states, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown." The Good News Bible states, "In those days, and even later, there were giants on the earth who were descendants of human women and the supernatural beings. They were the great heroes and famous men of long ago." It's probably a stroke of luck for the evangelicals that there isn't more to the passage, as it would call into question the uniqueness of Jesus.
Whatever the Hebrew writers meant you to take away from the Eden story, Paul in the NT treats it as if it were history. In Romans 5 and I Corinthians 15 he discusses Adam in contrast with Christ, and bases his theology on what each of them supposedly did for (or to) mankind.

 

[Politesse]

People never took creation stories as literally true thousands of years ago? I find that pretty hard to believe.

Same here, although, honestly, I've never read an author who built a case either way. Adam and Eve certainly reads like a story. If you leave out the creation story, there are bushels of stories in the Bible that are constructed like folk tales -- Samson and the foxes, Jesus and the 2000 hogs, Jesus and the coin in the fishy's mouth (Ye gods). And then there's the bizarre nephilim in Genesis 6, thrown briefly into the narrative without any attribution and with no episodes, almost as if the writer told you, "Here's one I used to hear from Grandpap." In the RSV version, it states, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown." The Good News Bible states, "In those days, and even later, there were giants on the earth who were descendants of human women and the supernatural beings. They were the great heroes and famous men of long ago." It's probably a stroke of luck for the evangelicals that there isn't more to the passage, as it would call into question the uniqueness of Jesus.
Whatever the Hebrew writers meant you to take away from the Eden story, Paul in the NT treats it as if it were history. In Romans 5 and I Corinthians 15 he discusses Adam in contrast with Christ, and bases his theology on what each of them supposedly did for (or to) mankind.

He's also wildly reinterpreting the story, though... Christians get their "correct interpretation" of Genesis from Paul, not the other way around, because you wouldn't read Genesis "literally" and come up with Paul's interpretation. Did Paul believe there was an Adam who was the progenitor of the Jewish people? Almost certainly. Did he think Genesis was a "literally" word-for-word true historical account that G-d personally wrote? Who can say, but very probably not. It's quite likely in any case that Paul only heard the Hebrew Scriptures at synagogue, and may have only ever heard that specific story a handful of times. He does quote the Septuagint from time to time in his letters, but seldom if ever in a way that suggests he has a copy right in front of him.