Why read the Bible literally?

If an influential fundamentalist theologian persuaded the fundamentalist community that Jonah was allegory, would it make any difference to the spirtual faith of fundamentalists? Why would they care if Jonah was actually just a story illustrating a moral lesson? It seems to me that they shouldn't care much. It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal.On the other hand, Genesis 1-2 is different. An influential fundamentalist theologian who became convinced that Genesis 1-2 was allegory would probably make no progress. It is extremely important to fundamentalists that the creation events were real. Why?And on the third hand, Genesis 3 is of another quality altogether, since it includes the origin of original sin. Fundamentalists could never accept that the serpent and the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil were allegorical rather than real. The reasons for a literal interpretation of Genesis 3 are very clear and obvious.So while Genesis 3 seems to have clear reasons for a literal interpretation, the reasons for a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-2 seem less clear, and for Jonah not clear at all. Perhaps once you've accepted talking serpents, refusing to accept as literal the stories of Noah and Jonah and Methusalah would be difficult to explain due to the extreme inconsistency inherent in such a position.In other words, a literal interpretation of some parts of the Bible, like Genesis 3, is essential to fundamentalists because they form the foundation of the Christ-based belief system. But the fairytale nature of passages like Genesis 3 is obvious, and so the bar for accepting Biblical passages as literal gets set very, very low. By this standard the rest of the Bible easily qualifies as also requiring a literal interpretation.As an aside, as a non-Christian looking in from the outside, the doctrine of original sin seems to me to demand a literal interpretation of Genesis 3 by Christians. The Catholic position that the events of the Garden of Eden are allegorical or moral seems scant justification for original sin. If no one ever actually disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit, if it's really just a story, then original sin is actually a curse upon mankind placed there from the beginning by God. The fundamentalist position makes more sense to me.--Percy

I disagree on this completely Percy. I'm not a Catholic of the Roman variety, but I do believe that the story is allegorical. I contend that is telling us that free will is a gift from God and in Genesis we have a metaphor for its introduction. Original sin came into the world when we were given the choice of choosing evil over good. The metaphor tells us that in our make up we have this inherent desire to eat of that metaphorical fruit. We can metaphorically choose evil by eating the fruit or we can metaphorically choose goodness by leaving it alone. The fruit is from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Funny name for a literal tree. )

Not really a curse. To love God the way He wants us to love Him, we need to have free will. Anything else would be like you forcing or manipulating your partner to love you. The consequence of having a free will is that we may freely choose to be selfish, and selfishness is the cause of all sin.
The events of the Garden may well be a moral tale or allegory for the choice made by each of us in our ignorance....that of selfishness rather than obedience.
The idea of original sin can serve as a simple explaination of why we are born as self-serving individuals and have to learn to "do unto others as we would have them do unto us".It does not require a literal reading of the Bible to see that we still need the saving Grace of Jesus.

Which makes believing it in the teeth of such supposedly uncontrovertible proof an example of strong faith. There you go. That's what we hear endlessly. You just said "everybody doesn't attack it" but this is attacking it, by saying that I'm believing a complete fiction, you are believing what is true. You are absolutely certain that science has proved there never was a worldwide flood (which is held adamantly at EvC despite the logical principle that a negative can't be proven.)I don't WANT to do anything. I don't CHOOSE what I believe. I believe it because I believe it to be the truth, and I believe it because it's what God said. Science has NOT proven there was no worldwide flood. There are a bazillion facts involved and science interprets some of them in a way that disqualifies them from a flood interpretation. But it's all interpretation and science is constantly changing. I don't care if particular facts don't appear to prove the flood, all that means is that we haven't yet recognized how it all happened and what exact evidence it left. It's all speculation. I don't put human speculation above God's word.

It's a matter I suppose of simply being convinced that it all is the word of God. In that case you just don't impose your own criteria on it, you submit to it to learn from it. That is not how one treats any other book but this is God's book. AND one DOES learn from it when one submits to it. That's a constant empirical proof we then enjoy, but it's a personal thing that can only be shared with others who have had the same experience. Vistas open that are closed to you when you impose your own fallible judgments on it. Choosing what makes sense to you in the Bible is like putting your profane hands on the ark of the covenant, which got one poor Israelite killed, or kindling "strange fire" before the Lord, which got Aaron's sons killed. It's like putting one's own judgment above God's. As soon as YOU decide what is believable in it, then it's no longer GOD's book.{EDIT: P.S., no, I don't think anybody will die (immediately anyway) as a result of imposing his judgment on the Bible. I'm merely using these examples as a way of dramatizing that God's book is something different from a man-made book.{EDIT: Here's another defense for simply trusting it all as God's book no matter how it apparently violates your suppositions about what is possible: It's what "becoming as a little child" means.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-20-2005 05:25 PM

A believer (by Biblical definition (1COR 15:1-3)) is an entity who very adamently believes that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and on the 3rd day rose again unto the right hand of God.Because Christ's gospel is the anti-type of those questionable Biblical events (i.e., the Flood, beguiling of Eve by a "talking serpent", Jonah's death burial and resurrection, etc.)It becomes perfectly parsimonious and logical to believe those Biblical events are literal.

But what if the *metaphor* is the Word of God? What if He intended for us falliable human beings to study and understand Him allegorically? Jesus certainly did quite a bit of that during His time on Earth. Why would God not do the same in the document He left us?Chris

I believe it's always clear when something is metaphorical. There is no doubt in my mind when Jesus is telling a parable for the purpose of teaching and when he is speaking of a reality. There is simply no clue that Genesis or Jonah are to be taken metaphorically but there are many clues to the parables Jesus told. Others here argue strenuously that I am wrong. You can believe whichever.

Good point. Every part of the Bible dovetails neatly with every other part. This picking and choosing destroys its inherent consistency.

I'm sorry, but in the case of Genesis, that's simply incorrect. The clues are there, such as in the poetic repetition of phrases, the appearance of mythologically significant figures (seven creation days), etc.The clues are there, and they would be obvious to anyone raised within a tradition of Hebrew/Greek culture. They're just hidden to you because Western culture largely derives its mythology from Germanic/Nordic sources (though, obviously, the classical mythologies are represented as well.)

No doubt...yet you cannot tell us how you decide which is parable and which is not. Jonah is nonspecific about names except Jonah and the town to which he (eventually) went. That was one of your criteria.
Jonah has a meaning other than the literal reading of the story. Lets see....How about: You are held accountable for obedience to what God tells you to do. That is one that sermons are built around. So another of your mentioned criteria is met.Back to the original question. How do you tell which story that Jesus mentions is true and which is not?

The clues I'm thinking of are statements that show that metaphor is intended, as Jesus' parables are so often identified in scripture. There is ZIP to that effect in Genesis. It reads like straight factual narrative from beginning to end.However, the clues you point to simply point up the strangeness of reality which you could learn about if you were willing to believe what is written there.Real events were remembered and passed down through poetic forms in oral traditions, which is certainly how the early parts of Genesis must have been known and collected before Moses wrote them down.As for numbers, there are all kinds of numbers woven into the realities of scripture accounts. It is simply a failure of faith that assumes numbers must be consciously determined by human beings in fiction rather than consciously determined by God in reality. Bible exegetes who take it all literally take numbers into account. Here's one:

I know it when I see it. Sorry, I might be able to establish some clearer criteria if I were willing to spend hours assembling all the examples, but I'm not. If you want to believe Genesis is a parable go ahead. I'll continue to know it's history.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-20-2005 11:41 PM

Most here don't have a problem with your choice on this.I, for one, don't give a darn about what you choose to believe. However, this attitude of yours can not be allowed to extend to any teachings that are outside of theology or religious studies. If this is your attitude I don't see why you would bother to debate here or why anyone would bother to discuss it with you.

We aren't discussing "perfect" we are discussing reasonably accurate. Or accurate enough to pick between alternative ideas.Perfection isn't required. We got "good enough".