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Author | Topic: Why read the Bible literally? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Thanks for posting that. I go through about four or five sets every year. Everytime I find a kid that hasn't read the series yet I give them a set. 'bout time I bought yet another one.
The Narnia series can do more to set a child on the path to really meeting GOD than any book I know of, including the Bible. If there was ever a body of inspired writing, the Narnia Series must be a prime example. Later, as they grow older, I try to steer them towards the other books and lectures. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
Faith writes: I guess I have to realize that Lewis was even farther from orthodoxy than I had thought. I can't agree with you Faith. It is Lewis that is orthodox and not you. Literalism to the extent that you carry it is relatively new. Traditional Christian scholars understood ancient Hebrew writing. The same is true of Jesus. When he wanted to make a spirtual point he used metaphor. Here is something from Augustine who I believe would be representative of the orthodoxy of that age.
St. Augustine from Christianity Today writes:
Augustine vs. LiteralismWhy he was so fond of spiritual Scripture interpretation There are passages in the Bibleobvious figures of speech, metaphorsthat modern readers would not even think to take literally. But during the period of the early church, some of these passages still caused confusion among the uninitiated, giving enemies of Christianity fodder for their attacks. Among the confused ones was, at one point in his life, Augustine himself. In the last months before his conversion, the brilliant young orator had become disenchanted with the Manichaean philosophy to which he had adhered. He was finding himself increasingly attracted to Christianity. Yet, he still stumbled over one particular Manichaean objection to Christianitybased on a too-literal reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. In his Two Books on Genesis Against the Manichees, Augustine later reconstructed the Manichees' argument. They taunt the Christians, he wrote, "for believing that man was made to the image and likeness of God. They look at the shape of our body and ask so infelicitously whether God has a nose and teeth and a beard and also inner organs and the other things we need." Not until he heard the great preacher Ambrose, bishop of Milan, exposit texts from Genesis figuratively did Augustine find this difficulty solved: "It struck me that it was, after all, possible to vindicate his [Ambrose's] arguments. I began to believe that the Catholic faith, which I had thought impossible to defend against the objections of the Manichees, might fairly be maintained, especially since I had heard one passage after another in the Old Testament figuratively explained. These passages had been death to me when I took them literally, but once I had heard them explained in their spiritual meaning I began to blame myself for my despair. " It was soon after this objection was cleared away that Augustine heard that voice in the garden, "Take, read!" and yielded to Christ. Significantly, he later chalked up his youthful skepticism not to mere over-literalism, but to something deeper and more universally human: "I was deluded in the past when I tried to start by applying to the divine Scriptures critical discussion rather than pious research. Through my lax morals, I closed off my own access to the Lord. In my pride, I dared to seek that which no man can find unless he practices humility."
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
I read the Narnia series to my kids and I have bought the books for my grand kids as well. I agree completely with you about the quality of Lewis's thinking and writing. I still find the Narnia books fascinating to read. Right now I'm re-reading "God in the Dock".
I also always keep a copy of "Mere Christianity" in my car to give to anyone who I think might be interested.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I can't agree with you Faith. It is Lewis that is orthodox and not you. Literalism to the extent that you carry it is relatively new. Traditional Christian scholars understood ancient Hebrew writing. The same is true of Jesus. When he wanted to make a spirtual point he used metaphor. What does metaphor have to do with whether people who follow Satan and never recognize Christ can be saved? I've posted references to the orthodox with whom I identify, which all give quotes showing their complete literal reading of Genesis for starters. They go back to Luther and they preexisted the Middle Ages. Did you just ignore all that? At the very least with all that authority on my side you can't reduce it to just "my" view, and claim it is NOT orthodox. {EDIT: What preachers and theologians of today are you familiar with? I'm sure that I could list dozens from the last century through the present who agree with me.} The orthodox embrace the various Creeds and Confessions of the Church literally. What is new, except for the Catholic allegorizing trends mostly of the Middle Ages, is the 19th century liberalism that de-literalizes the Bible. I posted links to The Fundamentals which represented the protesting churches of the early 20th century. Lewis also did much to question those liberalizing influences that have particularly affected his own denomination, but clearly he retained a few of them nevertheless. This message has been edited by Faith, 06-23-2005 12:45 AM This message has been edited by Faith, 06-23-2005 12:46 AM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Augustine wrote an enormous amount over his lifetime and as I've heard him exposited he often contradicted himself from his early to his later views. In the early period he was more "Catholic" or allegorizing, and later developed the views that Luther found so congenial. On one of my links I quote Augustine on Genesis, saying it would not be right NOT to take Genesis figuratively, which implies to my ear that he might prefer another way to take it, and then goes on to show that he does take it in a historical sense. If you didn't read any of my links I guess I could try to track them down again.
This message has been edited by Faith, 06-23-2005 12:40 AM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Who's orthodox? This line of the Church certainly is:
| Apocalipsis.org And there are others who are equally literal in their approach to the scriptures.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
If you want to go back again to Luther I'll repost this article on him.
Luther believed God is beyond human all-knowing. However, all Scripture can be interpreted,[34] and all Scripture has one simple sense.[35] "The Holy Spirit is the simplest writer ? his words could have no more than the one simplest meaning which we call the grammatical or the literal meaning."[36] Luther asserted the goal of an exegete is to obtain the "one simple, seminal, and certain literal sense" is. [37] Luther's understanding of literal is different from the modern definition of something that which can be verified by facts, rather literal means what the author intends by the words. He said, "Scripture deals only with Christ everywhere, if it is looked at inwardly, even though on the face of it, it may sound differently by the use of shadows and figures,"[38] so typology, metaphors, and allegories are included in what Luther means by literal interpretation.[39]
Luther regard allegory less highly with his decision to adhere to the historical meaning and did not make use of them unless the text itself indicated them,[40] but used allegory as an interpretive tool when he was not satisfied that he discerned the simple meaning through grammatical means,[41] and used it under the rule that it be bound to and regulated by the simplest meaning.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
I don't understand why you posted that link. it's primarily on the doctrine of predestination which Calvin favoured. There are still some that hold to that today but not many. It has nothing to do with Old Testement literalism though.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
That quote of Luther is too abstract to know exactly what it refers to. What I said was "BACK TO" Luther in any case, and that list I posted is long, as is the list of the early church fathers who also read Genesis literally. If you want to claim orthodoxy for the allegorizing trends that grew out of the RC church of the Middle Ages, nevertheless you cannot deny orthodoxy to the huge movement of Protestants that I identify with.
Again, did you read anything at the links I posted or shall I repost them? This message has been edited by Faith, 06-23-2005 03:47 AM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I don't understand why you posted that link. it's primarily on the doctrine of predestination which Calvin favoured. There are still some that hold to that today but not many. It has nothing to do with Old Testement literalism though. Calvin was a literalist on Genesis and the Reformed movement is very big today. Most of the biggest names among preachers these days are Reformed. "Predestination" is a reductionistic way to characterize this movement which is really a reclaiming of the truths of the Reformation.
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
Faith writes: What does metaphor have to do with whether people who follow Satan and never recognize Christ can be saved? Lewis's point is not that he was following Satan. Lewis's point was that he was following Christ by following the principles of Christ in service of the only name he knew. In the story the other followers of Tash, the ones who truly did love evil were not recognized by Aslan.
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LinearAq Member (Idle past 4676 days) Posts: 598 From: Pocomoke City, MD Joined: |
LA writes:
It diminishes it for sure. Jesus IS the God who taught Noah to build the ark, and His sacrifice has its true infinite value only if ALL His work is recognized including the destruction of the world for sin. Jesus IS the God through whom all things were made, Jesus IS the God who "was before Abraham was." Doubting any part of the whole testimony diminishes the meaning of the sacrifice of Christ. The questions are: What is lost if the Flood story is not taken literally? Does this nullify the value of Christ's sacrifice? His referencing "obvious" (I'm still hazy on how this is so)fictional accounts did not seem to diminish the value of His sacrifice. Would one more unacknowledged metaphor make any difference? He himself allowed his disciples to disobey the no-working-on-the-Sabbath rule. Apparently, He did not consider that rule of Gods to be literally true or valid. That rule must not be valid since, even though it carried a death penalty, breaking the rule must not be a sin, because Jesus never sinned.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Lewis's point is not that he was following Satan. Lewis's point was that he was following Christ by following the principles of Christ in service of the only name he knew. In the story the other followers of Tash, the ones who truly did love evil were not recognized by Aslan. The central question is whether anyone can be saved who never comes to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. This has nothing to do with metaphor vs. literalism, and I believe scripture is clear that it cannot happen, but I discussed it at length with Mr. Ex Nihilo on a couple of threads devoted to that question recently. My position is that it is unscriptural to say for certain that anyone will be saved who does not know Christ, however good they may seem to be, and certainly if they reject the gospel having heard it but you may agree with my opponent. Emeth is obviously saved because he recognizes the Lordship of Aslan/Christ and is repentant for his service to Tash. It's the part about that service being "really" to Aslan/Christ that I have a problem with -- IF Emeth never turned to Aslan/Christ certainly. But we are WAY off topic on this thread about literalism. This message has been edited by Faith, 06-23-2005 01:25 AM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The problem here is that the Christ never made any distinction between his parables, Jonah or the Flood when He referenced them. No, you have to recognize them by their different characteristics, their reference to known history such as the OT, etc., and other clues which I've been trying to specify but find difficult to do, so if you find you can't make the same distinctions I make then there's just nothing more to say about it. We agree to disagree.
His referencing "obvious" (I'm still hazy on how this is so)fictional accounts did not seem to diminish the value of His sacrifice. Are you talking about his telling parables? Parables are parables, history is history. I'm sorry, again I am unable to *prove* the difference, but all Biblical history has implications for Christ's role in it, since He is the God all of it is about, while the parables are just to teach a lesson.
Would one more unacknowledged metaphor make any difference? He himself allowed his disciples to disobey the no-working-on-the-Sabbath rule. Apparently, He did not consider that rule of Gods to be literally true or valid. That rule must not be valid since, even though it carried a death penalty, breaking the rule must not be a sin, because Jesus never sinned. Jesus condemns the Pharisees for their DISTORTIONS of God's laws in their Oral Law or Talmud. The Pharisees turn "no working on the Sabbath" into a form of work and deprivation instead of the rest and celebration God intended, and so put burdens on the people. This is what Jesus condemns. God's law is perfect, but the Oral Law twisted it. It's man-made tradition the Pharisees enforced on the people (and do to this day) that Jesus condemned over and over in his teachings. This message has been edited by Faith, 06-23-2005 01:38 AM
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
Faith writes: But we are WAY off topic on this thread about literalism. Not really. The thread is about why do you and others read the Bible literally and what evidence is there that we should.
Faith writes:
My position is that it is unscriptural to say for certain that anyone will be saved who does not know Christ, however good they may seem to be, and certainly if they reject the gospel having heard it but you may agree with my opponent. When you say something like how "good they may seem to be", you are placing your own judgement on the individual. That's God's job and only He knows what's truly in their hearts. The Bible is very clear that even those who know him by name may well be separated from him. Just read Matt 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Think about the reading from Luke. Chap12 vs48 ...From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Somehow I don't think that Jesus is talking about anything material here. It seems to me that to those who have been given the gift of faith are called to a higher standard than those who haven't. For example: a child that grows up in an abusive home without love, and has no concept of the loving Father in the Bible, is not held to the same standard as someone who grew up in a loving home where the love of a heavenly Father was easily understood because of the love received from earthly parents. God cares about the condition of our heart, not our theology. IMHO
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