Toto

Mordy: feel free to start a thread in PD or MFP or GRD on that topic if you need to discuss it. The last few posts have drifted from the topic of Biblical criticsm, but your long post was definitely off topic here.

Diogenes the Cynic

The point itself was off topic and somewhat imflammatory. It's mostly a matter of just being the wrong forum. I don't necessarily even disagree with you about about the war but this is the Bible crit forum. You can rip the war all you want in PD and I'll probably agree completely.

We generally try to keep the political stuff out of this one, though. It's distracting and leads to trainwrecks.

bfniii

what i disagree with is that skeptics hold the monopoly on being able to determine the "most apparent" meaning.

prophecies are most often figurative. revelation is a good example.

i guess we disagree.

Amaleq13

That isn't a claim being made here as far as I can tell. In fact, there does not appear to be any argument about what the "most apparent" meaning of the prophecy is. You certainly haven't offered one. Instead, you have claimed that it should be interpreted in a different way than the most apparent meaning.

I agree that Revelation is an excellent example of a symbolic prophecy. Daniel is another. The one we are currently discussing, however, does not appear to share any of the same characteristics. Even if we accept "most often" as a true statement, that clearly doesn't mean "always". What criteria do you apply to differentiate?

Unless you can offer specific evidence to the contrary (ie an indication the author intended his words to be interpreted figuratively rather than literally), you really aren't disagreeing so much as you are simply choosing to ignore the evidence.

Amaleq13

I have split off the Tyre discussion and merged it into the new Tyre thread

John A. Broussard

This is a problem I frequently encounter in dealing with someone who claims biblical inerrancy. Is there any rule of thumb whereby a reader of the bible can determine whether or not a passage should be interpreted figuratively rather than literally?

It would sure help to have this rule handy when discussing such matters.

lee_merrill

It's not outlined in blue, that's for sure! How could we make a rule that would describe when Larry King is being literal of figurative, though?

It is a judgment call, certainly not easily described as a set of rules, but still, we do make these decisions, and expect to be able to make them.

As far as the Bible is concerned though, one verse in isolation will sometimes not tell us which is meant, when we read "The arm of the Lord" in one passage, we have to remember "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" as well, to know that "The arm of the Lord" is not a literal arm...

Regards,
Lee

John A. Broussard

Could you tell me how one can know when a prophecy is figurative. Does that come only after a prophecy fails, or is there some way of telling beforehand?

bfniii

wouldn't that make it true? if a prophecy is true in any sense, why is it not true? just because you don't like how it got interpreted? what if someone else does like the interpretation? a non-christian claiming to not like a particular interpretation or realization does not make the prophecy untrue. it just means that person doesn't want the prophecy to be fulfilled.

does that make my perspective untrue?

you are asking christians to only accept your interpretation of the passage which you have made, conveniently, after the fact.

most references to tyre are in the PAST tense. i'm having a difficult time finding it on a modern map. the last king of tyre is listed as 532BC. in what sense is tyre "still around"? are the 3k or so inhabitants in any way direct descendants of original tyre residents? it seems that tyre was pretty much not tyre when alexander came to town.

bfniii

apparent to whom? that seems to be a matter of perspective.

why should a predetermination be made as to what the author intended? did it come true or not?

and you feel the text is sufficient to make such a judgment? i would imagine the prophet, being a servant of God, would know that God isn't limited in His responses to a prophecy. we know what was written and we know that there is a certain interpretation which renders the text fulfilled. what else is there to know?

well, that's certainly a colorful conclusion.