Sven

buckshot: I got tired of this. I leave you the last word, if you wish.

EarlOfLade

buckshot23...

If I understand you correctly, you are claiming that there are parts of the bible that is purely metaphorical and some that are literal. Right?

What I want to know, is how YOU determine what to take as literal and what to take as metaphorical.
Many christians sects take the bible literally, some take the OT as a history book which was somewhat superceeded by the NT. All of them have different interpretations of the bible. All of the can not be correct, so how do I decice which one of these are correct and why?

Huon

OK, the Bible is a book, like any other ordinary book. Old morality, old ethics, almost no science at all, historically questionable. Probably I miss something.

buckshot23

I take this as a concession that having "modern" theories in the book is probably an unfair expectation.

Lunawalk

If you are looking at the bible as an human document yes it unfair to expect it to have modern concepts. yet if the god of the bible is the true god and the creator of the universe it should have modern concepts and ideas. The views on cosmlogy and morality indicates human writings written for its times

buckshot23

Modern theories are changing. What makes our era any more significant then say 1000 years from now? At the end of the 19th century Physics as a field of study was on the verge of being eliminated because we thought it was just about all figured out. Who is to say that modern concepts won't change significantly over the next 100 years?

Lunawalk

of course years from now science advance greatly we could also desent into an dark age. also. people today interpret the bible in light of today's modern concepts

Huon

So, we all agree that the Bible (OT + NT) has never had the purpose of being a scientific book. (Some Muslims argue that the Quran is a source of science, but it belongs to another thread.)
It is possible that some parts of the OT are poetry.
Now also can be contested the old morality and old ethics of the Bible. Slavery for instance.

buckshot23

Exactly and when and if that knowledge greatly increases theories will change significantly. Then if the bible produced a "modern" theory in the text a skeptic from the year 3006 would point at it and tell us how backwards the writers were.

Angrillori

That's absurd. If the constancy of the speed of light were in the bible, if evolution were in the bible, if the doppler effect were in the bible, if viruses were in the bible, if any of these things which have been tested and found to be true were in the bible then no future race would find them backwards. They would be amazed that this book, written well before these things could be observed, actually includes them.

OBSERVATIONS aren't overturned with time.

We've observed speed of light constancy. We've observed evolution. We've observed the doppler effect. We've observed viruses. We've observed the uncertainty principle. No one in 3006 is going to suddenly discover that we DIDN'T observe a constant speed of light, viruses, the doppler effect, etc.

Hell, even something as simple as the wavelength of red light would be a good one! If that were written in the bible somehow (And one hundred of sevens of thousandths of thousandths of cubits between the height and the breadth of light shall mark the beast as red?) that's not going to change between 5000BC, 0AD, 1000AD, 2000AD, 3000Ad, and 30,000AD!

OBSERVATIONS won't change. Yes, explanations for observations may. But the observations, the facts remain. So if some fact of the universe which no one at the time could possibly have known, was clearly and unambiguously contained in the bible, not only would that not be unreasonable, it would be a huge mark in favor of the bible. Many would even contend that would actually exceed the credibility of many of the proposed "fulfilled" prophecies.

Many Muslim apologists, even here in GRD, recognize this and regularly spend time trying to highlight items in the Qu'ran which they claim describe scientific observations which no one at the time of writing could have known.

Verily, speaketh the lord, the light from afar shall travel to you as speedily now as were you in the swiftest chariot!

Verily, speaketh the lord, of mine creation thou shalt knowest where motes lie, or how they travel, but no man shall know both!

Verily, speaketh the lord, thine seed and the seed of all life does change over time, changing, growing into all manner of great and beautiful forms!

Verily, speaketh the lord, the earth sails through the heavens as a ball through the sky!

etc., etc., etc.

This claim that because somehow "science" changes over time, therefore what is OBSERVED today will somehow be different tomorrow, actually flies in the face of what we have actually seen. For the 1900 years creationism was taught, the observations were there that led to its undoing--the fossils, the molecular evidence, the age of the earth, etc. But it wasn't the OBSERVATIONS that were overturned--it was the explanations/theories explaining them. The OBSERVATIONS stubbornly stuck around. Too bad, for creationists, and flat-earthers, and geocentrists, that.

Furthermore, in re:
Don't you find it ironic that 2,000 years after it was written (actually more since we're talking OT) that exactly this has happened? A writer penned a (then) modern theory of cosmological origins, and observers from 2006 are pointing at it and telling the world how backwards the writers were!

In fact, that thought actually made me laugh out loud! It seems that you're agreeing with Sven and not even realizing it! :rolling: