Skeptical

Is there anything in the HB that can reasonably be interpreted (is that an oxymoron?) as implying that the HB is to be interpreted word for word literally? Is there anything in the HB about _how_ it is to be interpreted?

In the alternative, is there anything in Jewish tradition that sheds light on this question from non-biblcal sources?

In other words, is there any evidence for/against the idea that the original intent of the HB was that it was to be interpreted literally in the text itself or in early Jewish traditions?

Chris Weimer

No. Even Christians took extreme liberties in interpreting the Bible.

John A. Broussard

If a person believes in a personal god,

and

If the documents in question are regarded as being divinely inspired,

then

It's inevitable that they must be true, word for word, without error, no exceptions, none, none, whatsoever.

Face it. It's the word of god. That's why those who believe in the bible's inerrancy fight so hard to keep it all true. I even have one thread going where the theist accepts the fact that the earth goes around the sun but still insists that Joshua made the sun stand still.

Yup! One single slip, and it's not god's word.

Wallener

Nope.

You bet. There are explicit instructions telling us we are SUPPOSED to interpret The Law as best as our collective wisdom allows. See Deuteronomy 17:8ff. There is also 3000 years of Jewish tradition which teaches the literal reading is the least important of all possible readings.

Wallener

The Joshua story does not need the sun to have actually stopped for the story itself to be "true". The uber-literalists on that thread are completely out to sea, IMO.

John A. Broussard

But any concession means that the bible cannot be taken literally. The passage is clear. Joshua made the sun stand still.

That's the crucial problem that anyone believing in biblical inerrancy faces.

Godfather

When the bible says that "the tops of the mountains were covered with water," or "the sun stood still," what reason is there for a non-literal translation?

If there is a spiritual message hidden within fairy tales why not just give us the spiritual message?

In all of the bible we do not see the author telling us to interpret it in a non-literal way. Even Jesus refers to events as though they were literal. Like John said, if just one of the events recorded in the bible are not true, they all might as well be not true.

Peter Kirby

There is a quote, "Everything in the Bible is inspired, but not everything is revealed." The Bible was, obviously, written by human hands. The view of inspiration represented by this quote is that the person maintained free will while writing the text, but that the impetus behind writing was a sincere search for God's revelation and a divine act of disclosure by God to the writer. That disclosure is revelation, and the impetus and search are the inspiration. What was revealed is expressed by the writer for his (her?) proximate audience, in a particular setting of history, with particular assumptions about the way that the world works, to convey the divine truth revealed. Since that inspiration took place in a particular context of searching for God's revelation, it is the responsibility of an exegete to take what is relevant and address that revelation in terms that would be appropriate today. Why am I going off about this? I don't like to yield to the false idea that there is only one view of inspiration. I don't believe this version either. Searching under "process theology" might bring up more information on such views.

best,
Peter Kirby

Wallener

Why do you believe it is supposed to be? Critisizing a text because it doesn't make sense when taken literally and simultaneously insisting the legitimate way to read it is literaly is not intellecutally honest, IMO. And it makes for pretty damn short conversations.

Chili

I quite agree and that puts us on the slippersy slope: one single contradiction and we are wrong.