Originally Posted by Dr Evil

My first post that began this discussion was:

"If the Bible is not to be interpreted literally, it can be interpreted in any arbitrary manner whatsoever. A 5-th century monk in Constantinople would interpret it in a completely different manner to a highland village-dweller in Papua New Guinea in the 21-st century. So apparently they can be totally and utterly different (and contradictory), and yet both totally true. That is why the notion of non-literal translation is nonsense.

Because the real world has shown the literal interpretation to be wrong, theists are now trying to get around reality. With non-literal interpretations they are free to just make up whatever they want. "When Jesus did blah, blah, blah, it really means this totally different thing." No it doesn't. It means your book is wrong. Pure and simple."

All of my assertions flow from this. My assertions are:

(1) None of the books making up the Bible are reliably datable to the period they are purportedly about. There are books considered as canon by some groups, that are considered heretical by others. Regardless, no reliable versions are contemporaneous. The New Testament books date to at least nearly 300CE. Therefore, if the non-literal language is interpreted, there is no certainty that you are not interpreting the last author's ideas, hundreds of years after the supposed events.

(2) None of the books making up the Bible are reliably traceable to the original version, or original language. This situation is worse for the New Testament, where most have gone through several translations. Therefore, if the non-literal language is interpreted, there is no certainty that you are not interpreting the last translator's ideas.

Originally Posted by Toto

May I suggest that outhouse lacks credibility? And that he has an unfortunate habit of making assertions without citing authority? Perhaps it would be best if he allowed the participants in this discussion to proceed without his input.

Originally Posted by outhouse

because that is not how it was originally intended, even by following the collections and redaction compilations of legends one can tell by its different stages, how the context was ment to be read or sung

it does contain, allegory, metaphors, songs, poems, this is a fact, and its also a fact you loose the original context and beauty with a literal reading.

Originally Posted by J-D

In some places in the Bible, the text is almost certainly meant to be read literally. In some places, it's almost certainly meant to be read in some non-literal way. And in some places it's not so easy to be sure one way or the other.