WishboneDawn

It seems to me that if the church fathers had such a literal view they would have taken pains to figure out which gospel had it right and not bothered with including 4 very different accounts in the bible.

aa5874

A very good question for Eusebius, the Church Father who wrote the history of the Christian Church.

Eusebius, who wrote the History of the Church, has already dealt with the apparent discrepancies and claimed that there are none.

'Church History' book 3.24.12-13, by Eusebius, "John accordingly, in his gospels, records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists mention events which happened after that time.

"One who understands this can no longer think that the Gospels are at variance with one another, inasmuch as the gospels of John contain the first acts of Christ, while the others give an account of the latter part of his life

And book 1.5.1 of Church History, " And now, after this necessary introduction to our proposed history of the Church, we can enter so to speak, upon our journey, begining with the appearance of our Saviour in the flesh..

storytime

It seems to me that if 500+ Jews came out of their graves after the resurrection of Jesus and walked among their brethren, that at least a few would have triggered the interest of Caesar, or even Pilate by showing themselves undestructable. I mean, these people were resurrected and supposedly resurrected people cannot die a second time. And then there is the Lazarus character. Where are all these Jewish zombies today? Shouldn't we demand that they come out and identify themselves?

jkmartin

It really is a toss up on if they were supposed to be literal or intrepreted, but my biggest annoyance is when people say both, just to cover themselves.

Chili

Yes, but only when we are told to do so as in Jn.6:55

"For my flesh is real food
and my blood is real drink."

The rest is metaphor.

Lógos Sokratikós

I don't know if it's been asked before, but, this is one of the best questions ever asked on BHC.

I'm looking forward to (lurk-) reading an honest and constructive debate with literalists.

Ray Moscow

The short answer is that in general I don't think we know what the authors intended. We can only make educated guesses based on how the books are structured.

It would be great to have their notes and rough drafts as well!

As far as later commentators on biblical writings go, many of them seem to take the writings literally and only fall back on other approaches when the literal reading seems absurd.

Ray

Chili

The metaphoric approach works better if your eyes have been opened, I can just hear a spirit-filled person shout, and if you put this on the slippery slope the bible becomes inerrant if they have been fully opened . . . which would be when there is no literal intepretation left.

Chili

This is the high point where Buddhism meets Catholicism: "This is Buddha" = "this is my body."