Student of Sophia

"What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphism -- inshort, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.

We still do not know where the urge for truth comes from; for as yet we have heard only of the obligation imposed by society that it should exist: to be truthful means using the customary metaphors -- in moral terms, the obligation to lie according to fixed convention, to lie herd-like in a style obligatory for all ..." -Friedrich Nietzsche

The Dagda

Nihilism eh, it's usually considered au fait to comment on something you cut and paste? What do you think that means to you?

Jim123

Yes, do tell. It's a bit ironic to be using Nietszche to attempt to make a point about biblical truth.

Sophia is Greek for "wisdom." The word shares the same root with "sophistry," which doesn't mean now what it meant in Plato's day. Steer clear of it if you can, SOS.

BTW, Bill Moyers, who produced the Campbell series on Myth, and who continues to do scrupulous in-depth reporting on religion, is a national treasure, IMO.

MrHambre

And of course, the distinction was irrelevant to the ancients. They believed their myths were "true" in the same way we believe anything about our reality is "true," like the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

Where in the Bible does it say we should accept these myths as metaphors of the human mystery, and not take them so literally?

Unbeliever

Here's one site I know of that discusses this topic:
Scientific Errors in the Bible

The Dagda

Nice thanks.

bacht

I know this is another fundie-baiting thread, but your statement is just silly (and appears to be a logical fallacy)

Why should we expect the Bible to be irrefutably true "fact-wise" from page one onward? (I don't care about the literalist approach, that's a dead-end)

If the Bible is closer to poetry than prose, we shouldn't expect the text to be just a series of factual statements. If much of the text was used for ritual rather than individual study we shouldn't expect it to hold up to close analysis. If most Jews never had access to the text we shouldn't expect contemporaries to have challenged every piece.

Your definition of myth is unsatisfactory. Myth can be "true" without using "facts". Myth is about illuminating human nature, not recording life journalistically.

When you tell a joke, are you trying to share factual information? No, you're trying to make an observation about life or people. This is one example of how language is not restricted to prosaic descriptions of sense data.

Jim123

Actually, my quote here is incorrect. It should read:

The Bibles are either factual, or they aren't.
The Bibles are self-refuting, fact-wise, beginning on page one.
Therefore, they are works of fiction.

Apologies for my error.

Notwithstanding, your thread is the silly one. You reject a literalist approach to the Bibles from the onset, by claiming literalism is a dead end. I assume by that you mean the Bibles aren't to be taken literally. Isn't that a definition of Fiction?

"Myth" and "metaphor" are subsets of fiction.

What you "expect" from the Bibles is evidence of nothing. All I'm saying here is the Bibles are self-evidently fiction. And your response here does more to support than refute that.

My definition of "myth" is from the dictionary. Too bad if you find it unsatisfactory, but re-defining words to support your argument is unethical. And then you pile on an unsupportable claim about what "myth is about." Where's your proof for about what myth is "supposed" to be? That's an opinion, my friend, and nothing more.

The utility of myth and metaphor may be so, and you may feel "illuminated" by them, but don't confuse their utility value with literal truth. There may have been a prototypical "Emperor's New Clothes," and the myth may ring true concerning human nature, but that's not evidence such an Emperor actually existed. Nor, do I suppose the story was ever intended to be taken literally.

Besides containing what I interpret to be metaphorical stories and mythical themes, the Bibles are chock full of purported historical, and factual claims that are quite clearly erroneous and contradictory. So, maybe the real choice is between lies and fiction.