Mathetes

Now, here is a metaphorical interpretation if I ever saw one.

If the Bible is meant to be interpreted metaphorically, I do not see how we can be sure that Amos reading is not the real "inner message", not worse than any other one.

Mathetes

Am I the only one that disagrees? Shit.

I am trying to understand you guys, but I am surprised that you find this so obvious.

Doctor X

SOMEONE needs to turn that "frowny face" into a "HAPPY FACE!"

Anyways, good stuff everyone . . . why do I feel like Dr. Phil?


Eeeeeee . . . other than cases of clear literary reworking--which you accept--suggest that the author did not take it so literal that he had to preserve it completely. The often cited case is the Chronicler adding Satan as the one who tells King David to perform a census so he can get squished by YHWH when it was YHWH who did it in the original Deuteronomistic History.

Now . . . did the Chronicler "disbelieve" the story?

Similarly the gospel writers. As you note, Mk has enough problems with the passion story for us to question whether or not he "believed it." Maybe it is a bit like Oliver Stone's JFK. This is based on a complete mess of rantings On the Trail of the Assassins. Stone does a pig's mess of reality with his movie.

Well . . . did Stone consider himself a "loyal liar" because he stretched if not bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated the truth to support his "higher truth?"

Take Michael Moore . . . please. . . . Okay, if you believe some critics, he alters the truth for his documentaries . . . does he not believe in his overall message?

I wonder if such "apology" comes into play with the OT/NT writers.

So . . . yes, Mk did want to tell a story in order to get his message across. He . . . and readers . . . did not have to care that every bit was "accurate"--they were interested in the message.

--J.D.

Mageth

Originally posted by Mathetes
Hey, of course I cannot prove that nobody thought that. But if I can show you some evidence that whenever Scripture quotes itself it is taken as literally, this is a good argument for my case. Would we agree?

No. I don't accept the words of one character in the bible as proof of the literal existence of another character or event in the bible. But note that I don't think all those references you quoted are necessarily to mythical characters or events (I do not, and have not, claimed that all the Bible is myth).

And I'd also note that in many of the scriptures you quoted, the reference to the Biblical character or story was to convey some truth using the character or story as an example, and not really a "literal history" reference. Such references can be used for that purpose whether literally true or not, and whether the teller considered them literally true or not. For example, I could say "Like Don Quixote, you are tilting at windmills". That doesn't mean I think the Man from La Mancha is a historical character.

Is there anywhere in the Bible where an old story is recounted, with a warning like "you know, this did not really happened, but it is intended to show us a deeper truth about God, etc."? That would destroy my case.

Not to my knowledge, but the absence of such doesn't help your case. I admit that myths are often believed as true in the cultures in which they are told. Heck, I even admit that they are often intended to be accepted as true.

I can think of another hint that the first books in the Bible are intended to be taken literally: the genealogies. What is the point of running pages and pages of "Methuselah begat Zorobabel", if they are not intended to be taken as history? Where is the metaphore?

There's no "metaphor" in the genealogies (I haven't seen anyone claim that everything in the bible is myth), but it's possible (probable, IMO) that the genealogies were at least partially invented genealogies to give the Hebrews lineages back to the Patriarchs (probable because certain of the characters in the genealogies, e.g. Adam and Noah, and quite possibly Abraham, are almost certainly mythical).

Note that between Adam and Noah are ten generations. In Mesopotamian mythology, there are ten generations of kings before the Mesopotamian flood myths. A bit of an odd coincidence?

Since it is a self-confessed argument from authority, could you give some references/quotes?

What we seem to really be disagreeing on here is whether certain parts of the bible are myth. IMO, certain parts of the bible are undeniably myth, and cannot reasonably be interpreted any other way. Whether people have or have not believed them as literal accounts now or in the past doesn't change that fact.

Second, you could dive into Joseph Campbell if you dare.

This page is a good discussion of Mythology, and various theories of Mythology from the past and in the present.

Here is a another good page, which describes "What do myths do?"

Here is another page that answers the questions "What is a myth?" and " Are myths true or false?"

And here's a gimme for you: that page includes a commonly accepted definition for myth:

"Myths are prose narratives which, in the society in which they are told, are considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in the remote past."

Note that I don't dispute the essense of that definition, but think it's too simplistic. I definitely understand that myths (e.g. the Genesis myths) were often accepted by most people in the society in which they are told as "truthful accounts". However, I don't think the mythforgers themselves necessarily thought they were telling literal history; on the contrary, I think they knew they were spinning a yarn, and often included metaphorical content to teach some lessons through the myth. At least part of the intent was to establish a "literal" explanation for something not understood, but I can't see the person or persons who invented or modified a borrowed myth (as was the case with the biblical creation and flood myths) believed what they were inventing was literally true. Further, I think there were probably many "skeptics" in the past who heard and told the stories but didn't really accept them as literal history. Further again, I think many of the people that accepted them as "truthful accounts" valued the metaphorical purpose (the "lessons" the myths taught) as much or more than the "historical" purpose.

I like this definition of myth (from an apparently Catholic site, BTW).

After some thought and a bit of study, I'll take the liberty to amend my previous statement to read:

"I've been dabbling around studying mythology for a year or so now, and from what I've read so far, many mythologists would claim that many if not most mythforgers did not necessarily subscribe to or intend a purely "literal" interpretation of the myths. The metaphorical interpretation, "truth", or purpose of a myth was often considered to be as or more important than a literal translation. Many myths were stories with metaphorical content ("truths", if you will) that were created and handed down with the primary intent of teaching those metaphorical "truths", rather than simply teaching literal history, to the listener or reader. The fact that many people today (or in the past) have mistakenly taken the primary intent of the myths to be as recording a literal history does not change that."

Doctor X

HA! YOU ARE WRONG!! No hug for you!

Sorry . . . I will have to look it up, but there was a good paper in a recent JBL which argued that the genealogies do not have to be intended or taken as literal--they establish a past and legitimize the claim.

Anyways, I think we may be too "literal" in that we expect the authors to be one way or the other--believing it a myth versus believing it all, everyword, true.

--J.D.

Mageth

Originally posted by Mathetes
If the Bible is meant to be interpreted metaphorically...

Please understand that I, at least, am not making that claim (so that statement would be a strawman of what I'm saying). There are parts of the Bible which are undoubtedly (well, IMO) myth, and these parts may well include intentional metaphorical content (they may have been also intended to establish a "history" for Israel, and were definitely intended to establish a religion), and thus these parts may have been meant to teach some lesson metaphorically. I've heard various metaphorical interpretations of the Biblical myths. I don't particularly hold strongly to any of them.

If you want some challenging, but controversial, reading on different interpretations of the Biblical myths, read Joseph Campbell's Thou Art That, or read some Carl Jung (Answer to Job is an interesting read, if a bit "out there").

Mageth

Originally posted by Doctor X
Sorry . . . I will have to look it up, but there was a good paper in a recent JBL which argued that the genealogies do not have to be intended or taken as literal--they establish a past and legitimize the claim.

I think that's what I more or less said above, though I wouldn't say the genealogies included metaphorical meaning.

Anyways, I think we may be too "literal" in that we expect the authors to be one way or the other--believing it a myth versus believing it all, everyword, true.

I agree with you on that.

Doctor X

I will have to pull the article for you and quote it tomorrow.

Until then . . . I leave you to wallow in your disbelief . . . hope you that the Great Reckoning come not tonight so that you will be left outside with your cold torch gnashing your teeth . . . and . . . like . . . tearing your clothes . . . and stuff. . . .

--J.D.

Devilnaut

All words are metaphors so there is no way to not read something metaphorically.

The problem is that we forget that they are metaphors and then we forget how to play with them.

I think (oh the irony) our intellect works by building scaffolds on top of scaffolds that support eachother and understanding is achieved whenever inductions (inferences from experience?) meet from separate angles. So a good work of art is kind of like something that creates emotion on the top floor that meets with a 'deeper' (closer to the source) meaning in the basement. I like to think this kind of thing can never be truly achieved by a salesman (representer!) but I'm not sure.

What I wrote might even look like a bunch of non-sequiturs but only if you don't have the proper scaffolding in place and I think salesman are those who sell scaffolding instead of ideas.

Adora

Just one quick example I remember off the top of my head is the Geneology of Jesus listed in Matthew... I think It's Matthew. Anyway, it's basically including lots of women, and leaving out many men. Matthew used both numbers to relate it to the Jewish readers of the time (something like 36 or 14 or something) as well as including women who, even though some were not directly blood-related to Jesus, were women sexually wronged in some way. Mary was, to Matthew's readers, a foregone conclusion to be a woman who had an affair outside of marriage, or was raped.

I've read this in serveral books, the only one I can remember being "Of a Woman Born" by the wonderful Rev. Spong. Personally, I think if you want some very easy-to-understand books to help you grasp the basic contexts of the biblical scriptures, any by Spong that tackle the biblical metaphors and explanations are excellent. From there, it's easier to understand some of the more complex psychological and social contexts.