Mathetes

Hi, people,

this thread comes from a conversation I had last week on another thread... I was interested, but I did not read the posts during the weekend and then the conversation went through other paths.

It is sometimes claimed by liberal Christians that many of the Bible stories never actually happened, but that somehow they were put in the Bible because they contain a "deeper meaning" or they are somehow teaching us about God in a metaphorical way. We are talking of things like the seven-day Creation (disproved by cosmology), the Flood (disproved by geology), Exodus (disproved by history), exaggerations of Solomon's kingdom, etc.

My point is that I cannot see how the stories can ever be read in any other way than the literal one. Whether the writers believed the stories themselves or they were actively forging a mythical past for the Israel nation, I believe that their intention was always for the readers to take them as literal, word for word.

They have been compared with Jesus's parables, but:

(a) Jesus always states very clearly that a parable is going to follow.
(b) They normally do not involve the supernatural, but rather use commonplace people and things (fathers and sons, rich and poor people, talents and landowners).

If someone here believes some of the Bible stories to be not actual historical fact, but that they somehow "contain some kind of metaphorical truth" or "are God's way of explaining things to mankind", I would like to here about it.

Thanks.

livius drusus

Interesting question, Mathetes, but I think it is better suited to the BC&H forum.

DrJim

Mathetes:
I am inclined to agree but you may be overstating the case. I think in general, the writers did want their readers to accept their claims as true. There are, however, numerous exceptions. I would think the repetition of motifs from the story of the angels in Lots house in Genesis in Judges 19 (the Levite's concubine), is working on more than a 'literal' level. It is asking you why God acted on way in one situation and another way in another situation, and raising issues of Israelite righteousness vis-a-vis the Sodomites. An awful lot of issues come to the fore in such a comparison, and that goes a little beyond literal reading. To my mind, this kind of intertextuality is meant to raise questions meant to be discussed orally (I'm of the opinion that there is no such thing as a completely scriptural/written religion: scripture is meant as a starting point for communication about core beliefs etc, even if it is claimed to be the final word on what is right).

Outside of the stories you were talking about, a number of biblical texts are poetic, operating more on the reader's emotions and imagination: I'm not sure all of these were intended "literal, word for word". Hard to see the point of the Song of Songs in a literal reading, for instance.

To my mind, however, I suspect most of claims of intended "metaphorical" interpretations are strategies of preserving the relevancy of scriptures when other avenues of interpretation are closed due to changed views on history, science, morality etc. Even so, the scripture as a starting point for exploring "truth" remains.


JRL.

Mageth

Originally posted by Mathetes
Hi, people,

this thread comes from a conversation I had last week on another thread... I was interested, but I did not read the posts during the weekend and then the conversation went through other paths.
<snip>
My point is that I cannot see how the stories can ever be read in any other way than the literal one. Whether the writers believed the stories themselves or they were actively forging a mythical past for the Israel nation, I believe that their intention was always for the readers to take them as literal, word for word.

IIRC, this may come from my conversation with you (there were probably a couple of others involved, as well).

Note first that I am not a "liberal christian" nor a theist of any sort. I'm an atheist.

It may be so that the myth forgers (tm) intended their audience to "take the stories literally", at least in part, and for some of the stories. But in some cases the intent of the myth may have been primarily to teach some moral lesson. A good example is the story of Job - a myth if I've ever read one, but a moral lesson of some sort is there for those who want it whether they accept the story as myth or history. And the moral lesson was the real intent of the myth's creator.

I seriously doubt, however, that the myth forgers thought they were recording literal history when they created the myths. If one accepts a story as a myth, it hardly seems feasible that the creator of the story thought it was history he or she was recording - unless they were under some sort of delusion, thinking that history had been revealed to them in a dream or some such.

And note that Genesis includes two versions of the Creation myth - odd if the author thought he was recording "history".

They have been compared with Jesus's parables, but:

Not by me.

(a) Jesus always states very clearly that a parable is going to follow.

The lack of an opening "this is a parable" statement is not really good evidence that the author thought the story was history.

(b) They normally do not involve the supernatural, but rather use commonplace people and things (fathers and sons, rich and poor people, talents and landowners).

At least one parable I know of does include a supernatural element - the rich man in hell. Besides, a myth does not necessarily have to include a supernatural element.

If someone here believes some of the Bible stories to be not actual historical fact, but that they somehow "contain some kind of metaphorical truth"...

That would be me, for one.

...or "are God's way of explaining things to mankind",

That would most definitely not be me. They're strictly man's way of explaining things (including the concept of God) to mankind.

I would like to here about it.

Well, first, I would not just limit the discussion to the Biblical myths. There are many other rich mythologies. And there are common motifs that occur in many of these mythologies. To me, these common motifs express "truths" about the human psyche, the human condition, or in general the world as we perceive it (or rather, as it was perceived by the mythmakers).

I can give a try at describing a couple of examples of such motifs. IIRC, I gave some broad ones on the other thread. One is the cyclical nature of life - birth, adolescence, adulthood, death, and rebirth from death. Some myths parallel this - indeed, the first few chapters of Genesis (through the Flood) can be viewed as paralleling the life cycle. In addition, life tends to live by killing other life; death is necessary to sustain life, an observation early man surely made. Thus, many mythologies include a consentual "giving" of life by a prey species, and reciprocal honoriing and offering to the prey species - e.g. buffalo to the Native American tribes of the Great Plains.

As for "rebirth" or "ressurection" - in winter the world "dies", and is reborn in the spring. The moon "dies", and is ressurected (btw, about three days later - think about it). The serpent is "reborn" through the shedding of its skin. Corn "dies" so that its seed can be sowed to bring the rebirth of the corn. In the Flood myth, the earth "died" to be cleansed, and was resurrected. Many myths include a rebirth or resurrection motif.

And then there's the splitting into opposites, or opposing forces. The world, to the mythmakers, was full of opposites. So we have an original "unary" world, if I may, and then the splitting into opposites - of Adam into the male and female, and the subsequent introduction of the opposites of good and evil into the world. (Even prior to that in the Genesis account, you have God splitting light and darkness, earth and sky, water and land - not to mention the "opposites" of God and the serpent).

Many of these mythical motifs may appear alien to some of us in the modern world, where we tend to be insulated from Nature, but as I said, parallel motifs can be found in many ancient mythologies. And, IMO, the intent of the myths is not really to record history so much as to metaphorically describe aspects of existence and Nature (both internal and external) commonly perceived by humans, and to provide mythical sources (or "just-so" stories) as explanations for them. So if there is "truth" to be found in the myths, interpreting them as history only serves to hinder the realization of the "truth".

Even God, the Great Spirit, or whatever you want to call it may be considered a motif that obviously occurs in many mythologies, albeit in many disparate incarnations.

In any case, I think these old mythologies have largely lived past their usefulness to us in the 21st Century (as mentioned, we're largely disconnected from Nature, esp. as it existed when the myths were created, and now have Science to reveal clearly that the old myths can't be true even if we want them to be).

I don't think I've done a particularly good job of explaining my thoughts on this subject, so, if you're interested in learning more of where I'm coming from, I would recommend that you read some Joseph Campbell (e.g. Thou Art That, which deals largely with Biblical mythology, or The Power of Myth, which deals more broadly with mythology).

Mathetes

Thanks for your post, Dr. Jim:

Can you elaborate a bit on this? I am not sure on what you mean.

I would say that the literal reading is the only one that makes sense, although I may be wrong. It is poetic, but not "metaphorical" or "allegorical" (even if it is full of metaphores,"your eyes are like doves, "your teeth are like a flock of sheep"). It is a love song, that was not intended to be read as anything else, even if subsequent generations have tried to see "Israel" or "the Church" in the image of the lover. Am I wrong in this?

Not sure what you mean by "truth" here. Maybe you mean to explore the psychology or anthropology of the first Israelites? Other than that, I am not sure of what "truth" we can seek in it.

Mathetes

Hi, Mageth. Great post.

This thread was not specifically directed at you. I know that you are an atheist. Our conversation in another thread reminded me of a doubt I have always had regarding some apologetics that I have heard from liberal Christians. I was looking from some more feedback from the believers side, and that is why I posted it in GRD before it got moved here.

We are never going to know what they were thinking, of course. But I see it as a gradual process in which a lot of oral legends are built through some time, and the myth forgers, as you said, were the last step, and they probably believed most of it.

I do not have a problem with the author of Genesis writing the two accounts, taking them as truth, and dealing happily with the cognitive dissonance involved. Hey, I find Christians these days that deal very happily with that dissonance, and state to my face that yes, the two contradicting accounts are true at the same time!

I agree to that. This is the "truths" that we can find, but nothing else.

And here is where we do not agree. My point of view is that those "just so stories" were actually believed and were intended to be believed. I have no way of demonstrating it, of course.

I think you did a good job, and I will take a look at your reference.

One more question for the general audience...

One thing that might clarify this is to find an actual "quote" of the Scriptures by a commentator that specifically declared that he was taking the stories as non-literal, before the early centuries of the Christian era, for example. As far as I know, whenever the Bible talks about any previous stories, it is always assuming that they happened exactly as described. As far as I know, in the NT, when Jesus talks about Abraham, Moses, David, Jonah, etc., he always assumes that the stories are facts. Same for Paul and the other epistle writers.

Can you guys think of an instance where the Scriptures are quoted, and the stories are described as allegorical?

Calzaer

As far as I can tell, "reading the Bible metaphorically" means "Reading the Bible in such a way as to make it support whatever conclusion I've already come to."

Magus55

Yes, but careful studying by scholars have revealed that based on the original language, the writing style of poetry, allegory, metaphor, parable etc. in the parts of the Bible that are those literary styles, Genesis, Exodus etc. do not fall under the criteria that the rest of the bible follows for metaphoric writing. Genesis does not have the parallelism or parable style that we see in Biblical poetry and Jesus' parables. Genesis and Exodus are written as literal history, not as metaphor.

Magus55

Only among liberals, but as usual, your witty repartee adds so much depth to the discussion.

Mageth

That's a big assumption about books that were written at different times by different authors. The bible is not one book written by one (or two) authors that practiced a particular literary style - it's 66 books (in its Protestant Christian incarnation) written by 40 odd authors over a period of 1000 years or so, using many different styles. There's no rule that says a written myth must follow some poetic or parable literary style, or any particular literary style at all. It's the content, not the style, that indicates the stories are mythical.