The bible is literal or metaphoric?

What is said in the bible is totally literal or it is metaphoric. Or it is partially literal and partially metaphoric. If it is partially, how do we know what parts are literal or metaphoric.

The practice is that most of religious people cherry pick parts of the bible, for example none, even the most fundamentalists not support things like blended fabrics or stone their disobedient child to death. So, how do we know what is literal and what not? Are we able to know it?

 

I would answer with the 4th response, but I feel its disingenuous. The Bible is a book of fiction like "The Sum of all Fears". It mentions real places and people, adds some other fictional people, and then talks about fictional events.

 

I'd say 3 and 4, but I put 3. It's MEANT in literal and metaphorical ways, and I'm guessing there are a few bits and pieces that actually happened, or something close to it happened. However, most of it is a work of fiction, even if the authors and followers attempt to pass it off otherwise.

As you pointed out, it's impossible to tell for sure on everything, as far as what's literal and what's metaphorical. However, there are times when it seems really obvious that it's meant in a literal fashion, but because Christians have no valid argument, they just blurt out "it's just a metaphor," even when it makes absolutely no sense.

Because they like to use "it's just a metaphor" so much, this just causes them trouble. Who's to say Jesus isn't a metaphor? Who's to say heaven isn't a metaphor? Some people like to say hell is a metaphor because they don't want to believe in a god that sends people to hell, but if hell's a metaphor, why isn't heaven? You can't get a straight answer out of them in terms of what methodology they use for determining what's literal and what's metaphorical.

 

Some parts of the Old Testament are literal, those dealing with the Babylonian, Assyrian, Chaldean, and Persian empires. But they were written in a special way that elevated those various emperors into a powerful deity that was to be worshiped. There was no celestial deity; only humans who had the power of life and death over their subjects. The Old Testament ends with the collapse of the Assyrian empire.

The whole work, including the books in the Catholic Bible, make for a wonderful read. You can see how morality and people's thinking changed over the centuries. Unfortunately that evolution stopped for some people 2,000 years ago.

The Old Testament is a much better story than the New Testament.

 

It is metaphoric for those who choose to make it metaphoric. No one takes the entire Bible literally, nor do most Christians - so atheists who constantly bring up the Old Testament, etc to try to make Christians look backward are just trying to make themselves look smart more than anything else.

 

How can you believe in something if you don't take all of it literally?

If you don't believe in the talking donkey how can you believe in angels with three sets of wings?

If you don't believer in the Tower of Babel how can you believe in the Day of Pentecost when people spoke in tongues?

If you don't believe that Methuselah lived for 969 years how can you believe that you will live forever?

 

For me it is neither, just a sci-fi book , for the orthodox church that represents the majority of the people in the country i live the bible is a "mystic and allegoric" book and nothing should be taken literally .

 

A literal reader is unable to get past even the first book without irreconcilable contradictions.
The book is too inconsistent to be read literally.

The metaphorical reader will read this differently than that metaphorical reader.
The book lacks definition to give one message.

 

"Nature's God" Intends for humanity to struggle to discover His Intent in His Word. He expects us to become detectives & see Him despite the efforts by the people of the sinogog of satan to fool us.

It is part of the process of strengthening the believers. Its like learning to walk, we fall down a lot and get hurt. But as we properly respond to the pain & the successes, we learn to walk.

 

Its hard to answer your poll accurately. Some parts of the Bible is written in poetic language---and when read in context--- uses metaphoric language. The stories and history of the Bible are meant to be read literally.

 

Not according to the ancient Jewish sages.

 

That is their opinion.

 

Well, they were writing the stories down from oral histories... Its only been fairly recently that people took the Bible literally...

If you discount history, science, archeology etc... you undermine the Bible's messages.

 

The Bible's message is what it is. In context. Creating something out of your own head using information from other non-God directed sources---is undermining the message.

But that is your option to do that. It doesn't bring you truth.

 

Studying the Bible as a morality tale does bring you to the truth of man's relationship with God is supposed to be..

 

When did the RC church change its stance? Other than some of Jesus' parables, the bible at 1 time, in its entirety is the literal word of God.
I am not RC, and that is what I was told and believed, well into adulthood.

All this must've changed in the last 40 or so years?

 

^ Pretty much this.

 

The bible is the roman emperors book. He selected anonymous men to gather all the scriptures in the empire, edit them, bind them in learther, and nothing would be added or taken out. EDITED is the watchword.

Now why hasn't anything new been added since it was first created? Well, the roman emperor said so, thats why. The roman emperor was seen as god on earth. He made himself the head of the church to keep the peace. The Holy Spirit never ever had anything to do with the church of rome which is what christianity grew out of.

Yahushua planted his church in Jerusalem, satan planted a counterfeit religion in rome. Wheat and tares, sheep and goats.

 

That's correct to a point. When Constantine created the Council of Nicea he didn't really intervene in what the bishops were allowing in the book, and historically didn't omit any books that he thought were inappropriate or against his own ruling of the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Constantine was more interested in a unified church than the actual theological implications that the council was tasked in creating. In fact, it wasn't really until Eusebius got involved that any of the then biblical beliefs were changed for purely political reasons.

I think the choices presented by the original poster are difficult to choose from. The bible is a concoction of different books from different points of view that must be taken in the purest context from when they were historically written. To ascribe modern day standards and morals to a book written roughly 2000 years ago is somewhat ambiguous in nature...kind of like saying the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" is not a literal text based upon our current understanding of modern funerary practices. Could the bible have been literal or metaphorical in nature? Sure, but we need to first examine the book from the perspective of it's historical timeframe and compare it to what other authors of the day were writing, and to other comparitive texts that were left out of the bible. Is it a made-up book? Could be, but that opinion also needs to be backed up by facts and examples.

 

The old Catholic bible and King James version are written by ancients that tried to write what they couldn't understand.
The new evangelic bible is written by cons that understand that it's really easy to fool simpletons. They've fooled them into believing greed is good, and taking from the poor and giving to the rich is the way to a great economy, and hating your enemies is a necessity for war because war helps the economy, and feeding the hungry with food stamps creates a lazy society, and tossing your parents out in the street to end Social Security and Medicare is just the new Christian philosophy. The GOP now has a monopoly on God.

 

What if God inspired the Emperor to gather those scriptures and publish them?

Yahshua planted His Church in believers. Those believers who were faithful left Jerusalem/Babylon before the Romans destroyed it. Christ's Apostles planted His Churches throughout the Roman World and many other places.

Satan didn't plant anything. It was people filled with the egoistic doctrines of the Pharisees, Esau and Cain that caused the problems. That is why Christendom was never able to get out of the mess it has been in for the last 1500 years or so, they adopted the doctrines of the Sinogog of God's adversaries.
The Christians are in over their heads.
View attachment 15899 According to this, a lot of you guys are nuts.

 

King James version was made in 1611 how it is ancient ?

 

Same bible as the Catholics, except a few books were taken out.

 

My, how the world has changed. Not too long ago you would have been tortured and killed for such statements. Thank God religion has been stripped of most of its power. The world is a better place, and you are allowed to keep your heretical beliefs.