Religion and literalism?

Question

Can the story about Abraham be taken for its historical and literal correctness , when theologians have proven that everything that was written about Abraham was penned only about 600 years after he lived. (thats if he ever lived)
How can any thinking person of today take this story for its literal correctness?

Answer 1

People will believe anything that their parents or their pastors tell them. You have no authority greater than they do. Their parents bore them, raised them, fed them. Their pastors married them, buried their family members. They will believe it because it fits in their communities. Our failure is to keep our tents too small. There is not enough communication between us to keep the dialogue flowing.

Answer 2

The Bible was never intended to offer historical accounts, but provides historical portraits.

The Bible was never intended to be a history book, but it may contain history.

In the ancient eastern church, there were (broadly) 2 schools of biblical studies: the Antiochene and the Alexandrian. Antiochene scholars emphasized the literal, historical method whereas Alexandrians were more prone to allegorization. Origen was an Alexandrian.

But Arius, Sabellius, Nestorious, and Apollonarius were of the Antiochene school and this method eventually gave rise to the Bogomil and Paulician heretics.

Theodore of Mopsuestia was another scion of this school who was never condemned in life but whose works were later censured after his death at the Councils of Ephesus and Constantinople. Orthodox members of the Antiochene school included St. John Chrysostom.

Protestants in the 16th Century would look back to the Antiochene school as their intellectual forbears. That is one reason why St. John Chrysostom has always been unpopular with them.

But a careful study of Church History shows that the desire to be crassly literal lay at the root of all the heresies of the Patristic period. The willingness to be flexible and to interpret difficult passages allegorically has been the usual manner of orthodoxy.

By doing so, paradoxes and outright contradictions are avoided. It also allows one to move beyond the literal meaning of the text to discern larger patterns of similarity between various portions of the Bible.

Scott Hahn has championed this understanding and has pointed out in some of his recent talks on a biblical worldview that the NT writers used allegorical methods in interpreting the OT.

The Deformers and their descendants have stated that this method cannot be used 'safely' in the Church because the Holy Spirit alone can do this safely and he no longer works within the Church as he did among the Apostles. This is one consequence of denying the existence and charism of the Magisterium.

Bottom line: People who want to interpret the Bible for themselves always prefer the Antiochene literal to the Alexandrian allegorical. They think that they can be guided by sound methodology which will lead to logical results. They denounce the Alexandrian method as a flight of fancy that may lead to wild conclusions.

The reality is that without allegorization, people get carried away by their method into atomized conclusions that cannot be harmonized with other parts of the Bible and Tradition.

Virtually every major heresy has been the result of being too rigid and methodical in interpreting the Bible while not being willing to interpret the Bible in the light of the Holy Spirit. IMHO, this is the opposition of Spirit and letter, which St. Paul warned against in 2Cor 3:5.

Answer 3

Before written history, and using the example of the Aboriginal people of this continent, there was a rich oral tradition. People were very strict about how to tell a story and what was original about it. Amoung the Algonquin tribes, for instance, and probably true about other different tribes, the person in charge of keeping the story accurate had to be deadly serious that not one word was wrong. They had to use their memories and enforce the rules, very much like the medieval idea of apprenticeship, where the older man handed down knowledge to the younger man. People took this very seriously. Another example that I can cite is the Jewish people themselves, when they recite the Davidic psalms, and other prayers from their Torah, the young men had to memorize these words and pass them on to their sons.

These days, we are very spoiled about memorizing great tracts of literature since many people can read and write, and many books, (not to mention other media) are at our fingertips, but ask any Shakespearean actor who has to do it. The human mind can be trained and is capable of keeping a fairly accurate word record.

Consider also, upon pain of death, what the messengers had to say from one leader of a tribe to another (this in South America) when a runner had to be sent to communicate, he had to say EXACTLY what his Chief told him to say, upon pain of death, then return EXACTLY what the other Chief said back, no matter how many days he had to run to get there.

However, it is true that approximately 10% of a language is lost every 1000 years, so there would no doubt be some inaccuracies. However, that does not mean that the rendition would be inaccurate. Take the word "gay" for example. Before 1950, the word actually meant happy, joyous, merry. Or course you realize what it connotes since that decade. A sad demise for a wonderful word. However, speaking in the oral tradition, one can easily put "happy" in the place of "gay" and still have the story understood in its meaningfulness.

Answer 4

I am a thinking person with a 4.0 from Vanderbilt, and I believe he existed, but I do not get hung up on ridiculous details, like apples and talking snakes....To me, the Bible is a spiritual book with amazing wisdom to offer...I extract the moral from the story...I see it as a book illustrating the pitfalls along the path....I don't care if the stories are literal or not....And what it has taught me is that the villain is not the spirit of God, but religion.

Answer 5

Quite true. The answer, naturally, is faith. Faith that the tales of Abraham were not distorted by six plus centuries of telling and retelling. That's a lot of faith.

More likely, though, Christians just don't think about it and take it at face value. That happens a lot.

Answer 6

Why pick on Abraham? Why not ask why any thinking person can take anything in the bible seriously? The bible answers that question itself, by saying that the Gospel is foolishness to those who perish, but everlasting life to those who believe. So yeah...it all sounds pretty dumb.

Answer 7

Moses did write Genesis, and of course, was not an eyewitness to the events. God provided the information to Moses to record. Since God was there, and these "theologians" were not, I tend to believe God.

Answer 8

It is a marvelous adventure of faith, to believe the bible from cover to cover and forget the higher critics. There are a number of skeptics who started out to disprove the bible and ended up being fervent believers. Let me just give you one.
http://www.leestrobel.com/LS_bio.htm

Answer 9

Ever study history in school?

Answer 10

Because it was it happened its history!
It was written by Moses!

but you believe what you will!