Take genesis.
Everything was created in 7 days? Why do most religious folks actually think is REALLY 7 days? A day could be interpreted into a billion years! Unless the bible is a history book documented by credible sources....then ....only then u can take a particular chunk of text literal. To believe in all the details as historical fact is to miss the point of the bible!
2007-04-20 05:41:39 · 19 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I think what is important to note here is that the people devoted to the study and practice of their religion understand this. It doesn't mean they don't believe, but it means that they understand that their religion has meaning and significance whether or not it is factual. Literal interpretation of any faith comes from those who look only at the surface. They feel that meaning and factuality are inextricably linked, and for this they fail to appreciate the true genius and beauty of the faith, as well as the beauty and similarity of other faiths. Monks of one religion understand and respect monks of another religion. Laymen of one religion hate and mistrust the laymen of other religions.
2007-04-20 06:00:29 · answer #1 · answered by Lao Pu 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You may want to check your Hebrew. The Genesis account is literal. When it says a day it means one 24 hour period or sometimes one 12 hour period. This has nothing to do with religion just ask any honest Hebrew scholar to interpret the words for you or go to a Concordance with a Hebrew dictionary and prove it to yourself.
The Bible is backed up by alot of archeological proof. So much scutiny has been put on the Bible and I am glad because every time they dig up some new artifact in the middle east it documents the truth of the Bible more and more. From people names to cities to events, archeology backs up the Bible.
2007-04-20 12:53:05 · answer #2 · answered by CaTcHmEiFuCaN 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
WHAT IS TIME TO GOD? He can create age with a thought and a bood i wll mention explains some help in this-it all takes faith-trust --why not. Yes -do not be fooled
to those the enter in they understand and believe the bible-as in the book Pilgrims Progress-once the second best seller next to the Bible
it tells of the journey to belief and knowing Jesus salvation
those that refuse will have many excuses-do not let them deter you to live like them hopeless lives that end up in hell forever tormented weeping forever as Jesus says for rejecting the joy of salvation in His word= John 12:48 and Revelation 3:19&20 to come to faith and let Him into ones heart and chapters 19-22 of Revelation the descriptions of hell and also the joy of heaven-which starts in our heart the day we let him in, David -born a Jew once rejected Jesus too
why not simply believe what Jesus says-a day a thousand years with God
2007-04-20 12:49:47 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The numbers were added later, this is what most people can't seem to grasp. They seem to think it was written by only one author. I know "God is one author isn't he?" But many different people wrote the bible.
If they were a bunch of rich snobs that wrote it creation would damand that the rich were made rich first and the poor are to serve them.
The bible being taken literally is a mistake many people make mainly because they don't know HOW to take certain parts. It amazes me that people thinks that a big 10 headed dragon is actually going to come up out of the sea! (revelations)
2007-04-20 12:50:23 · answer #4 · answered by sunscour 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
From one of my favorite authors, Richard Bach, who said in the character of Johnathan Livingston Seagull to one of his more timid students with a broken wing: "You do not need faith to fly. You need to understand flying”. The metaphor for us is that the manuals, whether called the Qu'ran, or the Torah, or the Bible, or the Upanishads, or the Dead Sea Scrolls, or the spoken traditions, Mother Nature, or what have you, these are nothing more than manuals, PREPATORY INSTRUCTIONS for the real lessons. These tools are only mirrors pointing back to THAT inside of us from which the real inspiration comes. They are not the word of God....WE are the word of GOD...MADE FLESH! The "manual" is written (not "in"), but AS our very being. Our own being is the "book" to learn from. That's why we don't have to go anywhere else for the answers we seek (as Paramahansa Yogananda finally learned, as he indicated in his book, “Autobiography of a Yogi”,. He was told to go within himself, instead of continually seeking a guru in the Himalayan caves. Ironically, even if he had been told to go seek amongst the snowy caves for a teacher he still would have had to bring HIMSELF THERE.) And what will you discover within your very self? That is, after you realize that everything outside yourself is a MIRROR of yourself? Living is the practical experience in being the I AM. It wasn't really your driving manual or your Dad who taught you how to drive, any more than those so-called holy books can teach you how to live. You learned how to drive by hearing, feeling, and SMELLING the gears grind in protest....and THEN slowly experiencing, through your OWN UNASSISTED EFFORT, what the tool (called the automobile) is supposed to do when you operate it "masterfully". The same with your very own Spirit, the I AM, which, being your portion of the Creator, Himself, will take you to inner destinations, the likes of which are not to be found in ANY book...YOU are the Holy Book!
2007-04-20 13:02:00 · answer #5 · answered by guthrio 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The wording itself excludes the possibility of it being figurative.
It isn't that Christians don't understand a metaphor, after all, Jesus did tell parables. But the only reason people claim it as not historical is because they don't have faith in the Word of God.
Take it or leave it, but don't try and change it.
2007-04-20 12:46:03 · answer #6 · answered by The GMC 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I do not believe that they always do. For instance, God clearly says "Though Shalt not kill" (Exodus 20-13), but then in Luke 19:27-8 Jesus clearly commands us to break his fathers law. If they interpreted the bible literally, all non-xtians would be dead.
2007-04-20 12:46:52 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think that many Christians do this because of the fear that they may be blaspheming,I do not take everything literally in the old testament because a good deal is about nationalism.
2007-04-20 12:53:36 · answer #8 · answered by Sentinel 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
2 Peter 3:8
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2007-04-20 12:45:10 · answer #9 · answered by gustvh2001 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why does it bother you so much that people take it literally? I, like you, don't believe it is a literal account. But what does my belief have anything to do with anybody elses?
2007-04-20 12:48:29 · answer #10 · answered by Captain Fluffy Pants 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋