If words and languages were built upon metaphors, then how can the bible be literal?

Question

since there is no such thing as literal

even the word "literal" was built upon metaphors (it was derived from the more tangible concept/word "letter")

Answer 1

no one said that ALL words and languages were built upon metaphors

Answer 2

It's an interesting question and certainly worthwhile the time of anyone who takes the Bible to be Scripture. And for the most part I agree with you that every reading, no matter of what text, requires interpretation and therefore makes a literal reading virtually impossible. I just think that you are just a wee-bit off course with your choice of words.

Philosophically speaking, all language is symbolic, not metaphorical. What does that mean? A metaphor is an analogy that creates new meaning through its tension of “is” and “is not." It is, in some ways a word or phrase that is used inappropriately in order to understand that which otherwise would not be understandable. As Sallie McFague writes, "it is an attempt to say something about the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar, an attempt to speak about something we do not know in terms of what we do know." If I say "time is like a river" I am not intenting that the moment you look at a river you see time. Rather it is the tension of the "is like" and the "is not like" that allows for the metaphor to create meaning. But as such, a metaphor is also insubsitutable, as Paul Ricoeur points out. Without it, the meaning we can get through it remains unaccessible.

A symbol on the other hand does not require the tension of is and is not. Moreover, a symbol is not only understood from the semantic of the sentence, like the metaphor. The symbol stands on its own. The word "dog" symbolizes an experience we have of a certain animal. It does not need other words to fulfill this function, even though more words would be needed for someone to figure out what it is that you want to say about the dog. The metaphor on the other hand requires the context of the sentence and possibly more. "God is like a father," requires various symbols (words) stringed together in a particular way to make a particular sense. In case of the metaphor, of course, this sense is somewhat inappropriate. Only through our interpretation does it become meaningful.

Language is never fully exhaustively describing the experience it expresses. In fact, it is not even the only thing we have to express ourselves; music or art could be another form of expression, using not words but tones or colors as symbols. And of course, there is lots of room for misunderstanding, since my experiences expressed with a word might be very different from yours expressed by the same word.

The problem with the interpretation of the Bible is that the Bible uses not only language which is symbolic (as all other texts), but also a lot of metaphors. When God is viewed as a father it certainly is a metaphor that demands the "is not" aspect to be emphasized simultaneously. We would have to add "but unlike any other father I know." If the metaphor looses its tension, it becomes useless. So, when I read "God is like a father" and try to read that literally as a man who has fathered one or more children, the metaphor is rendered useless and the meaning we gained from it is lost.

All reading requires interpretation, in that you are absolutely correct. And metaphors require even more interpretation. so, your conclusion is absolutely correct: reading the Bible literally is a non-sense concept.

Answer 3

Well, that is an argument that *nothing* can be completely literal.

People will have a hard time with that ... a world without *ANY* literal truths is a completly confusing world. They need to be able to say "the sky is blue" and believe it to be literally true. A linguist would break that down and say that "the sky" is an abstraction (there is no actual object there), and "is blue" is another abstraction (it is putting "the sky" into a category ... the one occupied by things of a certain color). But this is a level of analysis that doesn't help people interpret the Bible.

Instead, it's important to recognize that, regardless of who you believe is the author of the Bible (whether you believe it was written by God directly, or by God-inspired human scribes like Moses) ... the *audience* for the Bible (especially the OT) was a very different audience than today. Fundamentalists want to erase this difference ... to insist that what was true in 5th-century B.C. Mesopotamia, is true today ... but they have the amazing insistence that his should include *science* as well. How would such a Bible explain, say, the origins of the universe, to a people who had no word for "DNA" or "microorganism" or "galaxy" ... who had no way of knowing that a single star in the sky might actually be a galaxy of 300 million stars ... or that a single cup of water held more life forms than all the animals they would see in their lifetime?

Why does it take God six days to build a planet? (When we now know there to be the *trillions* of other stars and planets that He also had to create?) Why six days to build and populate this one planet? Because it at once acknowleges the immensity of the task of creation (as it takes several days) while still doing it in an awe-inspiring *short* amount of time ... it is saying "God created the world and all its creatures in the same time it takes a man to sow a field or build a barn" ... an effective metaphor to an audience of farmers and barn-builders.

How would the Bible explain the concept of billions of years to a culture whos concept of DEEP TIME was counting generations and lifetimes? The answer ... by giving long lists of generations of men with impossibly long lifespans (men living to 700, 800, 900 years old). To a 5th-century B.C. farmer, counting generations stretching back 4,000 years (from their time) is an *unfathomable* amount of time. To us, this is metaphor of counting generations fails next to the overwhelming evidence of galaxies, stars, meteors, rocks, fossils, even human artifacts going back so much further than the number of generations we can count.

If you consider the author of the Bible to have eternal wisdom, then He would speak to men of all ages through metaphors ... the only way to express truths that are deeper than the words used to express them. Truths that are inexpressible in words.

To hold to a *literal* interpretation of the Bible is to restrict God not only to saying things that can be expressed in our paltry vocabulary and knowlege ... but to the even more paltry vocabulary and knowlege of 5th-century B.C. farmers and fishermen.

Literalism *diminishes* the Bible.

Answer 4

contact Harvard-Yale-Princeton--Duke--Oxford
Each one of these prestigious Universities has a Library dedicated to the Bible and theology. Have courses in Hermeneutics(science and art of biblical interpretation) Apologetics--pastoral ministries--you can get a PhD--MASTERS-BACHELORS DEGREE.

The Bible is considered reliable to these Universities
You believe what you CHOOSE to believe--I will accept the truth from the Universities

You believe in education--can you not accept high education voice concerning Theology and the Bible

Answer 5

IT CAN'T BE! I love it! You have asked the perfect question, my friend, and said it just wonderfully. The points you bring up are what I have always considered PROOF that the bible is wrong. Religious people will tell you that it's ordained by god and so it must be right, but, seriously? Any slight application of LOGIC will override that theory.

Thank you for asking such a valid, poignant, and intelligent question!

Answer 6

the excellent suggestion i've got heard is to carry on with the inspired be attentive to the Bible. of course it may't be literal, and there are countless metaphors. it is likewise had to look on the context of how/while it exchange into written. The way of existence, and words that could have meant some thing diverse the two 2000 years in the past, or 4 hundred years in the past, while the King James exchange into translated.additionally, word that many verses have been "tampered with" by specific human beings (nicely, men) alongside the way, to greater helpful greater healthful their cutting-edge schedule. to illustrate, while it says that homosexuality is an "abomination," that be conscious abomination exchange into no longer as damning then because it somewhat is now (it truly meant that it exchange into against the way issues have been often executed interior the way of existence, like eating shrimp to illustrate - additionally an "abomination") and yet this is between the main hassle-free verses for anti-gay conservatives to quote. yet another occasion, in case you look on the ten commandments in Exodus, be conscious which sentences, or a million/2-sentences stick out from the others. be conscious any? The section approximately being a jealous God, pupils now comprehend, exchange into further lots later on, possibly by a guy who exchange into attempting to steer his congregation in his very own way; it exchange into no longer interior the unique verse. i don't comprehend all of them the way by verse and the specifics, even though it somewhat is a superb ingredient to submit to in ideas as you study, and take the inspired be attentive to the Bible. I ought to make sparkling, i'm a Christian who reads the Bible (between many different books) daily, looking super wisdom and convenience in it. yet, as a instructor as quickly as mentioned to me, "every person who makes use of the Bible to coach a ingredient hasn't study the entire ingredient". Like while the disciples' "hearts burned interior them" with regard to the Christ, carry on with your heart and hear God with your religious ears certainly. right for you for being a reality seeker!

Answer 7

Its not. Its a collection of fables compiled for the purpose of guiding men. The basic premise of the bible is a good one its when people over interpret and give it too much meaning that things get skewed.

Answer 8

The Biblical authors meant all their messages to be taken literally, however they did not want the all the stories that were used to show their messages to be taken literally

Answer 9

???.. so what you are saying is that is I set up my own rules how can anything else be true?

Answer 10

Literalists are ignorant.