Would you agree that the literal interpretation of the Bible insults the intelligent mind?

Question

I'm not saying that the Bible is wrong, or that Christianity is bad. It just seems that any interpretation of the Bible which is consistent with common sense, would have to be allegorical, and not literal.

Answer 1

I've got to disagree with you there. Take Genesis, for example... Genesis is not an allegory. Genesis means EXACTLY what it says. The problem is, Genesis does not describe the universe they way it IS... it describes the universe and the way it began as they THOUGHT it is. They were simply WRONG. Claims that Genesis is a 'metaphor' or an 'allegory' are no more than apologist back-peddling. They tortured and killed people to sustain their version of the universe and creation, declaring alternative views to be 'heresy', until it could no longer be sustained. Then they adopted a revised version, and tortured and murdered people to sustain THAT fallacious view. When THAT was no longer viable, what was once declared to be the inerrant and inviolable TRUTH was magically transformed into a 'metaphor'.

To adopt the view that Genesis is an allegory simply means that you have fallen victim to the christianist lie-machine... at least in part.

Myths do not start out as myths... they start out as somebody's imaginings of 'truth'. Myths are ancient 'truths' that have fallen out of popular favor, or are shown to be false. Christianists seek to avoid their truth's demotion to 'myth' status by declaring that it was never regarded as 'truth' at all... that it is and was always just an allegory. This tactic works with most people for the simple reason that they trust their religious puppet masters, and it never even occurs to them to validate what they are being told by consulting independent historical resources. If they did THAT, they would quickly learn that Genesis is an ACCURATE description of the way that ancient peoples perceived the world, the universe and their place in it. A flat earth surrounded by water, with a solid dome over it... sun, moon and stars ON the dome, and guided on their respective courses by angels... heaven on the OTHER SIDE of the sky... the earth and heaven being the center, the object and the entirety of the creative impulses of a magical, invisible sky-fairy (god) who treats the whole thing like an 8-year old kid crouched over an ant hill, with a magnifying glass, at high-noon.

Genesis is not an allegory... it is a fallacious and discredited 'truth'... i.e., a 'myth. To say that it is "... not science"... is ALSO not entirely accurate. For them, it WAS science... or at least what PASSED for science, in those days.

"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes." ~ James Feibleman

"Myth has been needed precisely because we were not in a position to understand the universe on its own terms, through the language of natural law and direct examination of its workings on a material, rational level. Once that process of understanding is completed—and we are well on our way to achieving that—the use of myth can be discarded. Its continuing retention is already proving to be counter-productive." - Earl Doherty

"[Creation science is] an attempt to give credibility to Hebrew mythology by making people believe that the world's foremost biologists, paleontologists, and geologists are a bunch of incompetent nincompoops." ~ Ron Peterson

Answer 2

The Catholic Encyclopedia states Bible is Skeptic and Concocted
A. THE FORMATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON (A.D. 100-220)
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm
The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council. ("Canon of the New Testament")
There is a lot of confusion about the earliest existing texts of the Bible. The oldest extant manuscript of the Bible is believed to be the Codex Vaticanus, (preserved in the Vatican Library), which is slightly older than the Codex Sinaiticus (preserved in the British Library), both of which were transcribed in the fourth century.
As for the story of Jesus, there were at least 50 gospels written in the first and second century CE. Four of them (Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John) were included in the official canon during the fourth century CE and are found today in every Bible. All of the original copies of the gospels were lost. What we have now are handwritten copies, which are an unknown number of replications removed from the originals.
Rudolf Bultmann, a prominent 20th-century professor of New Testament studies writes about the life of Jesus:
We can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary; and other sources about Jesus do not exist. (Bultmann 8)

Answer 3

You have to look at it in different ways dependent upon where you are reading. Some are literal stories, some are parables (stories told to teach a point), and some were visions and dreams, not meant to be taken literally (such as King Nebuchadnezar's dream in Daniel) and so a meaning is drawn from the representations.

I definitely take the bible literally. I think in all seriousness that you have to read things correctly in context (like you would Homer's Illiad, for instance) in order to understand the meanings. I think if you don't, you are honestly showing ignorance by refusing to do the research into a 2,000 year old piece of work. No other religious book has stood the test of time and scrutiny like the Bible, and none ever will. But, you have to do the INTELLIGENT thing and do your research.

Answer 4

I belive in God, (but not jesus, I am not christian)

in short, I agree. the plainly literal "inteperetation" of the majority of bibical texts, is quite simply... laughable and absurd.

I think that SOME aspects of it, are very obviously Allegorical/Metaphorical in a very open way (no event remotely like this actually happened and this story is to make a crucial point, up to "it happened, but not *here*" type things.) to things that are actually literal, or intended to have been directly historical,(so and so's father was so and such. assumably at some point someone thought that so and so existed, and had been informed that their father was so and such, and thats what they put down. its bizzare to think they'd just invent stuff like that from nothing.)
and some, and I think in some ways that this is the trickiest part, are things that are creative versions of events that kinda-sorta happened.
this is where, for example, I put the flood. if you generalize and inteperet the flood story a little, and remove any concept of speceficity to time references, it turns into basically:
an extremely long time ago, the world developed to a certain point, became more bad/detrimental than good/constructive, at least one person got the idea that there was going to be some sort of massive destruction effecting at least the known/relevant world, and was inspired to build a means of preserving as much of the pure life as remotely possible, the big annihiliation thing happened, they survived, and started rebuilding things, and life rebuilt itself.

this makes it quite a bit different in a variety of ways. even if you "leave in" it being a flood of some sort, the inteperation allows alot more potential realism in many ways.

Answer 5

Yes and No. For one thing, one can interpret the Bible literary as the history of people who had struggled with their faith. On the other hand, If you want to know what the Bible means, it makes no sense that the LITERAL meaning is what it means. What makes us think that God would give away the answers so easily. The word "apple" is only a word until we interpret it to be something else.

Answer 6

Of course. However there are some intellegent minds that embrace literal interpretations of the bible, because they have been weened on it since very young by religious fruitcake parents who live within a religious fruitcake community, and are constantly spoon fed this nonsense until they themselves can drown other young minds in this soup of ignorance, bigotry, denial and foolishness..

As a species we should be very embarrassed by these people...

Answer 7

I have said this before but...the Bible is a work of fiction and should not be taken literally. It contains verses depicting or advocating suicide, incest, bestiality, sadomasochism, sexual activity in violent context, murder, morbid violence, alcohol use, homosexuality, voyeurism, revenge, undermining of authority figures, lawlessness and human rights violations and atrocities. Exposure to the contents of the Bible for extended periods of time or during informative years in children may cause delusions, hallucinations, decreased objective reasoning abilities (especially in the weak minded) and in extreme cases pathological disorders, hatred, bigotry, and violence including, but not limited to fanaticism, murder and genocide.

Hmm...and people are blaming video games and violence on TV and in movies for all the problems...go figure!!

Answer 8

All literature should be taken in a literal sense - the sense in which the author intended, whether its prose, poetry, history, allegory. Some people think that the word literal means actual.

Answer 9

The bible is wrong and Christianity is bad. Why not just come out and say it?

But any interpretation of the bible as anything other than fiction insults the intelligent mind.

Answer 10

No, it doesn't "insult the intelligent mind." People of intelligence use the Talmud in conjunction with the Torah. That is one of many reasons why Judaism has evolved together with science. However, I think you will find very few Fundamentalists among any religion. They are the fringes of all religions.

Watch Ammanpour's special on CNN tonight about fundamentalists -- keeping in mind that these are fringe groups!
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