Lots of Bible quotes being explained by the simple line "it's a metaphor!". Is it all metaphor?

Question

Maybe when they crucified him, it was a metaphor for talking smack about him. I've heard a lot of people say that a person is being "crucified" when you really talk bad about em. Whatcha think?

Rev. Albert Einstein: I most likely know the scripture better than you and half your friends combined. I have no use for reading it again. I read it plenty, years ago, when I was a Church of God Minister. Please go back to your X-Box or whatever keeps your tiny mind occupied.

dreamed1: Nice to see you here. I love to see answers from thinking Christians who actually consider their answers, and research rather than spouting whatever dogma the local preacher has been pushing. We really need more members of the Christian community who actually think before posting, and make it pleasant to have around.

Answer 1

Most of what people claim is literal is metaphor, like the creation story.
Most of what people claim is metaphor is literal, like "God is Love."

I guess it's easier to swallow a story about the earth being created in a week than to accept the notion that we should love one another.

Agape

♥Blessed Be♥
♥=∞

Answer 2

The whole bible is an allegory. The crucifixion and everything, all allegorical, esoteric symbols that are purely figurative that are reflective of ones mind/consciousness and the enlarging of consciousness and ultimate birth of the mind. The key of knowledge is to apply the scriptures within yourself. It's not a historical narrative but an inner one.

G.R.S. Mead entitled Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, this explanation is put forth: “…what the Gnostics projected onto the screen… [in the form of a ] picture of the universe was in reality a picture of their own minds. Its mythology is a symbolic portrayal, almost a deliberate one, of the forces which operate in the structuring and evolution of the human personality”.

It is and will always be a profound allegory of the mind. And this is from a TRUE follower of Yeshua's Way.

Answer 3

The "metaphor" line is typically used when someone is either too ignorant or unmotivated to offer a genuine interpretation.

The fact is the whole Bible has to be interpreted. There are parts of it that CAN be read literally - but for what? News stories are about the only thing meant to be read literally and only literally; they have no lasting significance or insight. Those things come from interpretation. Every work of literature ultimately gets interpreted - correctly or incorrectly - by the person reading it. That's why it's important to have good scholarship, theologians, etc to ensure that people's personal interpretations don't go way off into left field (like they so often do).

Peace to you.

Answer 4

Maybe and maybe not.

Jesus walking on water may become a reality as science is working on repelling technology.

Creating life is 10 years away from being perfected on a celluar level. On that day the terms Intellegent Design and Creationism will become a reality. Evolution will still stay a theory.

Jesus restored life with a touch of his hands and in the last 50 years we perfected CPR.

So the Bible can be totally literal. It's just written by backwards people who don't understand or comprehend what they see.

Such as the man made of metal who ate a roll of parchement and spoke.

Prior to the invention of punch tape computer systems and speech synthesizers this seems more like a metaphor than reality.

And this metaphor is FAR clearer than anything from the Bible Code or Nostrodomos.

It is literal. A man made of metal ate a roll or parchment and spoke.

Today we are developing robots, we used 1" punch tape for many years in computers (Bill Gates' first copy of BASIC for the Altair was on punch tape) and have developed speech syntheizer programs.

Answer 5

Assuming (generously) that you're not lying about having been a minister, your incoherence and incompetence reveal why the Church of God gave you the boot. Had you been even a mediocre minister, you wouldn't have needed to ask these Sunday-school-level questions.

Fortunately for us all, Jesus rejects neither liars nor bunglers if they turn, or return, to Him with a repentant heart.

Answer 6

yes these things are often used as figures of speech in a spiritual sense or metaphors of various types.much of the literature style in the bible is obviously figuratively written to express something spiritual unless of course you are a fundamentalist in which case illiteracy usually wins out .

Answer 7

Sure, since they talked smack about him, I don't have to be smacked. So salvation is about Jesus receiving my smack, so I can be eternally free from smack. That makes a lot of sense?

Answer 8

if something in the bible doesnt match with science , it would pass of as metaphor.

if something in the bible match with science , its call ' proof that bible goes with science'

if something that doesnt hurt them but hurt non believer , like example the word 'burning' and 'eternally' , then it is not metaphor BUT literally.

=) don't you agree , and yeah they will surely nuke me with thumbs down , their way of showing their metaphoric ' love ' for some rofl

contary to popular idiots belief , MOST OF US READ BIBLE , WHILE A FEW TO SOME EXTEND AT LEAST.

another evidence they are the ignorant one who don't bother to double check with their facts before going around spurting and asking nonsense

Answer 9

The Bard had an interesting metaphor. "All the world's a stage," said he. While not literal, it speaks to all the actors in this world; including those who speak lightly of men whose quality of life they can never match.

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Answer 10

yes it is like a metaphor hard to understand