Question for Christians who aren't fundamentalists?

Question

You guys don't take the words of the bible completely literally, like the earth being 6,000 yo and stories ect. Well, my question is: Why not? why do you take the story of jesus and the idea of God and Heaven and Hell literally, but not the others? What is the difference between them?

Answer 1

Let me get this straight: If I take the Bible literally, there's something wrong with me, but if I don't take it literally, there's something else wrong with me? What exactly do you want?

Answer 2

In this particular case, there are only 2 things that I do not take literally (other than those clearly symbolic, like Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, etc.)

1) The "6,000 year" thing. the Hebrew word for "son of " also means "descendant of". For example, Jesus was the "son of David", even though he was at least 28 generations from David. Likewise, in Matthew, 14 "generations" are listed from David to "the captivity", even though we know from Chronicles and Kings that there were more than 14 people in that line. This in no way makes these verse untrue, because the same Hebrew word tranlslated "son of" *does* *also* mean "descendant of" - not just in this case, but in all cases. Thus, the "6,000 year" calculation relies on the *assumption* that "son of" *always* means "son of" and *never* "descendant of". This is, obviously, an unsupportable assumption. The problem is, a translator cannot determine, without context, when "son of" should be used, and when "descendant of" should be use. Thus, translators use "son of" whenever the precise meaning is ambiguous. Good study bibles note this in the footnotes.

A similar discrepancy occurs with the word "brother", which in several places in the bible clearly refers to a first cousin, or even a more distant relative. It is not an error - again, it is a word with multiple meanings (just as many English words have multiple meanings - just look in any dictionary).

As for the six day creation story - I realize that there was likely no way for Moses to write the number "8 billion years" - even if he could have understood such a concept. I believe that Moses received the story of creation in a vision, and like Ezekiel, wrote what he saw - which does not detract from the truth of the story, but rather shows that Moses was not a scientist with a modern education. 6 "days" could have been 6 "stages" - which he could *only* interpret as days, not understanding the true (scientific) import. We know, of a certainty, that Moses was not there during creation, so unlike almost all the rest of the bible, this was clearly not an eyewitness account, but rather the result of a vision of some sort.

Jim, http://www.life-after-harry-potter.com

Answer 3

The word "fundamentalist" is pretty much a useless term because so many people throw it around in conversation but don't define what they mean by it. I believe that the Bible is the inerrant, inspired Word of God, but I'm not an "angry evangelical" as I'm assuming you're referring to--the groups of people who think God is a card-carrying member of the Republican Party and who seem to think that this world will best be changed spiritually by political means, no matter how misguided the notion is. Last time I checked my Bible, Jesus was ticking off people of every political and religious party in the Bible who was more intent on pushing their own agenda than in actually listening to and following what He said.

With regard to the age of the Earth, remember that in Genesis 1, the Earth was created BEFORE the sun--so since the sun is the way in which we measure time on Earth, we really have no way of knowing how long the "days" of Genesis 1 really were. Click on the first link below and check out sites about what is commonly called "old-earth creationism." It's entirely possible for the Earth to be a lot older than 6,000 years and the Bible still be true.

Answer 4

Speaking for myself, the first thing that I consider is that the Bible has been arranged and re-arranged by different people for different reasons from the time it was put together. And a lot of the time the reasons for those re-writes weren't exactly "divinely inspired".

Then there is the fact that while the writings were divinely inspired they weren't written by the Creator. Plain old people wrote them. And inspired or not, plain old people write from their own points of view. They may have been completely well intentioned, and have written only what they believed God wanted them to, but the fact is that their own personal experiences, biases and beliefs couldn't help but be expressed along with any divine ideas.

For instance, to the writer forbidding menstruating women from entering a temple because she was considered unclean, or considering a man who had touched or had intercourse with a menstruating woman to also be unclean and not worthy of entering a temple might have been perfectly reasonable. According to social taboos or traditions alive at that time this might have seemed so obvious, that making this an infraction punishable by death seem to him to make perfect sense.

But now such an idea is ludicrous. And I find it difficult to believe that this was a law dictated by God. And while fundamentalists explain this away by saying these were rules under the old laws that no longer count because of the "new covenant", the fact remains that for God to have written it in the first place it would been wrong for a woman to enter a church on here period, and would STILL be wrong for her to do so. The fact that we were supposed to have gotten a "free pass" doesn't mean it's no longer wrong. Only that God decides to look the other way when we do it.

Doesn't make much sense to me. But it does make sense that this writer believed it so strongly he felt that it MUST be a divine law. Its things like this that put big question marks on certain things in the Bible.

Why do I take the story of Jesus literally. The actually chapter and verse about the story I'm not so sure, but the point of the story, the Jesus was sent by God to teach us how to treat ourselves and one another, and died so that we could find ourselves in the presence of God again, yeah, I believe that. As a matter of faith. Not fact. I believe in God and Jesus and the Holy spirit because of my own personal spiritual experiences with them. Whether the stories written about them are 100% every 'i' dotted every 't' crossed are true I don't know.

And I'm comfortable with not knowing. And my not knowing also means that I cannot tell anyone how they should believe, or find the divine, or even look for it at all. All I can say is that for me at least, listening to a Sunday school teacher, a minister, or an evangelist, then praying, believing and worshiping as they do when it has no personal meaning, is an empty and useless practice. I had to find my Creator myself, and form my own ideas about his/her nature.

Answer 5

Nose, I was not going to answer this question, but then Gary F offered to answer for me, and my control issues immediately kicked in, inspiring me to respond. To wit:

I chose to become a Christian. I read the old testament and the new, and shortly thereafter decided I should be baptized. I have believed for many years that the Christ is a Consciousness, a way of living, of being, of honoring ourselves and others. I believe this Consciousness brings with it the energy that will enable us to move through great changes that are coming up . . . and please, I am not talking about the Rapture and Armageddon and all this other stuff that people have chosen to interpret through a fear-based mentality from Revelations. While I do believe there is an essence of truth, it is imagery, just as Nostradamus provided imagery, none of which could be understood until AFTER the events occurred. I imagine it will be the same thing with the Biblical prophecies.

I took the Bible to mean something more than literal all the way through. It was an inspiration for me. It provided a foundation for me. But once read, I let it go. I got what I needed and moved forward. Not that I don't refer to it now and then, but my nose is not stuck in it. I own the truth I received from it. Now I speak it in my own words.

(((Bronze Nose)))

Answer 6

I'm not so sure there is a hell.
I'm certain there's a Christ.
I don't think there's a heaven in the divine Disney kind of way. I believe it's more like Nirvana.
Frankly, I believe that scripture is testimony and the Word of God lives in the hearts of people.
In fact I'm certain that Jesus was enlightened in much the same way Buddha was but taught the way of love.
Those who follow Buddha work for years to reach a state of bliss and love. If you know from the start to be selfless then the enlightenment comes far quicker. Jesus saw the perception of Nirvana as what we call the Christ spirit.

It is selfish and against a loving God to condemn billions to a lake of fire for eternity. Most Christians knew all this at one time but were killed by the Catholics. The Catholics claim that they were the first Church but they couldn't claim this before 1307 and the first inquisition.

By their standards I am a Heretic.
I embrace the disgrace.

Agape

♥Blessed Be♥
♥=∞

Answer 7

Because, I believe the Bible was divinely inspired, not divinely written. It's the word of God only in a roundabout way, filtered through man's ancient perception of things. I think literarlly interpreting the Bible is a mistake. I don't take the idea of Hell and Heaven quite as literally as a fundamentalist would.

Answer 8

I don't take those literally either. My criteria is the scientific study of the Bible, as published by scholars in peer-reviewed media. Scholars have actually done a very good job of separating out the original documents, determing which parts are historically reliable, which were written to fulfill specific agendas, which are legends, which are borrowed from other sources, etc. As for the religion itself, I interpret it within a Jungian context, and see it as an often misunderstood attempt to create a path toward individuation, as well as a cosmic myth meant to convey ancient metaphysical concepts. All else is speculative opinion.

Answer 9

The Bible is divided into different books and letters. There are some explanations that are parables or dreams. All of the stories are true concerning the History of creation and Israel. True concerning the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus and true about Jesus return. The book of Revelation is about John's vision of Jesus return. This has not happened yet but, watch!

Answer 10

Allow me, an Atheist, to answer for them. In the mid-late 1800s, Americans were fighting for the soul of the nation and were defending the US Constitution from attack by conservative Christians who, in 1863, tried to amend the Constitution to insert their religion by offering this as a new Preamble:

•“We, the People of the United States [recognizing the being and attributes of Almighty God, the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures, the law of God as the paramount rule, and Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior and Lord of all], in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

http://candst.tripod.com/chrsamnd.htm...

At the same time, fundamentalists were fighting to prevent equal rights from being extended to Blacks and women. The more educated and humanitarian of the Christian groups allied themselves with the secular freethinkers against the evangelical/fundamentalists.

Now, into this mix comes Darwin’s theory of evolution (as part of the scientific revolution which was already changing people’s understanding of the world and the nature of human knowledge) and, with it, a possible division within the secular – progressive Christian social movement. As something of a concession from each side, they hit upon the notion that God made evolution (and all things science) – thus creating an intellectual/psychological DMZ where empiricist-leaning Christians and faith-leaning neo-empiricists could coexist.

And, all of this only means that you are right; it is an unnatural bonding of two conflicting epistemologies. However, it has this 100+ year history that has become largely institutionalized – and we all know how resistant people are to change. It has to come to an end sometime, but I’ll bet it is not today.

Answer 11

I don't really think I take everything in the Bible literally even the ones concerning the life of Jesus. What really matters to me is the meaning behind His life and works.