Poll for Bible readers: Do you take the Bible literally?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote: Almost the entire Old Testament is presented as history. Some of it is written in poetic language, but the story is clear: Man has rejected God, and the consequences of that rejection is very nasty. And God has provided Himself in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to reconcile to Himself those who would confess their sin and believe in Him.

That is absolutely not the story of the Hebrew bible. The story is that G-d liberated Israel from Egypt, G-d gave Israel the law, sometimes Israel sinned, sometimes Israel repented, and G-d makes abundantly clear that She will never give up on the people Israel, but will always love them, and will turn their hears back.

The NT interpretation you present is anything but a literal reading of the Hebrew bible.

You don't care about us. We don't care about you. Fair, no?

1. We can't avoid Christianity. It (still) pervades the culture. Even atheists tend to take the christian view of the "old" testament for granted.

2. The claim to take the bible literally, though not as pervasive, is widespread in the US, and impacts society and politics. Ergo we have a need to discuss what literal actually means

I am not particularly interested in your judgement of Christianity. Don't psychologize it.

I am not interested in your judgement of Judaism. Can you refrain from ever mentioning the "old" testament ever again?

That's what it is called in the Christian Bible. So, I will talk about it in those terms since I am a Christian. Since you don't want it to be called like that by Christians I guess you cannot have a conversation with Christians.

sorry to be unclear. I meant refrain from mentioning those books at all, whatever you call them.

Just as you don't want my judgement of Christianity, I don't want your judgement of Judaism. And when you form a judgement of the Hebrewbible/OT/Taanach, you are judging Judaism.

I can certainly have a respectful conversation with Christians. IF they acknowledge that the Christian view of the Hebrew Bible IS an interpretation, and is not a "literal" reading. That is all I pointed out above, and you (or someone else) responded with "well you don't care about us, we don't care about you".

IE you are fine with talking about the Hebrew bible regularly (I am sure you do in church, and probably in the public sphere), but when someone suggests that your view of it is not "literal", suddenly the conversation is disrespectful to you.

Well, I am sorry to disappoint you but in Christian catechism Old Testament is taken literally by some believers and it's called Old Testament and it is one of the two main books of the Christian Bible. It's not a "view" to Christians, it is their holy book. We simply call it what it is: Christian Bible, but if that's not acceptable to you I cannot help you. I guess you'll need to go out there and try to ban all Christians that take the Old Testament literally from believing what they believe in.

No, they DO NOT TAKE IT LITERALLY.

"The Israelite people shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout the ages as a covenant for all time: it shall be a sign for all time between Me and the people of Israel"

"And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee."

An everlasting covenant. I am sure that after generations of Christian scholars, from Paul on down, parsing the text, they can find arguments for why "eternal" and "everlasting" and "all time" mean something different. It is JUST FINE that that is the Christian interpretation. But its not a LITERAL reading. You believe SOME verses literally (that the world was created in six days, or that homosexuality is an abomination) but the ones that created a fundamental problem for Christianity, you are happy with the traditional Christian view which is NOT literal.

They can say they believe the "OT" literally. I cannot stop them from saying it. Most are not consciously lying, because they have not thought through the contradiction. But contradiction it is.

And yes, the word is "view" or "interpretation" OTHER Christians have the same holy book (and even use the terms "OT" and "NT" but do not claim to take them literally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Almost the entire Old Testament is presented as history. Some of it is written in poetic language, but the story is clear: Man has rejected God, and the consequences of that rejection is very nasty. And God has provided Himself in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to reconcile to Himself those who would confess their sin and believe in Him.

That is absolutely not the story of the Hebrew bible. The story is that G-d liberated Israel from Egypt, G-d gave Israel the law, sometimes Israel sinned, sometimes Israel repented, and G-d makes abundantly clear that She will never give up on the people Israel, but will always love them, and will turn their hears back.

The NT interpretation you present is anything but a literal reading of the Hebrew bible.

You don't care about us. We don't care about you. Fair, no?

1. We can't avoid Christianity. It (still) pervades the culture. Even atheists tend to take the christian view of the "old" testament for granted.

2. The claim to take the bible literally, though not as pervasive, is widespread in the US, and impacts society and politics. Ergo we have a need to discuss what literal actually means

I am not particularly interested in your judgement of Christianity. Don't psychologize it.

I am not interested in your judgement of Judaism. Can you refrain from ever mentioning the "old" testament ever again?

That's what it is called in the Christian Bible. So, I will talk about it in those terms since I am a Christian. Since you don't want it to be called like that by Christians I guess you cannot have a conversation with Christians.

sorry to be unclear. I meant refrain from mentioning those books at all, whatever you call them.

Just as you don't want my judgement of Christianity, I don't want your judgement of Judaism. And when you form a judgement of the Hebrewbible/OT/Taanach, you are judging Judaism.

I can certainly have a respectful conversation with Christians. IF they acknowledge that the Christian view of the Hebrew Bible IS an interpretation, and is not a "literal" reading. That is all I pointed out above, and you (or someone else) responded with "well you don't care about us, we don't care about you".

IE you are fine with talking about the Hebrew bible regularly (I am sure you do in church, and probably in the public sphere), but when someone suggests that your view of it is not "literal", suddenly the conversation is disrespectful to you.

Well, I am sorry to disappoint you but in Christian catechism Old Testament is taken literally by some believers and it's called Old Testament and it is one of the two main books of the Christian Bible. It's not a "view" to Christians, it is their holy book. We simply call it what it is: Christian Bible, but if that's not acceptable to you I cannot help you. I guess you'll need to go out there and try to ban all Christians that take the Old Testament literally from believing what they believe in.

No, they DO NOT TAKE IT LITERALLY.

"The Israelite people shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout the ages as a covenant for all time: it shall be a sign for all time between Me and the people of Israel"

"And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee."

An everlasting covenant. I am sure that after generations of Christian scholars, from Paul on down, parsing the text, they can find arguments for why "eternal" and "everlasting" and "all time" mean something different. It is JUST FINE that that is the Christian interpretation. But its not a LITERAL reading. You believe SOME verses literally (that the world was created in six days, or that homosexuality is an abomination) but the ones that created a fundamental problem for Christianity, you are happy with the traditional Christian view which is NOT literal.

They can say they believe the "OT" literally. I cannot stop them from saying it. Most are not consciously lying, because they have not thought through the contradiction. But contradiction it is.

And yes, the word is "view" or "interpretation" OTHER Christians have the same holy book (and even use the terms "OT" and "NT" but do not claim to take them literally.

The foundation of Christianity is that Christians, yes Gentiles (gasp) are in the covenant with the Father through the Son who has come to complete the Law. You cannot stop anyone who wants to believe in that from believing it, no matter how much you want it. Your posts speak volumes about your intolerance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pp, where did you learn about the word "literally?" You're incorrect. If it is literally raining cats and dogs, there are actual cats and dogs falling from the clouds. If God literally measured the waters in his hand, it does mean that he used his actual hand. I don't actually care about your opinion. But I want to point out to you that your argument makes zero sense, if you're hung up on the incorrect definition of"literally."

I've already addressed this in a different post, and I didn't define literally. What I said elsewhere is that this notion of taking the Bible "literally" is posed as a false choice. There are many figures of speech in the Bible that we don't take "literally," but the way the question is framed is that if you don't take every metaphor "literally," then the Bible can be understood to mean any number of things. And what I am saying is that when the Bible uses metaphors and other figures of speech, it still means something specific and knowable and isn't subject to numerous different interpretations just because it used a metaphor.

So my example was that if you say it's raining cats and dogs, I'm still supposed to understand that you mean that it's raining really hard. But the post-modern progressive Christian can read something like that and think that I was just making a larger point about something else entirely.