Results 1 - 4 of 4
|
|
|||||
Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Revelation in the Gospels? | NT general Archive 1 | userdoe220 | 9859 | ||
I think when you use literal, you have to look at the authors intent. Let me give you an example that you could apply to many of your examples above. Gospels (as a whole) were never meant to be a blow-by-blow, step-by-step chronology of Jesus' life. Does it mean he is not literal because, like in Matthew's case, he chose to re-arrange some of the events in Jesus' life to shape the perception of Jesus to his readers? Because he did re-arrange some of the historical events, does that mean they never happened? Or, what if Matthew leaves out a piece of informaiton, does that mean we have to discard his testimony or doubt that the event even happened? If all the above were true, we would have to throw out every single history text book ever written! I speak as a history major. Every author takes their own slant or focus when writing history. In fact, every history book on World War 2 contains details about events that will not be in most history books. Does that mean we should discard the book. Of Course not. I think we would go a long way in this dialogue by first determining the purpose of the authors. Was the purpose in Matt's geneology meant to be a complete accurate tree of Jesus? No. Neither do I beleive he made up Jesus' lineage to prove his Messiahship. So, your might be right on your first, point and way off base on your second. Just because someone is using parables does not mean they are not speaking a factual truth. Every day individuals use stories to illustrate truth and sometimes those stories are not even true! I could take a Stephen King Novel and use it to illustrate truth. Does that mean I am not factual? Of course not. The second issue I would address is Jesus' and the writers use of Hyperbole. My son hit a ball and ran very fast to first base. When he finally got back to the dug-out I said, "Son, you ran as fast as a rabbit." Am I lying or trying to make people believe my son could actually keep pace with a rabbit? Of course not. Lets allow Jesus to use the same tactis that we use on a day-to-day basis and not accuse him or the gospel writers of lying. Or accuse them of speaking falsehood. There is a really good book entitled the Hermenutical Spiral that would greatly help you tackle some of these issues. I see where you are going and agree with some of what you are said, but I do not believe that the Bible is full of errors. I guess what I am saying is the Bible is literature and shouldn't be judged by a different standard. It seems like the Bible is held to a very high, hypocritical standard and nitpicked more than any other book in existance. |
||||||
2 | Revelation in the Gospels? | NT general Archive 1 | Jim Dunne | 9922 | ||
Schwartzkm - Thank you very much for an eloquent, thoughtful, charitable response. You seem to be exactly on the track I am, and I agree with everything you said. My point in my previous posting was to get everyone to realize that the Bible is literature (and beautiful literature), and at the same time is inspired, and theologically true. The fact that it's not all literally true simply doesn't matter, in my opinion. And when I say "not literally true", I don't mean it's a lie or a deception or anything like that. I mean that it's not a man-on-the-scene, blow-by-blow accounting of what happened. And as I've tried to point out elsewhere, the Bible is rich with literary device, like poetry, and parable, which aren't supposed to be taken as "true" - they're tools used to present Scriptural truth. The examples I used were deliberately extreme to get folks to see that it's not reasonable to say "the Bible is all true because it's inspired" - the one is not dependent on the other. Just to clarify, it wasn't my intent to suggest that Matthew made up Jesus' lineage to prove His Messiahship - if that was the perception, I apologize. I was trying to say pretty much what you did - it wasn't a completely accurate geneology, and it wasn't supposed to be. That doesn't make it wrong, or a deliberate attempt to obsure on Matthew's part. It's just "the way they did things." Pax, Jim D. |
||||||
3 | Revelation in the Gospels? | NT general Archive 1 | userdoe220 | 9961 | ||
I would agree with most of what you posted, but for shock value would never teach a sunday school class on it in most church--I only feel called to crucify my flesh figuratively not literally. It is sad that many people take these instances (like how come in an O.T. battle scene exactly 20,000 or 5,000 men were killed not 20,001?) and say, "see, I told you the Bible was riddled with errors!" When most of the time the author just surveys the crowd and says, "Well, I don't feel like counting every dead person on the battle field, but it sure looks like 20k to me. And anyway, I don't care if they know exactly how many people died, I just want to record a military victory to show the blessing of being obedient to God." The hermenuetical Spiral covers many of these issues you have brought up and I think we are probably on the same page. Got to get back to work. |
||||||
4 | Revelation in the Gospels? | NT general Archive 1 | Jim Dunne | 10004 | ||
This sounds like a really good book. Unfortunately, I checked around, and none of the local Christian bookstores carry it. I'll have to resort to amazon.com, and fidget for the 7-10 days it will take to get here. (g) Thanks for the resposne, Jim Dunne |
||||||