How Many Bible Literalists Are There Out There?

So Adam was 930 when he died?

I’m an atheist, but I agree with you that the Bible, as written, should be taken “literally.” I think this is the way the authors of the text intended it to be interpreted.

In the Illiad and Odyssey, we hear about Oceanus, a river that encircles the (flat) earth. I don’t think this is a metaphor—the ancient Greeks actually believed that a river literally encircled the earth. They literally believed in an Underworld and that the Gods lived in a heaven accessible from Mount Olympus. So when you read about these things in ancient Greek texts, you ought to interpret them literally.

Similarly, the ancient Hebrews (like other ancient near eastern cultures) believed the world was flat. They believed the sky was a solid dome or firmament (Hebrew raqia) that supported an above-sky ocean. They believed the sun, moon, planets and stars revolved around the earth and were actually just “lamps” set into this solid raqia structure.

So when the Bible says God created the raqia to separate the ocean above it from the ocean below it, we should take it literally. When the Bible says God opened “windows” in the raqia to let in the floodwaters, we should understand that literally. The Bible emphasizes that Noah’s ark had a roof—this is because, in Mesopotamian and Hebrew cosmology, the world was literally like a “bubble” between an underworld ocean and an above-sky ocean. The flood was, quite literally, the “popping” of this bubble. That’s why the ark had a roof—it was a submarine! (You can see similar stories about arks and floods in earlier Mesopotamian myths in Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, which should of course also be taken literally).

Now, obviously Jesus uses parables that shouldn’t be taken literally. And sometimes the Bible uses colorful language like “corners” of the earth. But often, colorful language today—like “sunrise”—comes from ancient conceptions of the structure of the world that were literally believed. The hebrews truly thought the sun and moon revolved around the earth, so Bible readers—religious and non-religious alike—ought to interpret Joshua 10 as the sun and moon literally stopping in their literal revolutions around the earth.

I think that some stories are literally true and some stories are parables and that there is really no reason for distinction between the two. When arguing a Biblical or spiritual topic, I ask myself. “what does this have to do with my salvation.” In a lot of cases the answer is nothing and it is not worth arguing. Did Abraham literally put Isac on the Alter to sacrifice? I don’t know, but I do know that God redeems, and Gog provides. That is the message I take away from the story.

It is a complicated thing to say that you take the Bible literally. For instance, Jesus says to turn the other cheek. To take that literally is to miss out on the point that Jesus seems to be against violent retaliation. He is saying more than “turn the other cheek.” Clearly the Bible uses metaphor, hyperbole (easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle), poetry, personification, figures of speech (my heart went out to him), etc.

I would think you are more concerned with the historicity of the Bible. For instance, it would appear that you think Jesus was literally born of a virgin, resurrected, God created in 6 days, fed 5,000 people with two fish and a five loaves, etc. These are questions of history—either they did happen or they did not. There is not any convincing evidence outside of the biblical text, so you are going to have to make your own conclusions. It is odd though that you would probably think of other religious texts as fairy tales while claiming yours is true. Why do you believe, for instance, that Jesus was raised from the dead while Hindus are not reincarnated. (I’m assuming you don’t believe Hindus are reincarnated) Why believe the Bible rather than the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita? Is it a matter of historicity?

The challenge is putting the miraculous alongside rationality. The dead do not rise again, children are not born of virgins, the blind are not healed by spit and dirt, at least not in my experience. What is more, I have never met someone that lives according to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Why don’t more people cut out their eyes or hands rather than lust?

Barna Research Group. I am not saying I agree with all that is shared, but they do a good job on topics such as this one.

@ponderinarf Thank you for that survey from Barna! It increased my awareness of the prevailing trends of Americans in general, and that facet of society that identifies itself as ‘born again Christian’ (of which I am one).
I was a bit startled at the lack of endorsement re: basic fundamental beliefs among this group, such as the deity and sinlessness of Christ, the all sufficiency of His blood atonement for the sins of the world, the concept of absolute truth, etc.
Makes me feel like a dinosaur museum piece or a dusty ol’ relic! lol!
Well, I’ve been an outsider for most of my life, and without the “In-group” so it doesn’t cause me any despondency personally.
The LORD Jesus did refer to His church as a “little flock” and percentage wise, yes we are! : D

The Bible can only be read as, I don’t know, allegorical, metaphorical, anything but literal.

The Bible is the result of tales or sagas or even the literal “word of the Lord”, being handed down through generations, verbally or in writing, and subject to human error or interpretation over the epochs.

Follow this example: the language of Jews in the Holy Land was Aramaic, yet many of the prayers are in Hebrew (and I can’t explain this here). Yet the Kaddish, one prayer that unfortunately every Jew will say at some point in his or her lifetime is in Aramaic.
So we don’t know the original language of each part of the Bible.

Parts of the New Testament were probably written in Greek or even in Latin, but I think Greek is more likely and the Old Testament, as it moved westward into Greek and Roman societies would also have been translated into Greek.

Ever seen how ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek were written? No separation of words, just a string of letters. ASANEXPAMPLEITMIGHTHAVEBEENWRITTENTHISWAY.

and of course it was subject to interpretation and transcription, there were no photocopiers and no printing presses 2100 years ago.

Now take this sentence, as it might appear in Greek without spacing, and apply it to the day of the Resurrection and see how you would deal with it as a Biblical Literalist.

HEISNOWHERE.

Is he or is he not here? Was He resurrected or not? This is what we are dealing with.

I could go on and on but I don’t want to take up all of Fluther’s hard disk space.
SRM

i’m ‘agnostic’, i guess, but i think the bible was intended to be taken literally, but i do not believe that everything in there actually happened. i think that most of it, if not all, are the equivalent to mythology or parables, etc. some of it certainly makes a good point, but i don’t think all of the events actually occurred. but really, does it matter if it * actually happened * or not? although i don’t believe in it really, i would think that a believer would be more interested in the meaning behind each story, regardless of whether they were real or not.

How do you reconcile a literal Bible with rationality? For instance, we know dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. The Bible doesn’t allow for that much time. How do you put that together? In 2 Samuel 24, God calls David to take a census; in 1 Chronicles 21 Satan calls David to take a census. It’s the same story with totally different characters how can they both be true? In Genesis 1 plants are created before people. In Genesis 2, people are created before plants. Both cannot literally be true.

If you take the Bible literally, you run into problems with self-contradiction by the time you reach the end of the first chapter of Genesis. And if that doesn’t stop you, you soon run into problems with consistency with God’s creation.

God gave us many gifts, among them the ability to reason and the curiosity to explore things until we understand them. I do not think that He would give us such gifts and then demand that we forgo their use—or disbelieve the things we see before our eyes—as a test of faith.

For the most part, I take the bible literally, I believe when God says this is His Word that it is just as He wants it to be, that said, there is much that can be interpretted differently and often times we miss out on the big picture, as @Judi said because we are being so nit picky. But we should always be studying and learning, regardless.

As for an old earth, there is nothing that says God immediately went into the 7 days of creation, I believe there could have been alot of time between when He created the earth and the 7 days of creation.

@miasmom, re: creation, a lot of scholars translate the Hebrew in Genesis 1 to say ”When God began to create the heavens and the earth.” Just like in most creation myths at the time, the materials for this creation—the empty waters—were already there. So Genesis 1 is clearly not creation ex nihilo (creation out of nothing). Instead, the act of divine creation is seen like the act of artistic creation, like a sculptor molding clay into discernable forms. This is exactly what God does with the waters, molding them into the sea and earth and raqia and separating them out.

The Genesis creation story clearly resembles the earlier Enuma Elish creation story, where the sky god Marduk defeats the ocean goddess Tiamat and then molds her corpse into the sky and the discernable forms of the earth. Marduk, like Yahweh, speaks and brings light into being. In Genesis, Yahweh talks in first person-plural. Hebrew did not have a “royal we,” so Yahweh is talking to other heavenly beings. Marduk, too, had a heavenly council present during his creation.

If you read Job and the Psalms, you can even see vestiges of some kind of cosmic battle between Yahweh and evil, watery adversaries—obviously reminiscent of Marduk’s pre-creation battle with Tiamat. Yahweh is described as “defeating the sea” and “smashing Rahab and Leviathan.” So it’s quite possible that the early Hebrews believed Yahweh was quite busy before he started creating the heavens and the earth.

That said, I think the Hebrew is quite clear that the actual act of creation took 7 real days (or “yom”). Yes, there was no sun for 3 of them, but the ancient Hebrews didn’t know that the earth revolves around the sun or that the spin of its axis determines day length. They would have interpreted this story as 7 literal days, so we should too.

@Qingu: paul also clearly thought slavery wasn’t much of a problem (Eph 6:5), and the Hebrews literally thought children and loved ones should be stoned for turning from Yahweh (Deut 17). Since the people of the Bible thought these things were literal, we should too, right?
@miasmom: God doesn’t say the Bible is God’s word; the Bible says the Bible is God’s word. This is a circular argument. Why do you believe in the Bible? It is God’s word. Why do you believe in God? The Bible says I should. Strangely enough, the Koran also says it is God’s word. Is that not a problem?

@Qingu – “In Genesis, Yahweh talks in first person-plural. Hebrew did not have a “royal we,” so Yahweh is talking to other heavenly beings”

This was addressed in the New Testament, if you want to read the Bible literally.
John Chapter 1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,[d] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ” 16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

I heard a nice quote last night. “If God were so small that we could understand him he wouldn’t be God.”

@fireside, that interpretation makes sense if you presume the Bible is a unified, homogenous document. I don’t think there’s any evidence that this is the case. I think it’s important to interpret texts based on the context of the society that produced them. So we should interpret Genesis 1 in terms of the Hebrews and ancient Mesopotamia, and the New Testament in terms of late-antique Judea.

Also, Yahweh’s “council of heaven” is referred to elsewhere in Genesis and the Psalms.

@Judi: If God is too big for us to understand, then why talk about God at all?

@kingu – so do you think maybe God just changed his name after the celestial wars and settled down to start a nice little religion of his own? If that is the case, I’m glad to see that he has mellowed over the years.

Unfortunately, no. Marduk—unlike Yahweh—didn’t seem to care too much about killing unbelievers, homosexuals, and nonvirgins. So I doubt they’re the same dude. Not that I like Marduk. He killed my girlfriend!

You mean your mom. : P

I prefer not to think of her that way, thank you.

I want to thank you all for sharing your insights, observations, opinions, and all, but I’m still waiting for some Christians to step up to the plate and share their views of either an allegorical view of scripture (started by a supposed church father, Origen) or a literal view of scripture.
The only one I’ve seen thus far is Judi (unless I inadvertently overlooked someone) and I thank her for her statements, especially the quote she gave.
And @toleostoy – Its not that God is SO big, that talking about an unknowable God is fruitless, its that He is SO big that apart from a self-revelation from Him, we wouldn’t be able to comprehend Him. Even with the Word which He inspired, we can see how the Pharisees and Sadducees maligned and twisted its meaning (much like the ever-‘popular’ televangelists and pop-psycho pastors of today); God decided to drop in on planet Earth and make a personal appearance via God the Son, Jesus Christ to set the record straight. And He had lots to do while here anyways!
I will hold off making any other remarks until such time I get to read other Christians statements; trust me – its not that I give little or no regard to the posts you all have made, I do! Its just as a member of the Christian faith, I want to ‘confer with my colleagues’ as it were. Providing that FLUTHER isn’t so inundated with agnostics, atheists and humanists that you scared ‘em all away! lol

@TheKNYHT, did you miss this?

@cwilbur in fact, I DID! My apologies! : p

@TheKNYHT I think you skipped over mine.

sorry Miasmom, I thought what you wrote was from cwilbur… so thats a mistake on TOP of a skip over: I must be ill or something! ; p