Is the bible to be taken 'literally'?

[Artois]

Is the bible a literal work?  If not, who decides which parts or all are not true?

[mokasu]

Is the bible a literal work?  If not, who decides which parts or all are not true?

Lol, the bible is for someone who believes in it. As long as it doesn't bother others it don't matter which part of the bible is true or not.(If I get anything wrong, sorry and blame my lack of knowledge)

[Artois]

I'm not sure, do Christians believe everything, or only part of the bible, and the rest is considered a moral tale or some such... (I'm looking for a word I can't find!)

[Belthus]

I'm not sure, do Christians believe everything, or only part of the bible, and the rest is considered a moral tale or some such... (I'm looking for a word I can't find!)

Depends on what kind of Christian you ask. See ReligiousTolerance.org (http://www.religioustolerance.org/inerrant.htm) for different Christian viewpoints. Even within a church, if you asked individuals, you would probably find some differences of opinion.

[Azumi]

If you think about it people's idologies have changed since the time the bible was written. Thus with the change over time people's views have changed. When the Bible was written slavery was a common practice while now it is outlawed in most countries. If people still followed things to the word stoning would be a common practice for any nonbeliever.

[Innominate]

There are problems with either alternative. The literalists have to face the problem that the bible says some truly awful, disgusting things. If a woman is raped in a city and doesn't cry out (say, because the rapist threatened to kill them if they did), they are supposed to be put to death (the rapist too, at least) - Deuteronomy 22:23-24. Homosexuals and insolent children are also to be put to death. Men who have crushed genitals don't get into heaven. The list is fairly extensive.

On the other hand, if parts of the bible - with no obvious contextual or textual evidence that they are parables (was that the word you were looking for?), fables or metaphors - are not meant to be taken literally, how can we decide any of it is? When the bible says God is Love, how is that any more "literal" than god kiling one million ethiopians, or flooding the entire world? When Elisha curses some youths because they insulted him, and god sends out two she-bears and mauls 42 of them, is that meant to be a parable about respecting bald people? Are there some solid, rigorous criteria by which we can differentiate the "literal" and metaphorical parts of the story that don't resort to special pleading or circular logic? In my experience, no such criteria have been presented.

What I mean is, some parts are obviously parables. Jesus sometimes explicitly says that he is telling a story, and then asks what people think of it. On the other hand, the stories of atrocities in the old testament are present entirely without comment, in fact often boasting of genocide and battle. If these were intended to be taken metaphorically, the text itself (or the appropriate historical context) would indicate that was the case. But Leviticus, with its repulsive bloodlust for minor deviance, is presented entirely as a book of binding laws, while the rest of the Old Testament (the prophets and Genesis excepted), full of god's orders to rape, pillage, enslave and kill, is presented as a thorough history.

TL;DR: literalists must accept the atrocities of the bible, while the others must ignore them.

[Belthus]

TL;DR: literalists must accept the atrocities of the bible, while the others must ignore them.

I read the whole post, but I figured I would just quote the summary to save space.

The city of Troy was believed to be completely mythical. However, archaeologists used Homer's Iliad and other ancient literature for clues and unearthed a city that fits the description. That doesn't mean that we should take every word of the Iliad as fact.

There can be a grain of truth in a legend. We have to use converging evidence from multiple sources. We are unlikely to be able to say much about whether such-and-such interaction between various persons in the Bible happened. But we can and have discovered a great deal about the movements of peoples in the region, their way of life, the wars they fought, etc. We have some good ideas about the way that the Bible was written and edited (e.g., the J, E, D, and P strands of the Pentateuch).

Leaving aside whether events described in the Bible actually happened, all stories can be examined and judged on their moral content. If a story has God committing genocide, and we consider genocide to be bad, and people hold that God is good, then there is a contradiction that should be explored. Whether God is real or a character, the events and characters of the stories can be judged on their own internal terms. We know Superman and Harry Potter are fictional, but we can judge the virtues and flaws of them as characters in a narrative.

[Essence]

The Bible cannot be taken literally on it's very face.  The simple concept of the "first day" taking place before the sun was created cannot be parsed in a literal sense. 

Anyone who claims that every word of the bible is literally true are either deliberately lying or they are too stupid to realize that the very first chapter of the bible is logically impossible to take literally.

Either case makes for a person that is easy to discard the opinion of.



There's also the problem of translations and idioms.  Almost no one alive HAS the original Bible to take literally, and even those people that do don't know the idioms and colloquial speech that the writers of the original texts used.


Just as a small example, the often-quoted line about "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven" ignores the fact that "gemel" -- translated as camel -- also means"rope", which in turn was a colloqual term for a thicker-than-average thread.  So "It's easier to get a thick thread through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven" is the accurate translation....a FAR different message, no?

[tallguy2241]

There's also the fact that the books included in the Bible were determined as much for political reasons as spiritual. There are Gospels by Thomas, Mary Magdalene, and Judas, yet these are not included.

[Innominate]

There's also the fact that the books included in the Bible were determined as much for political reasons as spiritual. There are Gospels by Thomas, Mary Magdalene, and Judas, yet these are not included.

There are fan fictions of Lord of the Rings which were never included in the official series. The Apocrypha are not legitimate gospels, all of them being written over a century too late to be authored by their supposed authors. The "official" gospels are no more factual, but they were at least written in the right timeframe and circulated widely amongst the first century Christians.

[Essence]

Innominate, you're simply wrong.  Some of the Apocrypha date back as far as 400 B.C., and in fact many Roman Catholics belive that Jesus read and were familiar with several of them. 

Others, such as the Gospel of Mary, are debated, but there are prominent scholars who firmly believe they were written during the time of Christ. 

Seriously, dude, spend a minute or two on Google before you post crap.  It's not that hard.

[Innominate]

Innominate, you're simply wrong.  Some of the Apocrypha date back as far as 400 B.C., and in fact many Roman Catholics belive that Jesus read and were familiar with several of them. 

Others, such as the Gospel of Mary, are debated, but there are prominent scholars who firmly believe they were written during the time of Christ. 

Seriously, dude, spend a minute or two on Google before you post crap.  It's not that hard.

Apologies, I admit I didn't check my facts but rather went based on what I learned when I was a Christian.

From wikipedia:
Gospel of Thomas: Some debate over whether it was written early on or late (wikipedia can summarise if anybody desires). The first surviving reference is by Hippolytus of Rome (222-235 AD)
Gospel of Mary: 120-180 AD
Gospel of Judas: sometime prior to 180 AD (first surviving mention)

So the primary reason none of them were included - besides the Gospel of Judas conflicting heavily with the four canonical gospels - is that they did not appear to be widely circulated among early churches, based on how little we have that references them. Sure it's possible that there were more references that didn't survive to when the early Christian church came to a consensus about which books to include, but how could they possibly know? The most prudent thing, taking into account that they had no evidence to suggest they were authentic, and that they were all written in a style strongly indicative of the gnostics (whereas the canonical gospels are presented as biographies), led to the exclusion of the Apocrypha.

TL;DR: style is completely different, circulation was probably very little if any, and they blatantly disagree with the other preferred gospels (which were themselves widely circulated, based on writings of early Christians).