Bible-literal or liberal interpretations

Due to it's age, some of the bible may not be applicable to modern society in the way it was when written. Plus, due to the governmental nature of the church over the years, and it's less than spotless history (crusades, spanish inquisition, catholic v protestant institutional violence, burning of heretics) it would not be at all surprising if the bible was heavily altered and added to whenever the church had any motive to do so. The people responsible for safeguarding the holy text over the years have quite often been malicious and murderous groups, and there is no reason to think that they respected the purity of the text at all, being as they rarely even lived by the standards laid down in it.

This would lead me to be in favour of personal discretion being used to interpret the bible wherever you feel is necessary. However, if you take the attitude that the bible is fallible, therefore interpretable, you can no longer have the same faith in Jesus. After all he is only the main character in a book. If you believe the book is the holy truth-the word of god, then he becomes a spiritual figure of great significance. If you believe whats written in the book could have been written by any of the men who passed it down over the years, then Jesus is quite simply the main character in a book, possibly special, possibly myth. As far as I can see its all or nothing.

This, among other reasons, is why my relationship with god entirely bypasses the need for scripture of any kind. You can love god without books or churches, or even organised religion. I was just wondering how you deal with a religion so reliant on the concrete words of an ancient book.

Love, peace, respect.

 

check out bishop john shelby spong's book:
_rescuing the bible from fundamentalism_

 

somebody's quickie review of the book, etc...
http://www.whosoever.org/v7i6/spong.shtml

 

This is a great point to bring up. Years ago I was kicked out of my christian school for pointing this similar position out to students, teachers, whomever was in earshot of me. They claimed that the Bible was to be taken as 100% truth, or nothing at all. I simply wondered how they can feel that way when these books were entrusted in the hands of some of the most malicious and evil people/groups in history.

I have read the bible, many times over, many different versions. It has a lot of good messages, but we have to remember the time and context in which the book was written. And of course, all the hands the book has been passed through. The human condition has changed since then, science has answered many questions, and we have a diverse population that we are fully aware of now. Taking too literal an interpretation of the bible makes christians seem intolerant, hateful, and closed minded.

Christianity has a pretty violent reputation in the past, which has changed in our present time to now being generally charitable and kind. Too much literalism or fundamentalism could lead to a backslide into the violence of the early christian era. We can see it already starting with the rise of fundamentalists, the drop of participants in other less literal denominations, and the subsequent polorization of our country (strong division between the right and left). I doubt we will ever see anything to the extend of the crusades or inquisitions, but do we want to see anything even near that level? It is a dangerous road to travel...

 

and let's face it, literalists and uber fundies are kinda embarassing.

 

KC, never feel embarrassed by the actions of another. You have no control over them, so you have no need to feel any negative feelings at all. I am a 40 year old white male, and if I were to feel embarrassed by ignorant statements or actions by members of the white male 40+ crowd, I'd literally have died of embarrassment years ago.
Like one US vice presidential candidate once said, "If we do not succeed, we risk the chance of failure."

 

well, you know how it is, though. when you have roughly the same "label," people look at you like "are't you going to DO something? he's YOUR FRIEND." and you're like "i don't know this guy. he's kinda freaking me out."

 

I agree with you and Sera. The all or nothing approach fails miserably, and any Christian should be able to see that. It makes no sense, since the Bible is a compilation that was put together by a council. They voted on what to keep and what to leave out. Now, maybe I'm just simple, but any Truth that is attained by a vote is just not good enough for me.

One must wonder about the character of those who voted on it, their reasons for their votes. I don't believe the bible has changed much since then (aside from the protestant revolution perhaps) because that would require changing every bible in existance at the time. I don't know, but the point stands: the book was created through voting.

Besides, a literal reading of the Bible just leaves one muddled in the head. It is so contradictory. The contradictions cease to be relevant when you stop taking the bible (over 60 seperate books) as one single and literal story and see it as many seperate, often metaphorical stories, written by different authors at different times. It doesn't matter as much when you see each story on it's own, with it's own symbology. If it's symbols contradict the symbols of another book, it doesn't matter, because it's just symbols, being used to convey a point. It's the spirit, not the letter, of the law that counts. Letters, words...these are all symbols, but the thing that is going to click in your mind is what is being conveyed, what the symbols refer to.

 

I do........the way my dad used to put it was, if you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, and hang around with ducks, chances are.........
It took me years to swallow the concept that my friends were a reflection on me.
Many a time I had wished I did not know someone, when they got obnoxious and were about to have their face rearranged, but I jumped in and cooled things down, while thinking to myself, 'Why do I do this?'

I just try to remember that no matter how close someone is, I do not control them, and that is not my job to anyway. That thought allows me to just let it go.

 

it's just funny that people assume that just because we share the same label of "christian" that we're all related or something, like i agree with everythign coming out of some rager's mouth. it's kinda silly.

 

Yeah, it's like all the nice Nazi's that got screwed because of the whole hlocaust thing. I mean, you can't even call yourself a Nazi anymore without someone assuming you are some kind of a racist.

 

careful, or i'm gonna start thining everyone who goes to state college in pa is an ignorant bigot.

 

well i guess you can be a nazi and not anti-semetic, youll just have to make up for it by invading poland.

 

Just wanted to point out that a duck's quack doesn't ecco and the word "Jesus" does and so we can conclude that duck's quacks are unbiblical.

 

A loon's call echoes........so are loons Biblical?
Don't quite know what to make of your cryptic comment cowpie.
Jesus is a Greek translation of His name, so to me it rings kinda hollow.
Christ, some even think His surname was Christ.........
and that he was a Christian, and not a married, Jewish Rabbi.....

 

1 - Ducks quacks do echo..

http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_world/duck/duck.htm

2 - Ducks are the best birds.
3 - Ducks are god.

 

Male ducks are called drakes.
Drake is another name for dragon
Dragon is considered by some to be synonymous with serpent.
The serpent is the Devil.
Therefore Male ducks, at least, are clearly of Satan, straight out of hell.

 

lol...

Hey, State College is the name of a town (Penn State University is the college that the town name refers to). The people who named the town were very creative.

 

So they were right! If she weighs the same as a duck, she is a witch! Finally a logical proof...

 

and i float, too.

my name is really loretta.