Even if you accept “general” supernaturalism, you have some parts of the the bible that contradict other parts. Unless you accept a “higher” level of magic where contradictory actions can both be true, those have to be examples of Bible stories that aren’t true.
Thank you for the correction. 
I think that the authors of the OT liked to blow things up-like the Exodus from Egypt. It it took place, it probably was a few thousand people (at most), and might have been harassed by some egyptians-not chased by the Pharoah.
Or the accounts of David and Solomon-they were probably minor rulers who might have had a crummy little palace-Solomon was certainly not a ruler like Louis XIV.
These exaggerations were intended to impress the reader, and give credibility.
But I don’t think that these “kingdoms” in Palestine were anything more than minor little entities, and the wars were little skirmishes involved a few dozen soldiers.
I suspect that the exaggerations were not necessarily intentional, but simply a product of mythologizing and the passage of time - another example of the same sort of thing is the myth of King Arthur. If such a person actually existed, he certainly bore little resemblence to the medieval romance.
The historical kingdoms of Israel and Judea were middleweight local powers, and the OT was redacted at that time - say, 4-500 years after the (historical) kingdom of David. That’s a similar time lag, maybe a few centuries less, between the legend of King Arthur being first recorded and the time in which an “Arthur” existed (assuming some real figure actually inspired the legend).
The exodus in contrast was probably wholly myth. There is some archaeological evidence for David (or the “house of David”), but none for the exodus.
Just one minute eh? That’s pretty embarrassing. I spent quite a lot of time googling things from the bibliography in the hardcopy and found nothing but reams of ancient philosophy. Thanks! Btw- both of your links are to the same thing. Did you mean to link to an explanation of the fig tree with one of them?
‘Essentially describes what actually happened?’ Well ok. So, concerning the Abraham story, your take is that there was an angel intervening? Rembrandt’s take on it is shown here, maybe a little embellished with the angel physically grabbing Abraham but to the point. God had been reading Abraham’s mind and sent a ghost at the last minute to stop the sacrifice are events that really took place? I don’t expect to change your mind if your answer is ‘yes’, but when events are that different from ordinary reality I tend to view it as symbolic language. Pointless or not, I am curious about what those symbols are, or of course whether my whole take on it is wrong. The others don’t really see this story as symbolic or metaphorical, but rather driven by a motive to explain something about YHWH, which still answers my question. Hmm, you’re saying to interpret the Bible factually, no? but see the fig tree as symbolic, so it can go either way, or is there a way to tell the difference with any particular story?
What about Cecil’s take on the missing day? Did the Sun actually stop going around the Earth? (yes, the story strikes me as geocentric, which I think everyone here agrees is not correct). Ok, maybe the people at the time just thought that is what it looked like- would you say God actually stopped the Earth’s rotation and then started it up again? The Earth spins at something like 1000 mph at the equator, so stopping it suddenly would cause one heckuva mess. I suppose an all-powerful God could handle it, but do you buy it?
Cecil stirs up his share of controversy, but his debunking of the missing day seemed pretty unassailable. Am I biased and therefore missed what was wrong with his view?
What is “‘general’ supernaturalism”?
The funny thing about contradictions, and which comes up in Cecil’s “Is there a God” discussions, is that the actual universe we inhabit is (seemingly at least) contradictory. The Cosmological Argument involves the transition of the universe from nothing to something, from time-less to in-time, from without space to in space, probably with a bit where the entire universe was physically squished into an extentionless point. All this ‘breaks the rules’, but yet here we are.
My personal pet theory is that the contradictions of the beginning of things and also some contradictions in the Bible are resolved via non-duality. It is a kind of religious experience, and perhaps nothing more than an experience. Basically it involves looking past distinctions of any kind and viewing everything as one single thing, but it is darn difficult to really explain well.
A person having an experience like this would say things like “I and the Father are one” and mean it sincerely- they wouldn’t think it or claim it but experience directly being one with everything and everyone. But it is a religious experience, so if it came over an ancient Jew it would likely be interpreted in those terms. It would give no insight into things like cell biology but would lead to an especially lovey-dovey ethic. If the Jesus story is covered up and altered by layers of interference by people motivated by their social/political agenda as Julian claims, non-duality could be what is at the start of it, and would also explain why contradiction would in fact be necessary to express it.
Taken as more than an experience but as a perception of how things really are, nothing and something are the same thing and the Big Bang theory doesn’t have the big hole of “so where does all this stuff come from?” Which basically makes no sense, I know, I can post a link to a book about it if you care.