# Is Biblical literalism really a recent phenomenon? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 17, 2013, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746 "2013-07-17T13:16:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/341 "2013-08-02T15:09:15Z")
BTW of course I can read your original reply in my email. Though you’ve rescinded it, I think it’s worth replying to. You said I am the one making stuff up. But my point, in my recent exchange with you, has been that _you_ are making stuff up, by making assumptions and relying on speculations about what Augustine’s “fool” _would have said_, whereas what I am doing is trying to hold you only to the actual documentary evidence that we have. What you are not noticing here is that I am attempting to keep things on the level of reality, while you are attempting to tell the tales and myths you are comfortable with. I am talking about what we can actually know, and you are insisting on making stuff up and calling it, I guess, something like common sense. It is possible those tales and myths may turn out to be true, but your snark and speculation hardly does anything to establish that. The fact is that between you and I, the one making stuff up is clearly and manifestly you, not me. You and **Kable** are both exhibiting this odd habit of accusing your interlocutors of exactly and exactly the very sins you yourselves are committing in the very conversations you’re participating in. You make a good case for the concept of projection. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/342 "2013-08-02T16:32:06Z")
Let’s recap, shall we. > [@Frylock](#): > > The question isn’t whether people took it literally, the question is whether they were literalists… No, that was indeed the question. From the OP: > [@Kable](#): > > These makes me think that Christians in general really did take the most crazy stories as historically real and only gave them up, grudgingly, when the various sciences pointed away from them. It is you that is trying to wedge in the ‘very important distinction’ between someone who believes the bible to be literally true and a literalist. Further more demanding written evidence that people fitted in _your_ distinct category and otherwise there weren’t any real literal **ists** > [@Frylock](#): > > The more important question is what documentary evidence we have for the claim that literalism (in the sense just outlined) was held as a doctrine prior to the 1800s. While evidence was already given in Tomndebb’s quote of Augustinius. Christians actually believed the silly things from the bible. It is also _you_ that used Augustinius to proove literalist use of the bible. You’re all over the place. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/343 "2013-08-02T16:37:30Z")
As you know since you’ve read the thread, my argument about Augustine was revised once I’d read _On Genesis_. At first I thought he was a literalist, then I read more of what he’d said, and what he’d said specific to the topic, and I realized I was wrong, and that he wasn’t a literalist after all. Kable, in the question in the OP, conflates literal reading with literalism, and part of the answer to the question he asks in the OP is to explain that distinction. I also made the conflation at first, then **Kimmy Gibbler** explained the distinction, I immediately grasped it, saw how it applied, and began communicating it to others who should find it important. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/344 "2013-08-02T16:43:00Z")
I thought by now you guys would have gotten to the simple fact that the distinction between literal and metaphor was not firmly established. The Bible is clearly made up of just a bunch of stories people told, all written down, without any check to make sure they don’t contradict. It’s clear that no one had a problem with the contradictions–they were both true. In today’s thought processes, this is not possible. (And I know this was briefly mentioned, but no one seems to be listening to it.) And, yes, the OP is about literalism. He’s the one who refers to “non-literalist Christians” and their claims about literalism being a relatively new phenomenon. That he conflates literalism with assumptions of historical accuracy is his own problem. Assuming that the Bible is a fairly accurate historical document is NOT the same thing as taking it literally. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/345 "2013-08-02T16:47:15Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I thought by now you guys would have gotten to the simple fact that the distinction between literal and metaphor was not firmly established. This is illustrated in _On Genesis_, in fact, in the example I mentioned in a previous post. What I would dub a “metaphorical reading” (that the six days denote logical, not chronological order) Augustine refers to as a literal reading. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/346 "2013-08-02T16:53:08Z")
I admit it’s a cotcha line of questioning, but the ‘literalist distinction’ is not a ‘get home safe’ answer. The answer remains yes they did believe the bible to be literally true. There were _some_ that realised parts of it were metaphores, but the vast majority of ‘metaphores’ Liberal Christians hold today are metaphores only because science proved them wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/347 "2013-08-02T17:04:48Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > I admit it’s a cotcha line of questioning, but the ‘literalist distinction’ is not a ‘get home safe’ answer. The answer remains yes they did believe the bible to be literally true. Yes, Christians typically believed the stories in the Bible are literally true. Also, these Christians weren’t literalists. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/348 "2013-08-02T22:36:26Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > Will you admit that Augustine believed Jonah was literally and historically was 3 days in the belly of a whale/fish? > > Will you admit that Augustine believed literally and historically in a global flood and Noah gathering all the animals on a big boat? To what point? Even if he believed those stories in exactly the way that you need him to believe them, a point that you have failed to demonstrate, that would not make him a Literalist. Based on your approach, Leukippos (fifth century, B.C.E.) and Demokritos (fourth century B.C.E.) were both nuclear scientists because they speculated about the nature of atoms. A Literalist holds that all the events portrayed happened in exactly the manner that they are portrayed and further holds that all contradictions between descriptions of various events or phenomena can be reconciled to resolve the apparent contradictions. Until such time as you present efforts by pre-Enlightenment people to reconcile the two separate creation myths, the two separate flood accounts, and numerous other stories, you have failed to demonstrate that anyone prior to the Enlightenment was actually a Literalist. Prior to the Enlightenment, people accepted stories as true stories, complete with contradictions, based on the value that they gave to the meaning of the stories. Thus, there are no raging philosophical battles among Greek philosophers or Talmudic scholars over which of the several different Greek and Hebrew creation myths were accurate, the Aeneid was never rejected by the Romans despite its depiction of the mother of Romulus as a Vestal Virgin, even though the Vestal order was traditionally founded years after Rome was founded, no one in Britain ever stood up to denounce Geoffrey’s depiction of Arthur conquering Rome as absurd, etc. (I await your thread denying that science only began between the 17th and 19th centuries, since it was clearly under way in Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E.) ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/349 "2013-08-03T01:25:45Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > This is illustrated in _On Genesis_, in fact, in the example I mentioned in a previous post. What I would dub a “metaphorical reading” (that the six days denote logical, not chronological order) Augustine refers to as a literal reading. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > In other words, the “Auggie” accepts the literal meaning of each passage until/unless he encounters a good reason not to, while the “Jerry” literalist is committed to accepting the literal meaning of each passage no matter what reason he may encounter not to … is that a fair summary? Also, “Auggie” thinks that if the passage is true in some sense then it is literally true. That’s the way he defines “Literal”. “Jerry” won’t put up with such an approach and will shutter his eyes and tie himself and the texts in knots in order to avoid it. One is affected by empirical observation and new information, the other holds fixed and non-malleable opinions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746.md?page=17)