# 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:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [July 18, 2013, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/21 "2013-07-18T05:46:40Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > But who exactly was his audience at that time-other Biblical scholars, or the common man? As I’ve said before, I can concede that there were scholars back then that didn’t take the Bible literally. I think that what is being objected to in the OP is the increasingly common notion that taking the Bible literally is a recent phenomenon, when it has yet to be shown that this enlightened outlook extended to the average church goer in the past. If I say that a lot of people in the past believed that Bible should be taken literally, pointing to an educated few that didn’t take it literally does not disprove my point. Well St. Augustine is a heavyweight, so we’re not talking about some obscure thinker. According to [religioustolerance.org](http://www.religioustolerance.org/chrinteover.htm): The Roman Catholic Church and some other denominations consider the Bible to be **a** main source of information that is to be\*\* supplemented\*\* by their church’s traditions. The Catholic Church stated at the Council of Trent (1546-1563) that the Church is “_…the divinely constituted depository and judge of both Scripture and tradition._” 2 Emphasis in original. If you want to get insight into the common man’s approach, one source is the [Catechism of the Catholic Church](http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm). Check out paragraph 115+: According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church. There’s more. Look, it’s not like these issues didn’t come up in confession et al. The Church had to appeal to a wide range of stakeholders: literalism, though attractive to lawyers, lacks universal appeal. Here’s a parallel take from [Yale](http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152/lecture-22): The principles of interpreting the New Testament in this course assume a historical critical perspective. The historical critical method of interpreting a text privileges the intended meaning of the ancient author, the interpretation of a text’s original audience, the original language the text was written in, and the avoidance of anachronism. However, for most of the last two thousand years, this has not been the method of interpretation of the Bible. Pre-modern interpreters, such as Origen and Augustine, felt free to allegorize and use the text as they saw fit. It was only through the Reformation and other events in modern history that the historical critical method became the predominant method of interpretation. It’s Good News, not Eyewitness News. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/22 "2013-07-18T10:40:07Z")
Well there have been plenty of blasphemous heresies that attempted to deny the plain truth of Scripture in many ways that in earlier times (until a solid foundation of orthodoxy was gradually laid through the ecumenical councils) threatened to overwhelm the Church such as the various Gnostic groups for example. However the vast majority of Christians-both Catholic and Protestant-have generally taken the events of the Bible meant to be taken literally as literal truth throughout history. Mind there are some exceptions to this-for example in the 19th Century most orthodox theologians and preachers such as Charles and AA Hodge, BB Warfield, and Charles Spurgeon held to old earth creationism or even allowed for evolution but these days orthodox Calvinist theology tends to be dominated by advocates of a Young Earth even as society in general has come to accept evolution more. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/23 "2013-07-18T11:21:46Z")
Not just them (in terms of Calvinists(, but earlier, John Calvin himself, said in his commentary about Genesis (in a passage about “the firmament”…the sky, which Genesis describes as ‘waters over the earth’) > [@](#): > > For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. Here, the Spirit of God would teach all men without exception; and therefore what Gregory declares falsely and in vain regarding statues and pictures is truly applicable to the history of the creation, namely, that it is the book of the unlearned. (Gregory there refers to Pope Gregory the Great, who defended religious art in churches, saying that its purpose wasn’t idolatry, but instead a way to educate ignorant people about religion). Calvin is talking about a doctrine people call “accommodation”, which is traditionally a Calvinist idea, which was that the bible includes the scientific understanding of the time, and deliberately simplifies things like the creation of the earth, because the purpose of the bible isn’t to be a science textbook. It’s to be a moral guide, and God knew the only way people would accept it is if it was written in a way that was understandable and acceptable to them. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/24 "2013-07-18T11:45:02Z")
Well, I thought Ehrmann had discussed this in either _Misquoting Jesus_ or _Jesus, Interrupted_, but, having checked them both last night, this isn’t the case. I’ll need to look elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/25 "2013-07-18T13:56:11Z")
> [@Crotalus](#): > > I guess the same sentence has led us to opposite conclusions. I took his "only’ and “also” to clearly indicate that no one in his intended audience thought that the bible was only a factual narrative, but that some thought that it was only figurative. I don’t see that in your quote at all. > [@](#): > > As to which stories he applied this to, it is part of his writing on the literal meaning of Genesis, so I’m guessing we can at least assume it applies to that book. I also seem to remember that he believed literally in the virginity of Mary at the time of the birth of Jesus. There are many stories in that Genesis. Again did he believe in Adam, Eve and the Snake, the Noah’s ark? ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/26 "2013-07-18T14:02:12Z")
> [@Crotalus](#): > > I don’t think we should assume that everyone who agreed with Augustine (as I interpret Augustine) believed one thing and preached another. Examples? ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/27 "2013-07-18T14:13:13Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > It merely implies that Christians tended to take assertions in the Bible literally _by default_, when they knew of no good reason to think otherwise. There are good reasons not to believe any miracle. > [@](#): > > Certainly it is **radically** different from the willfully irrationalist attitude of modern fundamentalists, who insist that everything in the Bible is literally true _despite_ all evidence and argument to the contrary. I don’t know about that. How do 6 day creation, a global flood, 3 days in the belly of a fish, and the physical resurrection of the dead different, with regards to irrationality? It’s my understanding that most liberal Christians still choose to believe in the resurrection of Jesus at least. > [@](#): > > Augustine was pointing out to some of his less learned Christian contemporaries that there quite frequently were good reasons to think otherwise than what might be implied by a simple-minded literalist reading of the Bible… That’s what I thought too. That Augustine was talking to simple-minded literalist readers, because they are NOT a new phenomenon. > [@](#): > > Likewise, in Archbishop Ussher’s time, there was no well understood evidence and no good arguments to suggest that the Earth was any older than the Bible seemed to imply it was. Indeed, in Ussher’s time the Bible seemed to be pretty much the only available source of evidence about the history of the Earth and the universe as a whole. Geologists had not yet learned how to read the stratigraphic and fossil record. Once they did, Biblically based cosmology went out of fashion quite rapidly, despite the fact that nearly all of the geologists involved were sincere Christians (or, at a minimum, in some cases believed in a Deistic creator God). That’s what I think too. That people pretty much trusted the Bible as true until observation and science showed that it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/28 "2013-07-18T14:21:34Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > . . . > That’s what I think too. That people pretty much trusted the Bible as true until observation and science showed that it wasn’t. Well, yes. Which is why we have pity for those who lived before the Enlightenment (or however you categorize the beginning of observation and experiment to learn how the world works) but only contempt for those who continue to hold such superstitions. (Of course, your mileage may vary, as will the level of contempt expressed by individuals.) ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/29 "2013-07-18T14:22:30Z")
I find this topic very interesting. I have noticed that many, many, Christians that I try to discuss religion with have taken the angle of, “Well, it is the atheists who are so literal about the bible. We Christians don’t take it so literally. It’s not all talking snakes.” Ok, I accept that. Noah and the Ark isn’t a literal story…Jonah and the whale, walking on water…ok, but where does it EVER get literal. I have decided to just nip it in the bud with, “Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross and came back to life three days later.” If you agree with that, then that is just as non-scientific as Noah’s ark, so whatever. If you DON’T believe that Jesus literally died and came back, then I don’t know if we can call you a Christian. ---
**Author:** ![tonyfop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/85f322/32.png) [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/30 "2013-07-18T14:35:55Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > That’s what I thought too. That Augustine was talking to simple-minded literalist readers, because they are NOT a new phenomenon. But what is a new phenomenon is church leaders declaring the literalist view as the only possible view. Augustine lived in the 4th and 5th century, and he tried to break people from their literalist views. At the Catholic high school that I attended, they taught that every story in Genesis from the Creation to the Tower of Babel were not to be taken literally. So to answer the OP, the phenomenon of the masses beleiving in the literalist view is not new, but the phenomenon of church leaders teaching the literalist view is very new. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/31 "2013-07-18T14:44:12Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Well, yes. Which is why we have pity for those who lived before the Enlightenment (or however you categorize the beginning of observation and experiment to learn how the world works) but only contempt for those who continue to hold such superstitions. I pity them, much in the same as I pity you liberal Christians who still believe that Jesus died for your sins, rose from the dead, answers your prayers, and has prepared paradise for you when you die. If you think about it, it’s all the same type of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/32 "2013-07-18T14:45:52Z")
> [@tonyfop](#): > > …At the Catholic high school that I attended, they taught that every story in Genesis from the Creation to the Tower of Babel were not to be taken literally… Did your Catholic school teach that the crackers and wine were actual flesh and blood? ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/33 "2013-07-18T14:47:37Z")
> [@tonyfop](#): > > But what is a new phenomenon is church leaders declaring the literalist view as the only possible view. Cite that the above is new? What I see fundamentalists saying is that once you start doubting the miracles, then what proof is the Bible regarding all the other stuff deemed important. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/34 "2013-07-18T14:48:44Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Did your Catholic school teach that the crackers and wine were actual flesh and blood? That’s not in Genesis. I was taught that the wafer and the wine were the literal body and blood of Christ. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/35 "2013-07-18T14:52:08Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > I pity them, much in the same as I pity you liberal Christians who still believe that Jesus died for your sins, rose from the dead, answers your prayers, and has prepared paradise for you when you die. If you think about it, it’s all the same type of thing. I can live with that. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/36 "2013-07-18T14:52:35Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > I pity you liberal Christians who still believe that Jesus died for your sins, rose from the dead, answers your prayers, and has prepared paradise for you when you die. Don’t feel bad, we pity you for _not_ believing those things (as foolish as they seem). So no hard feelings. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![tonyfop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/85f322/32.png) [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/37 "2013-07-18T15:00:08Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Did your Catholic school teach that the crackers and wine were actual flesh and blood? In a word, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/38 "2013-07-18T15:01:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s not in Genesis. > > I was taught that the wafer and the wine were the literal body and blood of Christ. I realize that isn’t in Genesis. I just think it is so arbitrary. And I admit, I don’t know much about how Catholicism works, but I find it so arbitrary to say, “Of course the miracles in Genesis isn’t real. That would be _silly_. Now here, eat these crackers which is really the flesh of Christ.” ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/39 "2013-07-18T15:03:20Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Don’t feel bad, we pity you for _not_ believing those things (as foolish as they seem). So no hard feelings. 😉 I don’t pity him. He is as God made him, and if God decided He needs an argumentative, close-minded anti-religious person to harangue people on the internet, He must have His reasons. I sometimes wish I had the faith in myself to do without any reliance on a Supreme Being. (These are some of the questions I hope to explore at Judgment.) ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746/40 "2013-07-18T15:14:11Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I can live with that. Great, but can you demonstrate that your beliefs are more reasonable than those held by Christians who think that Jonah was really 3 days in the belly of a whale? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-biblical-literalism-really-a-recent-phenomenon/663746.md?page=3)