# Literal Interpretation of the Bible **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2003, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679 "2003-01-30T18:53:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/61 "2003-01-31T04:38:52Z")
Do a quick search on the word “speciation,” then, **Na Sultainne** : there have been several documented cases of new species forming within the last X years, and someone ( **Ben**?) has kindly posted a link to them. And, just for the record, “natural selection” depends precisely on what you describe – environmental pressure selecting for one or another characteristic to be the dominant one for a species. The question is not whether both characteristics existed beforehand, but that the darkening of the habitat caused a selective force towards an increased proportion of melanic moths. Now, I will grant that extrapolating from that to small dinosaurs turning into birds is quite a jump – but it demonstrates the reality of natural selection in quite a vivid way. Also of interest may be the sequence of fossils that appear to demonstrate the derivation of whales from land mammals, which include a number of true intermediates. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/62 "2003-01-31T14:07:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > Given the nature of the development of Historiography, in which the very notion of recording history as a factual exercise only became prevalent in the eighteenth century and the notion that Scripture adhered to that factual presentation only arose shortly thereafter, I would need to see some evidence that anyone actually believed that Scripture was a literal record even one thousand years ago, much less at the time it was written. > From the Encyclopædia Britannica, _Historiography_: > > > [@](#): > > > > Modern historians aim to reconstruct a record of human activities and to achieve a more profound understanding of them. This conception of their task is quite recent, dating from the development in the late 18th and early 19th centuries of scientific history, cultivated largely by professional historians. It springs from an outlook that is very new in human experience: the assumption that the study of history is a natural, inevitable human activity. Before the late 18th century, historiography did not stand at the centre of any civilization. History was almost never an important part of regular education, and it never claimed to provide an interpretation of human life as a whole. This was more appropriately the function of religion, of philosophy, even perhaps of poetry and other imaginative literature. > > While Herodotus and Thucydides (each writing after the period of the bulk of the Jewish canon was completed) began a new trend of citing earlier works to support their stories, they and their successors continued to write in a manner intended for exhortation and inspiration. > > We know that Philo Judaeus of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo (in the Jewish and Christian traditions, respectively) each noted the underlying _themes_ of the Biblical stories, as against a too-literal acceptance of the _events_ of the stories. > > Given this background, I would say that it is incumbent on those who claim a literal interpretation of Scripture to demonstrate that it was actually written for the purpose of a literal record. You are conflating two separate issues. The study of history is NOT the equivalent of a factual presentation of history. It goes without saying that the Bible was never intended to serve as a history book in the manner of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - it is a religious work. But historical facts are sometimes important to areas that are outside of the strict discipline of history, and it does not follow from the fact that the work is not a history that all historical facts presented are not meant literally. If you open up, say, a random economics textbook you will see all sorts of historical episodes described therein - generally these are meant to be taken quite literally unless the context is clearly otherwise (e.g. Company A, manufacturer of widgets). In fact, though my posts are not intended as a study of history, I sometimes cite some historical facts in them - I mean all of these quite literally, and I assume the same applies to you when you do the same. So I maintain that all you have written about the development of history as a discipline has completely missed the point. As for your statement that “the notion that Scripture adhered to that factual presentation only arose shortly thereafter [the 18th century]” - that is a fantastic claim - I’d like to see what support you have for this. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/63 "2003-01-31T17:12:50Z")
No, **Izzy** , IMHO _you_ are missing **Tom** ’s point, and mine. The point to bringing modern historiography into the mix is that _the appropriateness of saying X as an explanation of Y has varied over the years._ The classic example, which I will reiterate, is that in Classical times it was not only acceptable but expected to “put a speech” into the mouth of a figure you were highlighting – in order to show by his words, abstracted from other sources or manufactured by you, the character of the individual. The wisdom of the King’s elderly advisor would be demonstrated by having him warn of the consequences of that ill-advised attack, for example. To look at the New Testament for a moment, Luke is on record as having exercised the best standards of historiography as practiced in his time, as he explains in his dedications to his Gospel and Acts. But that no more means that Jesus or Stephen or Peter or Paul actually gave the speeches they are recorded as having given at the time and place they are recorded as having been given, than does the attribution of dialogue to the actual individual John Adams in the middle of the novel _Johnny Tremaine_ mean that he at some point actually said the words attributed to him in that novel. I’ll leave it to Tom to locate cites for this stuff – I know they’re out there but must go offline after finishing this post. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/64 "2003-01-31T17:35:54Z")
Polycarp, Leaving aside what Tom might have meant, I’ll address myself to your point. It goes without saying that a common feature of languages and writing styles is that there are some words that are not meant to be taken literally. Someone who says that he has a frog in his throat does not mean that he literally has a physical frog actually located in his throat. And if you will reread my previous post, you will notice that I specifically pointed out that an economics textbook might refer to a Company A, manufacturer of widgets, despite no such company having ever existed. But these are rhetorical or literary devices, understood by the writer and reader as such. Similarly, _if_ it is true that ancient writers would write entire speeches and attribute them to historical figures, then that would be an acceptable literary device as well. (Though I’d like to see some evidence for this assertion - I suspect that ancient writers just made a lot of details up). But this does not give you wholesale license to say that nothing any ancient writer wrote was meant to be taken seriously. You would have to understand whether in the context that the writing was presented to the audience that it reached, this particular bit of writing was meant to be understood literally or not. The same goes for your _Johnny Tremaine_ example. This type of thing can fly because the intended audience knows it is intended as pure fiction. So your job is to show that under the style that prevailed, the historical facts mentioned in the bible were of a type that was not intended to be taken literally by the anticipated audience. Simply saying “hey, metaphors existed - OK, the whole thing was a metaphor” or similar such does, not cut it. ---
**Author:** ![hardcore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@hardcore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hardcore)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/65 "2003-01-31T19:08:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NaSultainne \* > **[minor quibble] > While this is indeed an example of natural selection, it can hardly be classified as ‘leading to evolution’. Both moths, members of a single species, existed prior to industrial pollution, both existed after. There was no genetic modification as a result of external stimuli. The moths were, and still are. No change has taken place, other than the proportion of light to dark moths. More than any thing else, I would equate this an example of biological supply and demand.** Not surprisingly, you are wrong in this instance, which is common mistake creationists make. It makes no difference when the genes for dark moths originated. The scientific definition for evolution is “a change in allele frequency in a population”. So a change in the proportion of moths with dark genes to moths with light genes is EXACTLY what evolution is all about. It isn’t speciation, but it is evolution. And the phrase “biological supply and demand” is a nice choice of words to describe evolution. Add in a mechanism to generate novelty (e.g. mutations), and you have summarized Evolution 101. > [@](#): > > \*\* I would venture to say that it is precisely this type of evolutionary ‘evidence’ that may lead some to question the underlying theory. [/minor quibble] \*\* Only for those you either do not understand the theory, or are predisposed to disagree with it. This brings up an interesting question, well… to me anyway – why do creationists focus their efforts on evolution? Their arguments are nearly always framed as Creation vs. Evolution, yet nearly every objection applies to all of science, or at the very least to other, non-related disciplines such as astronomy, geology, cosmology, physics, thermodynamics, etc. When they bluster about the materialism of evolution, they conveniently forget about every other branch of science that operates under these same principles. When they want disclaimers proclaiming “it’s only a theory”, they completely ignore the theory of gravity, or the theory of relativity, and so forth. As they whine about order arising from the Big Bang and violations of the 2nd law of thermo, it is still portrayed as problems with “Evilution” and dogma from “evolutionists”. If their problem is with the whole of Science, why don’t they be honest and admit this, instead of concentrating on evolution? Well, maybe this hijack is better suited for a separate thread. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/66 "2003-01-31T19:33:24Z")
> [@](#): > > But this does not give you wholesale license to say that nothing any ancient writer wrote was meant to be _taken seriously_. You would have to understand whether in the context that the writing was presented to the audience that it reached, this particular bit of writing was _meant to be understood literally_ or not. Your terminological choices here (which I italicized) may help to make the point clear: I, and no one else either to the best of my knowledge, was ever saying that a given piece of reading matter, _particularly_ that found in the Bible, should not be taken seriously. There is, however, a significant difference between that and _taken literally_. As someone very interested in 15th Century English history, I can assure you that Shakespeare’s characterization of Richard III is a caricature of the real king. This does not mean that the plot of the play named after him, the characterization and dialogue, and the tragedy that culminates it – the point to the play – is not a very effective tool for illuminating important things about human nature. Likewise, I do not find most of the behavior of Lot in Genesis to be anything but reprehensible. But the _point_ of the story, as the author of Hebrews points out, is Lot’s **faith** , and his willingness to hold to God’s law of hospitality at whatever cost to himself or his family. And the writer of Genesis paints him as a flawed human being, doing the best he can, to illuminate that focus. If, however, I take the story _literally_, I find that God must encourage fathers’ granting of young virgin daughters to groups of horny men for a gang-shagging – it’s in the Bible, isn’t it?, and _our hero_ makes the offer, doesn’t he? – and in focusing on the details, lose track of the basic point behind the story. Same thing with Genesis. Key point here is that _God created everything and called it good_, that He created _by His Word_ – he said “Let there be…” and all things came to be, – that he did it sequentially, and that man was originally created in His image and likeness. Coupled with this is the frame story of the “six days” which I believe was placed there in order to make the point that _the Sabbath was an integral part of creation_. It’s told in a very simple, repetitive style, with minimal details and maximal focus on God’s action. Get into the details of which six days and when, counting back from the reign of David and figuring who was born when on the basis of the genealogies, to decide that, since geology and archaeology say that events happened prior to 4004 BCE, and don’t represent direct creation of each living “kind” but the evolution of one from another, therefore the Bible’s creation story **must** be true in literal terms (and BTW was it six days, as in Genesis 1, or one day, as in Genesis 2?) must be accurate as cosmological record and any evidence from nature to the contrary, false. One ignores the key points of the goodness of creation, of how God called it into being, of its sequentiality, and of the importance of the Sabbath, and instead looks at fossil tree stumps penetrating several strata as “proof” that God did it all in 144 calendar hours in a given week in October. Jesus of Nazareth has something to say about straining out gnats and swallowing camels as regards this sort of perversion of His Word. Avoiding Jesus’s parables for purposes of this discussion, one is forced to assume by equating take seriously" with “take literally” that since Nathan made up the story which he used to convict David of his sin in sending Uriah to his death, there’s no meaning to that story – completely contrary to what scripture itself says. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/67 "2003-01-31T19:41:13Z")
Polycarp, Sorry to have made you type all that. I meant “seriously” as in “it really happened” - IOW “literally”. So replace “seriously” in my post with “literally” - my point is the same. Sorry for the poor wording. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/68 "2003-01-31T19:43:50Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by **IzzyR** :_ > But this does not give you wholesale license to say that nothing any ancient writer wrote was meant to be taken seriously. You would have to understand whether in the context that the writing was presented to the audience that it reached, this particular bit of writing was meant to be understood literally or not. > . . . > Simply saying “hey, metaphors existed - OK, the whole thing was a metaphor” or similar such does, not cut it. Well, if I ever say that it is _all_ metaphor, you can ask me to prove that. Or, if I ever claim that the works do not need to be taken seriously, you may ask me to defend that claim. However, those are different than my actual statements. My point is that the interest in aligning all claims to history to verifiable facts is a recent phenomenon. People have always written histories for the purpose of explaining their current situation and beliefs. (We continue to do the same, today.) The recent difference is that we claim to want to have factual documentation to verify what we include in our histories, and that there was no such impetus among ancient writers. When we read the story of the Exodus and find Pharoah and his entire army being drowned–with no similar record in Egypt or the surrounding lands–it is not enough to claim that the Egyptians hushed up the story. We know that the Egyptians _did_ suppress defeats, but we also know that they left a clear record of their dynastic descent and no Pharoah comes to an abrupt death (even re-written) during the period that the Exodus is supposed to have occurred. (And there is no record of any Pharoah losing his first-born son in that period–a point that would not, like a military defeat, need to be hidden.) The description of the mighty defeat of the enemy is a common tale in many cultures. It may even be based on a genuine event. (Tales of Roland fighting off the Saracens were of epic proportions even before the _Chanson de Roland_, but the facts appear to be that of a border skirmish, not a climactic defeat of the Moors by Charlemagne.) However, the nature of claiming that Pharoah, himself, was a victim of God’s actions is more consistent with the common trait of ancient histories in expanding the events beyond their literal accuracy. When we read the stories of Abram/Abraham and his descendants moving into Canaan, we find all sort of snippets of tales in which some event or another gives rise to the name of a place. This is exactly how other cultures relate the origins of their place names–the Greeks and the Irish have left us many such tales–and we have a fair amount of evidence that such naming is, basically, folklore without historical basis. So we have a people using their _historic_ literature in a way that parallels other peoples’ histories–a way which is not completely factual. We have very little _history_ (as we would write it) in the Tanakh. The books of Samuel and Kings and of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah would be the closest. Yet reading those works, (even when they are word-for-word identical through many passages), we find significant differences (even some contradictions) at points where different authors wanted to show God’s hand working differently in the same event. We also find claims for the greatness of the Kingdom of David and Solomon that cannot be corroborated with any outside sources. This would be consistent with the perspective (found in many cultures) to see a strong king in terms greater than he may have been perceived from outside his little land, but it is not an indication that the authors were striving for literal accuracy. Similarly, we have ancient tales from Rome and later tales from Britain (to name two) that explain just how powerful those places were at times when we have both archaeological evidence and records from other places that indicate that they were not powerful, at all. (Geoffrey of Monmouth actually sends Arthur across the breadth of Europe to conquer Rome. This was written as a _history_, although there is no reason to suppose that anyone at the time actually believed that the event occurred as described.) There are even tales in the Midrash that set out to tell us what _really_ happened at some event described in Scripture that seems difficult to interpret or accept on its face. How could anyone be allowed to write such re-interpretive Midrash if the actual words in the Scripture were meant to be accepted as _literally_ true? So, we have many examples of people throughout the literary period of humanity writing explanatory tales, recording events in ways that give meaning to their cultures. Where do you find any evidence that the peoples who read and passed on those tales believed them to be _literally_ true? ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/69 "2003-01-31T19:50:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > \*\*Your terminological choices here (which I italicized) may help to make the point clear: I, and no one else either to the best of my knowledge, was ever saying that a given piece of reading matter, _particularly_ that found in the Bible, should not be taken seriously. There is, however, a significant difference between that and _taken literally_. As someone very interested in 15th Century English history, I can assure you that Shakespeare’s characterization of Richard III is a caricature of the real king. This does not mean that the plot of the play named after him, the characterization and dialogue, and the tragedy that culminates it – the point to the play – is not a very effective tool for illuminating important things about human nature. > > Likewise, I do not find most of the behavior of Lot in Genesis to be anything but reprehensible. But the _point_ of the story, as the author of Hebrews points out, is Lot’s **faith** , and his willingness to hold to God’s law of hospitality at whatever cost to himself or his family. And the writer of Genesis paints him as a flawed human being, doing the best he can, to illuminate that focus. If, however, I take the story _literally_, I find that God must encourage fathers’ granting of young virgin daughters to groups of horny men for a gang-shagging – it’s in the Bible, isn’t it?, and _our hero_ makes the offer, doesn’t he? – and in focusing on the details, lose track of the basic point behind the story. > > Same thing with Genesis. Key point here is that _God created everything and called it good_, that He created _by His Word_ – he said “Let there be…” and all things came to be, – that he did it sequentially, and that man was originally created in His image and likeness. Coupled with this is the frame story of the “six days” which I believe was placed there in order to make the point that _the Sabbath was an integral part of creation_. It’s told in a very simple, repetitive style, with minimal details and maximal focus on God’s action. Get into the details of which six days and when, counting back from the reign of David and figuring who was born when on the basis of the genealogies, to decide that, since geology and archaeology say that events happened prior to 4004 BCE, and don’t represent direct creation of each living “kind” but the evolution of one from another, therefore the Bible’s creation story **must** be true in literal terms (and BTW was it six days, as in Genesis 1, or one day, as in Genesis 2?) must be accurate as cosmological record and any evidence from nature to the contrary, false. One ignores the key points of the goodness of creation, of how God called it into being, of its sequentiality, and of the importance of the Sabbath, and instead looks at fossil tree stumps penetrating several strata as “proof” that God did it all in 144 calendar hours in a given week in October. Jesus of Nazareth has something to say about straining out gnats and swallowing camels as regards this sort of perversion of His Word. > > Avoiding Jesus’s parables for purposes of this discussion, one is forced to assume by equating take seriously" with “take literally” that since Nathan made up the story which he used to convict David of his sin in sending Uriah to his death, there’s no meaning to that story – completely contrary to what scripture itself says. \*\* Bravo! 😃 I haven’t been keeping track of the conversation you are having with **IzzyR** , but I must say that your point about literalness is quite elegant. I participate on another web board and I sincerely wish I could phrase things as eloquently as you just did. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/70 "2003-01-31T20:07:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > Well, if I ever say that it is _all_ metaphor, you can ask me to prove that. Or, if I ever claim that the works do not need to be taken seriously, you may ask me to defend that claim. > > However, those are different than my actual statements. I used metaphor as an example. I was merely pointing out that you cannot point to an example of a literary device and thereby dismiss everything as some sort of literary device. If you are in agreement that some parts of the Bible were indeed meant to be taken literally, then I think you may be on the other side of the fence, in terms of this argument. And you would have to make a case for why it is that you believe that this or that part was mean to be taken literally as opposed to another part. See my post above about the “taken seriously” bit. Sorry again. > [@](#): > > My point is that the interest in aligning all claims to history to verifiable facts is a recent phenomenon. People have always written histories for the purpose of explaining their current situation and beliefs. (We continue to do the same, today.) The recent difference is that we claim to want to have factual documentation to verify what we include in our histories, and that there was no such impetus among ancient writers. The fact that someone does not, or cannot, have factual documentation for some assertion does NOT imply that they do not intend to be taken literally. > [@](#): > > When we read the story of the Exodus and find Pharoah and his entire army being drowned–with no similar record in Egypt or the surrounding lands–it is not enough to claim that the Egyptians hushed up the story. We know that the Egyptians _did_ suppress defeats, but we also know that they left a clear record of their dynastic descent and no Pharoah comes to an abrupt death (even re-written) during the period that the Exodus is supposed to have occurred. (And there is no record of any Pharoah losing his first-born son in that period–a point that would not, like a military defeat, need to be hidden.) The description of the mighty defeat of the enemy is a common tale in many cultures. It may even be based on a genuine event. (Tales of Roland fighting off the Saracens were of epic proportions even before the _Chanson de Roland_, but the facts appear to be that of a border skirmish, not a climactic defeat of the Moors by Charlemagne.) However, the nature of claiming that Pharoah, himself, was a victim of God’s actions is more consistent with the common trait of ancient histories in expanding the events beyond their literal accuracy. > > When we read the stories of Abram/Abraham and his descendants moving into Canaan, we find all sort of snippets of tales in which some event or another gives rise to the name of a place. This is exactly how other cultures relate the origins of their place names–the Greeks and the Irish have left us many such tales–and we have a fair amount of evidence that such naming is, basically, folklore without historical basis. So we have a people using their _historic_ literature in a way that parallels other peoples’ histories–a way which is not completely factual. > > We have very little _history_ (as we would write it) in the Tanakh. The books of Samuel and Kings and of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah would be the closest. Yet reading those works, (even when they are word-for-word identical through many passages), we find significant differences (even some contradictions) at points where different authors wanted to show God’s hand working differently in the same event. > > We also find claims for the greatness of the Kingdom of David and Solomon that cannot be corroborated with any outside sources. This would be consistent with the perspective (found in many cultures) to see a strong king in terms greater than he may have been perceived from outside his little land, but it is not an indication that the authors were striving for literal accuracy. See my first post to this thread. What you’ve presented is a rationale for not believing the historical accuracy of Biblical accounts. That is NOT the same as making a case that the Bible was not intended to be taken literally. > [@](#): > > So, we have many examples of people throughout the literary period of humanity writing explanatory tales, recording events in ways that give meaning to their cultures. Where do you find any evidence that the peoples who read and passed on those tales believed them to be _literally_ true? The opposite is true. The whole “meaning to the culture” bit only works if people believe they are true. If someone says “here’s a story about the greatness of our people - it’s not actually true but it makes us look great” it adds nothing. Again, you are merely saying you don’t _believe_ those tales, and think their authors were motivated to shade the truth or lie outright. OK, but not the same thing as saying they were not meant to be taken literally. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/71 "2003-01-31T20:42:02Z")
**IzzyR** , I suspect that we are not using all the same words in the same way, and I further suspect that we may hit an impasse. Current society equates _facts_ and _literalness_ and _truth_. There is ample evidence that earlier societies did not include _truth_ in that equation. Truth was a quality that could stand outside the realm of facts and literalness. There are a number of examples of people recording multiple variants of ancient myths, incorporating flatly contradictory events in the story, while still holding that the story was true in explaining why the gods prefer one action to another or bless one person over another. We have disagreed on this example, before, but I would hold that the two separate creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 and the intermixed accounts of the Flood are examples of this very thing. Even leaving aside cognitive dissonance, there have been many myths throughout the world that have had contradictory or, at least, disjointed narratives that were never challenged as to the _truth_ they presented until the people who held those beliefs lost that faith. Among the Greeks, Socrates and his Sophist opponents (along with Plato and his successors) were able to begin examining and tearing apart the Olympian religion because it had already lost its adherents’ faith. Their method was to examine the stories and pick apart the incongruous or contradictory. Are we to assume that the Greeks who preceded them (and learned the same stories–including all their internal contradictions) were simply credulous? I would offer, instead, that the literal or factual aspects of those narratives were secondary to _story_ and that, as long as the _story_ reinforced the belief, the audience simply suspended disbelief regarding contrary facts. We do the same thing, today, with my oft-cited example of the American cowboy and our tales of his romantic honor, independence, and courageous pursuit of what is “right”–in flat contradiction of the historical record of the lives of the cowboys. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/72 "2003-01-31T21:20:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Meatros \* > Although it surprises me that their seem to be creationists on this board. I thought the SDMB was for the removal of ignorance. \*\* Ah, so all creationists are ignorant? That’s a sweeping generalization if I ever saw one. -LA ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/73 "2003-01-31T21:24:26Z")
Hmm. I thought that the literalist position was that the Bible was dictated by God in such a way to guarantee it was 100% correct. In this view, the discussion of the value of historical truth to ancient societies is irrelevant, since God would not be governed by such beliefs. I have observed that the first thing that literalists do is to classify the obviously untrue parts as parables or metaphors. But they need to draw the line somewhere, or else they lose confidence in the Bible as absolute truth, and start having to think for themselves. I don’t see how you can be a literalist and also believe that the Bible was written by uninspired men within the norms of their culture. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/74 "2003-01-31T22:19:24Z")
> [@](#): > > I thought that the literalist position was that the Bible was dictated by God in such a way to guarantee it was 100% correct. > . . . > I have observed that the first thing that literalists do is to classify the obviously untrue parts as parables or metaphors. But they need to draw the line somewhere, or else they lose confidence in the Bible as absolute truth, and start having to think for themselves. Actually, humans being the way we are, there is no single “literalist” view, so we’re probably better off letting any proponent of a specific viewpoint present their views, themselves, rather than trying to place words in their mouths (or keyboards). ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/75 "2003-01-31T22:27:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lord Ashtar \* > \*\*Ah, so all creationists are ignorant? That’s a sweeping generalization if I ever saw one. > > -LA \*\* To clarify, I do not think all creationists are ignorant about everything. Also, I am referring primarily to YEC’s. I know a few creationists and to say they are ignorant would be incorrect 😉 In addition I was referring to this: > [@](#): > > To quote “It’s a only a theory” is to redefine the concept to suit your interests, a very cheap debating trick. “It’s only a theory” is a rhetorical trick that is aimed at discrediting evolution by the use of semantics, not evidence. The simplicity of the statement “It’s only a theory”, ignores all of the science behind theories. It also ignores what scientists consider a “theory”. I hope this clarifies things. ---
**Author:** ![Opus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/858c86/32.png) [@Opus1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Opus1)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/76 "2003-02-01T05:44:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Ah, so all creationists are ignorant? That’s a sweeping generalization if I ever saw one. About evolutionary biology and the history of the earth? Yes, they are ignorant. Every one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/77 "2003-02-01T07:29:16Z")
> [@](#): > > **Lord Ashtar** : Ah, so all creationists are ignorant? That’s a sweeping generalization if I ever saw one. > > **Opus1** : About evolutionary biology and the history of the earth? Yes, they are ignorant. Every one of them. What about the ones who believe that God did the creating, but used the mechanisms of molecular and then evolutionary biology to achieve His ends, and did it in the geological time-span? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/78 "2003-02-01T15:51:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > \*\*What about the ones who believe that God did the creating, but used the mechanisms of molecular and then evolutionary biology to achieve His ends, and did it in the geological time-span? 🙂 \*\* I realize that those type of people would be considered creationists (Heck I’m one), but when I actually think of the term I think mainly of YEC’s. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/79 "2003-02-01T18:27:24Z")
I do not deny that there are many things about the evolution theory that seem rather compelling to a person like me who is not very much of the scientific mind. However, I confidently believe that God had a hand in creating the universe and all its inhabitants. Therefore, I consider myself a creationist. How God did it is irrelevant. He may have turned one speck of dust into the first single-celled bacteria and gone from there all the way to homo sapiens, or he may have created the humans separately. I don’t know, and neither does anyone else know for certain. Does this make me ignorant “about evolutionary biology and the history of the earth”? Perhaps. I just deem it irrelevant to my life. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679/80 "2003-02-03T01:40:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > \*\*What about the ones who believe that God did the creating, but used the mechanisms of molecular and then evolutionary biology to achieve His ends, and did it in the geological time-span? 🙂 \*\* I was thinking about it recently, and I think the problem (at least for me) is that people who believe as you do are referred to as “theistic evolutionists”. For the most part the people who are labeled “creationists” (IMO) are the ones who try to subvert science and spread falsehoods. Which is a terrible disservice, and leads to legitimate science getting torn out of text books. IIRC this very thing happened in Kansas in the 60’s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literal-interpretation-of-the-bible/151679.md?page=5)