# question to non-literal Christans regarding understanding the Bible **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 28, 2011, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941 "2011-09-28T23:05:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/41 "2011-09-29T06:41:48Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > > [@brocks](#): > > > > For thousands of years, the first book of Genesis was _obviously_ meant to be taken literally. That was not just the opinion of uneducated peasants, it was the opinion of the most learned theologians in Christendom, and you were in danger of being burned as a heretic for opposing that opinion. > > Really? > > Augustine of Hippo, the Doctor of the Church, the guy who came up with the idea of Original Sin, the guy who is on the short list of “the most learned theologians in Christendom”, wrote about how only ignorant people interpreted Genesis literally, and that claiming that Genesis is literal just makes Christians look bad in front of people who know anything about science or the natural world. Guy didn’t get burned as a heretic either. Died of disease in the middle of a Vandal invasion. Yup. The trope that all Christians were simplistic biblical literalists until the scientific enlightenment made that impossible, and only then did some of them begin to abandon, very reluctantly, simplistic literalism is common among the new atheists. Like the popular trope that the Christian church taught that the world was flat, it’s not supported by the evidence, as the case of Augustine shows. The true picture is much more complex than that. In fact, the simplistic biblical literalism that we encounter today in the loonier fringes of American Protestantism is a modern phenomenon. It was unknown much before the eighteenth century, and it didn’t really get into its stride until the nineteenth. If you look in any detail at, e.g, the Galileo controversy, you very quickly see that the issues at stake were not perceived by either side to be anything like the validity or otherwise of simplistic biblical literalism. Somewhat surprisingly, the phenomenon is at least partly a product of the enlightenment. It represents a religious tradition attempting to read scripture through enlightenment eyes, and with enlightenments presuppositions about what truth is and how it should be discerned and communicated. That’s why it’s so strong in the US, a country profoundly shaped by the enlightenment, and that’s why it seems such a natural approach both to some American protestants and to some new atheists. ---
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/42 "2011-09-29T06:43:16Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > It’s unclear from his phrasing whether “like most Christians do” refers to non-literalists or literalists. fair enough , it might have been a rather un-lettered question I am though, interested in the NON-literalist Christians point of view ---
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/43 "2011-09-29T06:51:13Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Most Christians are Catholic, and no Catholic is a literalist. > > Not all non-catholics are literalists either. > > Do you think fiction doesn’t have a point in general? fiction in what sense - you do not see any difference with a book called the Bible and other works? really… ---
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/44 "2011-09-29T06:57:26Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > I am not a biblical literalist, as understood by the OP. > > I don’t believe in the bible, yet I do believe in Jesus Christ. > > I suppose it would be pretty easy to logically prove that I am wrong, probably equally easy in either case. > > I am not living my life according to logic. I am not living my life according to a book. I am trying to live my life according to the standard of perfect love. Of course, I could be wrong, I often am. I try anyway. > > I find that being right is less satisfying to me than being loving. You might feel differently. > > Tris well with all due respect. the question was directed toward someone with your belief system…you did fail completely completely to answer the question though(which in my opinion makes this site great)…or i misunderstood you ---
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/45 "2011-09-29T07:02:55Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > From a non-literal POV it is a ancient parable that can be applied to humanity in any stage, it is timeless wisdom. > > The rules for living are very simple, the first (and only for a while) commandment, be fruitful and multiply (from Gen 2 as God made man and woman - next verse). When A&E violate this very simple command everything goes to hell and we get the other 48 chapters of Genesis and all the other books of the Bible. > > If Adam and Eve didn’t partake of the fruit the Bible would be 2 chapters long, Gen 1-2. > > So Adam and Eve shows the typical stuff when humans don’t follow the rules of be fruitful and multiply. Eve is lured by the temptation of beauty, wisdom and food. This is the exact reason for many abortions, women believe the deception that not having to raise a child would mean more food for her, better chance of staying in school and she would be more attractive. The end result is more pain in child birth, submission to the male, and when children do come, problem children (such as Adam and Eve had Cain). > > So the non-literal interpretation of scriptures are directly relative to today’s society. The are timeless issues of humanity. This - i guess - i what i was looking for,I don’t know if the author is a Christian or not. but granted it makes sense…since this kind of answer begs the question,of course i will have to ask it. The creator of the universe told this story 1st person 2nd person or maybe 3rd person,but that was the geist. He is telling us parables, and Adam and Eve sounds like the best thing ever, given it was told by the creator of the universe, an amazing story no less. Bottom line is: how can you NOT believe this? ---
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/46 "2011-09-29T07:05:08Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > The OP explicitly states that he thinks most Christians are probably literalists. > > He’s wrong. And so are you. …meaning? ---
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/47 "2011-09-29T07:13:44Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > It’s unclear from his phrasing whether “like most Christians do” refers to non-literalists or literalists. well not totally unclear if you bother to read the original post ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/48 "2011-09-29T07:22:29Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > I didn’t say that. I said that I saw no reason to take it as a supernatural newspaper-of-record published by God. In other words, you think the parts you believe are supernatural and the parts that have been proven utterly wrong are human error. There is nothing in the bible that could not have been written by non-supernaturally guided bronze age men. Nothing. Yet you seem to be insistent that some part of the text is magic. > [@](#): > > My position is mainstream. It’s the simplistic literalist Christians who are oddballs. Since you have explained that you agree it was divinely inspired, then yes, I’d say you’re in the mainstream. You’re still wrong, though. > [@](#): > > Well, some of it, as I pointed out, _is_ correct. But, as I said that the beginning, I’m not really interested in that. I don’t look to the bible for “correct information” on matters of science or history, and I don’t see that accepting the bible as divinely inspired implies that I should. And I still don’t see why you expect me to. It seems to be just an article of faith with you that divine inspiration must be connected with scientific or historical truth. I’m afraid I don’t share your faith. I’m saying that a divinely inspired book would be expected to get things right when the ignorant men writing it didn’t know the answer. But as it happens, every single thing it guesses about the natural world is wrong. The logical thing to take from this is that no one with superior knowledge dictated the work. Think about this, there are any number of things that God could have gotten factually right. But the bible has nothing factually correct that the primitive men who wrote it didn’t know anyway. > [@](#): > > Leaving aside the bible, lets take it as granted that every _other_ pre-modern work has no reliable supernatural mandate and is therefore “simply a bunch of shit that primitive men wrote”. Does that mean no pre-modern work can have any meaning, significance or value? This is an extraordinarily smug and small-minded outlook; there’s an implicit assumption that the time and the culture in which you and I happen to find ourselves is the summit of human intellectual and moral achievement, and that other cultures from other times can have nothing to teach us. It can have meaning, significance or value. But the primitive men who wrote the bible weren’t particularly insightful. Sending your wife to a menstrual hut isn’t what I would call something profound to live by. Nothing in the bible is in any way original or better than what a modern secular first world society enjoys. > [@](#): > > That’s right. We’ve learned how to build atom bombs and detonate them over cities of millions. We’ve learned how to commit genocide on an industrial scale. We’ve learned how to conduct wars which, in the twentieth century, have killed more people than all other wars in the entirety of history beforehand. And we didn’t rely on simple population growth to achieve this. No! We’ve developed techniques of warfare which ensure that there is a greater proportion of noncombatants among the victims of war than ever before. We’ve devised and implemented a system of international trade which provides a small proportion of the world’s population with unimaginable excess resources while millions starve. And we may be in danger of destroying the habitability of the only planet we’ve got. That’s what it means to be “good people by first world modern standards”. Machinery makes things easier. That said, we live longer, in more comfort and in less ignorance than men at any point in history. The biggest health problem in our country is that we have too much food. Think about that. We have nukes, and we’ve used them twice. If the ancient men who wrote the bible had nukes, the Levant would still glow at night. We are a marvel of restraint. Our women vote, our children read and you can safely expect to die old in your bed. All of this has been done in spite of the barely-literate, brutish nonsense advocated by the bible. > [@](#): > > Our scientific, technical and intellectual achievements are certainly formidable, but common observation gives us no ground at all for that we are more morally or emotionally developed than other societies in other times. Our moral deficits may be different from theirs, but they are certainly not lesser. Of course we are. I would have been flayed alive for what I wrote a few hundred years ago. You wouldn’t have been able to read, much less think critically. Your wife would die in childbirth, have no rights and depending where you live, you might own another human being and sell off his children for extra money. > [@](#): > > So we either “don’t give a fuck” about the bible or we “follow its dictates”? Can you say “false dichotomy”? If it’s not supernatural it is of no value as a guide to living. Because they were so ignorant they had nothing that could possibly improve your life. > [@](#): > > They certainly had insights that _you_ don’t have, if you think that our scientific and technical expertise is remotely relevant to the question of whether we are “good people”, and if you think that being “good people by first world modern standards” is the pinnacle of human moral achievement. Nonsense. Modern first world countries are the best places in history to live. > [@](#): > > Who said anything about “advice”? But, leaving that aside, your reasons for dismissing whatever insights their story has to offer don’t strike me as terribly rational either Again, the story is worthless. They were a shitty group of people living in a shitty situation in a shitty land. If I wanted to oppress women or own slaves I might take a hint from the bible, otherwise, it is the shucking of biblical nonsense that has made the world a better place. > [@](#): > > That could be read two ways! 😃 Oh, you! ---
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/49 "2011-09-29T07:54:57Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > In other words, you think the parts you believe are supernatural and the parts that have been proven utterly wrong are human error. There is nothing in the bible that could not have been written by non-supernaturally guided bronze age men. Nothing. Yet you seem to be insistent that some part of the text is magic. > > Since you have explained that you agree it was divinely inspired, then yes, I’d say you’re in the mainstream. You’re still wrong, though. > > I’m saying that a divinely inspired book would be expected to get things right when the ignorant men writing it didn’t know the answer. But as it happens, every single thing it guesses about the natural world is wrong. The logical thing to take from this is that no one with superior knowledge dictated the work. > > Think about this, there are any number of things that God could have gotten factually right. But the bible has nothing factually correct that the primitive men who wrote it didn’t know anyway. > > It can have meaning, significance or value. But the primitive men who wrote the bible weren’t particularly insightful. > > Sending your wife to a menstrual hut isn’t what I would call something profound to live by. Nothing in the bible is in any way original or better than what a modern secular first world society enjoys. > > Machinery makes things easier. That said, we live longer, in more comfort and in less ignorance than men at any point in history. The biggest health problem in our country is that we have too much food. Think about that. > > We have nukes, and we’ve used them twice. If the ancient men who wrote the bible had nukes, the Levant would still glow at night. We are a marvel of restraint. Our women vote, our children read and you can safely expect to die old in your bed. > > All of this has been done in spite of the barely-literate, brutish nonsense advocated by the bible. > > Of course we are. I would have been flayed alive for what I wrote a few hundred years ago. You wouldn’t have been able to read, much less think critically. Your wife would die in childbirth, have no rights and depending where you live, you might own another human being and sell off his children for extra money. > > If it’s not supernatural it is of no value as a guide to living. Because they were so ignorant they had nothing that could possibly improve your life. > Nonsense. Modern first world countries are the best places in history to live. > Again, the story is worthless. They were a shitty group of people living in a shitty situation in a shitty land. If I wanted to oppress women or own slaves I might take a hint from the bible, otherwise, it is the shucking of biblical nonsense that has made the world a better place. > Oh, you! I get the sentiment of these answers and I agree. Im tired of these “holier than thou” kind of reasoning - kudos to the author for answering amazing claims with sound and rational aswers ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/50 "2011-09-29T07:57:03Z")
question from the OP: > [@](#): > > **scamartistry** : If you do not take this as literal fact. Then what? what exactly do you get from this story? What is the point? > [@](#): > > **Tris** I am not living my life according to logic. I am not living my life according to a book. I am trying to live my life according to the standard of perfect love. Of course, I could be wrong, I often am. I try anyway. > > I find that being right is less satisfying to me than being loving. You might feel differently. Are you talking about another question than this one in the OP? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/51 "2011-09-29T08:22:10Z")
> [@scamartistry](#): > > My question is : if it’s not literal , what does it even mean then? > > Lets take the story about Adam and Eve, eating the forbidden fruit etc. etc. > > If you do not take this as literal fact. Then what? what exactly do you get from this story? What is the point? Staying very, very carefully away from the other debate, and simply answering this part in the OP. First, being a literalist doesn’t make much sense if you are at all familiar with the difficulties of translation. In English, “In the beginning was the Word”; in Spanish, “In the beginning was the Verb” (John 1:1) - the Spanish meaning includes the English meaning, but it’s wider, so which one is perfectly right? None, and also none is the original, nor does either one use a word which is completely equivalent to the meaning of the original Logos. Second, and making the response very, very short (this kind of thing can be glossed for books’ worth), the point of the Adam and Eve story would be “we know what’s good for us, but we keep disregarding long-term gain for short-term one; the Original Sin is Pride, the mistake of un-reasoning that ‘getting what I want now is better than doing what I know is good for me and mine, but which isn’t so immediately pleasant.’” ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/52 "2011-09-29T08:49:08Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > In other words, you think the parts you believe are supernatural and the parts that have been proven utterly wrong are human error. There is nothing in the bible that could not have been written by non-supernaturally guided bronze age men. Nothing. Yet you seem to be insistent that some part of the text is magic. You keep inventing positions and attributing them to me. I have never insisted - I have never even _hinted_ that some part of the text is “magic”. No part of the text is magic. Look, in this thread **scamartistry** is asking for the perspective of mainstream, non-literalist Christians. I am attempting to offer such a perspective. You keep rejecting my position because it doesn’t reflect a literalist perspective. You cannot accept that I am not a literalist, and do not share literalist perspectives. (And, I see, **scamartistry** can’t either.) Given that the thread actively seeks non-literalist perspectives, why do you have such trouble engaging with those that are offered? You seem to be operating from a mindset that thinks that non-literalist Christians are, if they’re _really_ honest, simplistic literalists, and you simply reject any position which is inconsistent with that mindset. When you said earlier you didn’t think you had any rational argument that could appeal to me, you were right. You can frame no argument that can appeal to me because your irrational preconception that I am a secret literalist prevents you from addressing anything I say. You have to reframe it in literalist terms, and then attack the straw man you have created. While this may be reassuring for you, it’s getting boring for me. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/53 "2011-09-29T12:04:07Z")
UDS, you seem eager to discuss this and I thank you for that. However, I’ve scoured you posts and I see you using a lot of careful words but it seems you avoid stating clearly what your true thoughts are. I’m left no wiser on how you view the authority of the Bible, So I’ll ask some straightforward questions that typically get sidestepped or hand-waved away. Perhaps you’ll oblige with some straight answers. Is any of the Bible the actual word of God? If so, how do you know? Is anything in Bible meant to be taken literally? The Commandments perhaps? If so how do you know? If not, and it is all metaphor and analogy, who’s interpretation is correct and on what basis is that judgement made? Do you think the Bible has a greater claim to ethical and moral authority than say a work by Terry Pratchett? If so, why? For full disclosure let me say that I see the bible as completely man-made and see no supernatural influence. It is merely a book with some interesting sections, some common sense advice and some plain bonkers and bloodthirsty bits. Exactly what one would expect from a primitive, tribal society living in harsh times and environments. It has existed since then as a stick with which the clergy exerts power over the faithful and in these more enlightend times it is now more of an ethical and moral Rorsach test. One in which you, (and most people thankfully) see the man and not the monster. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/54 "2011-09-29T12:41:35Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I think this understanding is rather explicitly mentioned in the OP. Contrariwise! The OP explicitly says most christians are literalists. > [@](#): > > Religious people are rather more serious about the points of the Bible than readers of fiction, including Harry Potter fans. The Iliad,. Odyssey, and Aesop’s Fables have points also, but people don’t gather once a week to read them and hear sermons about them. > > This is exactly what frustrates me about the response to very reasonable questions like that in the OP. We get non-answers. I gave what you call a “non-answer” because I don’t understand the question yet. (For me it is a “non-question” in that sense.) You’re right that people don’t gather weekly to discuss the Iliad. No, instead they write books and books and articles and articles about it. They (until recently) force children to read it in high school, and in many other ways take it very very seriously–all without assuming any of it is true. So there’s an example of fiction taken very seriously by people who know it to be false. So why is it a non-answer simply to say “non-literalist attitudes to scripture are very much like that”? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/55 "2011-09-29T12:45:57Z")
> [@scamartistry](#): > > fiction in what sense - you do not see any difference with a book called the Bible and other works? > really… Explicate the difference, then. What is it about non-literalist attitudes toward the Bible that, in your view, can’t be assimilated to non-literalist attitudes toward fiction in general? ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/56 "2011-09-29T13:25:59Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > The bible is exactly what you would expect ignorant bronze-age men to write. Hmm. I’m wondering how well you would survive in the world of those “ignorant bronze-age men.” ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/57 "2011-09-29T13:42:05Z")
Interesting how so many atheists on the SDMB argue as though the most extreme fundamentalists and biblical literalists in the United States are somehow representative of Christianity as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/58 "2011-09-29T14:09:01Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > For thousands of years, the first book of Genesis was _obviously_ meant to be taken literally. That was not just the opinion of uneducated peasants, it was the opinion of the most learned theologians in Christendom, and you were in danger of being burned as a heretic for opposing that opinion. I don’t ever recall anyone attempting to burn Augustine of Hippo at the stake. In fact, prior ot the writings of Thomas Aquinas, nearly all of church theology was based on the works of John Chrysostym, Irenaeus, and Augustine. [Here is what he said](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo#Natural_knowledge_and_biblical_interpretation) about taking the stories of Genesis literally in chapter 19 of his work “_De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim_”: > [@](#): > > Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” [As noted on Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo#Creation), a complete reading of his treatise shows that he rejected a number of literal readings of the work, recognizing that it was composed of stories intended to convey ideas. The “It has to be literal” concept actually is pretty much a nineteenth century reaction to challenges to general beliefs brought on by new scientific discoveries. Different people pointed to different passages to support beliefs over the years, but it was not a general tenet of Christianity, (or Judaism), that every passage, or even every “historical” passage was a straightforward rendering of facts. Claiming that it was held to be “literal” for “thousands of years” displays an ignorance of actual history regarding the way that it was viewed. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/59 "2011-09-29T14:13:42Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > For thousands of years, the first book of Genesis was _obviously_ meant to be taken literally. Is that really true? Bart Ehrman makes the point that the ancient Jews even knew these were to be taken as fables - after all, if your story prominently includes talking animals, that’s a universal signal that this story is a fable and not literally true. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941/60 "2011-09-29T14:25:03Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Hmm. I’m wondering how well you would survive in the world of those “ignorant bronze-age men.” Probably burnt at the stake as a witch, demonstrating the intellectual superiority of the rustics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-to-non-literal-christans-regarding-understanding-the-bible/597941.md?page=4)