This topic requires a separate post. It seems to me there are a couple of levels of literality, and also some implications of literality, not just for Christians, but everyone.
The plainest meaning of literality is just that- every word is true. The world was created in 6 days, we are made in the image of God, the afterlife looks and behaves like Revelations, the sun was stopped in its course for Joshua, Jesus was born of a virgin, etc, etc.
Another take on literality is that every pronouncement of God and Jesus is true, while allowing for the Old Testament being superseded by the New. Jesus literally said every word attributed to him, God spoke every word.
Yet another is that God inspired every word in the Bible in the sense of dictating the terms and meaning to humans.
The lowest level of literality is that the Bible has historical parts, philosophical parts, poetic parts and mythical parts. So, for example, Chronicles is historical, while Daniel is partly historical and partly mythologic. Paul's writing is part historical, part philosophical. Many people have trouble with this sort of usage when it comes to the gospels. They are willing to accept Genesis as mythical, but the gospels are literal.
It is quite hard to separate the gospels, indeed, the whole New Testament, from its enculturated meaning and significance and look at it within a historical and societal context. And yet, apart from the first type of absolute biblical literality, this is what we all must do to understand it fully, much as Lavender's excellent post mentions how Jews would have heard Jesus.
Abandoning literality means for some loss of authority. I feel, and have argued, that it enhances authority and meaning. Taking the Bible literally fails immediately because of the numerous internal contradictions. The first, and simplest, are the contradictory creation stories in Genesis. There are two distinct narratives of creation, and they contradict each other. There is no way of rationalizing them- they are of different durations and order of creation. We either accept such contradictions by suspension of intellect, or we accept that the bible is not literally true.
Acceptance of non-literality for the gospels is much harder for many. I recommend the excellent book 'The Five Gospels', as well as numerous works by Crossan and Borg, among others, for a much fuller discussion of gospel analysis, history, alternatives and theories. Much like the Old Testament, it is not possible to look at the content and range of both the canonical and non-canonical gospels and conclude that every word is true, or that every word attributed to jesus is literally true.
Briefly, there are several elements that argue away from literality in accepting Jesus' pronouncements in the gospels:
First, there was an oral tradition for some 50 years before any written gospel. Preserving the exact form of any conversation or story is unlikely for such a period.
Second, there are multiple different versions of the same story even within the canonical gospels. Some, or all, are wrong.
Third, there are much simpler versions of the canonical stories readily available, mainly in the gospel of Thomas. This suggests the canonical stories, with their narrative frame, are embellishments of what were simpler memories or encounters.
Fourth, there are the uncharacteristic discourses in John, with their different tone, content and length. It is very difficult to accept that one man would speak elliptically and pithily at one moment and then suddenly discourse pedantically the next.
Last, Jesus' words are reported from moments where he is either explicitly reported as being alone (the garden of Gethsemene) or where no disciple followed him (trial before Pilate and Herod). It is unlikely his prayers would be recorded- did he come out and tell his sleeping disciples the content of his prayers?
In the end, we can not really know. It is this, above all, that makes me very cautious, even wary, of Christian (and any other) claims of inerrancy and religious primacy.There may be many emanations and revelations of God. In quoting Corinthians yesterday, I feel about the only things that can be dismissed out of hand as messages from God are those that urge us to kill, exploit, demean and abuse others. To the extent that claims of religious inerreacny or primacy are used to further such ideas, they are unrelated to God as I understand God, which is why I am so wary of such claims.
Ted
The plainest meaning of literality is just that- every word is true. The world was created in 6 days, we are made in the image of God, the afterlife looks and behaves like Revelations, the sun was stopped in its course for Joshua, Jesus was born of a virgin, etc, etc.
Another take on literality is that every pronouncement of God and Jesus is true, while allowing for the Old Testament being superseded by the New. Jesus literally said every word attributed to him, God spoke every word.
Yet another is that God inspired every word in the Bible in the sense of dictating the terms and meaning to humans.
The lowest level of literality is that the Bible has historical parts, philosophical parts, poetic parts and mythical parts. So, for example, Chronicles is historical, while Daniel is partly historical and partly mythologic. Paul's writing is part historical, part philosophical. Many people have trouble with this sort of usage when it comes to the gospels. They are willing to accept Genesis as mythical, but the gospels are literal.
It is quite hard to separate the gospels, indeed, the whole New Testament, from its enculturated meaning and significance and look at it within a historical and societal context. And yet, apart from the first type of absolute biblical literality, this is what we all must do to understand it fully, much as Lavender's excellent post mentions how Jews would have heard Jesus.
Abandoning literality means for some loss of authority. I feel, and have argued, that it enhances authority and meaning. Taking the Bible literally fails immediately because of the numerous internal contradictions. The first, and simplest, are the contradictory creation stories in Genesis. There are two distinct narratives of creation, and they contradict each other. There is no way of rationalizing them- they are of different durations and order of creation. We either accept such contradictions by suspension of intellect, or we accept that the bible is not literally true.
Acceptance of non-literality for the gospels is much harder for many. I recommend the excellent book 'The Five Gospels', as well as numerous works by Crossan and Borg, among others, for a much fuller discussion of gospel analysis, history, alternatives and theories. Much like the Old Testament, it is not possible to look at the content and range of both the canonical and non-canonical gospels and conclude that every word is true, or that every word attributed to jesus is literally true.
Briefly, there are several elements that argue away from literality in accepting Jesus' pronouncements in the gospels:
First, there was an oral tradition for some 50 years before any written gospel. Preserving the exact form of any conversation or story is unlikely for such a period.
Second, there are multiple different versions of the same story even within the canonical gospels. Some, or all, are wrong.
Third, there are much simpler versions of the canonical stories readily available, mainly in the gospel of Thomas. This suggests the canonical stories, with their narrative frame, are embellishments of what were simpler memories or encounters.
Fourth, there are the uncharacteristic discourses in John, with their different tone, content and length. It is very difficult to accept that one man would speak elliptically and pithily at one moment and then suddenly discourse pedantically the next.
Last, Jesus' words are reported from moments where he is either explicitly reported as being alone (the garden of Gethsemene) or where no disciple followed him (trial before Pilate and Herod). It is unlikely his prayers would be recorded- did he come out and tell his sleeping disciples the content of his prayers?
In the end, we can not really know. It is this, above all, that makes me very cautious, even wary, of Christian (and any other) claims of inerrancy and religious primacy.There may be many emanations and revelations of God. In quoting Corinthians yesterday, I feel about the only things that can be dismissed out of hand as messages from God are those that urge us to kill, exploit, demean and abuse others. To the extent that claims of religious inerreacny or primacy are used to further such ideas, they are unrelated to God as I understand God, which is why I am so wary of such claims.
Ted
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