"Don't read bible literally"?

[Mystophilus]

Because nobody would recognize ‘theatre’ if it isn’t spelled ‘theater’. Same goes for ‘aluminium’ - ‘aluminum’.

Treating their audience as if they are stupid is a problem, but altering the raw data is - from my quite-prejudiced perspective - a crime.

 

[KD8TZC]

Note also (as I learnt in this very forum, last year) that “the literal sense” has a special meaning within Catholic theology: the Catholic theological usage refers to the authorially-intended sense, whereas the basic English usage refers to the textually-expressed sense.

Please explain.

 

[Justin61790]

Please explain.

I just listened to an apologetic about the Church and how it interprets the Bible so I hope this helps.

The Church interprets the Bible from a literal standpoint. Which is to say they take into consideration what the author intended. Idioms, culture, language, genres of literature within the author’s culture, and the time of the writing is taken into account.

Some fundamentalists interpret scripture from a literalist viewpoint which is to say they take the words at face value. What the words say is exactly what they mean.

Example: Lets say an author wrote, " Its raining cats and dogs." This is an English idiom meaning it’s raining very hard. Two-thousand years from now someone finds this written down and sets out to interpret its meaning.

Literal interpretation: Its raining very hard. The reader takes into consideration the English language and it’s idioms as it existed at the time that the document was written.

**Literalist interpretation: **Its actually raining felines and hounds, because that’s what the words say. The reader doesn’t take into account the English language or its idioms. The reader thinks that the words are the words the author intended and if he meant something else other words would have been used. Since these words were used it must mean that dogs and cats fell from the sky like rain.

 

[COPLAND_3]

So are you saying that everything is now set in stone and that the Holy Spirit’s “job” of guiding us is now, and has been for quite a while, over?

It is called the Living Word, not the set in stone Word, correct?

God still speaks to us personally and not just thru “saints and theologians and expositors”.

And as far as “literal”, there are things in the bible that are quite literal and there are things that are not literal.

Actually, some of the things in the bible that are literal are beyond our human understanding to conceive of as being literal and yet are quite literal.

It is my opinion, that the Eucharist being Jesus and God being a Being of Love are two of the literal things in the bible that are beyond any human’s comprehension.

What I specifically had in mind when I posted was mostly about the Biblical languages and the idioms and metaphors, not interpretation of a passage so much.

 

[Mystophilus]

Please explain.

Justin61790 covers it pretty well, albeit using the terminology in the particularly-Catholic sense. The general sense uses “literal reading” for canines and felines falling from the sky.

Incidentally, the Philokalia frequently condemns literal reading for that reason: it is taken as a failure to understand that what the text means differs from what it simply says.

 

[KD8TZC]

Justin61790 covers it pretty well, albeit using the terminology in the particularly-Catholic sense. The general sense uses “literal reading” for canines and felines falling from the sky.

Incidentally, the Philokalia frequently condemns literal reading for that reason: it is taken as a failure to understand that what the text means differs from what it simply says.

Okay, so similar to what I had posted in my first post on this. So more of a literal vs literralist approach.

 

[Faith1960]

Traditionally, Catholics believe that there are four “senses” which can be applied to every passage of the Bible. These are:
The literal sense
The allegorical sense
The moral sense
The anagogical sense

Everyone understands the literal sense of the reading , so the job of a good preacher is to reveal the other three senses. It sounds like your friend is having trouble getting to that point.

What do you mean by the moral sense and anagogical sense?

 

[davidv]

What do you mean by the moral sense and anagogical sense?

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.84

1. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.85
2. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86

 

[Faith1960]

davidv:
So is everything in the Bible literal or not? When people quote the CCC it usually goes over my head. I have a copy and it usually causes me to have more questions than answers.

 

[davidv]

So is everything in the Bible literal or not?

Everything in the Bible has a literal meaning. Sometimes this literal meaning is exactly what the English words mean. Other times symbolism and context modify the literal meaning of the English words.

The senses of Scripture

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.
116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83

 

[Faith1960]

Everything in the Bible has a literal meaning. Sometimes this literal meaning is exactly what the English words mean. Other times symbolism and context modify the literal meaning of the English words.

So are you saying that God created the universe in literal 24 hours, 6 days, or Jonah was in the belly of fish for 3 days because I, and many others dont believe that.

 

[davidv]

So are you saying that God created the universe in literal 24 hours, 6 days, or Jonah was in the belly of fish for 3 days because I, and many others dont believe that.

No. Where did I say that?

 

[Faith1960]

No. Where did I say that?

just making sure. A lot of these conversations are way over my head.

 

[KD8TZC]

just making sure. A lot of these conversations are way over my head.

I think the bible is a lot more complicated than we realize, and that is why we reflect upon it. One day, a particular passage may mean one thing to us, another day, it may mean something completely different based upon where we are in our life and what the Holy Spirit reveals to us.

Going back to your God created the world in 6 days, and Jonah in the belly of the whale for three days… much of this is allegorical and can have many meaning. For example, maybe it did take God 6 days to create the universe and everything in it, but what is a day to God?

Going back up to the literal vs literalist discussion, take for example the parable in which Jesus talks about the “talents” (Matt 24: 14 - 30). If you were like me, I took the word “talent” literally… as in the ability to sing, or some one who is very artistic, etc. But if we do some digging, we find out that a talent, is from a Greek work (sorry, I don’t remember what it is) that was one of several ancient units of mass of a precious metal, so we can think of this as wages or money. It takes a different meaning now, but I didn’t know that at first because we don’t use the word “Talent” like this now. If the gospel said “pounds of gold” or something similar, it would have made more sense to me. I guess that is why we can’t always read the bible literally then, because it just may not make sense. We need to investigate the words and investigate the deeper meaning of them too.

Pax,

John

 

[ProVobis]

At least sensible readers of classic lit know that Cicero did not speak English. Or American.

Then he wasn’t inspired.

 

[Tom_Baum]

I have often been reading the Bible and had a passage I’ve read numerous times all of a sudden “speak” to me. But it’s speaking on a very personal level, not on the broader theological level. I think we can trust the Magisterium and Tradition on the broader theological themes and trust the Spirit to guide us on the more personal themes. This is strictly my opinion.

I believe that when Jesus said that He was going to send the Holy Spirit “to guide…”, He meant ALL of us, not just the higher-ups, as some seem to think.

 

[truetofaith]

So are you saying that God created the universe in literal 24 hours, 6 days, or Jonah was in the belly of fish for 3 days because I, and many others dont believe that.

You may not believe in the literal creation BUT you better believe that Jonah was in the whale for 3 days…because Jesus said "just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for 3 days, the Son of man will be in the earth for 3 days.

Jesus rose from the dead in 3 days…Unless you don’t believe that, either!

 

[KD8TZC]

You may not believe in the literal creation BUT you better believe that Jonah was in the whale for 3 days…because Jesus said "just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for 3 days, the Son of man will be in the earth for 3 days.

Jesus rose from the dead in 3 days…Unless you don’t believe that, either!

Agreed, but define the “belly of the whale”… it may be that he literally was in the belly of a whale for three days, but maybe it was something else and that was the phrase they used but the three days was the same. I think this is one of those we may need to expand our minds on to fully understand. I’m not disputing that Jesus rose from the dead in three days, just the fact that Jonah may not have been physically in a whales belly.

Pax,

John

 

[patrick457]

You may not believe in the literal creation BUT you better believe that Jonah was in the whale for 3 days…because Jesus said "just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for 3 days, the Son of man will be in the earth for 3 days.

Jesus rose from the dead in 3 days…Unless you don’t believe that, either!

We also need to keep in mind that Jesus was using Jonah as an example and an allusion. The saying is not a statement to the effect that ‘Oh, Jonah was an actual, historical/factual person’, or even ‘Jonah was just a literary creation’, despite the way some folks read this passage. IMHO the example (the Son of Man will be on the heart of the earth just like Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster for three days and three nights) does not stand or fall on Jonah being a (f)actual person or not.

Jesus or the early Christians are speaking a different language (both literally and figuratively speaking) than us, we need to remember that. They aren’t interested in questions many of us are currently preoccupied with such as whether the documentary hypothesis is true or not or whether the creation accounts in Genesis are word-for-word literal or whether David’s kingdom really existed or something along those lines. Jesus alluding to Jonah is not a statement about the work’s historicity. To read the saying in that way I think misses the whole point of the saying.

This quote addresses fundamentalists specifically, but I think it also holds water here:

The high status that the Old Testament holds in the minds of Jesus and the early Christians will be granted by the most critical as a matter of historical fact, and therefore the fundamentalist efforts to prove this are of no importance. On the other hand, the fundamentalist attempts to argue that these sayings of Jesus and the New Testament writers about Jonah, Daniel, Moses and other persons and events prove the historical accuracy of the Old Testament are futile, because they make no attempt to show that Jesus or the early Christians were interested in such questions as the authorship of books, the presence of sources, or the historical accuracy of data and figures.

I’m not saying that the Bible is in error or something, of course. What I am saying is, that in trying to prove the historicity of Scripture, cherry-picking every OT quotation or allusion made by Jesus or St. Paul and saying, “Oh look, Jesus alluded to Jonah! Since Jesus is God, that must mean Jonah’s story is factual!” is, from an outsider’s viewpoint (I’m thinking outside the box here) a rather weak/circular argument.

 

[truetofaith]

Agreed, but define the “belly of the whale”… it may be that he literally was in the belly of a whale for three days, but maybe it was something else and that was the phrase they used but the three days was the same. I think this is one of those we may need to expand our minds on to fully understand. I’m not disputing that Jesus rose from the dead in three days, just the fact that Jonah may not have been physically in a whales belly.

Pax,

John

Jonah 1 :17 reads “the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah & Jonah was inside the fish 3 days & 3 nights.”

What does that mean? Maybe it was a submarine…the “Sea Wolf.”