We both live in and see God through the Christian story, the difference is that I see it more as a story, but that does not mean that I want to change the story. At one time I thought it** all **had to be literally true in order to be true, I don’t see it that way anymore.
Vimy,
Here’s a truism that is also a contradiction - “The term ‘
all’ is
always problematic.”
I’m not going to call you a heretic, but there are real problems with a ‘tortoise-and-hare’ approach to
all of scripture in particular the Gospels. By tortoise-and-hare I refer to the approach that holds the literal details of scripture are of little consequence and it is the moral of the story that counts, the moral
alone, just like in the fable of the tortoise and the hare.
That God, the Logos, the Identity (I like this better than Word) took flesh and became man cannot be accepted *
only *as stage setting - this is
a fact of the Christian faith. This and other facts are spelled out in the Nicene Creed formulated in the 300s so I won’t belabor them here.
However, it is acceptable to hold that different parts of scripture possess varying degrees of historical fact and I think this is the idea which escapes you - it is not an ‘all-or-none’ approach regarding the historicity of* all* the details of the entire Bible. Just like the Bible is not one book but many, historicity varies throughout the Bible mainly from book to book.
Some non-Catholic Christians struggle with this idea. This struggle often results in one of two extreme positions being adopted, 1) all of it is literally true, 2) none of it is literally true. It seems you have been to both extremes.
To be sure, some of the details of the Gospels are very important
facts. As Christians we
must believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he was
in fact dead and came back to life and remains alive even now. We are free to discuss what this actually* means* but not free to reject that* this event actually happened in history.* On the other hand do we have to believe - literally - Jesus fed exactly 5000, not 5001 or 4999 but 5000? No, I don’t believe we do. However I believe Jesus did perform a great miracle that day, so great the crowds wanted to carry him away and make him king. I don’t find that a difficult thing to accept as historically true unless you deny miracles altogether. If this is the case then you have adopted a materialist-only approach to reality and that problem belongs to a philosophical discussion not the biblical one we have here. This seems to be Crossan’s problem. If this is indeed the case with you, venture over to the philosophy area of this same forum for some good discussion.
But the Gospels are relatively recent when compared, for example, to the creation narrative in Genesis. This narrative is much older and has gone through a more extensive transformation in its transmission and writing. Because of this, we Catholic Christians are not held to accept as historical fact* all *the details of the Torah and look instead for the deeper theological and typological understandings of the texts. A tortoise-and-hare approach in this case begins to be acceptable. We Catholics are not held -under the threat of expulsion- to accept as historical fact the literal detail that a flood covered the entire globe. That some believe it does not mean that
all are held by the authority of the Church to believe this as historical fact.
To safeguard all inspired truth the Catholic Church will weigh in when necessary regarding which historical facts we cannot dismiss as fiction. For example we *are *held to believe all humanity descends from one original set of parents - one man and one woman. We are allowed the freedom, however, to hold or reject as historical fact the literal detail claiming the act of disobedience of this original pair of humans was actually eating fruit off a tree. I personally hold this *detail *to be a symbolic or allegorical literary
device pointing to something more important and not a historical fact. Some disagree with me and that is fine. We’re both still Catholic Christians in good standing regardless of our preferences regarding this one detail.
Let me add that I think, in general, non-Catholics struggle with this all-or-none extremism more than Catholics because of
sola scriptura coupled with their rejection or ignorance of Sacred Tradition. We must bring Reason to the table of understanding. The all-or-none approach in the final analysis is rejected primarily because it is unreasonable.
I sincerely hope this helped to at least explain my take on the matter. I also hope you do not take my “conclusions” about you to be judgmental - I really am just trying to understand.
Also, it looks like you are a newbie! so welcome to the forum.
Peter K
