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Thank you for your kind post.

I would think that you more than many contemporary Christians would have a deep understanding and appreciation for the literary genres and historicity of the Old Testament. You have to appreciate and recognize the midrash aggada and midrash halakha throughout the Old Testament.

The "fourfold sense of scripture" (called PARDES in Judaism) does not in any way imply the events of the Torah did not actually happen. Why would you assume it would?

Peshat is the "plain" meaning. Derash is the "exegetical" sense (the one I have most difficulty understanding). My personal favorite is Remez, hints or allusions found in the letters, shapes, unusual spellings, numeric values, etc. And Sod is the "secret" meaning. The fact that all four of these operate in the Bible in no way implies that the Red Sea was not split. I don't understand why you believe ancient Midrash reduces the TaNa"KH to mere didactic parables.

Do you believe the virgin birth or resurrection or real presence or ascension into heaven are fable, parable, myth, etc.? Why should a "literally true" scripture be built on a foundation of parable? How could it stand? How can J*sus be the "second Adam" if the "first Adam" was a fairy tale?

Midrash Halakhah is the elucidation of Law based on sriptural exegesis just as Midrash 'Aggadah is the the exegetical interpretation of the stories. It could perhaps be maintained that "the Torah is not interpreted literally" because "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" never meant that offenders had similar injuries inflicted on them but merely that they compensated their victims with the monetary value of the body part they damaged. However, the full elucidation of this interpretation actually attaches itself to the very words of the text, reading them very carefully. So is it literal or non-literal? If the interpretation is "he will give eye for eye" that "give" means money changing hands, is this not in fact super-literalism, because it doesn't skip over the word "give" but rather uses it to establish the true meaning?

Note that throughout all my arguments I have never said that a "plain reading" of the text could divulge the Halakhah. Only the Oral Torah and its decisors can do this based on traditional Halakhic principals. As I often state to Protestants (believe it or not), there is an Official Oral Interepretion of the Torah. You and I both know there has to be. But I don't use this as a springboard to attack the historicity or veracity of the events narrated in the Torah.

In the many allegories, didactic narratives, epics, fables, parables and short stories rarely was modern standards of history important or more important than the underlying message or moral. In fact modern forensic based history was unheard in Old Testament times. Numbers, whether the number of people, the number of vices, horses, chariots, slaves, troops, those slain, etc. were more often descriptive and qualitative than quantitative. Historical sequence and geography were also secondary to the message.

Does it matter how many generations between David and J*sus? Does it matter how many loaves and fishes? Does it matter how many days J*sus stayed in the tomb, how many days he fasted, or how many days from the "resurrection" to the "ascension?" Maybe three and forty are mere symbolic numbers. Maybe the "twelve disciples" is a mere didactic references to the months of the year? Who is to say there is allegory in the gospels . . . in the words of consecration, for example?

As to the narrative order in the Torah, it is well known that this is primarily topical than chronological because the Torah, like G-d, is above time.

I appreciate your unique perspectives in these areas, and you do have a lot to contribute to our understanding of the foundations of Christian beliefs, but the condescension associated with treatment of Christian doctrine wears thin.

I appreciate the kind words, but do you honestly not think that I've had it up to here with the condescension of Catholic FReepers who answer every disagreement with cries of "bigotry!" and whose theological reasoning consists of ethnic slurs such as "Cletus," "snake-handler," and "Billy Bob's Glory Barn?" Was it not enough to begin a search for the "one true church" in good faith and basically learn that every reason I had ever had for believing in chr*stianity at all was blown right out for under me? J*sus didn't take my place in hell when he died? I have to spend a lifetime walking a tightrope over hell and I'm still probably not going to make it (NB: this was before the Catholic Church started teaching that hell is empty)? All J*sus did was institute a new, post-Biblical law and ceremonial which took the place of the beautiful Biblical law and ceremonial that was pronounced by G-d's very own Mouth? All Paul is really saying is "don't observe the law of Moses," but he's not against observing a chr*stian ceremonial which didn't even yet exist in his lifetime and which was adapted from the pagan Roman calendar? The Bible is a mere "shadow" representing Medieval chr*stianity? Jerusalem is a "shadow" of Rome? My beloved Biblical world will never exist again because it has utterly served its purpose and any wish to see it restored is now heretical? And of course the clincher: when a church father teaches the real presence or confession he is authoritative and must be obeyed; when a church father interprets the Hexameron literally it is dismissed as a "peronal opinion" and he is a mere "man of his time" who "doesn't know what we know now?"

You don't see any condescension in all this at all? None?

I'm sorry. If all J*sus did by dying on the cross was to "open a door" I have to get through myself (by observing a post-Biblical ceremonial that has replaced the now forbidden Biblical one), then "salvation" is the most disappointing concept I have ever encountered in my life. We're all better off with that door slammed shut again.

Only one who has learned that chr*stianity is so alien from what he has known by that name that it isn't even approachable can understand how devastating an experience it is. And FReeper Catholics are so happy that they're probably going to fry in hell? And applying Paul's antinomianism to the post-Biblical chr*stian ceremonial as well as to the Torah is wrong? Biblcal ritual is ugly, chr*stian ritual is beautiful?

Why was I given a book of shadows? It would have been better had it never been written to fall in love with this world and them be told it was a mere shadow never to be seen again.

I'll never understand what makes FReeper Catholics so happy to be part of such a religion (apart from the stomach-churning modernism and the gang-bangings of traditinalist Catholics who actually come here and say the emperor as no clothes). What a "wonderful savior," who does not "save" but only "makes salvation possible" (which means the title of "savior" is false). Shouldn't you call him your salvation facilitator?

And before you Protestants start celebrating and clapping me on the back, don't. Protestantism is an illusion. This monstrous disappointment really is authentic, orthodox, historical chr*stianity. You cannot make chr*stianty true by reinventing it.

I am in love with the Biblical G-d, not the disappointing "gxd" of historial chr*stianity or the illusory "gxd" of "bible Protestantism." There is only one Biblcal G-d and one Biblical religion, and nothing else is necessary.

Thank you again for your respectful post. I apologize for my emotionalism.