First, if God had used 21st Century Scientific inquiry language, it would be confusing and inadequate. There is still far too much that science cannot explain, i doubt that anyone has seriously disputed that, having learned their lesson the year before Einstein published his paper on the theory of General Relativity. If the descriptions are the same (and the grammar structure is such that they are simple declarative statements), then there is no reason to resort to a metaphorical interpretation...By "these two situations" i assume that you mean evolution or special creation, yes?
See what I mean? In short, we cannot assume that the Bible was meant to be taken literally.
You have made too many a-priori assumptions to make this statement.
1) You assume that our "current scientific theories" are correct.There are other assumptions that i could add to this list, but these will do for now.
2) You assume that our "current scientific theories" have always been correct, when even current scientific theory disputes that matter. (big bang physics as expired time approaches zero, remember?)
3) You assume that all of our science is universally true.
4) You assume that an omnipotent God could not act in a supernatural manner.
5) You assume that even if an omnipotent God could act in a supernatural manner, that He would not do so.
In certain specific instances, we must explicitly take a non-literal intrepretation, or risk denying what we observe (i.e. the earth is round, it goes around the sun, for instance). This shows that we cannot take a 100% literal view of the entire Bible. Is there a way around this logic that I am not seeing?
There is an entire "science" of interpretation. It is called hermenutics, and it applies to all literature, not just the bible. In this particular case, the author is doing what is called Historical narrative. That is to say, he is relating an event alleged to happen in past time. God's statements are in a structure called "indirect discourse". There is no reason in the context of the passage to consider this narrative as metaphor or allegory.
True, there are passages that are allegory, even with the narrative element. An example would be the parables that Jesus told. While the passage is a literal account of Jesus' stories, it is clear that what Jesus was saying was an allegoryical story.
Were you to read other literature such as The Oddesy, The Illiad, and The Epic of Gilgamesh with the same restrictions that you have placed on the text of the bible, it would be giberish and nonsense to you.
Bible interpretation is quite a separate question in light of the a-prioris listed above. It seems that human scientific inquiry being admittedly fallible, needs to prove it's case before it presumes to tell the Almighty, and the world He created what He did, and How He did it.
i will respond to the rest of this post in a subsequent post. Please forgive my delay, i was unaviodably detained, and wanted to phrase my arguments as coherently as i am able. i hope that i have been sufficiently conherent.
Regards,
CDL
If God wanted to explain the origins of the universe to people living thousands of years before us, and if those origins were consistent with our current scientific theories, he still would not do so using the language of 20th century scientific inquiry, or he would confuse the hell out of everyone. He would make basically the same description, then, whether or not what science currently tells us is truly the case. This means that we cannot conclude which of these two situations took place, from the description in the Bible,
First, if God had used 21st Century Scientific inquiry language, it would be confusing and inadequate. There is still far too much that science cannot explain, i doubt that anyone has seriously disputed that, having learned their lesson the year before Einstein published his paper on the theory of General Relativity.
My point exactly! So we agree - It would not make sense for Him to do so. So even if the explanation was vastly more complicated, in essence what we are saying is the same thing: His language was tuned to his audience, as a full explanation would've been impossible.
If the descriptions are the same (and the grammar structure is such that they are simple declarative statements), then there is no reason to resort to a metaphorical interpretation...
...except for what we just agreed upon, i.e. that any explanation of excessively complex phenomenon would've have to have been greatly simplified, my some means or other. Since we can't get what really happened anywhere, as Creation must've been indescribable, we have to describe what we can, using human language, limited as it is. Clearly, then, metaphor, analogy, simile, and symbolism would be logical techniques to use in order to do this, since the literal fails our imperfect (human) language.
By "these two situations" i assume that you mean evolution or special creation, yes?
Actually, no - Sorry to be unclear. What I meant to say was this:
- The wording of the description given in the Bible was meant to be understandable by folks living a couple thousand years ago.
- We can agree that Creation would be indescribable, in our language - It's simply too complicated. - Therefore (I posit), we would not be able to tell the difference between a description of Creation where it was literally "let there be light," and one where the process by which light was created was so complex and difficult to understand that, in order for folks living a couple of thousand years ago to get the message, it was simply written as "let there be light."
Again, sorry about the lack of clarity - I was having trouble finding the most succinct way to put this. This is what led to my next statement:
See what I mean? In short, we cannot assume that the Bible was meant to be taken literally.
Regarding all the stuff about assumptions, I think that relates to our misunderstanding, so I'll let that go for now.
With regard to the matter of interpretation, we agree that all literature is interpretable; therefore, we cannot dismiss Biblical interpretation.
The problem with defining the Bible as a historical narrative is that it assumes that it is a historical narrative :) In the literal sense, that is. That doesn't mean I am disputing that what it describes happened - But it is a far cry from a history textbook, or even Homer. In addition, since you mentioned it, we know better than to believe that Scylla and Charybdis really existed, if that comparison is to be made. Only if we read The Odyssey as the literal truth would it be nonsense, by our standards. The Metamorphasis is a story about alienation, not about a giant cockroach. See what I mean? We can read it literally, but we'll miss the point.
In terms of specific examples, though, again I refer folks to this link:
http://users.pipeline.com.au/groucho/Documents/The_biblical_flat_earth.PDF
Those are examples of passages where, if we read them completely literally, we would conclude that the sky has water above it, that the earth rests on pillars, is flat, and has four corners, and that the sun rotates around it. Those are demonstrably false. How shall we interpret this?
Thanks for reading,
DFS