Feel free to explain what meanings resolve the following:
"Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live."Look, I know that the power of human rationalization is nearly infinite, and that even "1+1=2" could be explained away with creative enough "interpretation". My point, however, is that it *does* require "interpretation", and different people will necessarily interpret it in their own ways. The literalists don't have a leg to stand on, because read *literally*, the Bible is full of contradictions. It takes fallible, human "massaging" to get a non-contradictory reading of the Bible, and suddenly we're no longer in the realm of the infallible. Too bad God didn't annotate the text and let us know which parts were literal and which parts were to be "interpreted" metaphorically (and how), eh?"And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend."
"And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."