Opinion of the Bible's literalism/historic-truth/scientific-truth/perfection?

[Blue3]

Parts of the Bible are divinely-inspired, but not all of the Bible is literally true, in historical or scientific understanding or even moral teaching -- and that truth from God can come from other sources besides the Bible too, whether it's by other religious texts or non-religious texts or improved scientific understanding of the world or personal intuition or other people.

Opinions?

[brucejoel99]

Not a Christian, but it's really hard to parse on account of how it combines a few different things together. The idea that only some of the Bible is divinely inspired is fairly unconventional. The notion that, for example, scientific advancements are a source of divine knowledge is pretty weird, but most Christians would accept that God can personally confer truth upon those who believe in Him.

[Blue3]

Not a Christian, but it's really hard to parse on account of how it combines a few different things together. The idea that only some of the Bible is divinely inspired is fairly unconventional. The notion that, for example, scientific advancements are a source of divine knowledge is pretty weird, but most Christians would accept that God can personally confer truth upon those who believe in Him.

The idea is that we can learn about God by studying what God created. Scientifically studying the universe, God's creation, is an act of honoring God and learning what God intended for the universe and how God manifests his will in the universe.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

For this kind of question I think it helps to consider that "The Bible" is itself a historical/literary construction of diverse different texts thrown in together. E.g. Paul probably wasn't writing to the Thessalonians thinking his letter was going to be later read as sacred scripture alongside Genesis. Point is some books are historical, some aren't.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

All of the Bible is divinely inspired and all of it is true.  Not all of it is literal, but all of it is true.

Since the 19th century, higher criticism has crept into seminaries and then crept into churches.  Higher critics taught that the Bible is not 100% divinely inspired, and that some parts reflect human biases.  This idea would be utterly foreign to the early church and is still utterly foreign to the vast majority of Christians today.  Some of the people behind this undoubtedly thought that they were saving Christianity from going the way of the Greco-Roman religion.  Ironically, its the churches that still believe the Bible is true that are making converts.

There's a great book called Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.  It tells the story of Nabeel Qureshi, a Muslim who converted to Christianity.  He grew up thinking that Christians didn't even believe their own scriptures.  Later, he made a friend who actually took the Bible seriously and was able to defend his beliefs.  If he had only been exposed to progressive Christianity he wouldn't have become a Christian.

[afleitch]

All of the Bible is divinely inspired and all of it is true.  Not all of it is literal, but all of it is true.

That is demonstrably false. There are specific claims made in the bible that are statements of 'truth' (if you believe it is all true) that have no other value, either non literal or metaphorical and therefore have to stand as false.

To take a very simple example, Leviticus 11 20:23 'All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you.' That is just false. It has no other value than as a statement of fact. The Bible also gets the value of pi wrong.

If there is no other value to 'false' statements (like say wiping out the Caananites, who weren't actually wiped out, or the entirety of Matthew 27: 50-53 which is a historical claim to which there is no evidence but still works as a statement of 'look how immense an act this was') then those statements are just false because they cannot stand on their own and don't need laborious (and literalists really really do this) explanations as to why ackshually.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

To take a very simple example, Leviticus 11 20:23 'All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you.' That is just false. It has no other value than as a statement of fact.

This is a good example of translation issues. I'm not a fan of the KJV but its translation here highlights it well:

20 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.

21 Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;

22 Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.

23 But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

"Going upon all four" in Ancient Hebrew was basically an idiom, it didn't mean literally "walking on four legs" but rather walking in a vertical position near the ground. The New Living Translation in fact which is a more meaning than literal word translation states it this way:

20 “You must not eat winged insects that walk along the ground; they are detestable to you.

21 You may, however, eat winged insects that walk along the ground and have jointed legs so they can jump.

22 The insects you are permitted to eat include all kinds of locusts, bald locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers.

23 All other winged insects that walk along the ground are detestable to you.

The Bible also gets the value of pi wrong.

This is false: https://www.purplemath.com/modules/bibleval.htm

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I believe that the Bible is infallible in its doctrines, but not necessarily literal in its description of historical events. It contains accounts of many events that may or may not have transpired exactly as the Bible says. In general, we should look to these accounts for the spiritual lessons they offer us and not as history books, because instruction in the faith is its primary purpose.

     If an account of a historical event is not exactly accurate to what actually happened, that doesn't mean the Bible is wrong. It just means that God chose to diverge from a strictly factual exposition in order to teach us what we needed to be taught.

[Blue3]

Even the doctrines that advocated for genocide, allowed slavery, and  condemning eating shellfish or wearing certain fabrics?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Even the doctrines that advocated for genocide,

     Supposing you are referring to the Israelite conquest of the Promised Land, the peoples that they fought routinely tried to genocide them, and under God's lead the Israelites generally either acted thus in self-defense or to exact justice for the wrongs visited upon them. When the Gibeonites humbled themselves before the Israelites, they were allowed to live among the Israelites. The doctrine to be extracted here is to be humble and obedient before God, and not to defy His will.

allowed slavery,

     Biblical slavery is a form of indentured servitude. People often identify it with chattel slavery as existed in the American South, but that is inaccurate.

and  condemning eating shellfish or wearing certain fabrics?

     The Law of Moses was binding upon Israel, until Jesus Christ died for our sins and fulfilled it. The purpose of the Law is to show us our own sinfulness and teach us that we need a savior, per the writings of the Holy Apostle Paul:

23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

[RFayette]

All of the Bible is divinely inspired and all of it is true.  Not all of it is literal, but all of it is true.

Since the 19th century, higher criticism has crept into seminaries and then crept into churches.  Higher critics taught that the Bible is not 100% divinely inspired, and that some parts reflect human biases.  This idea would be utterly foreign to the early church and is still utterly foreign to the vast majority of Christians today.  Some of the people behind this undoubtedly thought that they were saving Christianity from going the way of the Greco-Roman religion.  Ironically, its the churches that still believe the Bible is true that are making converts.

There's a great book called Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.  It tells the story of Nabeel Qureshi, a Muslim who converted to Christianity.  He grew up thinking that Christians didn't even believe their own scriptures.  Later, he made a friend who actually took the Bible seriously and was able to defend his beliefs.  If he had only been exposed to progressive Christianity he wouldn't have become a Christian.

I agree with this.  I believe the Bible is without any errors or formal contradictions  when properly interpreted considering the genre/context.  Furthermore, there is absolutely no moral error in the Bible in terms of those things that are presented as God's commands, though the characters in the Bible obviously often have moral flaws, including the heroes of the stories.  To impute moral error to commands in the Old Testament is very theologically problematic to say the least.  In fact, to do so undermines our confidence in the very scriptures that Jesus clearly taught as being authoritative (even over religious traditions) and the word of God. In essence, I agree with the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, with the minor caveat that I may disagree with its section on evolution depending on how it is interpreted.

[Esteemed Jimmy]

     I believe that the Bible is infallible in its doctrines, but not necessarily literal in its description of historical events. It contains accounts of many events that may or may not have transpired exactly as the Bible says. In general, we should look to these accounts for the spiritual lessons they offer us and not as history books, because instruction in the faith is its primary purpose.

     If an account of a historical event is not exactly accurate to what actually happened, that doesn't mean the Bible is wrong. It just means that God chose to diverge from a strictly factual exposition in order to teach us what we needed to be taught.

This is closest to my belief/view.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Even the doctrines that advocated for genocide, allowed slavery, and  condemning eating shellfish or wearing certain fabrics?

Do you really not see the problem with putting those three things in a list together like that?

[Blue3]

Even the doctrines that advocated for genocide,

     Supposing you are referring to the Israelite conquest of the Promised Land, the peoples that they fought routinely tried to genocide them, and under God's lead the Israelites generally either acted thus in self-defense or to exact justice for the wrongs visited upon them. When the Gibeonites humbled themselves before the Israelites, they were allowed to live among the Israelites. The doctrine to be extracted here is to be humble and obedient before God, and not to defy His will.

allowed slavery,

     Biblical slavery is a form of indentured servitude. People often identify it with chattel slavery as existed in the American South, but that is inaccurate.

and  condemning eating shellfish or wearing certain fabrics?

     The Law of Moses was binding upon Israel, until Jesus Christ died for our sins and fulfilled it. The purpose of the Law is to show us our own sinfulness and teach us that we need a savior, per the writings of the Holy Apostle Paul:

23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

1 Samuel 15:3: "This is what the Lord Almighty says ... 'Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.' "

Psalm 137:9: "Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us / He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks."

1 Peter 2:18: "Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel."

Hosea 13:16: "Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up."

Deuteronomy 13:15 "Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that [is] therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword."

Deuteronomy 20:16-17: "But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee [for] an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth"

Isaiah 14:21: "Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities."

Isaiah 13:15-16: "Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished."

Jeremiah 50:21-22" "Go up against the land of Merathaim, [even] against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: waste and utterly destroy after them, saith the LORD, and do according to all that I have commanded thee.  "

You think that is true, and the word of God?

This is, what you call "self-defense" and "justice"?

And on slavery: the explicit command to obey CRUEL masters?

As for things like eating shellfish and the mixing of fabrics being ok after Jesus, that misses my point. How were the instances I quoted above ever acceptable, but stuff like the fabrics they wore ever not ok??

Even the doctrines that advocated for genocide, allowed slavery, and  condemning eating shellfish or wearing certain fabrics?

Do you really not see the problem with putting those three things in a list together like that?

Then you are probably missing my point, which I just addressed too. How can everything in the Bible be "true" if it says genocide and slavery are ok, but eating shellfish and wearing clothes of mixed fabric is not? Like, do you not see the disconnect there? Do you not see the point?

[Associate Justice PiT]

[snip]

You think that is true, and the word of God?

This is, what you call "self-defense" and "justice"?

     The commands issued to Israel to destroy their neighbors points to the reality that those who go against God and reject Him will be destroyed at the Final Judgment. I don't know if that literally happened, but the spiritual truth I described is the important point to understand. For someone who says that not all of the Bible is literally true, your exegesis here is quite literalist.

And on slavery: the explicit command to obey CRUEL masters?

     I find it strange that some translations use "slave", because the Greek word clearly denotes a household servant. At any rate, the true goal of God's servant is not earthly bounty but heavenly bounty. The remainder of 1 Peter 2 expounds on this, and how we are called to follow the example of Christ, who preached patient suffering and lived the same to His death. Do you also take issue with "turn the other cheek"? It's fundamentally the same message, after all.

As for things like eating shellfish and the mixing of fabrics being ok after Jesus, that misses my point. How were the instances I quoted above ever acceptable, but stuff like the fabrics they wore ever not ok??

     Given that you missed my point by a mile and went off on a tangent, it is to be expected that I would also miss yours.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

All of the Bible is divinely inspired and all of it is true.  Not all of it is literal, but all of it is true.

That is demonstrably false. There are specific claims made in the bible that are statements of 'truth' (if you believe it is all true) that have no other value, either non literal or metaphorical and therefore have to stand as false.

To take a very simple example, Leviticus 11 20:23 'All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you.' That is just false. It has no other value than as a statement of fact. The Bible also gets the value of pi wrong.

If there is no other value to 'false' statements (like say wiping out the Caananites, who weren't actually wiped out, or the entirety of Matthew 27: 50-53 which is a historical claim to which there is no evidence but still works as a statement of 'look how immense an act this was') then those statements are just false because they cannot stand on their own and don't need laborious (and literalists really really do this) explanations as to why ackshually.

Well, BRTD did a good job of explaining why you are wrong.

As far as the Canaanites, I don't think there's any around today.  Some people mistakenly think that the Palestinians are the descendants of Canaanites, but that's not true.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

If one wants to argue against the divinely inspired truth of the Bible, Christians are usually quite good at batting away single verse problems. There's more archaeological, historical, textual-critical evidence on that score which I think is fairly devastating to such a claim.

[°Leprechaun]

Unless you believe that the Bible is to be taken metaphorically*, you have huge problems:

https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/biblical-contradictions/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_consistency_of_the_Bible

https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/contradictions.html

https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/flaws.html

https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/absurd.html

https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/atrocity.html

https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/precepts.html

https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/vulgar.html

*There are a few, but likely not many, things in the Bible which could be taken literally, and certainly I do not reject the Bible in it's entirety, since there are a few excellent ethical teachings which I would have to Cherry Pick (which is not appreciated by the more orthodox/traditional types) to show that it has some value.

I prefer teachings/scriptures (like in Taoism/Buddhism etc) which are much better, in my ever so humble opinion.

Taking the Bible literally is like taking Aesop's fables literally.


-----------------------------------

edit another result of literalism vis a vis the Bible and religion in general is sectarianism,

The Unitarians* and the Universalist of old saw their interpretation as being quite Biblical

Because the Bible has so many contradictory teachings thousands of sects have arisen cherry picking what supports their views and rejecting those that don't and yet maintaining a somewhat literalistic views. "Liberal" groups reject some or much of the traditional views, for example the United Church of Christ, the Quakers, The Disciples of Christ.

The Mennonites should not be forgotten. While many "Christians" push for War, these people are pacifists.

second edit: * The Unitarians had a long history of toleration going back to the early Reformation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Torda

[The Mikado]

Saying that the Bible is completely fiction is a really, really bad take that'll lead you into denialism of things like Assyrian mentions of King Hezekiah or Greek accounts of Cyrus the Great that more or less correspond to how he's described in Ezra/Nehemiah or that there's a real imprint of some of the Babylonian wars described in II Kings or Jeremiah (Babylon defeating the Egyptians, for example). People who deny the Bible completely end up having to defend the indefensible on a lot of things in I Kings and II Kings or Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel about contemporary geopolitics where what little fossil record and accounts from other kingdoms in the region more or less bears out the Biblical narrative. God's existence or nonexistence is totally irrelevant to the point that the narrative of I Kings and II Kings about 9th-6th century BCE Near Eastern politics seems more or less on point, albeit biased in its focus and trying to serve a certain political point.

I think there's a really unfortunate tendency to bat away the entire Old Testament rather than treating it like one specific tribe's account of Near Eastern politics, culture, and warfare in the first half of the first millennium BCE with all of the ups and downs re: credibility that that entails. Instead of "It's a biased source, but it's the only account that survived in full and most of the archeological records we have more or less back it up in outline," there's a smug component that just wants to toss the entire book out as having little of value to the modern world, which is demonstrably false. Ezekiel's description of the wealth and importance of Tyre is A. echoed by Greek sources and B. far more poetic and beautiful, and his description of Tyre's fall to the Babylonians? Ezekiel 26 is captures a trading city, rich and powerful, falling to the Babylonians at the height of its influence, something we demonstrably know happened at that time, and yet there are people who think that the OT should be just tossed out?

In the eleventh month of the twelfth year, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, because Tyre has said of Jerusalem, ‘Aha! The gate to the nations is broken, and its doors have swung open to me; now that she lies in ruins I will prosper,’ 3 therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Tyre, and I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves. 4 They will destroy the walls of Tyre and pull down her towers; I will scrape away her rubble and make her a bare rock. 5 Out in the sea she will become a place to spread fishnets, for I have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord. She will become plunder for the nations, 6 and her settlements on the mainland will be ravaged by the sword. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

7 “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: From the north I am going to bring against Tyre Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army. 8 He will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp up to your walls and raise his shields against you. 9 He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons. 10 His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust. Your walls will tremble at the noise of the warhorses, wagons and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through. 11 The hooves of his horses will trample all your streets; he will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground. 12 They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea. 13 I will put an end to your noisy songs, and the music of your harps will be heard no more. 14 I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets. You will never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord.

15 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Tyre: Will not the coastlands tremble at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan and the slaughter takes place in you? 16 Then all the princes of the coast will step down from their thrones and lay aside their robes and take off their embroidered garments. Clothed with terror, they will sit on the ground, trembling every moment, appalled at you. 17 Then they will take up a lament concerning you and say to you:

“‘How you are destroyed, city of renown,
    peopled by men of the sea!
You were a power on the seas,
    you and your citizens;
you put your terror
    on all who lived there.
18 Now the coastlands tremble
    on the day of your fall;
the islands in the sea
    are terrified at your collapse.’

19 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When I make you a desolate city, like cities no longer inhabited, and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast waters cover you, 20 then I will bring you down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of long ago. I will make you dwell in the earth below, as in ancient ruins, with those who go down to the pit, and you will not return or take your place in the land of the living. 21 I will bring you to a horrible end and you will be no more. You will be sought, but you will never again be found, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

Nahum's vivid description of Nineveh after its sack is excellent as well, for yet another event we know happened. Nahum really gets across the sheer hatred the subject peoples of the region had for the Assyrians and how absolutely no one is going to mourn Nineveh's fall because of the Assyrians' brutality.

Whenever people talk about the historicity of the Bible, they focus on myths like the Garden of Eden or the Flood or the Tower of Babel and then use that to discredit the really important historical information in the Bible and it's something I feel is really, really important to push back against.

[anvi]

If "divinely inspired" means that the books, or parts of them, were directly or indirectly written by God, then I don't believe a single word of the Bible is "divinely inspired."

If "divinely inspired" means that the books of the Bible were written by flawed but searching people who were inspired by the belief in a certain kind of God, then I'd say the whole collection is "divinely inspired." 

[Kingpoleon]

“It is very easy for anyone who pleases to gather out of holy Scripture what is recorded indeed as having been done, but what nevertheless cannot be believed as having rea­sonably and appropriately occurred according to the historical account. The same style of Scriptural narrative occurs abundantly in the Gospels, as when the devil is said to have placed Jesus on a lofty mountain, that he might show Him from thence all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.“
- Origen, The Principles, Book IV

[Del Tachi]

You're asking 11 separate questions as a yes or no question, dude

[Kingpoleon]

You're asking 11 separate questions as a yes or no question, dude

Poll:
Did you commit murder, do you have a permit for your weapon, are you able to swim, did you go to the East River the day of the murder, how do you plead?

Please answer Yes or No.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Even the doctrines that advocated for genocide, allowed slavery, and  condemning eating shellfish or wearing certain fabrics?

Do you really not see the problem with putting those three things in a list together like that?

Then you are probably missing my point, which I just addressed too. How can everything in the Bible be "true" if it says genocide and slavery are ok, but eating shellfish and wearing clothes of mixed fabric is not? Like, do you not see the disconnect there? Do you not see the point?

This, I think, is a question that would be better posed to an Orthodox Jew than to a disproportionately either Catholic or atheist online religion subforum.

[Blue3]

You're asking 11 separate questions as a yes or no question, dude

No. I can see how some might see it as 2 questions, even though it's really still one question. But not more than 2. Definitely not "11."

The question, even more simplified is: Do you agree or disagree with the opinion that the Bible and Truth From God only overlap in some areas, and aren't completely equal to each other?