Taking the Bible literally

god_is_good Here again..different peole may say the Spirit tells them different things..that's why for me it is so individual and I believe we are told what we need to know...but we also need to be careful with this approach..

carmelanirel And that has always been the question with me..whose study group and whose interpretation..and how do you know what is accurate. There are many conflicting interpretations....

If at least one person can speak Hebrew and or Arabic and understands the culture, then you are one step closer to the truth. Will you know everything? No, because He has concealed many things, but as time goes on, He is also revealing. Also prayer and being lead by His Spirit will help protect you from wrong teachings. I don't agree 100% with the teacher I listening to, but he is closer than any "Christian" pastor I ever heard and it makes sense. See, G♥d is not a G♥d of confusion, once you start feeling confused, you need to step back and see why.

carmelanirel I hear you and your thinking is logical. I suppose being raised Catholic since we weren't expected to study and memorize the Bible, I tend to use it differently.

The Torah or law is only the first five books of the Tanakha. de omnibus dubitandum

Adoniah, I think by the "oral history" you mean the Talmud. Christians don't accept this and a lot of it was written to discredit the claims of Christianity. I think the real problem is that the church, early in its history, decided to distance itself from Judaism and started ignoring a lot of the teachings of the OT (worshipping on Sunday instead of Saturday, eating pork, not circumcizing their sons etc.). I believe this was a huge mistake. There's a growing Messianic movement which recognizes Yeshua as the messian and incarnation of God as well as following the OT laws (but not their elaborations in the Talmud). stary, you really should read the OT. A lot of things in the NT make more sense if you do.

Adoniah I suppose my emphasis is so much on the NT I hardly read the old.

bird, not taking the Bible litterally is basically ignoring some of what God has to tell you. OK, there are some passages which don't make much sense when taken litterally and were probably never meant to be. Also passages can have multiple levels of meanings and even coded messages. Sure God talks to us in other ways as well.

Graptopetalum And therein lies the problem..to some people, some passages do not make sense if taken literally. So how do you decide what makes sense and what needs to be ignored...different people have conflicting opinions on this. There is no one human or group to go to to get a definitive answer. It will always go back to trusting your own instinct based on prayer.

bird123 Great points, and as for God 'speaking'..I find God in nature even more quickly than in the Bible

Rog - there is a very important issue here that most people who hold the same opinion as you have completely missed: How do we measure a day? It is the time that the earth takes to revolve in relation to the 'heavenly' bodies, the other 'stuff' like the stars and the sun... When was this established according to the Genesis story? day four (Gen 1:14-19) So, in essence there was no means of measuring time as WE know it until day four! So the first three 'days' can be millennia, or just a split second - it makes no difference because time only comes into existence during day four. Add to this another thought - if God can create light itself merely by speaking the words 'let there be light' then I think we can believe he did it in a day if he wants to... Evolution of the Universe is a theory not a fact, you would have to go to some extraordinary measures to show how the Universe came about, and I am guessing that you just accept the theory as fact - so which is it/ Big Bang?? Sounds like creation to me... a Big bang would need a lot of energy in order to exist - where did the energy come from. Newton's Laws of physics tell us that energy is just converted, it cannot just arrive out of nowhere - what is the source of energy for creation, for life itself? The one thing we can be fairly sure of, is that it doesn't just come out of nowhere, the energy must have surely existed before the process that started the Universe began?? I too believe that some of the Bible has to be seen in the context in which it was written, but I would be wary of just picking and choosing the things you 'like' and ignoring the stuff you don't like. We are faced with a question - is the Bible the word of God? - if not, reject it out of hand, but if it is, then we had better pay it the respect it deserves.

OH! I beg your pardon!~ Please show how the crucifixion of christ is a historical fact?

Let me offer an example: In the OT, the creation took only six days. If we take that literally, it would blow our minds away, scientific facts point to billions of years of the evolution of the universe. In the NT, there was a man named Jesus who was crucified by the instigation of the Temple priests and by way of the Roman Law. Now that could be taken literally, it is a historical fact.

iuliuxd, this isn't necessarily true. Obviously there will be times where the correct interpretation is what somebody wants to hear. Unfortunately many people twist what it says to mean what they want it to. Honest people may see that what it says is not what they want.

iuliuxd If you mean what we need to hear, I agree..but we do have to be careful that we don't read in what we want instead of what we need...

Graptopetalum I agree with some of what you said...and religiuos books have been used through out history to justify man's inhumanity to man...

sylvia13 In my opinion seeing different aspects is a mark of a true 'masterpiece'..Just like different people get different meanings and emotions while looking at masterpieces in art or hearing great music. I think the same can be said of great works of writing and imo the Bible is the greatest book ever written.

balipromo To me it's interesting how passages from the Bibke can be very soothing. I really did not like it when the Bible was translated into 'common' English..I enjoy all the thou shalt and thou shalt nots...

barehugs, I'm not sure how you can say that almost nothing in the Bible makes sense. Adam was lonely so God makes him a woman, that makes sense. He then gets her pregnant, that makes sense. Potipher's wife has the hots for Joseph, so she tries to seduce him and when he rejects her she falsely claims that he tried to rape her - not good behavior on the part of the woman but this sort of thing happens all too often. Sure there are things that aren't so easy to understand and people have even found coded messages in it. If the Bible only told you what was obvious and simple, what good would it be? It's not true that nobody knew how to write, at least not from around Noah onwards. Most the Bible could have been written as soon as the events described happened. I think you're underestimating the Bible writers as well. Obviously they can't have been educated about atom bombs but some of them wrote about atom bombs anyway - now that's quiet impressive!

barehugs LOL I understand, but then everyone claims the Bible is the inspired word of God...I don't know..I just follow my heart and try to get what I can but mostly instead of reading the Bible I pray more...and ask for wisdom to do what I need to do..The serenity prayer is my favorite...

Pose123 We certainly do agree..your avatar is fitting...you are indeed imo a wise owl!!

salonga Thank you for your thoughts...I agree with some of what you are saying. I always find it fascinating how people see things differently. The Bible is not always interpreted the same by all..I really think it is such a great work that there are different lessons for different people and situations.

Graptopetalum The Bible is a guide and teacher..I agree it's easy to criticize others and say they pick and choose. Still, doesn't everyone pick and chooseto some extent such as whose interpretation they will believe?? Therefore I like to use my own interpretation based on reading and praying

voracious The 'problem' comes about when you have to decide whose interpretaytion of the Bible should you believe...

AidaLily LOL I agree...hypocricy isn't pretty.... Fact is, the same phrase or thoughts can almost always have more than one meaning and can vary depending on the circumstances..

Rigel, how do you explain all the prophecies which have been fulfilled, often long after they were written? What about the references to things the writers (you seem to the think the Bible was written by one man, it was actually written by about 40) shouldn't have known about like dinosaurs and atom bombs? What do you think about the Koran, which is generally thought to have been written (or at least dictated) by one man?

Rigel4 I will agree the Old Testiment has a lot of fire and brimestone passages...but that is also why I don't spend a lot of time with it. The OT God of vengence and fear is not exactly easy to totally understand...read. The New Testament is totally different ..Jesus taught love and forgiveness and so this section is much more instructive imo.

livewyre But we always come back to the same question of which translation, which interpretation is to be taken as THE THRUTH..that's why I think a more relaxed approach for different interpretations may be best..where the interpretations are totally contradictory, problems arise...

savypat Yes and what is so cool is different problems we face will be 'answered' differently..even at different times..

goldenteardrops Thanks for sharing..I too have had some 'aha' moments of instruction and found them most helpful. Our relationship with God and the Spiritual is so personal we each have individual experiences and we all must find our connection personally.

randomarts, what parts should you take litterally and what parts not? How do you decide. What things in the OT will have you doing things prohibited by God if you take them literally (particularly if you interpret them in the light of other passages and the context)?