Is this a plausible Christian view?

[Hakan101]

If I refer to Hercules as a referent to something else, am I by necessity saying Hercules actually existed?

Jesus can refer to the flood story in the Olivet Discourse to make a point without it saying one way or the other whether the flood story literally took place. It is a literary reference, a story reference that anyone listening to Jesus would readily know because these are the stories embedded in the culture.

The Bible refers to Noah as actually existing and being part of the ancestral line to Jesus.

In 2 Peter 2, Peter is giving references to events that happened in the past, such as the casting out of sinning angels, destruction of Sodom and Gomorra while he spared Lot, and also the flooding of the world and sparing of Noah. Were the sinning angels not cast out of heaven? Do you believe Sodom and Gomorra was not a real event? Was Lot not real? When Peter refers to these past events, he doesn't refer to Noah as a story. He refers to it like the other events.

Again in Luke 17 and Jesus refers to the days of Noah just like the days of Lot. Why would Jesus include a story alongside an actual event? Was Lot not real? Why didn't Jesus say in this chapter and in Matthew 24, "the story of Noah"? Why does he say "the days of Noah" like it really happened? It's like he's using a past event's context to describe a future event that will be similar.

I don't understand where you get Noah to be a story when he is always referenced as a true event.

Define "giant". The LXX translates the Hebrew nephilim as gigantes, but before thinking magic bean stalks, consider that Goliath was considered one of these "giants", and the oldest texts and references place Goliath at around just under 7 feet tall (the DSS, LXX, and Josephus agree on a "short" Goliath). Making Goliath shorter than some of today's NBA players.

But in truth the "nephilim" of Genesis 6 need not refer to "giants" of any sort. The more monstrous sense of the nephilim is a product of later apocryphal literature such as Enoch.

There are disputes over how tall Goliath was, some say he was also over 9 feet tall. Frankly when you consider the weight of all his armor and weapons he wore, it is far too heavy for a 6'9" man to wear it into battle. But an extremely built man over 9 feet tall would easily be able to. King Og in Deuteronomy 3 also was around that height. Numbers 13 also refers to an encounter with giants, specifically describing them as "men of great stature", with the Hebrews being "grasshoppers" in their sight. That sounds pretty monstrous to me.

But regardless of how tall they were, where do you get the idea these were stories instead of actual events? Also what are you saying Nephilim refers to if not the giants?

It's not about believing in the miraculous or not. It's about:

1) How to read ancient near eastern bronze age literature in a way that would be meaningful for the original audience.

How would it not be meaningful if he was describing actual events?

2) Understanding that not all literature is the same, the Bible is a literary collection of all different sorts of literature: histories, poems, songs, letters, apocalypses, and yes mythology.

Poems, songs, and letters can still refer to actual events. Where do you get the idea that the Bible contains myths?

3) Geological evidence has for the last ~300 years consistently come up dry for anything resembling a global flood. Sure, perhaps God flooded the earth and then erased every trace of the event, but then we start going the deceptive God route just as though who argue there is only an "appearance" of age for the world/universe instead of actual age. And that's a theologically problematic place to be arguing.

-CryptoLutheran

As a Christian, how do you jump to the conclusion that God erased all the evidence, as if it's impossible we just haven't found it yet? Or that physical evidence is required to faithe in God's word? Again, when did we stop believing in the miracles of God, and start searching for other explanations that don't require faith?

 

[bhsmte]

Wrong. It shows they don't take the bible in an entirely literal sense. It does NOT show they believe the bible is not completely true. So again, show me the source where most Christians believe the Bible is not absolutely true.

Ok, so one believes the bible is all true, but they don't take it literal.

How exactly, does one discern the truth, if the words are not read literally? This would leave it open to much debate, would it not, as to what the parts that are not to be taken literally actually mean, in regards to truth? And, where does one draw the line between what is to be taken literally and what isn't?

Could be why there are so many different interpretations of the bible and so many denominations of Christianity because of the same. Many, disagree on what that "truth" is.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Ok, so one believes the bible is all true, but they don't take it literal.

How exactly, does one discern the truth, if the words are not read literally? This would leave it open to much debate, would it not, as to what the parts that are not to be taken literally actually mean, in regards to truth? And, where does one draw the line between what is to be taken literally and what isn't?

Could be why there are so many different interpretations of the bible and so many denominations of Christianity because of the same. Many, disagree on what that "truth" is.

That is, in part, why there are so many disagreements. It's sometimes more complicated than that, but often that's the case.

Consider Jesus saying, "This is My body" and "This is My blood". For Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, and many/most Anglicans that's taken pretty literally. As a Lutheran I'm one of those who does. As such I believe the bread and wine of the Eucharist is literally and actually Jesus. To put it in somewhat crude terms, I eat God.

Of course those Protestants who came out of the Reformed Tradition either adhere to a Calvinist or Zwinglian interpretation. Calvin, insisting that because Jesus in His body must be locally constrained cannot be literally, physically present in the Supper, the presence of Jesus must be spiritual. And thus for Calvin the reception of Christ in the Supper is an entirely spiritual affair. Zwingli went even further, Jesus simply isn't present in the Supper, the bread and wine are memorial tokens pointing to the faith reality of what Jesus did in history.

For Christians such as myself who adhere, emphatically, to the doctrine of the Real Presence Zwingli's Memorialism is simply unacceptable. And for Memorialists the Real Presence is regarded as offensive and rude, even cannibalistic.

And even among those of us who agree about the Real Presence debates continue. Roman Catholicism defines its belief in the Real Presence as the dogma of Transubstantiation. Lutherans and Eastern Orthodox generally don't define it but insist that it is unexplainable mystery. Of course what no Christian believes is that if you take the bread and wine and put it under a microscope you'll find anything beside ordinary bread and wine. All Christians, regardless, understand that it is bread and wine, either in its substance (Lutheran position) or at least its accidents (R. Catholicism).

-CryptoLutheran