Seperating Metaphor from Literal Truth.

[The Lady Kate]

As Wittgenstein said, one always starts with an assumption. Picking the right one might keep a person from hell, depending on your assumptions about that particular problem. That the choice may be difficult or momentous does not obviate its reality.

Psa 138:2 I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

The foregoing is evidence, but no doubt some assumption must be made to convict.

So... Biblical literalism is the only way to keep a person from hell?

 

[shernren]

Not at all. Everyone speaks in the idiom of appearance. They did it then. We do it now. To conclude that more is being said, as in a statement of actual celestial mechanics, requires more evidence in the text.

Why assume otherwise?

What makes you say that it is an idiom of appearance? The information that the Bible is speaking in an idiom of appearance here (or "phenomenologically", to use a truthier octasyllabic word) never came from the Bible itself; no Christian believed so until the appearance of certain heliocentric troublemakers.

Where did that information come from? From Scripture?

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

The "No reason" part of your argument is a demonstration again of an intractible cleavage. You assume that Joshua is like every other piece of ancient literature. What gives you the right to do so?

We must interpret documents in context if we're going to interpret them at all, and the context of Joshua tells me that his statements are literal, not literary.

And the right to do so comes from the right of every Christian to look at God's holy word thoughtfully.

Was Jesus just like every other holy man?

No, he wasn't. But the only reason I can actually say that is because I understand the other holy men. It is precisely because I understand Christ's first century context that his difference so stands out.

Understanding Joshua's ancient Near Eastern context doesn't make it stand out at all. It fits snuggly into ancient literature.

What claims does the Bible make of itself?

That it is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

What of it?

As I've already explained, I see no reason to think of inspiration as we might find in fiction- a mental 'aha!' inspired by a muse.

Scripture is not fiction, and the inspiration of nonfictional accounts comes through the events they depict. I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit inspired the event of Joshua's long day, that it represents a mighty deed of God in history.

But tell me why the account, inspired by the working of the Holy Spirit in history, needs to be verbally inspired by the Spirit? Where's the Bible's own claim for that?

The intractible problem is that you cannot disprove the supernatural origin of the Bible.

And I'm not trying to. The biblical texts were inspired by the divine working of God in human history.

I consider it an affront on the authenticity of Scripture, however, to claim that it was 'inspired' by the whispering of the Spirit in an author's ear. Again, that's how a muse inspires fiction.

You can only assume that the BIble was an expression of the times more than it was a communication from God in its every word. The identity of Jesus presents a similar problem.

Actually, no it doesn't. Christ is particurally amazing precisely because he doesn't represent his times. He speaks to his times, but he is not of them.

And by the way, your claims are not falsifiable. I could just as well claim that my words are inspired, or that, oh, say, Dan Brown's words are inspired. But you can't know for certain that they're not inspired, so therefore they must be? Non-logical argument.

So why is the zeitgeist of ancient Israel the default meaning of Joshua? Because academic studies are a higher authority for you in this mattter.

Oh, maybe because it's a product of first millennium B.C. Israel.

Again, your claims are non-falsifiable. I have no time or inclination for non-falsifiable claims.

And as for academic studies? How can you study Scripture in it's context without academic knowledge of the surrounding culture?

Are academics a higher authority for you in deciding who Jesus was?

Academics are certainly a higher authority than myself for understanding Christ in his historical context.

What I don't understand is why someone would believe something without some probability of fact. I've maintained my childhood belief in Jesus Christ because, having read a lot of the historical Jesus literature, I've come to the conclusion that only those historians who confirm a somewhat traditional portrait of Jesus are actually acting like honest historians.

Again, I'm not saying that Joshua's long day didn't happen. I'm simply saying that texts have to be interpreted in their cultural context- and Joshua's cultural context is one where 'sunrise' was not a metaphor, but an expressive of geocentricity.

Also, recognize, that I made NO assumption about Joshua's knowledge of celestial mechanics. I simply said it was unnecessary to assume error.

Fair enough. Humility in knowledge is always admirable, especially when dealing with an ancient text. Sometimes we just can't know a meaning for certain.

But if that is the case, why not take the same line of thought with Genesis 1?

If Joshua 10 can have an ambiguous meaning, and Joshua 10 can be seen as a literary device, why can't Genesis 1 be ambiguous, or a literary construct (for reasons I will soon show in a seperate thread)?

 

[busterdog]

Have you ever read Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera? I don't mean simply having watched the movie. The novel itself quite obviously pretends not to be a novel. It's a while since I read it myself, but if I recall correctly: The author begins not in narrative but with assertions that everything in it is true and has been alluded to and alleged in various newspaper articles, and ends again by saying how he has gotten all this information and further asserts that he has found no less than the skeleton of the Phantom with the score for his masterwork Don Juan Triumphant. In fact, when I read this novel for the first time in its entirety, I thought for a while that perhaps this Phantom was a real, historical figure!

Now, on text alone it is entirely obvious that the author wrote his work as history. If we went from there and said, however, that "The author wrote it as history, therefore it is history", we would be mistaken! The author may have wrote his work as history for every other reason: he wanted it to sound authentic, he wanted it to have dramatic power, he wanted to lend solemnity to veiled criticism of the powers of the day, he wanted to have fun. But he certainly would not intend for his work to be read as history, simply because he wrote it as history!

Not only that, the application of external evidence (in this case, we know the Phantom of the Opera simply didn't exist) does not allow it to "mean whatever you want"! The external evidence will not allow me to read it as if it is history if I want it to be history. Even if I want it to be history, the evidence will not allow it to be. In that way external evidence places even more stringent criteria upon the interpretations of the Bible than text alone does. Believe me, there are days when I want the Bible to be simply historical, to have a poor Adam and Eve tottering around the Middle East and biting the wrong fruit and landing us all in this mess. Life would be a lot simpler. But the evidence does not allow me to read the text any which way I want.

But alright. Let's say the rule is that "whenever a passage has any metaphorical element to it, then the whole passage must necessarily be metaphorical, instead of a scientific description of the world as we know it". Now, we will have to consider a lot of things in the Bible as metaphorical, for as Galileo said

Hence in expounding the Bible if one were always to confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical meaning, one might fall into error. Not only contradictions and propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even grave heresies and follies. Thus it would be necessary to assign to God feet, hands ans eyes, as well as corporeal and human affections, such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes even the forgetting of` things past and ignorance of those to come. These propositions uttered by the Holy Ghost were set down in that manner by the sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to the capacities, Of the common people, who are rude and unlearned. For the sake of those who deserve to be separated from the herd, it is necessary that wise expositors should produce the true senses of such passages, together with the special reasons for which they were set down in these words. This doctrine is so widespread and so definite with all theologians that it would be superfluous to adduce evidence for it.

I might ask, for example, did God literally speak? Does God have a literal larynx and lungs and literally expel sound from a literal mouth? If not, then every mention of "God said" in Genesis 1 is necessarily a metaphor.

Or was the Spirit of God literally hovering over the waters? God as Spirit cannot have a physical location, and so any mention of His hovering is a metaphor as well (not to mention the fact that the word is often translated "brooding" in more flexible translations, giving rise to a whole new dimension of metaphor).

Did the land literally produce vegetation? No less a literalist than mark kennedy argues that the plain, obvious meaning of the text must be amended here and that the land produced seeds, not vegetation.

Did God literally exhale into man's nostrils the breath of life? And did God literally wait until He had created and commanded Adam of everything he should do before realizing (as if God ever needed to realize anything!) that Adam had no helper?

Even with the one literary rule you put on the table, Genesis 1-3 are riddled through with metaphor for purely theological reasons, and hence deserved to be considered as metaphorical texts.

The Bible makes claims of itself quite different from other literature. The notion that the writer was pretending or trying to demonstrate a truth by conceit is just not what it says.

I spent a lot of my Dad's money studying literature, so I am not a complete philastine. I appreciate the artistry. But to make that the point just doesn't add up.

Jesus was similarly over the top in promises about himself. If the excessive descriptions of his authority and power were similarly conceit, then our faith is in vain. And look, I understand that you know a real resurrection from a metaphorical one. But keeping it real in the five books of Moses was pretty important too.

Not only does the text say what it is, but if we are going to look at the world through human eyes and figure out what's true by observation, the need for straightforward truth in a book from God is at least a compelling an observation of reality as measuring the age of rocks or the cosmic background radiation.

Does humanity really want art? Colleges and doctor's offices want art. People want a straight talk. Would God refuse them that? If God truly exalts His word above all His name, is it merely the elegance, innuendo or inspiration? The BIble clearly values reality and straighforward truth above its artistry!

God didn't offer a paeon to childhood, he said cook your kids like a heathen and you are dead. Schtupp your married neighbor, dead. And keep your hands off the ark.

The idea that art was the highest virtue in such communication is the real misunderstanding of the cultural millieu -- not my lack of appreciation of the science in the Sinai at the time of Moses. The five books of Moses were the first written word of God for people who didn't know whether God was the Egyptian God of masturbation, a God who saved by embalming or the lover of Little Isaac Fricassee. You think God was going to get artistic and subtle for them? The first deal out of the box? Just hyperbole?

You know, even Glen Morton believes there a talking reptile in the garden, if I am not mistaken. I bite on God literally breathing into Adam. I imagine it would get the job done. God walked on two legs. God spoke with a voice not unlike mine. Why the heck not?

 

[shernren]

I spent a lot of my Dad's money studying literature, so I am not a complete philastine.

Philistine.

The idea that art was the highest virtue in such communication is the real misunderstanding of the cultural millieu -- not my lack of appreciation of the science in the Sinai at the time of Moses. The five books of Moses were the first written word of God for people who didn't know whether God was the Egyptian God of masturbation, a God who saved by embalming or the lover of Little Isaac Fricassee. You think God was going to get artistic and subtle for them? The first deal out of the box? Just hyperbole?

Sure! God communicated through art and parable all the time. When Jesus wanted to tell people what the Kingdom of Heaven was like, what did He do? He told them lots of stories, and not one of these stories depends on their historical truth to be significant and powerful in communicating what Jesus wanted to say. Who are you to tell God that He can't use fiction to communicate who He is?

 

[busterdog]

What makes you say that it is an idiom of appearance? The information that the Bible is speaking in an idiom of appearance here (or "phenomenologically", to use a truthier octasyllabic word) never came from the Bible itself; no Christian believed so until the appearance of certain heliocentric troublemakers.

Where did that information come from? From Scripture?

I am sorry. I don't understand the repeated question. The rules are very simple. You spoke of heliocentrism, which is an idiom and an unltimately incorrect one. It ignores the nature galactic centers and the BB model. What license do I have to assume you don't get that? NOne. That is the most obvious rule of literary construction. You assume no more than the phrase requires -- particularly if you are assigning error.

I have read Raymond Brown, Norman Perrine, John MacQuarrie, Samuel Sandmel, and on and on. I know about deconstruction, freudian deconstruction, the study of mimesis. The same game applies to statutory construction and applying the Constitution. I know how to make the idiom fit my thesis, which is 95% of all of the above, but its the least honest approach.

The best method is always to find the minimum requirements of a phrase. You can build castles all you want on anyone's work. But language has certain minimum demands. That is where the gold is. I have been doing it for nearly 30 years and few I know are better at it, quite honestly. Everything else is us building our own case on arguable ambiguities. I just don't see the attraction for such work.

 

[busterdog]

Philistine.

Well, I have read Garcia Lorca, Beckett, Brecht, so I have some cred. But, as you might guess, I think its nonsense. So, the shoe fits. I'll take a Russell Crowe movie over John Updike any day.

 

[busterdog]

So... Biblical literalism is the only way to keep a person from hell?

Perhaps I am the wrong one to ask.

I merely point out the irritating persistence and seriousness of the choice. There is no proving one's way around it by science (or proof texts). It is a naked choice between witnesses, God help us. We must guess which authority will prevail over all the rest.

 

[shernren]

I am sorry. I don't understand the repeated question.

Ah, but you are being more complex than needs be. It's really quite simple.

Joshua says that the sun stood still in the sky.

You say that he was speaking in an idiom of appearance, instead of actually describing how he thought the world really worked i.e. the sun moving across the sky over an immobile earth and then stopping as God commanded.

My question is not how you know that Joshua was speaking an idiom of appearance. My question is more basic: how do you know that this is an idiom of appearance? How do you know that this isn't actually how things work?

It's a basic but vital question.

 

[busterdog]

Psalm 96:10, 104:5;

THe earth apparently is going to be "nonmoving some day" THa hasn't happened right? Are you making a statement about the accuracy of prophecy? Because then we can stone you if you are wrong.


Genesis 7:11, 8:2; Deuteronomy 28:12;

"windows of heaven" and more windows. Proving what?

2 Kings 7:2;

More windows! Oy gevalt!

Job 37:18;

Job 37:18 Hast thou with him spread out the sky, [which is] strong, [and] as a molten looking glass?

Elihu speaks in explicity simille, so what?

Malachi 3:10;

The Sicilian prophet speaks of tithes, a metaphor from protection money and organized crime. More windows.


My work is done here children, is it not? And like Mary Poppins I feel the wind changing. And as they famously said in that one, go fly a kite!

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Busterdog,
Let me see if I understand you…

God’s written word, the Bible, can be trusted.
God’s spoken word, creation, cannot be trusted.
Even deeper…
The meaning of the written word that you have been taught can be trusted.
The meaning someone else has of that word cannot be trusted.

Could you give me a reason that I should not trust the spoken word of God (creation)?
Could you give me a reason that I should trust in your ideas about what the written word means over the understanding that I have come to?

 

[busterdog]

Ah, but you are being more complex than needs be. It's really quite simple.

Joshua says that the sun stood still in the sky.

You say that he was speaking in an idiom of appearance, instead of actually describing how he thought the world really worked i.e. the sun moving across the sky over an immobile earth and then stopping as God commanded.

My question is not how you know that Joshua was speaking an idiom of appearance. My question is more basic: how do you know that this is an idiom of appearance? How do you know that this isn't actually how things work?

It's a basic but vital question.

Well, since the Holy Spirit (speaking) made them ....

Even if you can prove it likely that the historical Joshua didn't likely understand what he was seeing, the book records a historical event. It is simply a report of what was seen that day. The narrator has the divinely inspired perspective, since no other perspective is offered.

Whether Joshua was ignorant or not doesn't concern me. This book is like chronicles. In voice and method, it is a history.

I am also just not buying that educated people of this time failed to understand celestial mechanics. They studied the stars intensely and had the math to make the necessary calculations. Many, many things they were not supposed to have understood, they did understand.

In Job 38-39, the is the famous quotation of "can you bind the sweet influence of the Pleides?" THis is one of a very few constellations bound in a gravitational relationship. It is far less likely that this is coincidence than that Joshua speaks of geocentrism.

That this understanding (or heliocentrism) requires science to be argued in the first place is not the point. That there is more here than academics could predict is one point. "Bind" could be just a coincidental reference to the blurring of the light from several stars. The text demands no more. But, academia is too bold if it assumes the writer of the text is ignorant of such matters.

 

[busterdog]

Busterdog,
Let me see if I understand you…

God’s written word, the Bible, can be trusted.
God’s spoken word, creation, cannot be trusted.
Even deeper…
The meaning of the written word that you have been taught can be trusted.
The meaning someone else has of that word cannot be trusted.

Could you give me a reason that I should not trust the spoken word of God (creation)?
Could you give me a reason that I should trust in your ideas about what the written word means over the understanding that I have come to?

The written Word of God is all that can really be trusted finally and completely.

As for what is in creation, see "deceiving the nations," another thread that is happening.

As for my reason, I have zero converts here. So I don't presume to make you one.

But, there is an excellent literary basis for there to be a surface text. I have articulated here how those rules work. No better rules have been offered.

 

[shernren]

Well, since the Holy Spirit (speaking) made them ....

Even if you can prove it likely that the historical Joshua didn't likely understand what he was seeing, the book records a historical event. It is simply a report of what was seen that day. The narrator has the divinely inspired perspective, since no other perspective is offered.

Whether Joshua was ignorant or not doesn't concern me. This book is like chronicles. In voice and method, it is a history.

I am also just not buying that educated people of this time failed to understand celestial mechanics. They studied the stars intensely and had the math to make the necessary calculations. Many, many things they were not supposed to have understood, they did understand.

In Job 38-39, the is the famous quotation of "can you bind the sweet influence of the Pleides?" THis is one of a very few constellations bound in a gravitational relationship. It is far less likely that this is coincidence than that Joshua speaks of geocentrism.

That this understanding (or heliocentrism) requires science to be argued in the first place is not the point. That there is more here than academics could predict is one point. "Bind" could be just a coincidental reference to the blurring of the light from several stars. The text demands no more. But, academia is too bold if it assumes the writer of the text is ignorant of such matters.

You really haven't answered my point.

How do you know that saying "the sun stopped" is merely an idiom of appearance? How do you know that Scripture, or anyone else, isn't being entirely serious, literal, and scientific, if they say that the sun stopped?

 

[shernren]

A note on the Pleiades:

In Job 38-39, the is the famous quotation of "can you bind the sweet influence of the Pleides?" THis is one of a very few constellations bound in a gravitational relationship. It is far less likely that this is coincidence than that Joshua speaks of geocentrism.

That this understanding (or heliocentrism) requires science to be argued in the first place is not the point. That there is more here than academics could predict is one point. "Bind" could be just a coincidental reference to the blurring of the light from several stars. The text demands no more. But, academia is too bold if it assumes the writer of the text is ignorant of such matters.

In fact, the Pleiades (only mentioned in Job 38) are not the only such group of stars in the sky - other examples include the Hyades and the Ursa Major Moving Group. The idea that Pleiades is an actual star cluster is not difficult to discover, given the ancients' obsession with astronomy. As early as 1767 - before we had any idea how to apply gravity to objects like stars - the Reverend John Mitchell calculated that it was highly improbable for such a collection of stars to be merely an optical collection and deduced that they were actually closely clustered in real outer space.

Not only that, but if we look at the actual verse:

"Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?
Can you loose the cords of Orion?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
(Job 38:31-32 NIV)

we see that they are not really saying anything new to the ancient cultures. There is plenty of mythology tying the Pleiades to Orion, much of it obviously non-Jewish. To the Greeks, the Pleiades were Seven Sisters (together, of course) fleeing from Orion. To the Vikings, they were Freyja's hens. To the Australian Aborigines, they were seven Napaltjarri women chased by a witch doctor who transformed himself into Orion. There is nothing new here. Considering that the ancient Egyptians were so obsessed that they were able to observe the precession of the equinoxes accurately (a period over 25,000 years long!), it's no surprise that people noticed things about the Pleiades.

Now, if you take Job 38 seriously when it talks about Pleiades, why won't you take it seriously when God Himself asks:

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand."
(Job 38:4 NIV)

A good foundation is one from which a construction never moves!

 

[LewisWildermuth]

The written Word of God is all that can really be trusted finally and completely.

As for what is in creation, see "deceiving the nations," another thread that is happening.

As for my reason, I have zero converts here. So I don't presume to make you one.

But, there is an excellent literary basis for there to be a surface text. I have articulated here how those rules work. No better rules have been offered.

So you feel that God’s spoken word is not trustworthy?

You say that you have given rules, but when questioned on how to use these rules for a specific text you do not seem to have a coherent answer. How can these rules work when you cannot seem to apply them in any coherent way?

If a simple plain reading is possible then why are there so many disagreements over what is the simple and plain reading even among those that state such a thing exists?

 

[busterdog]

A note on the Pleiades:



In fact, the Pleiades (only mentioned in Job 38) are not the only such group of stars in the sky - other examples include the Hyades and the Ursa Major Moving Group. The idea that Pleiades is an actual star cluster is not difficult to discover, given the ancients' obsession with astronomy. As early as 1767 - before we had any idea how to apply gravity to objects like stars - the Reverend John Mitchell calculated that it was highly improbable for such a collection of stars to be merely an optical collection and deduced that they were actually closely clustered in real outer space.

Not only that, but if we look at the actual verse:

"Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?
Can you loose the cords of Orion?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
(Job 38:31-32 NIV)

we see that they are not really saying anything new to the ancient cultures. There is plenty of mythology tying the Pleiades to Orion, much of it obviously non-Jewish. To the Greeks, the Pleiades were Seven Sisters (together, of course) fleeing from Orion. To the Vikings, they were Freyja's hens. To the Australian Aborigines, they were seven Napaltjarri women chased by a witch doctor who transformed himself into Orion. There is nothing new here. Considering that the ancient Egyptians were so obsessed that they were able to observe the precession of the equinoxes accurately (a period over 25,000 years long!), it's no surprise that people noticed things about the Pleiades.

Now, if you take Job 38 seriously when it talks about Pleiades, why won't you take it seriously when God Himself asks:

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand."
(Job 38:4 NIV)

A good foundation is one from which a construction never moves!

It is certainly possible that a piece of literature as old as the Bible could happen on such matters by chance. As a proof text, the passage is limited. However, this is a repeated pattern. IMHO, it happens enough I have that I assume such things are beyond chance.

As a completely seperate matter, I think it is most helpful as a check against the view offered by some that the ignorance apparent in the general population at the time of these writings is good evidence for the proposition that the writer of the Bible was also ignorant. Again, I urge that convicting a witness of "error" demands a higher level of proof.

 

[shernren]

But isn't it rather inconsistent to read science into a description of the Pleiades and not read it into a description of the earth as having foundations, mere verses apart?

 

[busterdog]

But isn't it rather inconsistent to read science into a description of the Pleiades and not read it into a description of the earth as having foundations, mere verses apart?

Depends what your purpose is. There are different standards of proof for whether you are 1. determining someone is clueless is about heliocentrism or 2. taking an interest in someone's uncanny statements about the Pleides. There isn't enough for 1. As for 2., I am just saying that it is interesting, but not saying the text is so clear that chance cannot explain it.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Depends what your purpose is. There are different standards of proof for whether you are 1. determining someone is clueless is about heliocentrism or 2. taking an interest in someone's uncanny statements about the Pleides. There isn't enough for 1. As for 2., I am just saying that it is interesting, but not saying the text is so clear that chance cannot explain it.

A double standard?