It appears that I wasn’t as clear as I should have been.I posted these earlier.
I wasn’t arguing that no one in the NT cited OT stories. My point was that the whole problem of modern science and archaeology hadn’t arisen, so they didn’t have to be explicit about how they thought of the stories.
I believe the freeness with which both OT and NT authors treat stories, not to mention other Jewish sources, doesn’t indicate that they had the same concern about literal historical accuracy as current conservative Christians.
The point isn’t that they treated the stories as figurative. I don’t think they did. It’s not that elements in the story are symbols for something else. Consider fiction. In most of it the stories aren't figurative. It’s just that their value isn’t their historical accuracy. I’m not claiming that the OT is fiction. Much of it is based on history. Other parts are based on traditional stories. But I think in the NT they aren’t told for their historical interest, but rather that Jewish theology tended to be narrative. Where Greek thought (at least the parts we will read) used metaphysics, Jews used narratives to think through and talk about their ideas.
Upvote
0