Christians: Literal or Metaphorical?

Metaphorical.

1. Creation: Perhaps in some sort of seven stages. There is no reason to believe the Earth is not 4 billion years old and evolution isn't possible. This is just a symbolism of how Earth was formed - or rather the TIME it took to make it.

2. The Flood: Metaphorical, but possibly based on some old fact. There is a VERY similar story in Greek mythology as well. Either Christians borrowed the story, or something like this did happen.

3. Jonah and the Whale: Metaphorical for spiritual reawakening.

4. The Earth stands on pillars, it has four corners, it is flat: Metaphorical, or rather, symbolical. (In your example, how much power and influence God has on the world and on us.)

5. Satan/The Devil. : Metaphorical. Our own devices that can and/or will lead to our own undoing.

6. Exodus: Based on fact and also metaphorical. Again, about spiritual reawakening. Search through the desert, looking for oneself.

7. Jesus was crucified and died for everyone's sins: Based on fact, and possible used for metaphorical purposes as well. I believe that the virgin birth is metaphorical, for example.

1. Creation: God made the heavens and the Earth and man in seven days.. yadda yadda..

Literal

2. The Flood: Noah gathers two of every animal on the Earth onto his boat. A flood covers all the world, over the highest mountains. The animals are then redistributed to their respective origins.

Literal

3. Jonah and the Whale: a man is swallowed whole by a whale where he lives for three days then is vomited out onto dry land.

Literal

4. The Earth stands on pillars, it has four corners, it is flat.

metaphorical and literal

The bible does not say it is flat.

5. Satan/The Devil.

Literal

6. Exodus: Moses persuades Pharaoh to let all the Jews go. Moses parts the Red Sea. Moses receives Ten Commandments from God.

Literal

7. Jesus was crucified and died for every one's sins.

Literal

How would you decide what is literal and what is metaphorical?

The holy Spirit that lives in us tells us.

1) Can be literal if you use the Hebrew word yom (day) which is also used for a much longer period of time than 24 hours.... To Old Earth Creationists the term day refers to a phase in the Creation not an actual day as stated...

2) The flood could have been a regional flood and he only gathered animals of his region and not all of the many millions of species.

3) Hmmm... haven't done too much digging on that one to say either way.

4) I have never seen a verse that states this... please provide a reference... as far as I know it was common knowledge up until the dark ages that the earth was actually round and revolved around the sun. ADD: I was typing still when you posted this... but the four corners traditionally, geographically, cartographically represent the four cardinal directions of North, South, East and West.

5) It's true and has been stated many times throughout the bible... and if you are a Christian you may have felt his presence at least once in your life... I know I have... it's a looming darkness that invokes fear and anxiety... not a comfortable feeling...

6) It could have happened... it is said that there was a tsunami in the Mediterranean just off the coast of Egypt that allowed the waters to seem like the seperated and create dry land for the Israelis to cross on... and then the water backflowed afterward...

7) That is true... there are prophecies of this all throughout the Old Testament... Starting with the words that God told to the Serpent in Genesis all the way through... and to this day they are still testing the validity of the shroud that is said to have been covering Jesus...

In some of the examples you have cited, you're making the error that there must be a natural explanation for them or they couldn't have occurred. In the study of science ~ There are many difficulties, yet you assume explainability for them. Many things are indeed explainable, and research is continued over controversy. In the study of The Bible ~ There are many difficulties, and we assume explainability for them. Many things are Indeed explainable, and research is continued over controversy. However, critics of The Bible are not fair-minded as they presume it to be guilty of error instead of innocent. They confuse our fallible interpretations of it with Gods infallable revelation. There are no scientific or historical errors in The Bible ~ none! The Genesis account is not symbolic. Neither is the flood nor is the story of Jonah. Even though the big bang theory remains unproven and it can't answer questions like ~ where did all the matter come from in the first place ~ evolutionists and atheists alike are quite content to believe it anyway. So why is it so hard to believe that God spoke everything into existence? If he is the creator of all things could he not cause Jonah to survive in the belly of a fish? As for Jesus' miracles and his resurrection, there were many eye witnesses to these things. It takes about 2 generations or 80 years for a myth to develop ~ long after the eyewitnesses to the accounts have died. But the Apostles began teaching immediately, and the first letters to the churches contained in The New Testament were written about 30 or 40 years after Jesus ascended into Heaven. It's pretty hard to propagate a myth while the eyewitnesses are still alive. Not only that, but there are over 5,700 manuscripts that prove the authenticity of the New Testament alone. Most ancient books have only one or two. Such is the case with Alexander The Great, and nothing was even written about him until 500 years after his death.

Hi, Andromache! I would say that #4 should be considered metaphorical and the other points should be interpreted literally (though I know plenty of Christians who interpret #1 as metaphorical as well, and I do respect their position).

Whether you interpret a text literally or metaphorically depends largely on the type of text you are interpreting. The Bible is composed of several different kinds of books -- there are law books, histories, poetic books, prophecies, and letters.

If I am reading a history book, for example, I am most likely to interpret what it says literally. For example, I have on my bookshelf a book called "The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922." When it says, "A century of military defeats began at Vienna in 1683 and ended with Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798," I do take that literally. I don't wonder if perhaps Napoleon Bonaparte is only metaphorical.

However, I also have a poem book by Wallace Stevens on my bookshelf. When reading a poem called "Thinking of the Relation between the Images of Metaphors" I come across several interesting lines. The poem is about a fisherman who is trying to catch bass. First I read:

"In the one ear of the fisherman, who is all

One ear, the wood doves are singing a single song."

Later, I read, "The fisherman is all/ One eye." Now, certainly I won't interpret this literally and imagine that first the fisherman morphs into a gigantic ear and later he morphs into a large eyeball (or perhaps just a cyclops). In fact, any English professor would laugh me out of the classroom if I attempted to do so.

I'm sure you get my point by now. All the passages supporting statement #4 on your list come from books of poetry or prophecy (and prophecy, of course, also often speaks metaphorically). Thus, there is sound reason to treat them metaphorically. The one exception to this is the book of 1 Samuel. Since that's a history book, I did look up the context of that passage. The line which you quoted comes from the prayer of a woman named Hannah, and her prayer is written in poetic form, so it's actually a poem within a history book.

I know you are trying to make the point that Christians are being arbitrary by interpreting some of the Bible literally and some of it metaphorically. But when it comes down to it, you wouldn't expect me to interpret all the books on my bookshelf in the same way, so why should you expect me to interpret all the books of the Bible in the same way? Interpretation of any text must take into account the type of text and the purpose for which that text was written.

1. Literal, supported by all actual scientific facts, if not by theory.

2. Literal, also supported by all scientific facts, but not theories

3. Literal, there have even been other documented instances of this happening in the Mediterranean!

4. Metaphorical/Misinterpretation by people who are willfully attempting to not believe. Included are the opinions of biblical characters who are not God, and obviously poetic passages. Yes, there is poetry and symbolic language in the Bible.

5. Literal, real created being. A spirit who's attempts to thwart God's Will, only furthers God's Plan.

6. Literal real historical event supported by archeology, though some of it is suppressed. Personally I found "Decoding the Exodus", a DVD by the History Channel to be a fascinating exploration of some of the facts and conjecture surrounding this event.

7. Literal, literally the best documented event in history, with many irrefutable lines of evidence. This truth has been constantly under attack for 2000 years, and yet it remains the central Truth of all.

Literal is determined by what God says is true. God has graciously also left us all the evidence anyone could ever need to see His Truth. All non-believers stand condemned by their willful choice to not believe their own eyes.

Well I believe every single word in the Holy Bible. But with the Holy Spirits help you could read and/or study just 1 passage in the Bible and get 1000 or so different meanings from it. 2 Tim 2:15. I suggest daily. Psalms 119:11&105 To all plese hae a Blessed Day in our Lord Jesus Christ. And Remember to Love one another 1 Cor 13.

Re: 2, the earth didn't split apart until after the Flood.

Where is 4 in scripture?

I haven't seen it.

"Four corners" is a common way of describing "going out in all directions".

"Pillars" is what holds land up off the water we all agree is under it.

8- Get over yourself.

Bless up.

1 -- Literal. He's God, he can do it.

-- why it's not "billions of years old?" For one thing, the whole "carbon dating" has been proven to date things millions and billions of years old. They've tried it on newly grown trees and got just around the same answer as those big fat ones with lots of rings. They even tried it on a chicken once... wow, I sure didn't know chickens could live to be billions of years old...

Also, there are giant blue stars in the sky. This is one thing that evolutionists avoid in their speeches. When these blue stars disappear, they don't come back. No new blue stars show up... These stars have been proven to only live up to 10,000 years. Hmm, I wonder why some are still here...

2 -- Literal. He's God, he can do it. And haven't you wondered why no more giant floods have happened? It's because he promised against world-wide floods. It's rain, imagine if it kept going. 40 days is a long time for it to constantly rain.

3 -- Literal-ish. But it was never said to be a whale... just a "big fish". Could be a whale, might be some other monster fish that we don't know about. But he's God, he can do it. Other things can survive in giant fish, they don't chew. Like fish, they survive until they're starved of oxygen. Even though whales eat krill, not fish. But still, they don't crunch down their food. Plus, some whales' mouths are as big as car garages.

4 -- No one said it was flat. The earth is held up, by gravity. They didn't have a name for gravity back in those days, they didn't know what it was. Back then, people actually thought the world was flat. God himself didn't write the people, it's inspired by him, and he chose people to write it. The problem is, it was unable to be scientifically proven that the world was a sphere in those days. So they had theories, just like us. Yes it's kind of metaphorical because they didn't really know. Plus, none of the verses you gave say anything about the world people flat. The pillars are metaphorical, they're saying it is set in a specific place, and God can move it with his glory or power. Take your choice...

5 -- He's pretty literal. Was good, now bad... He's the reason you're doubting about all these questions, and why people try so hard NOT to believe in God. And all of the reasons why religions can be so similar, but so tweaked against God.

6 -- Literal. Moses didn't part the red sea by the way, God did. But he used Moses. Moses asked God to do it, that's all. Sea's can move, we all know it. Hurricanes, clouds, rain... water's moving. The ten commandments are shadowed and slightly unknown. It's not like God just came down and handed them to Moses. Nope, he just told Moses what to do and he did it. As the years go by on earth, the world becomes more sinful. Which is why it seems like people are dying earlier from just plain, normal old age. God can't get to people as obviously, because no one is looking for him as much. Some people are, but we can't claim to be as connected as Moses or Noah or Job.

7 -- Yep. Literal. Everyone knew that there had to be blood shed for sin. That's the reason why they had sacrifices in the old days. They constantly had to have innocent blood shed for their sins. The only ultimate blood shed would have to be from someone that's perfect. After all, there are 2 ways to get to Heaven. There's believing in God, or being perfect. So good luck with the second one... But there could be no ultimate perfect and clean blood shed without Jesus. He's the only perfect one... so thanks to him, he covered up our sins. We don't have to constantly make sacrifices to make up for what we did. Which is another reason why the world is more sinful. We don't have to worry about sacrifices, it's almost like we can just go "I'm gonna go steal a cookie, so forgive me when I'm done". It's easy and simple, and we've abused it.

I decide what is literal because of what it says in the Bible. It clearly states when things are fables or not, and when God is using them as examples. These were just recordings of the early world. And I'm wondering if you knew that we have more scientific proof that Jesus existed than George Washington? So why aren't we questioning his life and statements?

That's all I got. Sorry it's so long. But I'll do what I can to help.

-- Amy

The context around it. If the words around it seem metaphorical then the statement can be assumed to be metaphorical.

For example: #4 I believe is taken form Psalms. Since Psalms is a cannon of songs they are subject to poetic license,and therefore may be metaphorical. without looking at each scripture reference in particular I can't be more help.