I'm an athiest and the text is most likely quite knowable! The church father quoated enough that most of it can be reconstructed. There are of course thousands of varients but most are slips of the pen. Bart Ehhrman makes a big deal about gnostic texts but the fact is half of Paul's letters are gnostic
THE PROBLEM with reading the Bible literally is . . . you can't think too hard
by Terry 23 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Phizzy
Did you know that there is a bunch of Bible Literalists who still believe the Solar System is geocentric ? Because of a verse in Psalms ?
And in the USA a huge number identify as Creationists ?
What is wrong with these people ? I don't know about not thinking too hard, do they think at all ?
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TheWonderofYou
Me too, i sometimes like to understand a Bibel phrase literally, it is a kind of romanticism, an emotional appeal of a phrase,
but I always think about the context.
Perhaps those people did never read a scientific explanation- about what is "modern and correct interpretation"
- about responsible methods of literary analysis that is done by our scholars worldwide.
- about all the rethorical, narrativ, semiotic, canonical, jewish tradiional, historical influence, sociological, cultural , psychological, liberationist, feminist approaches. (Thousands of researchers are acutally working on all these subjects doing an interesting job)
- about the difference between a responsible "literal" and not merely a naively literalist interpretation".
Perhaps we can help them if they read the appended document.
"The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church" presented by the Pontifical Biblical Commission
Under item F. you find fundamentalism.
http://www.deiverbum2005.org/Interpretation/interpretation_e.pdf
Excpert "F. Fundamentalist Interpretation
Fundamentalist interpretation starts from the principle that the Bible, being the Word of God, inspired and
free from error, should be read and interpreted literally in all its details. But by "literal interpretation" it
understands a naively literalist interpretation, one, that...."Greetings
TWOY
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Terry
I'm reminded of a movement in the music community which insists Bach, Beethoven, et al only be played on original instruments with
the tunings of yesterday in an effort to reach for "authenticity": a conception of Truth.
What is God without worshipers, but a mind afloat in an empty sea of nothing? An empty ear of eternal silence?
We are the only music; we are the voices; we are the hymn to Him.
And by our singing we father the Father in us all.