Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Dear Biblical literalists: After-the-fact rationalization is easy.


Well, we do have an interesting dialogue going today regarding various aspects of religion, but none of the comments seem to address a burning question of mine: How do I know which parts of the Bible to accept absolutely literally, and which parts to treat as analogy, or metaphor, or whatever? So I have a challenge to my devoutly religious readers.

If you take the entire Bible (both Old and New Testament) literally -- every word, that is -- that puts you in the awkward position of having to defend some real idiocies in books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and I'm assuming you don't want to do that.

If you take the position that the Old Testament is superseded by the New Testament, this puts you in a somewhat different awkward position because it means that you have to explicitly reject a whole lotta God's word (including some parts you folks seem to really like, such as homosexuality being an abomination). So that's also not a great choice for you, is it?

What you folks seem to prefer is cherry-picking the best parts to treat as literal, and glossing over the rest. The problem with that is that we interested bystanders have real difficulty knowing which category a given passage belongs in, and we're always having to ask for help in figuring it out.

Let's take a pasasge I referred to earlier: Thou shalt not wear clothing which is a mix of linen and wool. Now, if I was coming at this from the position of a total neophyte, how would I know whether or not to take that admonition literally? Seriously. If I knew nothing about Christianity, what litmus test would I use to decide if I should obey that bit of Scripture?

See, you Christians have had it easy all this time. Rather than having a cogent set of rules for deciding which verses to accept, you've always just sat back, waited to be presented with a verse, and then you made your pronouncement. All very subjective. All very convenient. But not any more.

What I want from one of you folks is a fixed set of rules that I can apply against any passage from Scripture that will tell me if that passage is to be taken literally or not. I want that set of rules, and only after I get them will I produce a few choice bits of Scripture that I will test them against.

See, until now, your set of rules has seemed to be little more than, "If it sounds reasonable, take it literally. If it sounds totally stupid and indefensible, then don't." That's hardly what I'd call the foundation for a rational system of faith.

So how about it? Anyone got a set of rules they'd like to submit? The requirement is that the rules be internally consistent, yet universal enough that they can decide on any passage from Scripture whatsoever. And once I have those rules, we can test them on various Scriptural tidbits to see how well they work.

You folks have gotten off easy for far too long. Let's see those rules.

PERHAPS YOU NEED AN EXAMPLE: I'm thinking some of you need a simple example to show you what the problem is here.

Consider, for example, the 12-word admonition of Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." Seems clear enough, right? It's only 12 words; how hard can it be to figure out what this means? Well, apparently, it's tricky. Apparently, you need several pages to clarify how no one really agrees on what that passage means.

You would have thought God would be somewhat more articulate.

ON SECOND THOUGHT, the example directly above wasn't really appropriate for this article. The original point was how one could decide whether or not to take literally fairly clear admonitions from the Bible. The example I gave above posed a different problem -- how to interpret maddeningly vague passages that different people might understand differently. So it's a different issue.

Let's just stick with the "Do I take that passage literally or not?" conundrum for now.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dude. Seriously. You're spewing out nothing but nonsense. Try some research first. Here's a hint: start with the issue of ritual purity for the ancient Israelites.

CC said...

Dude. Seriously. You are avoiding the issue.

Whenever I disagree with one of the devout, I am invariably told to read the Bible, as that will answer all of my questions.

But when I do, I am also invariably told that I am constantly misinterpreting what seem to be fairly straightforward rules, and that I need some "assistance" to make sure I interpret things "correctly."

So the challenge remains -- I want a short "guidebook" if you will, a set of maxims that I can keep close at hand that will help me "interpret" what I read to know what to take literally.

And if you can't supply that, step aside and give someone else a try.

M@ said...

Peter, he isn't asking for something that Christians routinely offer -- he's just asking for specifics for once. The bible says a lot of things. Which ones do we have to know (fags = bad) and which ones can we safely ignore (shrimp = delicious)?

Yes, there are lots of books. Isn't it interesting that no one can agree on which parts of the bible are really important? Except the gay-hating, of course, but I covered that.

CC said...

Pete writes:

"Nothing like applying the rules of positivism to unobservable phenomenon."

Say, Pete. You ever notice how an "unobservable phenomenon" looks an awful lot like a phenomenon that isn't really there?

Just sayin'.

Anonymous said...

I know one thing for sure: you can tell a 'good christian' by their hateful, murderous self-centered approaches to just about everything. All this fucking yammering on about a collection of overly-translated misrepresented "writings" is just a distraction from the real agenda of chirstianity: absolute control over others by the use of fear and guilt. This applies equally to all religions. This is my living experience. Grow up and leave childish religion alone.

Anonymous said...

Seems like a non-starter of an idea to me. The sections to take literally and non-literally have been decided, re-decided, changed, changed back, and so on, for what, 2000 years now. Clearly there is no set of rules for this. Can a consistent set of rules applied to an inconsistent set of books ever work?

Wait, yes. Now keep in mind this could take a while, but the rules will have to be laid out as follows:
GEnesis 1:1 : take literally
Genesis 1:2 : more of a poem,
GEnesis 1:3 : god speaks, must be a direct quote, so literal it is.
...
Leviticus 15:2 : "Say to the people of Israel, When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean." Literal (hey, semen is many things, but clean isn't one I would associate with it)
...
Jeremiah 13:4 : "Take the waistcloth which you have bought, which is upon your loins, and arise, go to the Euphra'tes, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock." Literal, you must take all bought waistcloths to a rock by the euphartes river. Sorry if that's a pain in tha ass.

etc...
I'm sure there are many sources out there who could provide a complete list for you, given enough time. And point by point rules are definitely the way to go, as a sensible (small) set of rules would be impossible.

CC said...

Pete Rempel writes:

There are lots of books designed to accompany reading The Bible. If this post was not disingenuous, you would simply have gone out and bought one.

Ah. And every single one of those books would agree on every single point of Scripture, would they? So that all outstanding issues would be resolved and there would be no disagreement of any kind regarding Scriptural interpretation?

Wow. I didn't realize it was that easy, Pete. Thanks for clearing it up.

Jim Royal said...

Peter Rempel said...

"Say, Pete. You ever notice how an "unobservable phenomenon" looks an awful lot like a phenomenon that isn't really there?"

Have you ever been in love, CC ?


Apples and oranges. A person's individual state of mind is an entirely subjective thing. As such, it may not be empirically testable.

A statement made in the Bible about the objective world is testable. ANY statement about the objective world should be testable. Anyone who makes a claim about the exterior world that is inherently unverifiable is selling something.

Anonymous said...

I didn't tell you to read the Bible, CC. I told you to research the issue of ritual purity.

Don't worry. If you don't want to, I didn't expect anything less. You're far, far too closed-minded.

M@ said...

Hey, anonymous. Do me a favour: research anatomical and molecular parahomology for me, will you, as evidence for evolution.

I look forward to a full report.

Oh, wait: you don't do requests? You just dodge questions? Yeah, that's what I would do if I didn't have a leg to stand on.

Weak, weak, weak. I'm glad I've never had a crisis of faith like the one you're putting on display here.

Anonymous said...

"Apples and oranges. A person's individual state of mind is an entirely subjective thing. As such, it may not be empirically testable." Thanks Jim.

That is precisely the point of faith. Like love it cannot be proven emperically. Anyone who spends time trying to find evidence of "god" is experiencing a crisis of faith. The act of evangelization is born out of a desparate sense of insecurity. Those of us who who believe are secure and need not engage in such behavior.

M@ said...

Ummm... is anyone else waiting to hear Anonymous chime in again?

No? I'm the only one? Thinking he might have... anything...?