How do you interpret the Bible?

[freelance lover]

Alright, there's a couple of questions in this thread. First, how do you personally interpret the Bible. I'm just curious becasue this past year in my Bible study my youth minister told us that a lot of scholars think that the two creation stories are metaphorical. They maybe didn't nessicarily happen in that exact way, but the point of them was God created the world and God created man to do his bidding. There are a lot of other metaphores too, especially when Jesus starts preaching. He seems to be a big fan of metaphores.

The second thing is do you believe that the Bible is the complete and flawless word of God. Now before I start getting angry replies on this, I'm not trying to discredit the Bible. But since it was written by humans, some people believe that prehaps there were some small errors made in writting the Bible. Not huge, but a few small ones. Of course, the other side of the argument is that since the Bible is divinely inspired, it was written perfectly and even though it was written by imperfect humans, it came out perfectly. There's alos loads lost in translation... which makes me wish I spoke Greek scream Rawr! Regardless of whether or not it is the flawless word of God, the basic message gets across so it's not a huge deal about whether or not we lose anything. I was just curious as to what everyone thinks.

So the questions:
Do you prefer to take the Bible more metaphorically or literally?
Do you believe the Bible is the complete and flawless word of God?  

[Empress_Kat]

I take most of the Bible, like the Creation story and Noah's Ark quite literally. I mean, if He can create the world, the He can do it within 7 days. However, I do see the point of those who say that the days were a metaphor for a much longer period of time. It fits in better with science.

I also believe that the bible is flawed by translation. There are hundreds of different translations of the Bible out there, even in English alone. They can't all be exactly right. I don't think most, if any, are entirely correct. I mean, they've all got the main point right: God creates the world, the 10 Commandments, Jesus dying for us, they've got all that, but the little things, I believe, are often lost in translation. I refuse to state an example, as the only one I can think of will lead us into another round of That Debate.

I don't think it was written 100% correct, either. Most of it was, but some of it is just ____'s letter to _____. How can we know if those letters were divinely inspired? Whose decision was it which letters became part of the Bible and which didn't?

So, yeah, that's my opinion. Disagree with me if you will, but there it is.  

[freelance lover]

Empress_Kat

I take most of the Bible, like the Creation story and Noah's Ark quite literally. I mean, if He can create the world, the He can do it within 7 days. However, I do see the point of those who say that the days were a metaphor for a much longer period of time. It fits in better with science.

I also believe that the bible is flawed by translation. There are hundreds of different translations of the Bible out there, even in English alone. They can't all be exactly right. I don't think most, if any, are entirely correct. I mean, they've all got the main point right: God creates the world, the 10 Commandments, Jesus dying for us, they've got all that, but the little things, I believe, are often lost in translation. I refuse to state an example, as the only one I can think of will lead us into another round of That Debate.

I don't think it was written 100% correct, either. Most of it was, but some of it is just ____'s letter to _____. How can we know if those letters were divinely inspired? Whose decision was it which letters became part of the Bible and which didn't?

So, yeah, that's my opinion. Disagree with me if you will, but there it is.

Nah, that's all totally cool. I'm always skeptical about Creation stories because no one who wrote any of that down actually witnessed them. But I think that's irrelivant because regardless of how the world was created it, God did.

A good exmple I can think of losing things in translation is when Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. In the English he's just like "Do you love me?" "Yes." "Do you love me?" "Yes!" "Do you love me?" GOSH DARNIT YES!" But in Greek there's like... sixteen different words for Love so the first love may be as a friend, the second as a brother, and the third as a Lord and God (or something to that effect, I don't remember the exact ones ssince it's been a while...).

A lot of the letters are... well hahaha. I mean, like some of Paul's stuff they think it may have been inspired by Paul but someone else might have written it and used his name to get attention, which makes a lot of sense at the time anyway.  

[Fushigi na Butterfly]

I used to believe that the six-day creation was metaphorical but someone explained it to me this way: God is outside time. So the amount of time it took to create the universe is really irrelevant to Him. So it doesn't matter if it took Him six days or six million years. But the time matters to us; we as humans have a concept of time, we use it, we have a need to understand it. Alot of other dates (especially in Kings) are pretty specific. Why would the creation stories be any different? So probably when it says six days and a rest, it means six days and a rest. Science has been wrong on alot of stuff. Carbon dating isn't always accurate (they did it on some volcano that they knew the age of, and the carbon dating or whatever they did on it came up with a completely different number). So who knows?

I believe Noah's ark was real also, not just a metaphor. I once got asked the question, "How could it be that out of the entire world only one man was righteous??" Well, by today's world that seems pretty impossible, but during that time, the population was alot smaller, so it's not all that implausible to think there was only one righteous man left in the entire world.

So as a conclusive answer, I take pretty much all the Bible to be literal (except for the metaphors and parables).  

[Captain_Theoretical]

I take a lot of it to be metaphorical.

Since the mayans invented the twenty four hour day, and we still see evolution on a microscopic scale.

I mean, any old deity could make the universe in seven days. But God's universe made itself. whee

Evolution is just amazing to me, and how delicately balanced the universe is. We can't even comprehend the enormity of it.

I mean the cycle of life, and all the different parts making this huge universe.

We think of the universe as just our solar system, but we could never make it out of our galaxy even if we traveled at the speed of light.

And then each galaxy is just a tiny spec of light, compared to the entire universe.

My head is going to explode just thinking about it all.


But anyhoo, I'm sure the bible was God's words when it was written, but it has been translated over and over and we don't have the original text and some words we've had to guess on what they mean so, there's probably a very small margin of error.  

[freelance lover]

Fushigi na Butterfly

I used to believe that the six-day creation was metaphorical but someone explained it to me this way: God is outside time. So the amount of time it took to create the universe is really irrelevant to Him. So it doesn't matter if it took Him six days or six million years. But the time matters to us; we as humans have a concept of time, we use it, we have a need to understand it. Alot of other dates (especially in Kings) are pretty specific. Why would the creation stories be any different? So probably when it says six days and a rest, it means six days and a rest. Science has been wrong on alot of stuff. Carbon dating isn't always accurate (they did it on some volcano that they knew the age of, and the carbon dating or whatever they did on it came up with a completely different number). So who knows?

I believe Noah's ark was real also, not just a metaphor. I once got asked the question, "How could it be that out of the entire world only one man was righteous??" Well, by today's world that seems pretty impossible, but during that time, the population was alot smaller, so it's not all that implausible to think there was only one righteous man left in the entire world.

So as a conclusive answer, I take pretty much all the Bible to be literal (except for the metaphors and parables).

I take Noah literally- it just makes sense.

Didn't you say you used to be Catholic? From what I understand, Catholics take most of it literally. At my church we;re just kind of encouraged to believe whatever we feel is right. I don't thik it's that important though- either way you're acknowledging that God was behind everything, right?

The creation stories are one of those things I'm gonna ask God when I die =P Was the world really created in six days? Hahahaha. But ask I said, the details aren't a big deal, it's mostly just that God did create the world =P

I didn't realize carbon dating could be so off sweatdrop  

[Captain_Theoretical]

Quote:

I didn't realize carbon dating could be so off

Well it shouldn't be.

Science is never wrong. If it's wrong, it's not science.  

[Fushigi na Butterfly]

Science is never wrong? I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean. Is that like saying that when a discovery is made it's absolute? Cuz it's not. That's why there are theories and that's why there are laws and that's why they are very different from one another. Science once said the earth was round, but we know now it's not. It's more like ... roundish. In that case science was wrong. Science also told a woman at my church that she should abort her baby because it was unlikely to survive after birth and if it did it would be severly retarded and physically deformed. She decided against the abortion and gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl. In that case science was wrong.  

[Captain_Theoretical]

Quote:

Science is never wrong? I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean. Is that like saying that when a discovery is made it's absolute? Cuz it's not. That's why there are theories and that's why there are laws and that's why they are very different from one another. Science once said the earth was round, but we know now it's not. It's more like ... roundish. In that case science was wrong. Science also told a woman at my church that she should abort her baby because it was unlikely to survive after birth and if it did it would be severly retarded and physically deformed. She decided against the abortion and gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl. In that case science was wrong.

It was an ill-phrasing.

What I mean is, hypothetically in a perfectly controlled environment it is virtually impossible for science to fail.

But we don't have that, so I guess in essence science can be wrong. But the concept of science isn't.

My sincere apologies for coming off as a smug idiot.  

[Fushigi na Butterfly]

Ah, okay. That makes slightly more sense. The only reason I can't quite grasp the concept completely is because I'm dense. So okay. 3nodding  

[Captain_Theoretical]

Fushigi na Butterfly

Ah, okay. That makes slightly more sense. The only reason I can't quite grasp the concept completely is because I'm dense. So okay. 3nodding

Well, it's the scientific method.

You come up with a question you want to answer, like "What are the affects of extreme heat on alluminum foil?"

and then you research and you find that metals melt under extreme heat, and that alluminum has a fairly low melting point. So you predict it will melt.

You get your materials. You take a blowtorch to the foil, it melts. You repeat the process, and the same thing happens each time.

It seems that you have a conclusion.

But, since you cannot ensure a controlled environment, the alluminum foil explodes.

And for some strange reason it explodes every time.

And you might conclude that alluminum foil explodes under extreme heat, but you'd be wrong.

That's how science can be misleading, but if there were no variables or unknowns at all, then science would always be right.  

[Fushigi na Butterfly]

Oh, right! Confounds. I remember learning about those now. -brainfart- Okay, yeah. Now I understand what you're saying.  

[GoreRules]

"Do you prefer to take the Bible more metaphorically or literally?
Do you believe the Bible is the complete and flawless word of God?"

I try to interperet the Bible as truthfully as possible, I look at both aspects, metaphorically and literally, and I pray to God to ask him which way it is meant to mean. Mostly, I think certain things, like the Creation, Noah's Ark, etc. Aren't that hard to say, duh, that REALLY happened, and certain other parts Jesus tells parables, which may be meant in a literal text but can also be aplied in other situations...

Yes, I doubt God would make an (technically a guide to life) book unless it was meant to be perfect, just as he is. The Bible has been translated many times, so some truth may have been filtered out, who knows...  

[A Different Light]

Really, I think of the Bible as a book. Nothing more. It told some pretty cool stories and gave us some good ideas, but I can't make myself belive it was/is a divine book. A lot of the stuff in it is just not possible. Noah's Ark for instance... well I won't go into it...  

[The Amazing Ryuu]

I know that most of the Bible is literal, but there's enough figurative stuff in it. Like the whole numbers thing the Bible has. 40 = just long enough. 3 = perfect. 7 = complete. Like creation... 6 days to create, one to rest... and I think God's still resting, right up until Jesus comes again. But I think that His "days" were more than OUR day. Honestly, I don't think the world could handle so much change all at once. And then the sun wasn't created on the first day, so who's measuring hours?

As for whether it's perfect and flawless... When it was written, yes. The Bible is the human's owner's manual. However, as translations have been lost, and filtered down through human fingers over hundreds of years, I think it's a little less than flawless, but still the essence of what God wants us to know. However, I believe it's far from COMPELTE.