lunamoth
Episcopalian
With all of the discussion about the literal-factualness of the Bible I've been asking myself why I have no problem accepting the Bible as Truth while at the same time not worrying about whether the miracles of the OT and NT are 'real.' Of course they are real!
There are other members here who have greater knowledge about this particular topic, but I know that none of the Bible was written to be taken as an objective factual recording of events that happened. It was written to convey the experience and understandings of people interacting with God. I don't think it has ever been a Christian belief that the Bible dropped out of the sky fully formed by the Mouth of God as the Quran is viewed to be. I think it has until recently been understood as a sacred history, one in which we are meant to be drawn out of our 'literal' world in into a sacred world.
If you are asking the question 'did these fantastic things literally happen, and if so what might be a related scientific explanation,' you are in essence asking the wrong question. There will be no answer that does not trivialize and detract from the More-Than-Literalness that those events taught us.
So how does the human mind of the year 2006 interpret the events described in the Bible without engaging in magical thinking, without stretching for logical explanations, or without rejecting the whole Bible as untrustworthy?
I've found that my personal answer is to remember that the Bible is above all a sacred history and therefore completely trustworthy in the sacred sense. A sacred history is not meant to tell us literal 'facts' like a science text or a scholarly history. It is meant to convey the experience of humans walking with God, what He taught them by words and actions, and how they turned this into a way of life that elevates us beyond mere existence to life eternal. To accomplish I find that I must for the first level of understanding focus on my faith in God, rather than on the logic of the events. Sort of like viewing one of those three-dimensional drawings. If you look at the pattern and focus on the hard lines and solid colors, you will never see the picture. But if you relax your vision and let things go just a little out of focus, looking through the pattern, you see the image emerge.
Hold it like a living dove, firm enough to keep it, but not crushing the life out of it.
2 c,
lunamoth
There are other members here who have greater knowledge about this particular topic, but I know that none of the Bible was written to be taken as an objective factual recording of events that happened. It was written to convey the experience and understandings of people interacting with God. I don't think it has ever been a Christian belief that the Bible dropped out of the sky fully formed by the Mouth of God as the Quran is viewed to be. I think it has until recently been understood as a sacred history, one in which we are meant to be drawn out of our 'literal' world in into a sacred world.
If you are asking the question 'did these fantastic things literally happen, and if so what might be a related scientific explanation,' you are in essence asking the wrong question. There will be no answer that does not trivialize and detract from the More-Than-Literalness that those events taught us.
So how does the human mind of the year 2006 interpret the events described in the Bible without engaging in magical thinking, without stretching for logical explanations, or without rejecting the whole Bible as untrustworthy?
I've found that my personal answer is to remember that the Bible is above all a sacred history and therefore completely trustworthy in the sacred sense. A sacred history is not meant to tell us literal 'facts' like a science text or a scholarly history. It is meant to convey the experience of humans walking with God, what He taught them by words and actions, and how they turned this into a way of life that elevates us beyond mere existence to life eternal. To accomplish I find that I must for the first level of understanding focus on my faith in God, rather than on the logic of the events. Sort of like viewing one of those three-dimensional drawings. If you look at the pattern and focus on the hard lines and solid colors, you will never see the picture. But if you relax your vision and let things go just a little out of focus, looking through the pattern, you see the image emerge.
Hold it like a living dove, firm enough to keep it, but not crushing the life out of it.
2 c,
lunamoth