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Old 05-08-2012, 08:40 AM   #17
Saya
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,548
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan View Post
Saya, you're the one studying religions. Does the argument that the Bible is supposed to be allegorical hold any water? Didn't they just literally believe this shit back then?
Who? Back when?

I'm way more familiar with the Old Testament so bear with me, but the Old Testament comes from multiple sources. This is a really simplistic way of putting it, but the kingdom of Israel after Solomon was actually two kingdoms, Northern Israel and Judah in the south. The texts from the north are Elohimist, and they write about God in poetic ways with metaphor, so to an Elohimist, yeah, it was often allegorical. The accounts from Judah tended to be more literal. And THEN you got sources like the priestly accounts and Deuteronomy which no shit someone just found in a temple and thought it would be a great idea to add it.

You also got a lot of things like Judges 19. Its a horrible story but its supposed to be a horrible story and set up the reasoning of why Israel needed a king. Its truth isn't so important but the point was that before there was kings, there really was no law and everyone was horrible to each other. But then you got the incompetence of Saul and the sinful natures of David, Solomon and Ahab to show how having kings was a dumb idea, showing that the different authors of the text had different political ideas.

As for the New Testament, overall no, early Christians were much more diverse and disagreed on a lot of shit, and it was the establishment of the Catholic Church than enforced orthodoxy and literalism.

Quote:
I dunno, reading things like Leviticus seems to be taken pretty damn literal. It pretty much says, " look bitch, do this or die and burn in hell." I'm not seeing the symbolism in that.
Nitpick, but Leviticus doesn't mention hell. Leviticus is the laws given to the Levites, who were the priestly tribe. Its funny for Christians to take it literally when most Jews no longer do on the basis that there is no priestly kingdom anymore and that's what it was for, and Christians do not accept the authority of Levite Jews anyway.
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