Taking literally means to take as intended??? My own brief search on the web says take literally means to take word for word.
And indeed, what Ernest addressed is the real phenomenon of people reading stories from the bible and taking them word for word. The 5,000 year old planet displacing what science suggests about planet and star formation and evolution. Prohibitions against eating certain kinds of food. Rules about how to get along with menstruating women. Rules about which other people to hate, even to the 10th generation.
And how would you read the bible taking the intent of its writers? It was written by many many people, do we need to figure the intent of each one? And if you think the "writer" of the bible is god writing through prophets, then how do you distinguish between god's intent in inspiring prophets to write the bible, and god's intent in inspiring Ernest to write his stuff? Do you just have to somehow know which times god really meant it, and which times he was kidding? Is god only omnipotent and omnipresent when inspiring some writers and not others, and how do you tell the difference between the "good" ones and the "bad" ones?
Get my ebook, "The Apocryphal Jesus," here
Taking literally means to take as intended??? My own brief search on the web says take literally means to take word for word.
ReplyDeleteAnd indeed, what Ernest addressed is the real phenomenon of people reading stories from the bible and taking them word for word. The 5,000 year old planet displacing what science suggests about planet and star formation and evolution. Prohibitions against eating certain kinds of food. Rules about how to get along with menstruating women. Rules about which other people to hate, even to the 10th generation.
And how would you read the bible taking the intent of its writers? It was written by many many people, do we need to figure the intent of each one? And if you think the "writer" of the bible is god writing through prophets, then how do you distinguish between god's intent in inspiring prophets to write the bible, and god's intent in inspiring Ernest to write his stuff? Do you just have to somehow know which times god really meant it, and which times he was kidding? Is god only omnipotent and omnipresent when inspiring some writers and not others, and how do you tell the difference between the "good" ones and the "bad" ones?
I am afraid that I cannot change my statements based on a “brief search on the web.”
ReplyDeleteHowever, if I grant your “to take word for word” definition then my statement stands: you take the word for what the word is intended to mean.
As for your statements about the Bible: you appear to be mistaken and/or confused regarding its contents, concepts and contexts.