Agreed. i think we’re on the same page.
I think the Bible needs to be looked at in a larger context. Genesis for example. I do believe Genesis- not as literal history- but what it communicates. We are separated from God by sin. In that sense I do believe the Bible is true, as well as other stories by what they’re trying to communicate. An aspect of God’s character etc.
I do believe that Jesus, his death, and resurrection happened.
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Sooo…you believe the Bible is 100% true.
Even strict literalists don’t take all the Bible literally, because they don’t believe God is made of stone (even though he is “my Rock”).
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Although I don’t believe in a world wide flood. Or that a man could literally survive inside a fish since its physically and logically impossible.
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Here is a possibility: Jonah died inside the fish and three days later was resurrected. This explains why Jesus called his death and resurrection three days later as “the sign of Jonah” (Matt 12:38-45).
Jonah describes his experience with these words “Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice … The waters surrounded me, even to my soul … The earth with its bars closed behind me forever, Yet you have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God” - Jonah 2:1-6.
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I believe that is how Jonah was intended to be read - - as a parable of confronting death for the traditional 3 day time frame, and then returning from the experience.
Certainly, you are being more consistent to think Jonah was dead, drowned and chewed up - - and then resurrected to his pre-Piscean mortal life.
The following quote may contribute to a better understanding of Christian doctrine and understanding scripture:
"The risen Christ reveals to his disciples that the scriptures are about him; and furthermore, it was necessary for the risen Christ himself to teach the disciples how to understand the scriptures. Jesus’ paideia demonstrates that interpretation and meaning resides neither in text nor in tradition. If it were otherwise, the disciples would not have required Christ’s instruction, as perspicuity of the text would have left no room for doubt and confusion; the meaning of the Mosaic tradition would have been self-evident to all. The disciples’ account, however, indicates that only after having been taught by Christ himself were they empowered by the Holy Spirit with divine authority to carry the good news to the ends of the world. We see this post-resurrection Pentecost transformation at work in the book of Acts, such as in Peter’s famous sermon as recorded in Acts chapter 2. In a surprise move the once timid and oblivious Peter by way of Christ’s hermeneutic boldly expounds Moses and the Prophets and proclaims that, ‘God has made this Jesus both Lord and Christ.’ There is ample evidence that the ‘Christ hermeneutic’ did not change after the close of the apostolic period; the same exposition of scripture is encountered as early as circa 110 AD in the writing of Ignatius of Antioch in the Epistle to the Philadelphians about the Prophets foretelling of Christ and the Gospel."
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Also I think people have taken that to mean something that it doesn’t. They say all scripture is “God-breathed” therefore it’s inerrant, 100% true, etc. But I don’t think that’s what Paul is saying. God’s breath brings to mind Genesis and could be maybe what Paul was drawing on? (who knows). But God’s breath/spirit (ruach) is what makes things alive so Paul could be just reiterating, as he has elsewhere, that scripture is alive.
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I believe the testament of Jesus is infallible, but believing the Bible is inerrant is like building your house on sand. I nearly lost my faith many times trying to be a theological contortionist to make every aspect of the Bible fit with historical/scientific truth.
Whenever in doubt, I’d suggest focusing on the love Jesus had towards us.
As a side note, I prefer to save my analytical energy for science, philosophy and whatever the latest Netflix original release is. Over analyzing the Bible is pretty fruitless for me and rarely impacts my life in a positive way. Anyone else find that to be the same?
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It’s called “paralysis from analysis.”
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What a superb comparison!
I’m thankful I never had to deal with that. I remember playing, “What if?” games taking some part of scripture, treating it as literal and seeing what ways we could invent to try to make it work, but we never took it seriously.
I don’t think that is a requirement for a Christian.
There were many thousands of Christians before the New Testament scriptures were written.
We are called to follow Jesus, not to believe in 100% true scriptures.
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I have accepted that many OT stories are hyperbole or mythological history. Maybe based on an event but no where close to what what we were told in Sunday School.
I highly suggest Genesis for Normal People by Pete Enns.
Depending, of course, on how you define “true”. If defined according to the purpose of the scriptures, it means that the messages are all true, not the details.
Problems arise when it’s defined any other way.
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Drat – no Nook version.
The Bible is a collection of ancient Near Eastern documents, and follows the literary conventions of the cultures. Obviously, there are passages in the Bible that are intended as fictional stories, such as parables. There are points where a liar is quoted.
But what of the passages that do seem to be talking about historical records? Several points need to be kept in mind.
The historical events recorded are selected to illustrate the theological messages of the author. This is not exhaustive documentation of all the data that might interest a modern historian.
Despite millennia of efforts by the residents of the region to exterminate each other, the area has been and is continually populated, so there are limits to what has been preserved archaeologically and what is accessible for excavation. The classical Greeks were the first to record information about other places for academic interest; before that, foreigners generally only get mentioned as getting defeated, as trading partners, and political allies. (Very few ancient sources admit to getting defeated themselves.) Thus, there are appreciable limits to what evidence we can expect to see.
Ancient historical writing was more literary than is preferred in modern historical writing. There are metaphors, hyperbole, and other figures of speech. There are no footnotes distinguishing inferred or summarized dialogue from direct transcription, nor are there quotation marks. Classical Greek and Roman writers would sometimes simplify historical writing by omitting some of the people involved.
As has already been pointed out, this means that we should affirm that the Bible is accurate in what it intends to teach, but should not be misread as teaching what was not intended by the authors.
David Montgomery’s The Rocks Don’t Lie is a geological book that might be useful on the flood. He learned from a personal encounter with a traditional story about a big flood, which he dismissed as mythical until he found geological evidence of a big flood, to take such traditions seriously. Big floods do happen, and are memorable. Of course, the flood of current creation science imagination is neither true to the biblical accounts nor compatible with any of the relevant scientific evidence, but there is no good reason to doubt that Noah really did experience a big flood that devastated his region. Carol Hill’s A Worldview Approach to Science and Scripture includes one possible scenario for a regional flood; others exist as well.
If Scripture is 100% true, then we should be able to harmonize it with other evidence of what has happened. But understanding exactly how it all fits in detail is challenging. Simplistic approaches of dismissing either the Bible or the physical historical evidence do not seem likely to be correct, but neither should we be overconfident of any particular scheme to fit everything together.
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The classic example easily shown to anyone is how the books of Chronicles deliberately leave out anything negative about David and other ‘good’ kings while pulling no punches when it comes to ‘bad’ kings.
I’m trying to remember where I saw something about a flood that covered a huge portion of the ancient near east in a way I’d never seen before – I think it was a video but I’m not sure. As I recall it was something like 20k years ago, which is far enough back that there’s no issue with it having happened – i.e. no civilization we know that lived through it – but recently enough that it would certainly have survived through oral tradition.
And it should be noted that ora tradition, while passed down quite accurately, had no problem with mythologizing an event to make it easier for the story-keepers to recall correctly.
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You may be thinking of when the Mediterranean rose high enough to break through the straits where Istanbul now stands and turned the Black Lake into the Black Sea.
The problem we have with Scripture is that there is not a definitive version. It is well known that Jewish scribes redacted and updated scripture as they copied it so the exact text is nigh on impossible to determine. The New Testament was written in New Testament Greek whereas much of our sources come from the Latin Vulgate. But wherever the source text derives from it is still translated which involves both understanding the original and expressing it in a different language. The net result is, that no matter how accurate or “true” scripture started out as, the version (s) we have are inevitably flawed. Added to that are the changes in culture and vocabulary itself and we are left with personal understanding which will vary according to experience, culture, and local vocabulary. Even adding or changing the punctuation can radically alter the meaning of a sentence.
Scripture is the basis of our faith, but it is not the only source or the be-all and end-all of it. Ultimately our faith is between the individual and God regardless of what any specific Scripture might try and dictate or query.
Richard
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Actually, Chronicles picks out different negatives about “good” kings from Samuel-Kings and throws in some good about some “bad” kings. E.g., Bathsheeba is skipped over in favor of the presumptuous census as a prime example of David having failures.
Although the flooding of the Black Sea basin with interglacial sea level rise was popularized as an explanation for Noah’s flood, it is not clear that the flooding there ever exceeded the “hmm, maybe we need to pack up and move to higher ground” rate of change, which seems rather unlikely to have inspired any traditions about big floods. If the Persian Gulf flooded rapidly due to breaching of a barrier with sea level rise, that might possibly fit, but political and financial factors (“that data belongs to the oil company”) make it difficult to investigate whether there is evidence for rapid flooding there. A major weather-caused flood of the Tigris-Euphrates floodplain might also be a possibility.
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