{"id":374,"date":"2011-02-06T18:55:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-06T18:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/02\/legitimate-ignorance-vs-willful-deception-in-biblical-language\/"},"modified":"2011-02-06T18:55:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-06T18:55:00","slug":"legitimate-ignorance-vs-willful-deception-in-biblical-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/02\/legitimate-ignorance-vs-willful-deception-in-biblical-language.html","title":{"rendered":"Legitimate Ignorance vs. Willful Deception in Biblical Language"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A recent comment suggested that language in the Bible such as storehouses of snow, the dome over the earth, the earth\u2019s immovable character, and so on, might all be metaphorical. After all, we use such language metaphorically today.<\/p>\n

But our use of it is a hangover from a bygone era when that language was presumed to be literal.<\/p>\n

And so the metaphorical approach seems to me to imply that the authors of the Bible used language metaphorically which their contemporaries would presume was meant literally. They did so without ever informing their readers that they were using the language metaphorically. And so they willfully deceived their initial readers, it seems.<\/p>\n

Can someone explain to me why this viewpoint is preferable to one that regards the Biblical authors to have assumed the truthfulness of the cosmological knowledge of their era? Why is willful deception considered more religiously appropriate than not knowing things that no one in that time could know?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent comment suggested that language in the Bible such as storehouses of snow, the dome over the earth, the earth\u2019s immovable character, and so on, might all be metaphorical. After all, we use such language metaphorically today. 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