{"id":42326,"date":"2017-12-30T06:12:43","date_gmt":"2017-12-30T11:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=42326"},"modified":"2018-01-02T14:51:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T19:51:02","slug":"bible-literally-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/12\/bible-literally-say.html","title":{"rendered":"What Does The Bible Literally Say?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Jim<\/p>\n

The Bible does not literally say anything, because books do not literally talk, and the Bible as an anthology certainly doesn\u2019t speak with a single voice even metaphorically.<\/p>\n

Jim Manchester said the words in the meme on Facebook, when sharing my\u00a0blog post about biblical literalism<\/a>. I asked for permission to turn what he said into a meme, and he agreed.<\/p>\n

Of related interest, I came across the blog of David Schell<\/a>, who writes:<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. For Biblical literalists, their interpretation is the truth of God.<\/li>\n
  2. If their interpretation is the truth of God, then anything that disagrees with their interpretation is impossible.<\/li>\n
  3. And, according to Mr. Holmes, when you have eliminated the impossible,\u00a0whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    This forces Biblical literalists to accept all manner of harebrained ways of explaining away the contradictions in the Bible and between their interpretations of the Bible and science.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Click through to read the rest of the post<\/a>, which emphasizes the need to question\u00a0one of several presuppositions that this logic is based on. He has another great post about the danger of confusing one\u2019s ideas about God with God<\/a>. Here is a snippet:<\/p>\n

    Some Christians have a painfully difficult time distinguishing God from their ideas about God. Many think the two are one and the same \u2013 that God is identical with what they think God is like. This leads to those same Christians assuming that\u00a0an attack on<\/em>\u00a0what they think about God<\/em>\u00a0is identical with\u00a0an attack on God<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    On the contrary, many such \u201cattacks\u201d are not attacks on God at all. They are attacks on dangerous false ideas about God, and as such are\u00a0defenses<\/em>\u00a0of God\u2019s character, not attacks on it.<\/p>\n

    Let those with ears, hear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Of related interest, see also\u00a0my older blog post, \u201cFundamentalists aren\u2019t \u2018Biblical\u2019.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Bible does not literally say anything, because books do not literally talk, and the Bible as an anthology certainly doesn\u2019t speak with a single voice even metaphorically. Jim Manchester said the words in the meme on Facebook, when sharing my\u00a0blog post about biblical literalism. I asked for permission to turn what he said into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":42327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1148,1149,6621,6624],"class_list":["post-42326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","tag-biblical","tag-biblical-literalism","tag-literalism","tag-literalists"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Does The Bible Literally Say?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Bible does not literally say anything, because books do not literally talk, and the Bible as an anthology certainly doesn't speak with a single voice\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/12\/bible-literally-say.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Does The Bible Literally Say?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Bible does not literally say anything, because books do not literally talk, and the Bible as an anthology certainly doesn't speak with a single voice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/12\/bible-literally-say.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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