The author of your linked posting says, "[A] literal reading of Genesis is a modern and unorthodox mistake." Bravo! Literalism is the bane that infects too much Bible-reading among contemporary (orthodox fundamentalist) Christians. The figurative language in the Hebrew scriptures (and in the New Testament) is majestic, colorful, and provocative. Let me try to make my point by making a secular comparison: Most of William Blake's work cannot be appreciated or "understood" in terms of literalism, and similarly--Blake's most powerful influence--the Bible cannot be fully appreciated or "understood" when "read" as a literal record of events. To make the point in another way, I remember the argument in "Inherit in the Wind"--the play based on the Scopes trial--in which Darrow asked about the actual length of any given day of the 7-day creation; perhaps any given "day" could have been millions of years, though the actual time-span is quite irrelevant to the point of the creation story. But I digress, so getting back on track, the bottom line is this: When the Bible is approached as literature, which permits an embrace of its non-literal qualities, the Bible is not spiritually devalued but enhanced. I wish fundamentalist literalists were more open to that concept.
The author of your linked posting says, "[A] literal reading of Genesis is a modern and unorthodox mistake." Bravo! Literalism is the bane that infects too much Bible-reading among contemporary (orthodox fundamentalist) Christians. The figurative language in the Hebrew scriptures (and in the New Testament) is majestic, colorful, and provocative. Let me try to make my point by making a secular comparison: Most of William Blake's work cannot be appreciated or "understood" in terms of literalism, and similarly--Blake's most powerful influence--the Bible cannot be fully appreciated or "understood" when "read" as a literal record of events. To make the point in another way, I remember the argument in "Inherit in the Wind"--the play based on the Scopes trial--in which Darrow asked about the actual length of any given day of the 7-day creation; perhaps any given "day" could have been millions of years, though the actual time-span is quite irrelevant to the point of the creation story. But I digress, so getting back on track, the bottom line is this: When the Bible is approached as literature, which permits an embrace of its non-literal qualities, the Bible is not spiritually devalued but enhanced. I wish fundamentalist literalists were more open to that concept.
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