Bible literalism

There are many debates based on the concept that the Bible is literally true, in every respect.

The Bible says that God created Man out of the clay of the earth, and evolutionary theory says that Man developed from other, earlier forms of life.

There are places in the Bible that refer to the Earth as flat, and the night sky as a tent roof with holes in it. Literalists have come up with complicated explanations of how that isn't really so.

There are many trivial passages in the Bible that seem to contradict each other, and Literalists have come up with flimsy explanations of those as well.

Then there is the book of Revelations....

Every Bible believer that I have ever encountered says that it is metaphorical. The ten-headed beast is really the government, or science, or the Roman Empire. We are not really going to see these monsters, they all represent something else.

Interesting. The Bible is literally true in every respect, except that the book of Revelations is metaphoric?

How about this. Other parts of the Bible are metaphoric as well.

The Bible really does refer to the Earth as flat, and the sky as a tent as a metaphoric way of describing the unimportance of physical settings when dealing with the spirit.

One of the Gospels says that Jesus and his followers were on their way into Jerusalem, and another says they were on their way out of Jerusalem, when Jesus cursed the fig tree. Maybe that contradictory detail is still in there because it does not matter whether they were going into town or out of town, just what happened as they passed by.

And, perhaps, the description of God creating Man from the clay of the Earth is a more elegant and poetic say of saying that he made Man through a long complicated process that involved shaping other creatures first, and then refining them over eons.


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