Quote:
Originally posted by MysticCat81
I've got to quibble with this characterization a little, at least to the extent that it might imply there are only 2 kinds of Christians: those who interpret the Bible as literally inerrent and those take the Bible "completely metaphorically" (to use your words) and, "often, pick and choose what to believe."
I think there is at least one other group, which would probably include Catholicism, Orthodoxy and most of classical Protestantism: the Bible is composed of a variety books in a variety of literary styles. Some of its contents must be read literally or as history, while other portions are not to be read literally, but instead to be read metaphorically, poetically, etc. We cannot pick and choose what to believe, but we do have an obligation to try and understand how the different parts of the Bible are to be read, and we miss the point if we take literally something that is not meant to be taken literally.
The parables provide an excellent snapshot of this phenomenon. I will agree with you that "Scriptural teachings are accurate and inspired by God." But does that mean that the parable of the Good Samaritan is to be read literally? (I actually heard one preacher claim once that, because the Bible is literally inerrent, all of the parables are accounts of real events.) If we read it literally, we miss the point. The Church Fathers read it allegorically. Often today, it is read metaphorically. The point of the parable, the "teaching" simply will not be found in a literal reading.
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I wasn't ignoring the spectrum between the two. In fact, in studying scripture from a scholarly position I
do realize that different genres are to be taken differently. In addition, each translation (into English) cannot be separated from the time in which it was produced. MANY translations commit eisegesis (reading meaning into the text) rather than performing exegesis (drawing meaning from the text).
So, in commenting that "Scriptural teachings are accurate and inspired by God," I in no way intended to suggest that I believe the Bible to be literal in all cases.
In my previous response, I was attempting to condense the extremes into as short a post as possible.