In the New Testament Jesus tells many stories. For the most part there is no reason to think he is even attempting to give literal historical events. For example, he talks of people getting the same wages even though they start working later than others. He tells the story of a person allowing another to watch his property. He tells a story of someone selling everything for a pearl. He tells a story of a wedding and a prodigal son etc. etc.
If he told those stories today I feel like many people (including Christians) would interrupt and say “wait a second, whose wedding was this? Are you talking about the Jefferson’s wedding because that wasn’t what happened!” Or “wait a second are you talking about John? Yeah sure he did some bad things but he didn’t actually get his father’s inheritance early!” I mean he does not always start his story by making it clear to everyone this is not offering a literal history. (Keep in mind the subtitles are not part of the actual scriptural text) Could the story of the prodigal son be literally and historically true? It seems possible. If we found out it was true in a literal and historical sense what difference would it make? Absolutely nothing. The actual literal history is completely irrelevant to the point of the story.
When we read scripture we do not think God is telling us these stories because God is randomly picking various historical facts that he wants us to memorize. No the stories of the old testament, just like the stories Jesus told, are told because there are meanings that God is trying to convey. Whether the story is historically true or false is often completely irrelevant. Take the “cloud of witnesses” from Hebrews. The author goes through scripture and offers stories that God gave us to understand how he will reward faith. Just like Jesus gives stories that help us understand other aspects of God. Whether the events actually happened or not does not change the point of the stories.
But then does that mean it is always irrelevant if a story is fictional? No. The point of the story helps us know whether it is important that the story is fictional or not. And sometimes in scripture the author is explicit. For example in Luke and John they explicitly offer their intentions. Luke starts out with this:
“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”
John explains that that purpose of telling us about Jesus Miracles:
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may believe b that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
https://www.biblehub.com/niv/john/20.htm
So it would be odd to say John did not intend at least some of his stories of signs to be taken literally. I think there many questions that are addressed in the bible but modern readers tend to read the bible as though it is only addressing one. Here are just a few questions the authors seek to answer:
- Is there a God?
- Is Jesus a reliable mouthpiece of God?
- How should we understand our relationship to God and others?
- What does God want us to do?
Modern readers seem hung up on the first question but I think that is very rarely what the author is addressing. John makes it explicit that the second question is something he is addressing. I believe the other gospels and NT scriptures have that intent as well.
I think much of the Old Testament human authors are rarely dealing with questions 1 and 2. They already believe in God so they have moved on from the first question. They do not know much about Jesus yet so it would not be informative to establish he is a reliable source of God’s will. But three and four would be important. But as we have seen from Jesus’s parables it is irrelevant if the stories that convey answers to questions three and four are literally true. So the literal historical truth of the OT stories are in fact largely irrelevant.
But what about the New Testament? Well two seems to be a very important message of the New Testament writers. So how can they establish that Jesus is a reliable source of God’s will? Let’s just think this through for ourselves – without a bible. If I were to say I am a mouthpiece of God, how could I give evidence of that? One obvious way would be to perform a miracle. This would be a sign from God that yes I am not just like every other person but God is singling me out. But, of course, there is nothing miraculous about just making up fictional stories of miraculous events. So the only way to serve that purpose of proving I am singled out by God would be is if I actually performed miracles. That is why the New Testament is understood as intending to tell actual history.
This is not just me cherry picking what I will decide to read literally or what I won’t. I am just applying common sense to the text.
True and Reasonable 
this is indeed cherry picking. For all of the protestations of Christians who don’t like the vicious god of the OT, the characters in the NT are presented as accepting the OT as history, even ol’ JC himself.
Every Christian claims to be using “common sense” to get the NT and OT they want. None of you can support that claim.
CS did you read the post? Can you at least repeat the reasons I gave as to why the new testament context suggests it is intended to be historical when the old testament is not? I don’t mind if you disagree but can you at least show you read and understood my post?
I read the post, Joe, and you still have nothing to back up your attempts to claim that the OT isn’t history but the NT is.
Why would you think I hadn’t read it? It seems that you only have denial left.
“When we read scripture we do not think God is telling us these stories because God is randomly picking various historical facts that he wants us to memorize. No the stories of the old testament, just like the stories Jesus told, are told because there are meanings that God is trying to convey. Whether the story is historically true or false is often completely irrelevant. Take the “cloud of witnesses” from Hebrews. The author goes through scripture and offers stories that God gave us to understand how he will reward faith. Just like Jesus gives stories that help us understand other aspects of God. Whether the events actually happened or not does not change the point of the stories. ”
IF the stories never happened, then there is no basis for your beliefs, Joe. You seem to be saying that you don’t have to accept that the authors of the OT didn’t think their stories were true since they didn’t literally write down that they were writing history.
Is this correct?
CS No your statement of my view is not accurate. The part you quote is only a partial explanation of why it is not important whether some stories are literal history.
The blog is not that long so you should read the whole thing. I think if you read it you will be able to identify why it is important if some stories are literal history and others aren’t. Hint: It has to do with what question the Author is trying to provide an answer to.
So, do show how it isn’t accurate. I’ve read the whole thing. But nice attempt to try and lie that I haven’t.
Again “IF the stories never happened, then there is no basis for your beliefs, Joe. You seem to be saying that you don’t have to accept that the authors of the OT didn’t think their stories were true since they didn’t literally write down that they were writing history.
Is this correct?”
You pick and choose what you want to claim is literal history and what isn’t.
CS
Do you own more than one book? If you do maybe some are intended to be historical fiction written to make a point other than repeating what happened. And others are written to describe what actually happened.
The Bible contains 73 books. You saying “these stories” without even indicating which ones your talking about is like me saying “these stories” in the books you own are unrealiable unless they are all giving literal history.
Reality is more complex than that. I have given you reasons why I think the context makes it clear some texts were intended to be taken literally and why others may not have had that intent. I also explained why sometimes it matters but other times it doesn’t. If you want to address the reasons I gave and dispute them ok. But at least quote what you are disagreeing with.
again “IF the stories never happened, then there is no basis for your beliefs, Joe. You seem to be saying that you don’t have to accept that the authors of the OT didn’t think their stories were true since they didn’t literally write down that they were writing history.
Is this correct?”
Again *which* stories are you talking about? That is the entire point of the blog that you claimed to have read. Some stories it is irrelevant if they literally happened other stories it is not. I explain why in the blog.
And again no I am not simply arguing the way you describe. I do say our best evidence of an authors intent is to ask the author. If they write in the text their intent then sure that is important evidence of their intent. That happens in Luke and John. If we don’t have that statement of that intent then obviously we can’t be as certain whether it was intended as literal history or not.
Do you agree with that?
oh my. stories aka your bible’s stories aka claims.
“And again no I am not simply arguing the way you describe. I do say our best evidence of an authors intent is to ask the author. If they write in the text their intent then sure that is important evidence of their intent. That happens in Luke and John. If we don’t have that statement of that intent then obviously we can’t be as certain whether it was intended as literal history or not.”
so you are doing what I said, insisting that unless they are directly claimed as “history”, then you will discount them. ““IF the stories never happened, then there is no basis for your beliefs, Joe. You seem to be saying that you don’t have to accept that the authors of the OT didn’t think their stories were true since they didn’t literally write down that they were writing history.” You assume that they were not history, you do not give the benefit of the doubt.
As I have said I do not know what the author(s) intended regarding books like Joshua. I gave reasons why I think the author did not intend to be taken literally. (violates clear laws of God, seems bizarre and therefore suggests uses symbolism, other passages refer to similar scenes as symbolism e.g., Peter noahs flood waters symbolize baptism, talks about God giving commands like he is just another general without any explanation etc etc.) I do not just assume that it is not intended as literal history. But overall my view is agnostic on what the author is intending to convey. I do not think anyone has a strong basis to give us the intent. I do not think we should give “the benefit of the doubt” one way or another. I am not sure why you think we should presume or “give the benefit of the doubt” to a literal interpretation.
yes, Joe, you have said you dont’ know what the authors intent is when it is convenient for you to do so, and insist yuo know the intent of the author, also when it is convenient for you to do so.
You’ve yet to show that there are any “clear laws of God”, so there is no way to determine if something violates them or not. And gee, if something seems “bizaare” to you, a 21st century man who needs to pretend that his religion makes sense, you declare it to be “symbolic” since otherwise it is nothing more than the myths of an ignorant people.
1 Peter does mention the flood as a symbol for baptism. It also claims a magical being evidently going to hell and chatting with the dead. So, is that “symbolic” too?
The reason there is no reason to pick and choose as you do over what is to be literal and what is not is based on what we know of the ignorance of the writers. You assume they must agree with your version of Christianity. Nothing shows this at all.
“yes, Joe, you have said you dont’ know what the authors intent is when it is convenient for you to do so, and insist yuo know the intent of the author, also when it is convenient for you to do so.”
It is not a matter of convenience it is a matter of the author explicitly stating their intent. If you read the blog you would know that.
I’ve read the bible. You have no way to determine if someone was writing about what they thought was literally true or not except in very few cases. Otherwise, you make baseless assumptions in order to avoid the inconvenience of the bible.
“I’ve read the bible. You have no way to determine if someone was writing about what they thought was literally true or not except in very few cases. Otherwise, you make baseless assumptions in order to avoid the inconvenience of the bible.”
I totally agree with what you said! I give the very few cases of Luke and John where they pretty clearly and explicitly indicate they are trying to record literal history. (John is perhaps a bit more limited in his claim, because he is just saying that at least some of the miracles actually happened. He does not seem to be explicitly claiming his entire gospel is literal history. For example consider the opening.) I think it is baseless assumption to say we must interpret the majority of the OT as literal history.
If you agree with what I said, why do you claim you can tell what the author considered history and what they did not? It seems you want to claim that the only ones that are to be considered history is if the unknown author says it was history.
You then claim you know that the rest *can’t* be history. It seems that you don’t want the majority of the OT to be considered history because they cannot be shown *as* history and it makes your religion based on nothing more than myth.
again, no evidence that those authors didn’t consider the OT history, or at best, were presenting it *as* history, a nation-building myth, even though it was complete nonsense.
“If you agree with what I said, why do you claim you can tell what the author considered history and what they did not? It seems you want to claim that the only ones that are to be considered history is if the unknown author says it was history.”
If you want to know whether your neighbor intended his book to be literal history what would be the best way to find out? Ask him! If he tells you he intended his book to be literal history or he says no it was not literal history that is strong evidence of his intent is it not? So yes when the author says they intend their writing to be literal history that is strong evidence of their intent. This is not cherry picking it is just common sense.
“You then claim you know that the rest *can’t* be history. It seems that you don’t want the majority of the OT to be considered history because they cannot be shown *as* history and it makes your religion based on nothing more than myth.
again, no evidence that those authors didn’t consider the OT history, or at best, were presenting it *as* history, a nation-building myth, even though it was complete nonsense.”
No I do not say the rest can not be history. What I say is if the author doesn’t tell us his intent then we should not just make assumptions one way or another. We can consider other evidence but by and large this evidence is not going to be as strong as if the author actually tells us his intent. This is especially true when we are talking about cultures that are greatly distant from us in time and place.
and here we go again, Joe. You again find you must claim that you somehow know that those who wrote the bits of the bible you don’t like simply must not have actually believed it, and never meant it as history.
No evidence that they didn’t consider it history at all either Joe, and it is presented like the supposed history as in the gospels, it just doesn’t have someone saying “hey, this is history, honest”. You do make assumptions that they cannot be history and you have no reason to do so other than you don’t like the utter nonsense written down by ancient people. It doesnt’ fit your version of Christianity.
so by this “We can consider other evidence but by and large this evidence is not going to be as strong as if the author actually tells us his intent. This is especially true when we are talking about cultures that are greatly distant from us in time and place.” you admit that you can’t have any clue what any of the bible means. it is always up for debate. you can’t even know what the ancients really thought “history” was.
So much for any “truth”.
“You again find you must claim that you somehow know that those who wrote the bits of the bible you don’t like simply must not have actually believed it, and never meant it as history.”
CS I got this far and realized you are not making any effort to understand my position at all and so you are just misrepresenting it.
No I do not find I “must” claim I “know” what the the people who wrote the bible intended. For you to write that means you are either deliberately misrepresenting my views or you are not even giving them a cursory read and just filling in straw men.
No, Joe, I understand your position quite well. You cherry pick your bible just like every other christian. You need to claim that those parts you dont’ like don’t need to be followed since they weren’t really meant to be, a baseless claim on your part.
You have yet to show how you know that the parts you dont’ like are just as literally meant as the parts you do. As I have pointed out several times, you have no way of knowing one from the other.
This is a response to your comment here. Randal has blocked me on his blog. I’m not going to have a long thread here but I wrote a reply before realizing I was blocked and didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you.
– – – – – – – –
1.That’s not true; I don’t have a hard time.
I have mentioned on this blog dozens of times that that’s exactly what I think the Bible is. In fact here’s me telling you that just one month ago: “Yes, of course. And that’s exactly what I think the Bible is. Fictionalized history.”
And here’s me using the September 11 Spider Man issue to explain that point to another commenter over a year ago: “No one doubts that 9/11 happened. What is doubted is a claim that a human being with the powers of a spider was fighting crime in New York, at the time.”
2.The claim that Deut 7. and 20. “*clearly* describe both divinely commanded ethnic cleansing and genocide,” are not my words. They are Randal’s. I’m quoting his Tweeted response to WLC. I understand how that can be confusing though, since the quote mirrors exactly what I said to him 2 months ago for which Randal called me a deluded, anti-intellectual, Ken Ham impersonator who refuses to converse with people with different views. I would provide a link to the Tweet but this kerfuffle led to Randal blocking my Twitter account.
3. If you’re intellectually honest, which I have every reason to believe you are, you’ll do two things now:
A: Reply (on the original thread in RR’s blog) and acknowledge that I have demonstrated that I in fact do not have a hard time imagining fictionalized history. That I have explicitly stated that’s what I believe the Bible is, both here and multiple times in the past. That I’ve provided references to prove that assertion is false.
B: Ask Randal why he has “such a hard time imagining that sometimes real people and places are involved in a fictional story.” Since those were his words that you quoted that made you respond that way.
I look forward to your response.
Alexander
First thank you for posting here. Although we have disagreements and we both likely think the other is being obstinate at times, and digging in our heels, I do not think your response there crossed any lines that I would ban someone for. I also do think what Randal wrote invited a misunderstanding of his position for the reasons I gave here:
http://disq.us/p/2k432pw
I will also say that I greatly appreciate dissenting views on my own blog because I want to engage people with different views.
I think Randal Rauser is a good apologist but I think he is making a mistake by banning commentators such as yourself. But it is usually against the rules of blogs to discuss bans and even when it is not I tend not to want to engage those issues. Feel free to copy and paste this to Randal because I do think if he banned you over this misunderstanding it is not good for him or free discussion generally. But I am not going to clutter his comments with discussions about that beyond what I have already explained where I believe the misunderstanding happened.
Now to the substance of the issue. The question is not only whether the scripture is 1) in fact historical fiction, but also 2)whether it was *intended* as historical fiction.
I think we both agree that parts of the bible are, in fact, historical fiction. But you are saying it was not originally intended or understood as historical fiction therefore it is making erroneous “claims.” I am saying I see no reason to believe that it wasn’t originally intended or understood as historical fiction, therefore it is not making erroneous claims any more than to kill a mocking bird or Forrest Gump make erroneous “claims.” The author may have never intended people to take the story as literal history but instead intended it to be understood as a fictional thought experiment.
So your original post was:
“When I made this exact point two months ago, that the text(s) clearly claim that God commanded genocide, you called me “deluded” and said it was “such a pure illustration of anti-intellectual Christian fundamentalism.” ”
And then you said:
“My point was that the text clearly states that God commanded genocide. Do you agree that the text clearly states God commanded genocide or no? Because you seem to be taking the position that the text DOES NOT clearly claim that when talking to me and then the position that the text DOES clearly claim that when responding to WLC.”
It is like asking “does the text of to kill a mocking bird claim Atticus finch gave a closing argument for Tom Robbins? yes or no?”
Yes it is part of the story but the author is not “claiming” it literally historically happened by telling the story. It appears you and WLC want to interpret everything said in these OT narratives as if the author is “claiming” it was literal history. Randal is saying if that is the view WLC takes then in fact by that interpretation it would mean the author is claiming God committed genocide.
But he does not agree with that interpretation. He disagrees with you and WLC on that. Actually his position is a bit more nuanced, because of scripture’s dual authorship. He allows that human author didn’t intend to be taken literally. But he also allows that the human author may have intended the text to be understood as literal history but he does not think God wanted the text in the bible for that purpose. In other words God is not claiming that literally happened even if that was the human author’s intent. God is using that mistaken view of the author for another purpose.
I agree that (1) and (2) are not the same. I just don’t see any valid reason to conclude that the human author intended it to be non historical. Every serious Biblical scholar (that I am aware of) considers those texts to be of a historical genre. Can you point to some who conclude otherwise?
What’s more, if there are some clues which make you (or RR) conclude that the author didn’t intend those stories to be historical, what about other OT stories with the exact same writing style, that describe God acting and speaking?
The story of God commanded conquest wars of annihilation don’t make any logical sense to me as historical fiction. Again if you conclude that the authors didn’t mean for readers to actually believe that God said “X” in these stories, why would conclude that the author expected you to believe any other story which claimed God said “X” from that source? How do you differentiate?
Fine. But that’s a completely baseless assertion. Worse still it’s backwards reasoning.
RR asserts that God will never do X and then works backwards to rationalize why the anthology which represents the primary source of information he claims to have about the nature of God is wrong (but still reliable) when it asserts God did X.
Yes. I’ve said so many times. That’s why I found it a completely strange depiction of me you gave when you asserted that I “have such a hard time imagining that sometimes real people and places are involved in a fictional story”. How can you honestly assert that about a person you know positively affirms that real people and places are involved in fictional stories.
I wasn’t asking you to go back and comment on my banning. All I was doing was asking for you to admit there (where thousands of people will see it) what you’ve admitted here. That I have no such problem. That I positively affirm, both here and multiple times in the past, that real people and places are placed into fictional stories. To say otherwise about me is, frankly, slanderous well poisoning.
“I agree that (1) and (2) are not the same. I just don’t see any valid reason to conclude that the human author intended it to be non historical. Every serious Biblical scholar (that I am aware of) considers those texts to be of a historical genre. Can you point to some who conclude otherwise?”
Origen is a serious scholar! He also may be the scholar that lived the closest in time to the actual author of these scriptures. I think part of the issue is you are only thinking of protestant scholars that are wed to certain views of sola scriptura. Sola Scriptura lead to an explosion of contradictory Christian churches. So they then tried over a thousand years after these texts were written to impose rules on how everyone should read scripture. And well unsurprisingly those rules happen to support their own views! If you look at the way these scriptures were interpreted before all that you will see much more diversity in how people interpreted them. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches still allow that diversity.
The clues that it was not intended to be taken literally is that it God is commanding people to break his commandments. The philosophical questions these passages have to raise involves the foundations of morals. Can the means justify the ends etc etc. To read them as though they are are just reporting literal history leaves all the important ideas out.
“Again if you conclude that the authors didn’t mean for readers to actually believe that God said “X” in these stories, why would conclude that the author expected you to believe any other story which claimed God said “X” from that source? How do you differentiate?”
The bible has many authors – sources. The best way to tell the intent of the author is to ask the author. If the author is no longer available then it can be hard but you should look at context. Clearly killing innocent children violates a the command not to murder. So that is a clue that perhaps this is not literal historical document. The author says “God commanded” without any discreption how that happened. Was it an angel or did God appear as a burning bush? That suggests the author is not actually trying to prove this was God that commanded it but just saying “look assume he commanded it.” If he wanted to prove this actually happened he would have given more evidence that it actually happened such as why the person thought it was in fact the voice of God commanding him etc. These are reasons I do not think the author was trying to convince us this actually happened. There are others reasons I believe that but people can disagree with me. I am not so much tryign to convince you of my position as trying to get you to at least acknowledge there is good reason to believe we do not know that these passages were intended as literal history. No one asked the author and he did not say. And they were written thousands of years ago to a culture that likely had literary styles that are lost to us.
“RR asserts that God will never do X and then works backwards to rationalize why the anthology which represents the primary source of information he claims to have about the nature of God is wrong (but still reliable) when it asserts God did X.”
Again you keep saying the author asserts God did X as though the author is asserting God literally and historically did X. But don’t you see that is the issue. Harper Lee wrote Atticus Finch gave a closing argument for Tom Robbins but she is not “asserting” that is literal history. The same thing can be happening with the old testament passages.
In this blog I explain how we might be able to tell what the intent of the author is: