Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
It is preposterous if you demand from primitive ideas and expressions a modernly contrived meaning. The religious texts in Judaism and Christianity achieved the status they did in large part on the basis of their malleability. It may seem nonsensical to you and me, but people just simply did not apply the same interpretive conventions to the things that they read as we demand today. The reason for "scripture"'s success is very much due to how its meaning changed—and continues to change—over time.
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There is no "meaning" in any of the sacred texts of the big three religions that offers anything but an anthropological and geo-science related data set.
It's a catalog to primitive cultures and provides a contextual basis for human development. "Why don't orthodox Jews have tattoos?" "Because Leviticus 19.28 prohibits it." Cause and effect.
As a precept for decision making, policy and personal adherence, the old testament is meaningless. The construct of ecclesiastical fluidity only serves to further prove my point. Were there specific, non contextual meaning in ancient religious scripts, they wouldn't be fluid.
If the message was more important than the medium, the message wouldn't change. Clearly, it is the medium that is the significant apparatus of organized religion.