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Originally Posted by Textcritic
I think I understand the point you are trying to make, but you have overstated your case. Without question, the original authors of the sacred traditions which became scripture believed in their "literal" (or "plain" as so many so-called "creationists" like to say) application. The creation myth in Genesis is an adaptation of several similar myths from the Mesopotamian region, all which date far back into the 3rd millenium B.C.E. The emphasis of the story is primarily twofold: 1) That ONE "Super" God (as opposed to several or hundreds of "demi-gods" created everything, and did so within six solar days. 2) That the order and function of the cosmos is a direct and patterned reflection of the Jewish calendar, which emphasizes sabbath observance. There is little doubt that the authors intended this story to be read and understood otherwise. That, however, does not mean that a Chirstian or Jewish interpretation of Scripture must read the myth the same way. Both Christianity and Judaism have proven to be remarkably adaptable, and they will continue to survive and flourish as a result. Faith always finds a way, and those believers who are not afraid of facing the tough questions which challenge their faith ultimately come to comprehend their beliefs in a manner which does not depend on a theological straw man or uncredible pseudo-science.
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Bear with me. You obviously are more immersed in the subject than I but I'll try to present my case.
I have read that certain sects of Judaism believe in a non-literal interpretation of the Bible (OT) through Qabbalah; in that, it was a secret doctrine or book passed from God to the holy priests, and it was "encoded" -- in much the same way the tetragrammaton is "encoded" -- through gematria and other numerological systems to preserve it's "truth".
Now, that's not really where I'm going (I don't care for numerology), but since I read that it really germinated the idea in my head that the Bible was non-literal: that is, meant to be "interpreted", such as is done through priests in the Catholic faith. Like parables, you know? It makes far more sense to me to suggest that many of the events in the Bible are not unlike our modern mythologies.
A quick example here. Spiderman is not real, but he represents much of the way modern North-Americans think. It is romantic to think that, because life is so "ordinary" for many people, something truly exceptional can happen to an individual so that they can make a real difference on the world. Now imagine that there was some massive breakdown of modern society, and only some information was recovered say two hundred years in the future. It's not so hard to believe that those recovering the information would think Spiderman was actually a real entity, is it? Similarly, it's not so hard to believe that two thousand years ago, stories and second-hand accounts of the life of Jesus were re-interpreted, exaggerated, and changed. Or that a particularly bad storm became a huge storm, then an epic storm, and then that God flooded the entire earth. Even given the different dates at which the different books of the New Testament were written, there are some discrepancies. When one book (I forget which) is written in like 130AD and the rest much earlier, and given the non-ideal record keeping systems of the time, human fallibilities play a significant role.
A certain amount of leniency must be afforded those who wrote the Bible as their experiences would be extremely colored by the way human beings thought in that part of the world at that time. What may be an easily explainable meteorological phenomenon now may seem like God raining fire from the Heavens. What might have been just a powerful storm or tsunami might appear to be God flooding the world. When every event is colored by the presence of the divine, one has to expect that the same event would look massively different to a North American in 2006 AD than a Mesopotamian two thousand years ago.
So...yeah, that's my case for why I don't believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. A little bit disjointed, but it's 12:30 AM.