Literalism and the Bible...a lawyer's pespective

reply to post by eight bits

The typical Christian position is that the Bible is inspired by God, and written by human beings.

Which parts of the bibles typically claimed to be inspired by yahweh ?

reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint

When it comes to literalism, the first question you may wish to ask is "Does it matter?" Does a story in the Bible lose its instructional value if it contains biases or fabrications?

It doesn't matter to me obviously not, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
For centuries the bibles were forced upon populations as literal truth and actually written by Yahwhejesus that should be believed and followed on pane of death .

Unfortunately the sheeple began to read and learn to ask hard questions of the church, the compilers of these books. Over time the actual words of Yahweh jesus mutated and became words "Inspired" by Ywhwehjesus.

Indeed, the ignorant sheeple had been lied to and eventually caught out the liars but were still deluded/indoctrinated enough to accept another lie the lie of "Inspiration" truth reveald by Yahwhejesus wrapped up in a puzzle that the individual sheep had to decipher.

Needless to say the sheeple wanted/needed to understand the scriptures and had to fall back on the liars to explain what the words actually meant and settled for whatever nonsensical explanation they got for fear of going to hell.


So, "Does it matter?" Does a story in the Bible lose its instructional value if it contains biases or fabrications?
It would seem not to those who desperately need it all to be true, it certainly doesn't matter to them if there is no instructional value at all, as they will at the drop of a hat accept what someone else tells them is the instructional value of a scripture.

If you tell a child there is a moral lesson in Jack and the Beanstalk the child may seek and seek and perhaps conclude that the lesson is - "
If a stranger offers you some magic beans for a perfectly good working cow take the chance you may end up stealing a goose that lays golden eggs".

If the child does not see the lesson in this tale, you may of course make one up as the child desperate to see the lesson will accept anything you tell it.

At the end of the day any supposed "lessons" in the bibles are no more nor less valid than Jack and the Beanstalk, Humpty Dumpty or Die Hard 4 . The big difference of course is that the latter have never been claimed to have been written by an inerrant invisible man in the sky and were once absolute truth but are now just inspired by said invisible man.

Which parts of the bibles typically claimed to be inspired by yahweh ?

If you are asking about Christians, my understanding is that the entire canon is taken to be divinely inspired. As you know, Christians disagree among themselves about the exact composition of the canon, but for most of the Bible, there is agreement.

The corresponding Jewish concept appears to be more nuanced, and pertains only to the Torah, even though the modern Jewish canon is pretty much the same as the Protestant Old Testament. The situation is described here:

www.humanityquest.com...

The Islamic view of the Bible is especially complicated. The Koran disagrees with the Bible on many points, and of course, the Koran version is taken as correct by Muslims. Nevertheless, the Koran does not commit to any specific mechanism for the discrepancies (for example, "corruption" of the Biblical message). At one point, the Crucifixion of Jesus, the Koran even seems to imply an intentional deception of Jews by Allah.

But, Islam does recognize the Hebrew prophets, including Jesus, and confers merit on people following the prophets who were sent to them. In the case of Jews and Christians, then, that would aparently be based on whichever Bible applies.

[edit on 14-2-2010 by eight bits]

reply to post by eight bits

If you are asking about Christians, my understanding is that the entire canon is taken to be divinely inspired.

That's interesting isn't it, let's look at the meaning of inspire -

Inspire -
1 a : to influence, move, or guide by divine or supernatural inspiration b : to exert an animating, enlivening, or exalting influence on.


So an inerrant omnibenevolent , omniscient,omnipotent, omnipresent being "Inspired" the contents of some ancient writings authors unknown.
That at least is what is claimed by the readers of the texts and indeed the text themselves.


Yet the texts are often in error and contradictory so this would preclude these portions being inspired by an inerrant being as the claim is that the texts are a message for the reader, an instruction/guidance on how to live in accordance to the will of the inerrant being.

The messenger may well have got the message wrong but this would imply that the being chose the wrong messenger which again would preclude its' inerrant omniscience, ie it failed to get what intended to communicate across.

An example of the insanity of the "inspired" proposition is the earths orbit around the sun. Are we to conclude that the "god" being wanted the reader to know that it placed the earth in orbit around the sun but for some reason only managed to communicate incorrect information regarding this to that which it created ie the man taking notes?

To have alleged "truth" that is riddled with factual error, contradictions and inconsistencies being "inspired" by an omniscient inerrant being is a logical nonsense.

reply to post by moocowman


According to American law, lawyers are allowed to breach their duty of of confidentiality if they believe their client is going to kill or cause severe bodily harm to someone. I could get sued by my client's victim if I do not act to prevent my client from killing or hurting somebody if I have reason to believe they will hurt someone.

Perhaps it is possible that a divine being may give instructions to my client. However, in in most, if not all cases where someone claims to be in contact with a divine being, that person is insane. If somebody came to me and told me God told them to kill someone, in all probability that person is insane and not divinely inspired. The responsible thing to do would be to turn that person in.

reply to post by moocowman


The bible is not the exclusive source for morality lessons. Aesop's fables are also a good source. Aesop's fables involve talking animals and other unbelievable events. We could automatically dismiss Aesop's fables because animals do not talk in real life, however we would be missing out on a lot.

There is something to be said for the complexities and the nuances of the moral predicaments biblical characters get themselves into. Perhaps this comes from "divine" inspiration. Perhaps the Bible's richness is a product of its creation process.

Perhaps we can attribute the Bible's richness to the fact it was compiled and redacted over the course of centuries by people who literally lived at the crossroads of the world. These people were able to synthesize the best ideas and literature from Egypt, Greece, Persia, Rome, and other great civilizations. When you read the Bible, you are not reading the wisdom of one man, who lived in one place and one time. When you read the Bible, you are reading the collective wisdom of all of antiquity.

So an inerrant omnibenevolent , omniscient,omnipotent, omnipresent being "Inspired" the contents of some ancient writings authors unknown.

That would seem to be the claim, although there is some variety of opinion about the nature of the being. For example, many people define hell as a place where God isn't, and hold that the word refers. So, such people would necessarily dispute omnipresent. Other faithful place constraints on the "omnis" of knowledge and potency, which are also known to be liable to paradox when carelessly defined.

I have also read faithful who dispute omnibenevolent, simply as not being an attribute of God, or as insufficiently well-defined to be assessed as a possible attribute of God.

Yet the texts are often in error and contradictory so this would preclude these portions being inspired by an inerrant being as the claim is that the texts are a message for the reader, an instruction/guidance on how to live in accordance to the will of the inerrant being.

Oddly enough, a lot of what drives the story in the New Testament is Jesus' disagreement with others, for example the ever-popular Scribes and Pharisees, about the nature of the law in the Hebrew Bible. Jesus himself isn't much of a literalist, and Paul? Don't get me started on the whole Mosaic-Law-Light-for-Gentiles thing.

Of course, there's quite a lot of material in the book besides laws. Much of it is poetry. Some of it is songs. There's even a little Bronze Age porn.

The messenger may well have got the message wrong but this would imply that the being chose the wrong messenger which again would preclude its' inerrant omniscience, ie it failed to get what intended to communicate across.

I'm sure that some people would put you to the trouble of showing that the messenger did get the message wrong before worrying about what that would imply if it were so. Others would point out the inherent ineffability of the subject matter, and so any words would necessarily fail to get the message across. If the words point to God, however, then perhaps the message did get through after all.

To have alleged "truth" that is riddled with factual error, contradictions and inconsistencies being "inspired" by an omniscient inerrant being is a logical nonsense.

If to read a poem as if it were an astronomy textbook is an error, then I would fault the reader, not the writer. But that's just me.