In book 3 of Saint Augustine he talks a lot about sifting through the “ambiguity” of the bible. What I found especially interesting in book three was on page 85, “The greatest care must be taken to determine whether the expression that we are trying to understand is literal or figurative.” This is a question that is consistently argued about.
Different sects take the entire bible literarily while other groups try and take the readings with a grain of salt. I personally appreciate the fact that Augustine thought that looking at things and deciding whether they should be taken as literal or figurative is important when studying the bible. A lot of groups like creationists do not use this tactic and prefer looking for methods that disprove Darwin’s theory of evolution. I included a link to a page that lists all the ways and reasons that evolution is false and impossible.http://signsofthelastdays.com/archives/how-to-disprove-evolution I have actually heard a discussion before about the story of Jonah and the whale, where one girl told another (the other girl believed the bible to be completely literal in all ways) that it was physically impossible for the whale to have swallowed Jonah. The other girl proceeded to lists reasons how it happened, the discussion ended with two very frustrated individuals. I think it is kind of sad in a way that evolution in schools is almost “taboo”, that talking about it can lead to lots of repercussions from families.
I believe that if Augustine’s idea of distinguishing literal from figurative in the bible was followed than a lot of other things would come together more evenly. Obviously, people are bound to interpret things differently and will be more closed minded or open minded than others.
Sometimes I questioned how Augustine would separate the concepts in the Bible that should be taken literally from the figurative. How did he determine which was which? Later, we discussed how if its against "love" then it should be taken as a metaphor. This is a very positive reading of the Bible. I liked how he sets the rules up for what should be literal and interpreted, but then what is interpreted can have many different meanings.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good question to tackle. People who take the Bible as completely literal may be missing the underlying meaning the authors originally intended. I think it is important to look at the Bible with the understanding that most of the stories are parables or allegories.
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