I don't really like the subtext describing this forum. It sounds argumentative. It's been my experience that people set out to lay down mechanical flaws in the structure of the bible in order to shut up fundamentalists who insist on a literal interpretation of the bible from front to back as actual fact. It works to varying degrees I suppose and relates differently to different people with different levels of investment or indoctrination into what the myths denote.
Personally, I think that mechanical flaws in the bible are entirely irrelevant. I think that each story that "conflicts" was designed and targeted at a certain people in a certain time. Holding up a flaw is like saying that a piece of software that works wonderfully on a mac doesn't work at all on a PC. Answer is: "Well duh, but what's your point."
There's nothing to be done for people who take a literal view of the contents of the bible. They will forever remain in ignorance with the covers pulled over their eyes. They've taken their spiritual and emotional development and solidified it. The finger that points to the stars is now labeled "a star" itself. They've missed the forest because the trees were in the way.
Trotting out the mechanical flaws in the bible is basically like pissing in the wind. The process (in my opinion) is a completely useless endeavor and tends to only make you messy because the context you're using to indicate the flaws has nothing to do with the text as it was written.
Let the literalists believe what they want to believe. Particularly in this day in age when all someone needs to do is hop on the internet, turn on their radio or their TV or just talk with any living social human being to know that the world is more complex that what a literal interpretation denotes. With borders shrinking and communications becoming instantaneous all over the world, fundamentalists become a dying breed because the fact of the matter is that its just a silly approach. It leads to shallow lives. Fundamentalists will die out slowly and may have some resurgences as response to the changes, but that's the death throws. It's been happening since the renaissance. Slowly but surely.
Are there incongruities in the bible? Are there contradictions about facts listed in several different texts? Are there different viewpoints of the same event expressed in the bible? Yes to all of these.
Does this mean the bible is flawed? No.
The contradictions are due to the form it's in now, not the environment in which it was written. It's like trying to play a record using a CD player. It's not the media's fault that you can't make it work and it doesn't mean that the media is flawed in any way.
It's like in "The Matrix" when the oracle told neo that he wasn't the one. Was it true? Literally, no. Did it lead to the truth? Most emphatically yes! There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
The literal interpreter would have shut down in this case. But the oracle gave him another piece of information. And when the mindset created by the first literal falsehood collided with the second reality, neo transcended. It's all about speaking to a condition. It's all about interfacing.
The literalist is crippled to this reality. This is why their approach is so wrong. They deny the nature of humanity. |