Bible: Literal or not?

[deseretgov]

I'm just curious, what are your opinons? Do you think the Bible is 100% literal(not counting that parts that are clearly stated as fiction, such as parables). Or do you think some of the stories are literal and other's aren't. Or do you think it is 100% figurative.

If you think that some stories are fictional then please state which ones.

[Aesa]

I think it's an astrotheological work.

The ancients personified nature, the cosmos and so forth with elaborate myths.

Thus it is with the scriptures.

[Dr T]

I'd say "Yes" to the title of your thread. There are different types of literature in the Bible like Epistles, others are poetic, etc.

[rockwoodchev]

I remember that my seminary material from the church has a quote in it about the fact that we really don't know which stories in the OT are true or not. The Songs of Solomon are not considered doctrinal in the LDS church.

I also think there would be some question about a donkey that talks. A prophet that sends out bears to attack children who made fun of his bald head, and several other stories.

Then there are some stories that are just almost impossible to understand or accept, but we MUST accept them or else it throws everything else we believe in. We MUST believe in the flood, even though it is now considered impossible to inhabit the earth from a single spot. We MUST belive in the Tower of Babel because without it, the Book of Mormon would have something in it that was not true. Since the Book of Mormon is true, it provides backwards proof that the Flood and the Tower of Babel really happened. Really... Really.... Don't believe it?? Well... I have a hard time with it as well.

I guess the answer to your question is... There are portions of the Bible that LDS doctrine accepts that are NOT true.

[Elgama]

The donkey didn't talk there was an angel standing nearby that the man couldn't see. He thought his donkey was talking.

I think most of it is true but is like all scripture edited to teach the most for future generations - like when we tell a tale or story about life now we make it interesting for people to read. Its as literal as the stories we get in General Conference. There is much that is sacred in the Bible that is not immediately obvious

But tbh if it isn't does it really matter? ultimately like with all scripture its what Heavenly Father wants us to know

-Charley

[Aesa]

We MUST belive in the Tower of Babel because without it, the Book of Mormon would have something in it that was not true.

Wrong. It can be completely interpreted allegorically.

[Justice]

I think the line is blurred BECAUSE the stories taught in the Bible are events that actually happened that were MEANT to teach something greater than the story.

It's easy to think something miraculous didn't happen as long as we learn the lesson that was intended. If you learn the lesson that was intended then it's not really important whether or not the event actually happened. So, it's easy to loose focus on the story, or think it didn't happen if it seems unbelievable.

However, I believe the events actually happened, even if misunderstood over the years.

Let me ask a different question, do you believe the miraculous events actually happened in the Book of Mormon?

My guess is you answer an emphatic yes.

Why is the Bible any different?

I believe one of the reasons we needed the Book of Mormon today is because people have all but discounted the Bible as a work of fiction. The Book of Mormon was sent to teach us that the things taught in the Bible, story and principle, are true.

The most miraculous story taught in the Bible is that a *man* raised himself from the dead. If we believe that story actually happened, why is it so hard to believe everything else?

Edited January 1, 2009 by Justice

[gabelpa]

My opinions, asit stands regarding some of the Old Testament miracles, including the Flood happened, though perhaps not on the scale the Authors believed. There are a few other stories from Mesopotamia, i.e. the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Babylonian Atra-Hasis story. Both of these contain flood and creation stories, with very close parallels to the Noah story we have in the Bible.

So far there isn't the scientific evidence of a worldwide flood, but with centralised populations, especially around riverbeds, localised floods wouldn't be uncommon. Who is to say that God wouldn't have created such a heavy localised Flood that was capable of wiping out huge swathes of known civilisation, leaving only a few survivors (Noah and family) to re-build under the direction of Heavenly Father?

[Gwen]

I remember that my seminary material from the church has a quote in it about the fact that we really don't know which stories in the OT are true or not. The Songs of Solomon are not considered doctrinal in the LDS church.

I also think there would be some question about a donkey that talks. A prophet that sends out bears to attack children who made fun of his bald head, and several other stories.

Then there are some stories that are just almost impossible to understand or accept, but we MUST accept them or else it throws everything else we believe in. We MUST believe in the flood, even though it is now considered impossible to inhabit the earth from a single spot. We MUST belive in the Tower of Babel because without it, the Book of Mormon would have something in it that was not true. Since the Book of Mormon is true, it provides backwards proof that the Flood and the Tower of Babel really happened. Really... Really.... Don't believe it?? Well... I have a hard time with it as well.

I guess the answer to your question is... There are portions of the Bible that LDS doctrine accepts that are NOT true.

can you provide an official lds source for this assertion that we believe some things did not happen? i was always taught that the donkey talked. why is that so hard to believe... this entire existence started with a "talking serpent" why not the donkey? yes we can try to explain things away if we want to but animals talking is one of the easiest things for me to believe and in no need of defence. lol

yes joseph smith did "make changes" if you want to call it that to the bible but he never, from what i've seen, changed the story of anything. what he did was more clarifying not changing. look in any thesaurus there are a lot of words that technicly mean the same thing but the conotation or use of them is not the same thing and can compleatly change what you are trying to say (just like punctuation or voice inflection can alter something). those kinds of mistakes happen all the time in translation. those were the clarifications joseph smith made.

as far as the stories about imperfect men of god... i think those are vital to our understanding of how god works with men. i find it odd that so many ppl that belive the bible to be literal and the men of the bible to be men of god and then point to the less becomming events in joseph's life as proof that he could not be a prophet. if you wanted to create a laundry list of the things prophets in the bible did they don't look all that perfect either. why can they be so imperfect and be men of god but joseph can't? if those events are not real then what exactly are they, why are they there? why do ppl feel a need to change things to fit their logic? god's ways are not ours.

as for me personaly and what i believe about the bible and it's literalness or not.... i belive it all happend, as with any story being retold it can not be taken as 100% perfect in it's retelling. everything anyone says gets filtered through their perspective. there is always more than one perspective. everytime something is retold (translations included) it gets filtered again through the person retelling it. the more something is passed down and goes through different ppl the less accurate it will be from the origional event. what "really happened" in those days we may never know. i do know it was preserved by god and it contains principles that we need to know. my goal is to understand the principles, the rest is for god to worry about.

my personal philosophy is there is no reality, just a lot of perspectives. the more of those you have the better you can understand the world and ppl around you.

[Dr T]

The donkey didn't talk there was an angel standing nearby that the man couldn't see. He thought his donkey was talking.

Did u read that in the Bible or is that from something else?

[BenRaines]

As I recall in the Old Testament it was an angel that stood in their path and only the donkey saw it at first. When the donkey would not go forward and was being beaten is when it spoke. Personally I believe that God has the power to give the donkey the power of speech or to give man the ability to understand what the donkey was saying. Maybe it was mental telepathy between the man and the donkey, I don't know.

I would say that the Bible is full of literal and figurative text and it is ours to seek the spirit to let us know what it means to us.

Ben Raines

[FlaviusHambonius]

The story of Mary and Joseph trying to find a room at the inn I think perhaps could be a misnotion.

An Inn was usually a containment area consisting of four walls with no roof or overhead protection, usually where people went to set up individual family camps.

So as you can imagine with all of these families being cramped about each other with all of their belongings, I think this would be the last place that Mary would want to give birth to the Lord Jesus. Thus, the belief in a cave, probably close to the outskirts of town or thereabouts make much more sense--privacy and shelter for the Mother and her newborn.

Moses departing the Red Sea made a nice scene in Cecil B. DeMille's classic 'The 10 Commandments, but likely happened at a narrow stretch called the 'Sea of Reeds' which if I remember right usually had a depth of 2-10 feet on most occasions depending on the tides.

It would have taken a great Northern wind about 45-50 minutes to clear that stretch of ground--when Pharoh's armies pursued after the Israelites, there Chariots would have bogged down in the wet sand and when the winds subsided, back comes the water.

Another interesting thing related to this story is the pillar of fire. It was more than likely a gigantic man made fire of sorts by the Israelites--as the armies of Pharoh were approaching and stopped at the pillar (speculation at night time) they would not be able to see past the fire in the darkness--while the Israelites were escaping through the sea of reeds.

It has been said that Moses was a great tactician.

As far as the flood, I believe it was a more localized area, not the entire earth.

As far as Jonah, that's a lot to swallow --even for a whale--IMO.

I've always wondered how a human could survive in the acidic stomach of a whale, but then again with God all things are possible--so what do I know---absolutely nada.

[Aesa]

So as you can imagine with all of these families being cramped about each other with all of their belongings, I think this would be the last place that Mary would want to give birth to the Lord Jesus.

However, if you look into other dying-and-rising god-men stories it fits perfectly. Born in a cave.

[rockwoodchev]

It would take me some time to look through the CES Seminary OT Manual to find the section talking about portions of the OT may not be true. If it is important to you, please feel free to go onto the ceslds.org site and search around. If you need the username and password, let me know.

As to the Tower of Babel, there is no way that could not have happened. The Tower of Babel is proven to have actually happened because of the fact that we have a group of people, documented and proven in the BOM that were actually there. The BOM proves that the Tower of Babel was an actual physical building and this was the source of the languages being confounded. Even though there has been zero evidence for this event, just like everything else in the BOM, it actually did occur, "because the spirit tells me so". How could anyone doubt?

Donkey talking?? Well. there is just no way that occured. We have been taught many times that spiritual things are not to be taking lightly. God would not have done this because God is not a trivial person. Could you just imagine some guy going into see his Bishop. "Hey... God spoke to me through my Cocker Spaniel that I'm to be the next Scoutmaster" Bishop would fall over laughing and then put him in Primary.

[Traveler]

I'm just curious, what are your opinons? Do you think the Bible is 100% literal(not counting that parts that are clearly stated as fiction, such as parables). Or do you think some of the stories are literal and other's aren't. Or do you think it is 100% figurative.

If you think that some stories are fictional then please state which ones.

Jesus often used parables (not actual events) to teach the most important truths which are only understood by those that are loyal to their covenants with G-d.

The Traveler

[gabelpa]

As to the Tower of Babel, there is no way that could not have happened. The Tower of Babel is proven to have actually happened because of the fact that we have a group of people, documented and proven in the BOM that were actually there. The BOM proves that the Tower of Babel was an actual physical building and this was the source of the languages being confounded. Even though there has been zero evidence for this event, just like everything else in the BOM, it actually did occur, "because the spirit tells me so". How could anyone doubt?

More than that, there is a train of thought amongst some archaeologists that,rather than nomads resorting to farmers to create civilisations, that nomads came together to build, something like the Tower of Babel or other monuments. Farming and civilisation grew from these societies. It's not unreasonable to assume that the confounding of languages took time, similar to the creation of Pidgin English or the differences between Portuguese and Spanish.

Donkey talking?? Well. there is just no way that occured. We have been taught many times that spiritual things are not to be taking lightly. God would not have done this because God is not a trivial person. Could you just imagine some guy going into see his Bishop. "Hey... God spoke to me through my Cocker Spaniel that I'm to be the next Scoutmaster" Bishop would fall over laughing and then put him in Primary.

Numbers 22 - link to the Donkey talking scripture. The Donkey wasn't telling Balaam what he was going to do, rather that there was an Angel stopping Balaam from doing something he shouldn't be doing in the first place. Balaam wasn't altogether a good guy from my cursory reading, though he is a Prophet, and does bless Israel in the end. Scolars debate if the Donkey actually talked, or if the donkey's complaints were translated for Balaam, similar to the Gift of Tongues and the Interpretation of Tongues. We know animals communicate with each other and with us, so why wouldn't GOD help someone to know what an animal was saying if it would help?

[Justice]

So as you can imagine with all of these families being cramped about each other with all of their belongings, I think this would be the last place that Mary would want to give birth to the Lord Jesus.

I think a stable or cave used to house animals, with a manger for a crib, would be their last choice.

[Hemidakota]

I'm just curious, what are your opinons? Do you think the Bible is 100% literal(not counting that parts that are clearly stated as fiction, such as parables). Or do you think some of the stories are literal and other's aren't. Or do you think it is 100% figurative.

If you think that some stories are fictional then please state which ones.

YES and NO....

[deseretgov]

I must have missed something. I've never heard a story about a talking donkey.

[Hemidakota]

Book of Numbers

22:1-8 Balaam came from Pethor, which is located far to the north of Canaan where Abraham once dwelt and is the ancestral home area of Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel.

22:21-35 God speaks through any means that serve his divine purposes. Thus a voice and words could come from a bush (as in the case of Moses) or from a donkey (as in the case of Balaam). Also, the same God who created the animal world in the first place could surely enable a donkey to see something (in this case an angel) that might not be perceived by man.

23:19 Despite the statement "God is not a man . . . neither the son of man, that he should repent," the Old Testament contains many scriptures indicating that God repented of a particular idea or act. (See as examples Gen. 6:6; Ex. 32:14; Judg. 2:18; 1 Sam. 15:35; 2 Sam. 24:16; Jonah 3:10.) Obviously the translators should have chosen a different word in those situations. The Prophet Joseph Smith suggested possible sources for errors in the Bible:

"I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers. Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors." (HC 6:57.)

[bmy-]

It's a bit of both. I do believe (most) of the stories are stretched and added to for verbal purposes..

I think the allegorical aspects and the lessons within the lessons are what make it such an excellent book. It's awesome really.

So i'll say No: Not literal. There are literal parts.. but the majority of the 'stories' should not be taken as factual.

[BenRaines]

So if, as so many have stated, the Bible is not very literal how many believe that Christ was able to walk on the water? Was this just figurative or a figment of imagination based on fear of disciples?

Ben Raines

[pam]

I truly believe that Christ was able to walk on water.

[BenRaines]

I do too. There are a number of posters who believe that many of the stories in the Bible to be teaching tools or stories but not factual.

How about Moses staff to heal by being looked upon by the Children of Israel after being snake bitten?

How about the sun not going down so that Joshua could finish and win the battle?

Ben Raines

[Hemidakota]

Any of the miraculous healing that the Savior accomplished?