Do you take all the Old Testament stories as literal?

[Guest]

Adam and Eve in Garden, Noah's Ark and global flood, Tower of Babel, Jonah in the whale. Do you take all the Old Testament stories as literal events or do you think some are just stories with important messages handed down?

[Guest]

There are some stories that have to be true to make other scripture books true. The Tower of Babel needs to be true for the Book of Ether to work. Lot's of the Old Testament first stories including the city of Enoch are in the Pearl of Great Price. But I haven't heard a modern prophet, seer, and revelator speak on what's true and what's not or if it's all true.

[zil]

I fail to comprehend why this matters to people.  I'm good if they're factually accurate.  I'm good if they are story-ified versions of what happened.  I'm good if they're morphed versions of once factual accounts.  I'm good (for many of them) if they're basically parables.  No matter which of these (and they're not mutually exclusive) is true, they all contain lessons from which truth can be learned (which is far more important than establishing "fact" as one defines it).

But I feel immensely sorry for those who cannot believe in the fantastic.  Christ healed people with a broad range of physical impairments - that was fantastical.  Why should he be able to do that and not walk on water, or not part the Red Sea, or not cover the entire earth with a flood, or not give Jonah a ride in a whale, or stop time?  IMO, the ability to believe in the fantastic is expansive, and facilitates faith and trust in the Lord.  How often have blessings been denied because the potential recipient couldn't bring themselves to believe in the miraculous?

I also believe the notion (which I first read in some Nibley book) that we are incapable of imagining anything that is impossible / has not already been done.  Therefore, if you can imagine it, it can be done (though you may not comprehend how it's done).

And just in case it needs to said explicitly: I don't believe in magic.  Miracles are done through knowledge and laws, it's just that we don't understand the mechanics, so we call them miracles, and they seem fantastic.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Zarahemla said:

Adam and Eve in Garden, Noah's Ark and global flood, Tower of Babel, Jonah in the whale. Do you take all the Old Testament stories as literal events or do you think some are just stories with important messages handed down?

I think the Old Testament is so sparse that we don't really know what happened in a lot of these stories.  There is plenty of truth in Genesis, for example, but the record is missing so much that we really don't have a full picture as to what happened in the Garden of Eden, how the creation worked, how the flood happened, and why Elijah had to burn those poor soldiers.  This is in contrast to the New Testament, where Christ made it very clear who He was and what He was doing and teaching.

Someday we will have all the knowledge and the Old Testament will make more sense.  Until then, have faith and be patient.

[MrShorty]

Short answer to the title question: no, I do not believe that all of scripture is or must be historical fact. I started this thread that had some discussion about historicity of Biblical stories (I was a little surprised at the controversy surrounding Job as history/fiction, considering that Job is the book most scholars consider to be fiction) 

That thread includes a link to this by Ben Spackman that you may find interesting: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/benjaminthescribe/2016/06/scripture-context-and-genres-scattered-reading/

I, too, have not heard anything official from the Church about what must be historical. If memory serves, there are some things said by Elder McKonkie and others that would imply historicity to things like the flood, but I don't know that the opinions of these apostles creates some kind of requirement for all good Latter-Day Saints to believe them as history, just as I don't believe that Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith's opinions about creation and evolution require me to believe in some variation of young earth creationism.

[prisonchaplain]

In my humble, non-LDS, opinion the Bible is best understood as mostly literal, mostly historical. There are a few occasions where allegory, poetry, and hyperbole are clearly employed. However, I'm a firm believer in the KISS principle of biblical interpretation:  Keep It Simple Silly.  The more a teaching/understanding needs explaining the less certain it is.

[Blueskye2]

2 hours ago, Zarahemla said:

Adam and Eve in Garden, Noah's Ark and global flood, Tower of Babel, Jonah in the whale. Do you take all the Old Testament stories as literal events or do you think some are just stories with important messages handed down?

I go with to the two senses of scripture, the literal and the spiritual. The spiritual being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. I view Adam and Eve in the Garden, using both senses. Literally, God created everything, with the allegorical, moral and anagogical present in the two tellings of the creation story.

Noah's Ark, global flood, Tower of Babel, Jonah in the whale, I view with the spiritual senses. Particularly, salvation history, that is, God working in history towards our salvation, prefigured in many OT stories, literally fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

[Guest]

I feel there are a couple Bible stories that have to be true for our salvation. Adam and Eve because of the temple endowment and Jesus atonement and resurrection have to be literal for us to be saved. I'm interested in Zils attitude toward the Old Testament like who cares? With that attitude why even bother reading it? Besides some of it is found in Pearl of Great Price.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, zil said:

I fail to comprehend why this matters to people.  I'm good if they're factually accurate.  I'm good if they are story-ified versions of what happened.  I'm good if they're morphed versions of once factual accounts.  I'm good (for many of them) if they're basically parables.  No matter which of these (and they're not mutually exclusive) is true, they all contain lessons from which truth can be learned (which is far more important than establishing "fact" as one defines it).

But I feel immensely sorry for those who cannot believe in the fantastic.  Christ healed people with a broad range of physical impairments - that was fantastical.  Why should he be able to do that and not walk on water, or not part the Red Sea, or not cover the entire earth with a flood, or not give Jonah a ride in a whale, or stop time?  IMO, the ability to believe in the fantastic is expansive, and facilitates faith and trust in the Lord.  How often have blessings been denied because the potential recipient couldn't bring themselves to believe in the miraculous?

I also believe the notion (which I first read in some Nibley book) that we are incapable of imagining anything that is impossible / has not already been done.  Therefore, if you can imagine it, it can be done (though you may not comprehend how it's done).

And just in case it needs to said explicitly: I don't believe in magic.  Miracles are done through knowledge and laws, it's just that we don't understand the mechanics, so we call them miracles, and they seem fantastic.

If that's how you feel then I'll ask this. Does reading the Old Testament even matter in 2016/2017? The creation parts are found in the Pearl of Great Price. I see it as less and less important to our salvation.

[zil]

28 minutes ago, Zarahemla said:

I'm interested in Zils attitude toward the Old Testament like who cares? With that attitude why even bother reading it?

You are misreading or misunderstanding.  I care very much.  But I don't base my belief in its stories needing to be factual or non-factual.  I base my belief in God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I recognize that all these stories are there to teach me truth, not fact.  If God wanted us to learn fact, He would have instructed the prophets to write differently.  Therefore, because I cannot factually prove either way, I'm good with any way (though I believe the literal interpretations as at least possible, and I think probably true in at least some degree, if not entirely - that's what my second paragraph was for).  One day, God will tell us whether Job was real, how the Red Sea was parted, how to walk on water, etc.  In the meantime, I have no trouble whatsoever believing that these things really happened - and I don't give two hoots whether scholars think Job was real (I think they're being presumptive and we don't have nearly sufficient to establish fact about his story).  I think Job was real.  But if it turns out his was a story meant to teach me truth, my faith won't be shaken.  I won't be disappointed.  I won't be angry with God for tricking me.

13 minutes ago, Zarahemla said:

If that's how you feel then I'll ask this. Does reading the Old Testament even matter in 2016/2017? The creation parts are found in the Pearl of Great Price. I see it as less and less important to our salvation.

Yes!!!!  It matters very much.  It is my current personal study, and has been for most of this year, and will be into next year.  I read it because there are beautiful truths therein, things which I did not discover in previous readings because I was too caught up in the immature and inaccurate descriptions by others of it being hard to understand, boring, and / or all about a cruel God.  It is nothing of the sort.  It is the word of God to his people.  It is mercy and generosity and the love of God evidenced and testified to over and over.  Its different-ness helps me to see ideas differently.  That is why I read it.

Edited December 27, 2016 by zil

[Guest MormonGator]

50 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

, I'm a firm believer in the KISS principle of biblical interpretation

So am I! 

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, zil said:

You are misreading or misunderstanding.  I care very much.  But I don't base my belief in its stories needing to be factual or non-factual.  I base my belief in God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I recognize that all these stories are there to teach me truth, not fact.  If God wanted us to learn fact, He would have instructed the prophets to write differently.  Therefore, because I cannot factually prove either way, I'm good with any way (though I believe the literal interpretations as at least possible, and I think probably true in at least some degree, if not entirely - that's what my second paragraph was for).  One day, God will tell us whether Job was real, how the Red Sea was parted, how to walk on water, etc.  In the meantime, I have no trouble whatsoever believing that these things really happened - and I don't give two hoots whether scholars think Job was real (I think they're being presumptive and we don't have nearly sufficient to establish fact about his story).  I think Job was real.  But if it turns out his was a story meant to teach me truth, my faith won't be shaken.  I won't be disappointed.  I won't be angry with God for tricking me.

Yes!!!!  It matters very much.  It is my current personal study, and has been for most of this year, and will be into next year.  I read it because there are beautiful truths therein, things which I did not discover in previous readings because I was too caught up in the immature and inaccurate descriptions by others of it being hard to understand, boring, and / or all about a cruel God.  It is nothing of the sort.  It is the word of God to his people.  It is mercy and generosity and the love of God evidenced and testified to over and over.  Its different-ness helps me to see ideas differently.  That is why I read it.

There's a lot of horrible stuff in the Old Testament that makes me uncomfortable and question just what the heck was being allowed by a higher power. It's the only part of canonized scripture that makes me question Jehovah.

[Bad Karma]

I just take it on faith.

 

Matthew 5:17-20

¹⁷ Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

¹⁸ For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

¹⁹ Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

²⁰ For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

[prisonchaplain]

1 hour ago, MormonGator said:

So am I! 

Flashing back to my anti-rock music youth.  This was Knights in Satan's Service.  Then there was AC/DC (Anti-Christ Devil Crusade).  To this day I'm still not much of a secular music listener.  Christian Urban Legends are powerful--even after they're exposed.

[MrShorty]

1 hour ago, zil said:

I care very much.  But I don't base my belief in its stories needing to be factual or non-factual.  I base my belief in God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I recognize that all these stories are there to teach me truth, not fact.  If God wanted us to learn fact, He would have instructed the prophets to write differently.  Therefore, because I cannot factually prove either way, I'm good with any way (though I believe the literal interpretations as at least possible, and I think probably true in at least some degree, if not entirely - that's what my second paragraph was for).  One day, God will tell us whether Job was real, how the Red Sea was parted, how to walk on water, etc.  In the meantime, I have no trouble whatsoever believing that these things really happened - and I don't give two hoots whether scholars think Job was real (I think they're being presumptive and we don't have nearly sufficient to establish fact about his story).  I think Job was real.  But if it turns out his was a story meant to teach me truth, my faith won't be shaken.  I won't be disappointed.  I won't be angry with God for tricking me.

I think that the underlying attitude here is a good one. It seems to me that some of the faith transitions that some people go through comes, in part, from those who believe they were taught that scripture must be historical documentary who, when they learn that some of scripture might be fictional or allegorical, lose all faith in the Gospel. When I entered BYU as a biology student, I went in with a very young earth creationist anti-evolution reading of scripture and the creation narrative(s). I found my faith somewhat shaken (eventually in a good way) when the instructors spent some time on some of these ideas and the debates between B H Roberts and J F Smith and so on. Part of that "faith transition" (if you want to call it that) was because no one had taught throughout seminary and BYU's religion courses that one could possibly read the creation accounts as allegorical accounts that were not attempts at science. From there, I, too, have come to realize that my belief in scripture and the Gospel is not dependent on whether or not much of scripture is historical.

[Guest MormonGator]

22 minutes ago, prisonchaplain said:

 Christian Urban Legends are powerful--even after they're exposed.

Oh yes. I can't tell you how many people still think that. Sure it's been debunked 10,000 times. But if you want to believe something (and these people surely do) nothing you say will be taken seriously. Glad you admit it's not true. 

[prisonchaplain]

I'm guessing that the LDS perspective on modern revelation makes it easier for some members to tolerate much greater "flexibility" when it comes to Bible interpretation and historicity.  After all, if God tells us what we need to know today--directly, then what He said millennia ago may seem less essential. Perhaps my own branch of Christianity (Pentecostal) is an outlier, in that we also embrace modern revelation (words of prophecy, interpretations of tongues, etc.), and yet we tend to maintain a strong insistence that the accounts of the Bible actually happened, pretty much as described.

[askandanswer]

2 hours ago, MormonGator said:

So am I! 

So what you're saying is that Kiss was not the name of the band but a description of their music?

[Guest]

I will say I've read through the entire Old Testament only once because some of the stories and verses disturbed me so much to the point of a faith crisis over how horrible the scripture is and to the point that I wish the Old Testament was removed from canon or at least most of it. Just google "disturbing old testatement stories" and you'll get tons of hits that they don't talk about in sunday school class.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Zarahemla said:

Just google "disturbing old testatement stories" and you'll get tons of hits that they don't talk about in sunday school class.

 

 

Or you could stop asking Google things you should be asking God. 

I am >thisclose< to being done with this merry-go-round. 99% of your questions have the same answer but you just won't listen.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Eowyn said:

 

 

Or you could stop asking Google things you should be asking God. 

I am >thisclose< to being done with this merry-go-round. 99% of your questions have the same answer but you just won't listen.

I didn't write the Old Testament to disturb me this much. How can you ask God about things so horrifying, seriously?

[Guest]

Ask your therapist. 

[Guest]

I'll ask him if things were just that horrible because it was before Jesus' time and the atonement.

[Rob Osborn]

 Core doctrines we must take literal. No death before the fall? Yes. Adam and Eve in a literal garden? Yes. A global flood? Yes. 

We certainly must remember that the very secular science that tells us these things are fairytails are the very same groups who say resurrection and immortality are also fairytails. 

[Vort]

4 hours ago, prisonchaplain said:

To this day I'm still not much of a secular music listener.

In all honesty, i have to say that I just really don't think you're missing much.