Don't take the Bible literally says scholar who brought earliest Latin analysis of Gospels

I advise people to take Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection as highly literal and accept his payment for sin.

Man, Martin Luther really fricked up Christendom.

quote:

---

This has been the basis for beliefs such as the idea that the earth is 6,000 years old and that it was created in seven days.

---

I'm Catholic, and have never once taken this as literal, no matter how much some people want to act like it is.

There are several things in the Bible that I've never understood how anyone can take as literal. Adam and Eve for instance--two people are the parentage of all of mankind? Yes, it had to start somewhere, but the idea that two people started it is alittle hard to believe. With that amount of incest going on, unless they were immune to all the nasty side-effects nowadays, Adam and Eve must have been super humans for us to be what we are.

Noah is another. That's one big ark to save all those animals. Then there's the whole "starting over" thing, which surely meant a lot of incest again.

As far as "inconsistencies" between two of the gospels though, I mean, come on! As if it's hard to believe that two people would tell a story differently.

quote:

---

I encourage people to do the same for atheist teachings like evolution.

---

The Catholic church actually doesn't oppose the theory of evolution. What it does hold sacred is that humans were given a soul by God. That the soul was not a result of evolution.

quote:

---

Don't take the Bible seriously

---

FIFY

Just FYI, There are more copies of the New Testament than any other ancient document, including the classics whose authenticity we don’t give a second thought. We have but a handful of copies of most ancient documents, compared with almost 6,000 copies of the New Testament. A notable exception is Homer’s “Iliad,” but the number of copies pales in comparison with those we possess of the New Testament.

And to quote C.S. Lewis a former atheist converted Christian, "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, is of the most importance."

quote:

---

You're Catholic yet know nothing about how the Catholic Church believes in Evolution and doesn't take the Bible literally at all?

---

Did I say the Catholic Church takes it literally? No. I said I've never understood how anyone takes it literally.

quote:

---

I'm Catholic, and have never once taken this as literal, no matter how much the church wants to act like it is.

---

I'm catholic also, and don't recall the church telling me the earth was 7,000 years old. But in religion class, we were taught the Bible stories as if they're history.

It's always been pretty clear to me that early genesis chapters were mythological in nature. They are broad in scope and vague (which indicates an oral tradition that the audience would have known more details about).

The Gospels are always taught as historical accounts.

quote:

---

The Catholic church actually doesn't oppose the theory of evolution.

---

The Catholic Church is less anti-science than Islam or some Protestants. There's even an astronomy wing in the Vatican.

A misspeak on my part. I meant to say people, as I did later.

quote:

---

Obviously you're trolling a little here, but I'll still note that (regardless of its truth or not) I am pretty sure the book of Genesis points out that it took well over 100 years to build.

---

Wait wait wait...that's even more incredulous. So a bunch of geriatrics were building this huge friggin ship, then stocked it with enough food to feed millions of species for over a month, got them onto this ship without them eating each other, and then boned their crusty old asses off and somehow were able to repopulate the earth with ancient eggs?

I mean, every other old book of myths is obviously an allegory and no one has a problem with that. Why are the Jewish myths so special?

If you accept it as an allegory it actually increases the possibility that it's actually based on some actual event and not woven out of whole cloth.