6 ms·

This may be a very bad idea. But as (in the words of the at-present top comment) a fundamentalist adhering to scriptural literalism (aka a conservative Luthera

This may be a very bad idea. But as (in the words of the at-present top comment) a fundamentalist adhering to scriptural literalism (aka a conservative Lutheran) [addendum: who does not hate everyone], I feel compelled to offer to answer questions anyone might have for me, so AMA. I don't really want to individually respond to everything throughout the rest of the comments, but I will begin by saying that most churches have either very little by way of actual bible-based doctrine, or very little by way of in-depth theology. (Prosperity gospel/megachurches fall in the latter, a decent portion of other churches - eg. the Roman Catholic Church - fall in the former.) Responses will be sporadic throughout the day, I'm a bit busy at the moment, but I'll do my best to get to it.

bopbeepboop 6y ago
Thanks for doing this! (Don’t have questions; just encouraging more not-mega church public Christianity.)
- throwaway0b1 6y ago
  You're welcome! Hopefully it goes well.
xivzgrev 6y ago
Here’s some to kickstart things. Genuinely curious 1) did you grow up in the church you currently belong to or did you join later? If the former, did you ever explore other ones? Why/why not? 2) there can be doubt about what the Bible literally says given the number of authors, editors, and time involved. For example, someone chose x word when translating to English, that also could have meant y. Or, x book was included and y book was not. What are your thoughts on this? 3) there are a lot of rules in the Bible, especially one like Letiviticus (sp?). As someone adhering to literalism, do you aspire to follow them all? If not, which ones do you? If so, how do you deal with (likely) not following them all? 4) how do you keep your faith nourished / going in today’s society, where membership in churches is declining and Internet denizens can have a lot of skepticism toward religion?
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  The entire point of the law was to show that it couldn’t be followed, they nearly always failed miserably, even the most famous and well regarded people in the Old Testament that were spoken very highly of like Abraham and David had their fair share of major fuck ups. The point was to show that we couldn’t do it, we were fundamentally flawed and needed Christ to take the burden on our behalf, and needed to be wholly remade through death, “born again” literally as a new creation, into a new lineage, that of Christ, after dying to the lineage of Adam that we inherited from our parents. It was never about doing enough right to outpace the wrong, it was always lineage and inheritance that determined our fate. This paved the way for the Holy Spirit to come at Pentecost and basically kick off the church which has been growing and spreading from there ever since, and the church has only ever grown, never has it lost numbers, because it’s not an institution of man measured by attendance, those who are born again and counted cannot become “un” born again. It also says that the path to life is narrow and few find it, there was never a heavenly expectation that they would ever be in the majority, despite that there is also a desire for all to be saved. The difference is the human view and the God view. We were instructed to have the human view and act accordingly, spread the gospel far and wide because we didn’t know where the seed would fall and take root even though God knows, he didn’t want us to be choosy, that is his domain. All part of this grand cosmic theater that is infinitely beyond my limited perspective.
- sumtechguy 6y ago
  I can help here as I have a similar background. 1) yes I did. I did not join later. I have attended many other church's. Many are trying to put butts in seats and are focusing on which distortion peddle gets more people in than using the scriptures and lessons in those words to do it. If you read the gospels you will find them full of life lessons you can apply right now, today. 2) This is an issue. What is more of an issue is the way words can and do change meaning over the years. So you can have a translation from 100 years ago and it takes on a different meaning. All because the choice of words they used just happens to mean something similar now vs then. The cure is to read many translations. Also keep things in context. There are online resources which you can use if you are unclear on a particular meaning in that context and go back to the original texts. Context for many translations is also the context of the year it was translated. There are also some translations that leave things out, or change the meaning, because they decided for you what you should hear so you have to watch out for those. 3) Many of those rules are wiped clean at the end of the 4 gospels. As the price has been paid. But there is a simpler price to pay. 4) It is good to find a church in your area that sticks to the gospels. Does not try to be trendy and use worldly lessons replacing gospel. That does not mean they do not talk about world events, but that they do not take on fads. There is also a huge amount of youtube and individual pages you can go to. In many ways the internet has made it even easier to converge all of these resources. Remember many searching engines try to tailor your search to what you like. So you may not even be seeing them. I would also add many times you find that if it is out of context it is someone trying to distort a meaning. The trick is do not feed the trolls and ignore them.
Context_free 6y ago
> adhering to scriptural literalism What scripture? As Bart Ehrman has written in his books condensing scholarly tomes for the layman, there are many scriptures, and we don't have the originals. The Comma Johanneum being the clearest passage that there is a trinity is not found in the Greek until the 15th century. Mark thought to be the earliest gospel, it ends without a clear resurrection from the earliest manuscripts - a resurrection was tacked on later. The story of the adulteress Jesus refused to condemn is not found in the earliest scriptures. And on and on. Much of contemporary scripture were things invented centuries after the events recorded.
- throwawaygal7 6y ago
  Scholars are pretty divided on the long ending of mark , it's TRUE to say the oldest codices do not include it, but some old manuscripts do. There's also some slight of hand being done by Erhman, the codex Vaticanus does not include the ending but the scribe has left space for it at the end of the chapter, showing that they had access to it and were debating putting it in... So you can say 'oldest manuscripts don't have it' but that isnt as conclusive as one might assume... This slight of hand is extremely common in Erhmans work. As far as the woman taken in adultery, this passage is found in early manuscripts/lectuonaries but its position is being moved around d. Erhman is more committed to selling books and impressing undergrad baptists at UNC than be is with nuanced treatment of the facts...and his background as a low church protestant shines through all his work.... From an easterner perspective it's far less persuasive
- throwaway0b1 6y ago
  I suppose maybe I'm missing something, but this seems a bit on the vague side. Furthermore, I am far from an expert on the history of biblical texts; to be quite frank there's a general text (okay, maybe two) that's accepted by every Christian church I know of. I'll try to answer your point regardless. While over several millenia there certainly may have been some minor changes to the text, I would like to break this down into two major points: 1. The Bible is has (to my knowledge) by far the largest corpus of ancient texts compared to pretty much anything prior to the invention of the printing press. The existence of so many ancient texts (both directly, translations, and quotations in other materials) spanning so far both geographically and temporally with fairly minor differences is rather compelling evidence for the accuracy of many biblical manuscripts. A similar interplay is found within the Bible itself. I can think of numerous other passages commonly used to support the doctrine of the trinity from both the Old and New Testaments. Similarly, there are several accounts of as well as numerous prophecies of Jesus' resurrection. The adultress in Mark is actually found in a significant portion of ancient manuscripts; that it is not found in all is noted in most translations I've seen. 2. I stated this somewhere below, but put simply: God isn't going to let the Bible change contradictory to its original meaning (cf. Isaiah 55:11, although I could probably find a better reference for this).
freddybobs 6y ago
What's your take on the dead sea scrolls ? How do the aspects of the early church align with scriptural literalism? Specifically the split of the early church between Paul and Jesus brother James. James was Jesus's choice to lead the church in his absence. A direction which aligned more with Judaism - including circumcision, and kosher foods. Yet later Christianity revolves around Paul at odds vision. Paul was a Roman who 'saw the light' whilst being sent after Jesus. He never met Jesus. His version of 'Christianity' didn't require those aspects - not least because adult male Romans who were interested in Christianity, weren't too keen on circumcision. If this is correct, it means modern Christianity, is not based on Jesus stated future direction of his church. What does your 'scriptural literalism' say about this? If your literature doesn't cover these aspects - then what is decided is canonical and what is not? Presumably such a distinction has to be outside of said literature - and therefore not 'scriptual literalism'. Implying 'scriptual literalism' itself is not grounded. I should probably also say that it seems to me that claiming 'scriptual literalism' is a defensive position against claims of subjectivity. It is 'literal' and therefore not subjective. This is a fallacy - as there is always subjectivity and interpretation in human understanding, and certainly in interpreting something as nuanced and contradictory as the bible. This might come across as somewhat aggressive questioning, and I'm sorry for that - but I am legitimately curious how it works.
- Context_free 6y ago
  > It is 'literal' and therefore not subjective. This is a fallacy - as there is always subjectivity and interpretation in human understanding, and certainly in interpreting something as nuanced and contradictory as the bible. At the sermon on the mount, Jesus said "you are the salt of the earth". A literal take would be Jesus was saying the listeners were salt. You can be subjective and think this is a metaphor, but allowing for metaphors in the bible puts an end to literalism.
- throwawaygal7 6y ago
  the universally considered authentic Pauline epistles are commonly dated from the mid 40s to the late fifties AD.... So any arguments made about church leadership 'before' then are arguing from a very small body of evidence (luke/acts) ... rather a less persuasive argument than the iron clad one you present here.
Balgair 6y ago
A quick google search for 'contradictions in the {bible, new testament, jesus, etc.}' turns up a fair few pages. Viewing them either gives the answer as zero full-stop, or a long list of subject and their relevant citations. In looking at the citations, there does seem to be merit to the contradictory claims. I'll admit that the contradictions are a bit 'small' and may not always alter the main theme or may mix up the new and old testaments, but they seem to exist nonetheless. I may not be all that up to date on what 'scriptural literalism' is exactly defined as, but as a lay person that would mean to me that contradictions would be a difficult circle to square. What do you make of such contradictions and how do they affect your adherence, if at all?
- throwaway0b1 6y ago
  Looking through the top few, most appear to be intentional misinterpretation, one has to do with much of the Old Testament law not applying in the New Testament (see above or below somewhere), different focuses (i.e. something being mentioned somewhere but not somewhere else doesn't mean it didn't happen, the other may have just had a different focus), etc.; if you have anything specifically you want me to take a look at I can, but it generally seems to be a combination of poor understanding of the Bible, failure to let Scripture interpret Scripture, trying to use the human mind to understand the full mind of God, etc.
thrww20210329 6y ago
What do you think of the many miracles that the Catholic Church has received? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
- throwaway0b1 6y ago
  I don't know enough about those events to make a judgement. Is this intended to lead to a broader question as to my views about the Catholic church?
phd514 6y ago
I think it's helpful to point out that the Bible contains a variety of types of literature including historical narrative, poetry, etc., some of which uses figurative language that is not intended to be taken literally. We all understand this when we use modern language such as "sunrise" which is not literally true (the sun does not actually "rise" in the sky though it appears that way to the casual observer) even though we're educated enough to understand basic astronomical phenomena such as the rotation of the earth giving rise to daytime and nighttime. A Biblical literalist who takes figurative language in the Bible literally would end up making the same mistake that someone taking "sunrise" literally would. This is not at all an attempt to classify as figurative language all controversial or supernatural claims of the Bible (its claim that Jesus was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead is clearly supernatural and impossible to classify as figurative), but so many of the lists of contradictory claims in the Bible rely on wooden interpretations of what is pretty clearly figurative language.
- throwaway0b1 6y ago
  Thank you for making this point. It is important to recognize that the Bible does make use of a variety of literary techniques (eg. psalms, parables, etc. especially). However, there are vast swathes of history throughout; it isn't just a book of fictional stories.
- CivBase 6y ago
  I think when people talk about a "literal" interpretation of the Bible, they mean that it uses human language (including figures of speech like "sunrise", number rounding/approximation, etc) to describe literal, historical events with exceptions for explicit fictions or metaphors (such as psalms or parables).

bopbeepboop 6y ago

Thanks for doing this! (Don’t have questions; just encouraging more not-mega church public Christianity.)

throwaway0b1 6y ago
You're welcome! Hopefully it goes well.

xivzgrev 6y ago

Here’s some to kickstart things. Genuinely curious 1) did you grow up in the church you currently belong to or did you join later? If the former, did you ever explore other ones? Why/why not? 2) there can be doubt about what the Bible literally says given the number of authors, editors, and time involved. For example, someone chose x word when translating to English, that also could have meant y. Or, x book was included and y book was not. What are your thoughts on this? 3) there are a lot of rules in the Bible, especially one like Letiviticus (sp?). As someone adhering to literalism, do you aspire to follow them all? If not, which ones do you? If so, how do you deal with (likely) not following them all? 4) how do you keep your faith nourished / going in today’s society, where membership in churches is declining and Internet denizens can have a lot of skepticism toward religion?

luxuryballs 6y ago
The entire point of the law was to show that it couldn’t be followed, they nearly always failed miserably, even the most famous and well regarded people in the Old Testament that were spoken very highly of like Abraham and David had their fair share of major fuck ups. The point was to show that we couldn’t do it, we were fundamentally flawed and needed Christ to take the burden on our behalf, and needed to be wholly remade through death, “born again” literally as a new creation, into a new lineage, that of Christ, after dying to the lineage of Adam that we inherited from our parents. It was never about doing enough right to outpace the wrong, it was always lineage and inheritance that determined our fate. This paved the way for the Holy Spirit to come at Pentecost and basically kick off the church which has been growing and spreading from there ever since, and the church has only ever grown, never has it lost numbers, because it’s not an institution of man measured by attendance, those who are born again and counted cannot become “un” born again. It also says that the path to life is narrow and few find it, there was never a heavenly expectation that they would ever be in the majority, despite that there is also a desire for all to be saved. The difference is the human view and the God view. We were instructed to have the human view and act accordingly, spread the gospel far and wide because we didn’t know where the seed would fall and take root even though God knows, he didn’t want us to be choosy, that is his domain. All part of this grand cosmic theater that is infinitely beyond my limited perspective.
sumtechguy 6y ago
I can help here as I have a similar background. 1) yes I did. I did not join later. I have attended many other church's. Many are trying to put butts in seats and are focusing on which distortion peddle gets more people in than using the scriptures and lessons in those words to do it. If you read the gospels you will find them full of life lessons you can apply right now, today. 2) This is an issue. What is more of an issue is the way words can and do change meaning over the years. So you can have a translation from 100 years ago and it takes on a different meaning. All because the choice of words they used just happens to mean something similar now vs then. The cure is to read many translations. Also keep things in context. There are online resources which you can use if you are unclear on a particular meaning in that context and go back to the original texts. Context for many translations is also the context of the year it was translated. There are also some translations that leave things out, or change the meaning, because they decided for you what you should hear so you have to watch out for those. 3) Many of those rules are wiped clean at the end of the 4 gospels. As the price has been paid. But there is a simpler price to pay. 4) It is good to find a church in your area that sticks to the gospels. Does not try to be trendy and use worldly lessons replacing gospel. That does not mean they do not talk about world events, but that they do not take on fads. There is also a huge amount of youtube and individual pages you can go to. In many ways the internet has made it even easier to converge all of these resources. Remember many searching engines try to tailor your search to what you like. So you may not even be seeing them. I would also add many times you find that if it is out of context it is someone trying to distort a meaning. The trick is do not feed the trolls and ignore them.

Context_free 6y ago

> adhering to scriptural literalism What scripture? As Bart Ehrman has written in his books condensing scholarly tomes for the layman, there are many scriptures, and we don't have the originals. The Comma Johanneum being the clearest passage that there is a trinity is not found in the Greek until the 15th century. Mark thought to be the earliest gospel, it ends without a clear resurrection from the earliest manuscripts - a resurrection was tacked on later. The story of the adulteress Jesus refused to condemn is not found in the earliest scriptures. And on and on. Much of contemporary scripture were things invented centuries after the events recorded.

throwawaygal7 6y ago
Scholars are pretty divided on the long ending of mark , it's TRUE to say the oldest codices do not include it, but some old manuscripts do. There's also some slight of hand being done by Erhman, the codex Vaticanus does not include the ending but the scribe has left space for it at the end of the chapter, showing that they had access to it and were debating putting it in... So you can say 'oldest manuscripts don't have it' but that isnt as conclusive as one might assume... This slight of hand is extremely common in Erhmans work. As far as the woman taken in adultery, this passage is found in early manuscripts/lectuonaries but its position is being moved around d. Erhman is more committed to selling books and impressing undergrad baptists at UNC than be is with nuanced treatment of the facts...and his background as a low church protestant shines through all his work.... From an easterner perspective it's far less persuasive
throwaway0b1 6y ago
I suppose maybe I'm missing something, but this seems a bit on the vague side. Furthermore, I am far from an expert on the history of biblical texts; to be quite frank there's a general text (okay, maybe two) that's accepted by every Christian church I know of. I'll try to answer your point regardless. While over several millenia there certainly may have been some minor changes to the text, I would like to break this down into two major points: 1. The Bible is has (to my knowledge) by far the largest corpus of ancient texts compared to pretty much anything prior to the invention of the printing press. The existence of so many ancient texts (both directly, translations, and quotations in other materials) spanning so far both geographically and temporally with fairly minor differences is rather compelling evidence for the accuracy of many biblical manuscripts. A similar interplay is found within the Bible itself. I can think of numerous other passages commonly used to support the doctrine of the trinity from both the Old and New Testaments. Similarly, there are several accounts of as well as numerous prophecies of Jesus' resurrection. The adultress in Mark is actually found in a significant portion of ancient manuscripts; that it is not found in all is noted in most translations I've seen. 2. I stated this somewhere below, but put simply: God isn't going to let the Bible change contradictory to its original meaning (cf. Isaiah 55:11, although I could probably find a better reference for this).

freddybobs 6y ago

What's your take on the dead sea scrolls ? How do the aspects of the early church align with scriptural literalism? Specifically the split of the early church between Paul and Jesus brother James. James was Jesus's choice to lead the church in his absence. A direction which aligned more with Judaism - including circumcision, and kosher foods. Yet later Christianity revolves around Paul at odds vision. Paul was a Roman who 'saw the light' whilst being sent after Jesus. He never met Jesus. His version of 'Christianity' didn't require those aspects - not least because adult male Romans who were interested in Christianity, weren't too keen on circumcision. If this is correct, it means modern Christianity, is not based on Jesus stated future direction of his church. What does your 'scriptural literalism' say about this? If your literature doesn't cover these aspects - then what is decided is canonical and what is not? Presumably such a distinction has to be outside of said literature - and therefore not 'scriptual literalism'. Implying 'scriptual literalism' itself is not grounded. I should probably also say that it seems to me that claiming 'scriptual literalism' is a defensive position against claims of subjectivity. It is 'literal' and therefore not subjective. This is a fallacy - as there is always subjectivity and interpretation in human understanding, and certainly in interpreting something as nuanced and contradictory as the bible. This might come across as somewhat aggressive questioning, and I'm sorry for that - but I am legitimately curious how it works.

Context_free 6y ago
> It is 'literal' and therefore not subjective. This is a fallacy - as there is always subjectivity and interpretation in human understanding, and certainly in interpreting something as nuanced and contradictory as the bible. At the sermon on the mount, Jesus said "you are the salt of the earth". A literal take would be Jesus was saying the listeners were salt. You can be subjective and think this is a metaphor, but allowing for metaphors in the bible puts an end to literalism.
throwawaygal7 6y ago
the universally considered authentic Pauline epistles are commonly dated from the mid 40s to the late fifties AD.... So any arguments made about church leadership 'before' then are arguing from a very small body of evidence (luke/acts) ... rather a less persuasive argument than the iron clad one you present here.

Balgair 6y ago

A quick google search for 'contradictions in the {bible, new testament, jesus, etc.}' turns up a fair few pages. Viewing them either gives the answer as zero full-stop, or a long list of subject and their relevant citations. In looking at the citations, there does seem to be merit to the contradictory claims. I'll admit that the contradictions are a bit 'small' and may not always alter the main theme or may mix up the new and old testaments, but they seem to exist nonetheless. I may not be all that up to date on what 'scriptural literalism' is exactly defined as, but as a lay person that would mean to me that contradictions would be a difficult circle to square. What do you make of such contradictions and how do they affect your adherence, if at all?

throwaway0b1 6y ago
Looking through the top few, most appear to be intentional misinterpretation, one has to do with much of the Old Testament law not applying in the New Testament (see above or below somewhere), different focuses (i.e. something being mentioned somewhere but not somewhere else doesn't mean it didn't happen, the other may have just had a different focus), etc.; if you have anything specifically you want me to take a look at I can, but it generally seems to be a combination of poor understanding of the Bible, failure to let Scripture interpret Scripture, trying to use the human mind to understand the full mind of God, etc.

thrww20210329 6y ago

What do you think of the many miracles that the Catholic Church has received? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

throwaway0b1 6y ago
I don't know enough about those events to make a judgement. Is this intended to lead to a broader question as to my views about the Catholic church?

phd514 6y ago

I think it's helpful to point out that the Bible contains a variety of types of literature including historical narrative, poetry, etc., some of which uses figurative language that is not intended to be taken literally. We all understand this when we use modern language such as "sunrise" which is not literally true (the sun does not actually "rise" in the sky though it appears that way to the casual observer) even though we're educated enough to understand basic astronomical phenomena such as the rotation of the earth giving rise to daytime and nighttime. A Biblical literalist who takes figurative language in the Bible literally would end up making the same mistake that someone taking "sunrise" literally would. This is not at all an attempt to classify as figurative language all controversial or supernatural claims of the Bible (its claim that Jesus was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead is clearly supernatural and impossible to classify as figurative), but so many of the lists of contradictory claims in the Bible rely on wooden interpretations of what is pretty clearly figurative language.

throwaway0b1 6y ago
Thank you for making this point. It is important to recognize that the Bible does make use of a variety of literary techniques (eg. psalms, parables, etc. especially). However, there are vast swathes of history throughout; it isn't just a book of fictional stories.
CivBase 6y ago
I think when people talk about a "literal" interpretation of the Bible, they mean that it uses human language (including figures of speech like "sunrise", number rounding/approximation, etc) to describe literal, historical events with exceptions for explicit fictions or metaphors (such as psalms or parables).