tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559910.post5618049906848847890..comments2024-02-17T19:58:47.311-05:00Comments on Textuality: The (Dubious) Authority of ScriptureLarry Tannerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14642725101009530480noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559910.post-36503255441027403692010-06-30T08:19:29.557-04:002010-06-30T08:19:29.557-04:00Shalmo,
"I think you need to do some reading...Shalmo,<br /><br />"I think you need to do some reading on how ancient literature worked. The idea that ancient people always took their stories literally is not true.Often mythology was invented to preserve history."<br /><br />I probably could use more background on "how ancient literature worked," but that's not really what I am talking about. I am talking about how people today--particularly those aligning themselves with "the tradition"--engage the central texts of the tradition.<br /><br />Which sources are you thinking I should read?<br /><br />Now, I do indeed have some knowledge of "how ancient literature worked." The central and indisputable fact of this literature--and I am thinking specifically of Torah--is that it is understood as cryptic. The earliest commentators understood that the text required explanation and was open to interpretation. <br /><br />Therefore, my two questions still stand. I don't think that they can be evaded by framing the Bible in a special way, "a book of narrative values." First of all, now I think you are eliding the real interpretive history of the Bible. Second, by limiting the Bible to a tool "for building a coherent epistemology," you locate the Bible (as any other sacred text) in its proper realm: culture.<br /><br />And it's here we agree. I think the Bible must be a fully human invention: produced, understood, theorized, and re-conceived under ever-developing and multiple cultural contexts. I think this is the process any central holy text follows. The coherent epistemology of the Bible is quite different, or quite differently understood, across the centuries and and the miles. I believe the same applies to other coherent epistemologies, too.Larry Tannerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14642725101009530480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559910.post-65653784694088014822010-06-29T17:55:37.226-04:002010-06-29T17:55:37.226-04:00I think you need to do some reading on how ancient...I think you need to do some reading on how ancient literature worked. The idea that ancient people always took their stories literally is not true.Often mythology was invented to preserve history.<br /><br />Some native tribes for instance would make up a theology on how their tribes rose from specific seas, but this was actually a way of keeping the history that they crossed those seas to come to the new world.<br /><br />Many scholars agree Genesis was never written to be taken literally (orthodox judaism is just wrong on this), but was an esoteric tale of paradise lost by man. This is particularly true of semetic texts, which emphasize metaphorical language because emotional responses that the stories produce are what mattered, not their veracity.<br /><br />For an upper level educated christian the bible have errors, scientific or otherwise are simply irrelevant. The Bible is not a book to learn science, its a book of narrative values, ethics and used for biulding a coherant epistemology. nothing more and nothing less!!!Shalmonoreply@blogger.com