Inconsistency of literalists vs science

Brett, I think Pastor Larry is having one of those "senior moments" about the meaning of the word literal. I would expect someone arguing the YEC position to actually say that INERRANCY does not always demand a LITERAL interpretation and go for the "idiom" theory or something along that line, and I'm sure he or someone of the YEC position will make that clear and we can then discuss that idea.

OK YEC'rs, can you oblige us?

 

</font>[/QUOTE]The word "horizon" is a modern concept, based on our realization that the earth is a sphere. To one who believed the earth is a flat circle, he would expect there to be an edge which would resemble our horizon idea; in translating we might use horizon for his word, but it would be inappropriate to read into that a thought of a spherical earth just because the translation sort of works.

The idea of a vault over the earth is precisely incompatible with a spherical earth. The vault would be the upside down bowl of the firmament and wouldn't work on a sphere.

 

The reason you think I am embarrassing myself is because you are uninformed and unlearned on this topic. Below are three quotes (and I could multiply them many times over if I had the time and wanted to spend it on this). The fact is that I am right about what I said. I, in fact, already gave you several sources that you could verify it in, and rather than use them to learn, you instead made accusations about me. It helps to learn what you are talking about before you go down this road that you have gone down. There is nothing worse than loudly trumpeting your own ignorance.

</font>[/QUOTE]Pastor Larry, I remain astonished by your assetions. Did you read what these men said?

"The term “literal” stands strictly as the opposite of “figurative,” but in modern speech it often means “real,” and it is used this way by those who want to be sure that they know what the writer really and originally meant. In this sense a metaphorical saying is “literally” true. … Thus a metaphorical statement is “literally” true but cannot be “literalistically” true."

your source here is actually using a made up word - literalistically! to say something he should have said in another fashion. He started on the right track - when he said "The term 'literal' stands strictly as the opposite of 'figurative'.

Please be advised I am attempting to hold to the strict usage of "literal" in this discussion.

Now we can certainly agree that many passages of scripture are not to be interpreted literally; there are many times the proper interpretation is evidently not literal. The context will define these passages for us and almost without effort we make the adjustments as we read. For example, when Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaratan and urges us to go and do likewise, none of us feels compelled to start travelling with donkeys on the road from Jerusalem to Jerico. The truth of scripture is to be interpreted less literally than that.

I trust that, whatever you might feel concerning your rights to use the word "literally" in a looser fashion, you realize what I was trying to communicate in the preceding paragraph.

My whole point for this thread is not a quarrel over the word "literal" so much as the inconsistency of "literalists" in insisting that passages of their choosing need not be interpreted literally.

Your point is evidently that loosely speaking, the biblical passages referring to the sun moving across the sky literally true because - the word literal itself would allow such a usage. You simply object to holding to the scriptures "literalistically" instead of "literally".

That is quibbling. The point is, shall we accept what the scripture plainly states or shall we not?

In order for your idea to be true, your idea being that the plain statements of scripture about the Sun in the sky don't mean what they literally and "literalistically" say, you would need to find an example somewhere in all the history of human thought prior to copernicus and even further back, back to Biblical times, where the idea was expressed that the earth rotates and this causes night and day. My understanding of the history of science is that there is no such realization at any earlier time in any culture anywhere at all. This would plainly mean that there was perfect accord between the words and the ideas behind the words; that when men spoke of the sun rising, they actually thought the sun was rising; that when the Psalmist said the sun had a chamber, there was an actual place the sun went to when it sets; and so forth.

The belief that the idea of a rotating earth was contrary to the literal words of scripture was plainly expressed by clerics both Catholic and Protestant when the notions of Copernicus started to circulate.

THey thought they had a handle on what scriptures literally meant. You believe they made a mistake. So - the quest is yours to verify your assertion.

 

Originally posted by Gup20 in another thread:

This is exactly the kind of thing this thread is about. Gup20 probably believes the earth rotates, contrary to the plain, ordinary understanding of the language of the Bible relating to the Sun moving across our skies. Gup20 would therefore be guilty of doing exactly the thing Gup20 says here one should never do in interpreting scripture.

 

Pastor Larry, when Copernicus and Gallileo and others first proposed that the earth rotates, and this is the cause of day and night, they met with clerical opposition.

This is a fact of history.

The clerics called on all good christians to stick with the ________ interpretation of scripture instead of accepting the teachings of science.

The word that should go here would be

a. Literal

b. Something else (you tell me what)

I am simply telling you that the natuaral meaning of the word "literal" fits here and for you to claim it does not is to be perversly stubborn about what the word "literal" means.

But of course I am very curious as to how you would prefer to alternatively express the idea. Surely you do not wish to leave the english language bereft of any way to express what you know I am trying to say. Your suggestions?

 

What word would mean to accept the words of the Bible as they are written instead of reinterpreting them to mean what we understand today? What word would mean to accept what every person in the world thought was happening when dawn arrived, and they thought the sun was actually climbing up into the sky before their very eyes, as being the denotation of the words "we watched the sun rise?"

Literal doesn't cut it for you. How should I express that idea instead? What would be the natural, appropriate thing to say instead of saying they literally believed the sun moved across the sky, back in bible times?

 

Ahh, now we can begin to discuss the ideas instead of the words. Let's cut to the chase.
Note I do not mean we are literally running around or wielding knives.

You claim that we can have no idea what the Biblical authors meant by the words describing the sun going across the sky.

We have the documentation of history how the idea that the earth rotates was hard-won by men of science (Copernicus, Gallileo, Keppler, et. al.)

We have the documentation of history how the scientific idea was opposed when it was first presented.

We have an unbroken series of references prior to the science to the sun moving across our skies, both from pagan mythology and from literary references including our bible passages, with never a single reference in any passage anywhere that the actual facts might differ from the words being used.

Why do you even entertain the possibility that prior to Copernicus references such as this did not mean exactly what the words denote, considered as literal words?

Do you have some reference somewhere, where the explanation of what was truly believed was mentioned, instead? Today, we regularly take time on various occasions to pause and say we don't really mean the sun rises, the earth rotates. Do you have any pre-Copernican reference along that line at all? Biblical or extra-biblical?

Are you aware of the many cosmologies that were developed that explicitly stated the sun moved around the earth, including Ptolomy from ancient Egypt? Are you aware of all the ancient mythologies that explained who it was that dragged the sun across the sky? Are you aware of the crystalline spheres postulated by Aristotle that moved around the earth?

There was no dearth of statements about the Sun. It was just never imagined that the earth rotated - that the solid foundation under our feet is moving. Human imagination wasn't up to that. Only science could find it out. Divine revelation might have been a source - do you have any evidence anywhere that such a revelation actually occurred?

Please do not fell I am trying to find a fault with the Bible. I am not proposing to do anything else with these verses about the Sun moving across the sky than anybody else. That is, where it states one thing literally, I read into it my modern knowledge, and accept that as what I understand them today.

In fact, it is my proposition that in viewing the text it is OK to do that.

I simply ask for the right to do the same thing with reference to other scientific discoveries in addition to the rotation of the earth, including the ancient age of the earth and the common descent of all life.

I further believe that the real reason for all the opposition to doing that is simply because the realization that the ancient age of the earth and the common descent of all life are factual has simply not sunk in to the minds of many of our folk.

 

BobRyan, we have all been exposed to your opinion on this part of the subject time and time again. In honor of the theme of this thread, we need to hear from you a defense for rejecting the literal interpretation of the bible concerning the movement of the Sun across the sky as the cause of day and night, and a cogent explanation as to why we can reject the one literal teaching yet are bound to accept the other.