I have really been enjoying this weekend. I have been up the buttcrack of dawn all week and sleeping in was a treat. I went out for a while, found somewhere to read, and worked on the next podcast, which is a very special all Dave Daubenmire episode! There are special effects and idiocy and all sorts of fun things! Yay! Once, back in the day, I was going have a Dave Daubenmire Week at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes--indeed, I still have the folder with the commentaries in my HJHOP folder, but I found that my keyboard was getting too gummed up with vomit to really pull it off. So, Dave is getting his very own podcast episode. It would be great, I think, if someone let him know! Just saying.
Anyway, I have had a little time to write up something on the website, as I am sure you have figured out by now. Answers in Genesis will publish, well, anything. This time, instead of fucking up science, the are trashing literary interpretation, a field that I am actually rather skilled in. At least that's what my mom says.
The name of the article is "Literary Forms and Biblical Interpretation", and it is by Brian Edwards.
The Bible is a box of treasure. It is full of things of great value, but it requires a key to unlock it. The key to unlock the Bible is within the reach of everyone and not just a special group of people with expert training—although training and experience certainly help us to use the key with greater ease and accuracy. This key is knowing the principles of interpreting the Bible, or hermeneutics. Hermeneutics comes from a Greek word meaning “interpreter.”
Many people forget that the Bible, like any other book, must be understood according to certain rules; most of these rules we are using every day when we read books, letters, or even a newspaper. When a friend tells us that she “cried all night,” or the radio claims that “the whole town was angry,” we do not seriously imagine that our friend sobbed without interruption for eight hours or that there was not even one person in the town who was not pleased with the news that annoyed most of the citizens. We have used the key of hermeneutics to unlock the statements made.
So, language is often not meant literally? Cool. On board there.
The Bible as a book must be interpreted sensibly, and as God’s book it must be interpreted spiritually. Many of the attacks made upon the Bible by its critics are due to a misunderstanding of proper interpretation. An obvious and simple example is when people criticize the Bible for being unscientific when it speaks of the sun rising and setting (for example, Genesis 15:12, 17; 19:23). We all know that this is a convenient expression that is used the world over, and it is not intended as a scientific description of the relationship of the sun to the earth. Even the weather forecasters refer to sunset and sunrise.
Hold on...that's a
modern understanding of the phrase, certainly not how it was meant in the day by the people who wrote the Bible! It was not merely an appearance, but thought to be the real deal. You're fucking with the meaning, you meaning-fucker-wither!
The interpretation of Scripture is a vital subject; it is as important as the doctrine of verbal inerrancy itself. There is no value in being able to say, “These are the words of God,” if we then proceed to interpret them in a way directly the opposite of God’s intention. We are answerable to God if we abuse His Word in this way.
And look what you are doing! We're three paragraphs in and you already have the Bible on the rack! Come see the violence inherent in the system! Come see the violence inherent in the system!
In the history of the Christian church, there have been many leaders who have interpreted Scripture in a fanciful or even ridiculous fashion and, as a result, have completely missed its clear teaching. The Reformers looked first for the literal or historical meaning of Scripture and only for an allegorical interpretation where this was allowed by Scripture itself.
So, they made shit up? You better get to the criteria right fucking quick, bucko.
[...]
Much of the Bible is plain, and anyone with a little common sense can understand it [...]
Well, that pretty much rules out everyone at Answers in Genesis.
Is This Passage History?
If a passage of Scripture is clearly historical, then we must remember that its purpose is to describe things that actually happened. Generally, it is not difficult to know which passages are historical and which are not.
Wait a sec...Criteria! Criteria! We judge something to be
actually historical only if it accords with what is already known or makes us interpret it all in a new way that gives the totality more explanatory power and coherence. That is, it fits into a larger web of knowledge. The larger the body of knowledge it accords with, the more trustworthy the text becomes. This, of course, is how we completely demolish the various creation stories.
For example, it could hardly be denied that the stories of the various kings of Israel and Judah are expected to be taken as actual accounts of their lives; if anyone wants to deny this, the responsibility is theirs to prove that they are not intended as true stories.
You don't just blindly accept that "if it is written it is true until someone proves it's not"! Galloping horse balls, Pac Man! The default setting on a real thinker is not "gullible." And it's not the intent that we are getting at here, anyway. It is the historicity. It's entirely possible that some profoundly ignorant person wrote a history in which Napoleon precedes Alexander the Great. They may fully intend for it to be take as gospel history, but that has nothing to do with the veracity of the content of his book.
On the other hand, it is equally clear that the story told by Jotham in Judges 9:8–15 is in picture language, and it would be a foolish person who criticized the Bible, or Jotham, for thinking that the trees actually held a conversation.
Snakes, however...
We should always decide on the answer to this first question before we go any further; this could save a lot of problems later. When the reader turns to the first chapter of Genesis, or the book of Jonah, the first question must not be “How can I fit this into what some modern scientists say?” but “Is this written as history?” The answer to that last question must be “yes,” since the entire book of Genesis is written in the form of history. The Jews never doubted it, and neither did the Christian church until a century and a half ago. We cannot pick and choose to suit our convenience.
HAHAHAHAHA! Sorry. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! But they were all
wrong. (And, to be straight about it, it is simply not true that every Christian always thought that Genesis was literal.)
If someone says Genesis 1 and 2 are poetry or myth, then why not say the same about the story of Babel or the Flood or Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or, in the book of Exodus, the escape from Egypt or the manna in the wilderness? No one has yet shown where in Genesis it is clearly no longer poetic and certainly historic. The simple truth is that, like the book of Jonah, it is all written as history. We may choose not to believe its accuracy, but if we follow the rules of hermeneutics, we cannot seriously doubt its intention to be accepted as fact.
I
would say that Genesis 2-Exodus
is myth. And I'm not being arbitrary. There is no evidence that, for instance, Abraham existed. None. Other than the tradition that he existed. There is a tradition that Harry Houdini died during a water escape. That doesn't make it
true. There is no evidence that there were Jews in Egypt or that they wandered. Other than the tradition. There is a tradition that Oscar Wilde's last words were, "Either these curtains go or I do." That doesn't make them
true.
And, you ridiculous person, Genesis 1
is a song (not a poem that was originally written). It has verses and refrains, the rhythmical repetition of elements, an organized structure into which various narrative elements slide in, and it's easy to remember because it is structured along a week. Its entire mnemonic structure screams "make it memorable" not "make it true and immutable"--that is an illusion wrought of literacy.
Even if what you said wasn't the dumbest thing ever belched by a mammal, it still wouldn't give a lick of credence to the historicity of the accounts.
It is not our concern here to discuss the so-called scientific problems of biblical creation, or how a man could stay alive inside a great fish; that has nothing to do with hermeneutics.
Whatever ad hoc hermeneutic structure you build up doesn't amount to a pail of donkey droppings if you end up with a conclusion that totally fails to jibe with every observation in the history of the universe. Fuck! I'm a literary critic and even
I'm willing to throw out my pet philosophies in the face of...reality!
The evangelical who relies upon the argument that Genesis 1 and 2 (or 3 and 4) are poetic and not historical has abandoned sound principles of interpretation in order to avoid what appears to be a scientific problem; why then does he not abandon Jonah as well—or, more particularly, the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ?
Yep. That's what the stakes are. If you stop believing codswallop, then a lot of your core beliefs go up in smoke. Of course, notice how his final comment here has nothing to do with assertaining the truth of the matter, only with preserving a
belief about what is true (even when it is rollicking bonkers).
This question, “Is the passage historical?” is one of the most important questions to answer.
Is It Poetry?
[...]
In the sixteenth century, when Galileo discovered that the earth revolved around the sun, he was contradicted by church leaders, on the basis that Psalm 93:1 (see also Psalm 96:10; 104:5), claimed, “The world is firmly established, it will not be moved”! But this was a sad ignorance of the fact that these passages are written in poetic style and are intended only to imply the certainty of God’s plans and God’s laws both for man and His creation. Did the church authorities of his day really believe that God sits on a throne and that the oceans have a voice (verses 2–3)? [...]
Snakes, however, do literally have voices. It's really sad that I have to point this out.
Unlike our modern, Western ideas of poetry, where rhyming words and meter are used, Hebrew poetry uses different devices. One of the most common is parallelism. In many of the Psalms you will find ideas set in couplets or triplets—not rhyming phrases. Psalm 18:31–34 offers an example of this poetic device.
31 For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?
32 It is God who arms me with strength, And makes my way perfect.
33 He makes my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places.
34 He teaches my hands to make war, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
Verse thirty-one presents a parallel idea, amplifying the strength of the one, true God. Verses 32–34 repeat the same basic idea three times—God does x that I might have y. Along with the parallelism, many figures of speech (see the section below) are used in Hebrew poetry. With a little common sense applied, poetry can be easily identified in the Bible.
Western poetry does have...Did you imply that modern poetry doesn't use figurative tropes? I'm not going to go through all of the figurative forms you describe below, but I will point out that they absolutely saturate all prose and all verbal communication, pointing them out as if they belong to the realm of "poesy" is simply...the mental equivalent of stubbing your toe.
Listen, I have been doing a clog dance on Dave Daubenmire's genitals all day. I would like to remind the author, whose name completely escapes me and who is clearly not even worth scrolling back up to learn, 1) a parable is not a figure of speech, but a narrative form, and 2) that the definition of a fable includes a lesson and a talking animal (see the snake in the garden). By applying your standard of hermeneutics to Aesop's story "The Dog Who Sees His Own Reflection" as
true history. Sucker.
HJ
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