First lesson:

  Before you can ask the questions you've posed and have any expectation of reaching new insight, you have to be willing to let go of your conscious and unconscious assumptions about "the Bible".

One way to do that is to do as Hillel instructed a new convert regarding the Torah -

Start with the understanding that it all boils down to "Do unto others"/agape

Then, as you study the text, you can place it in the context of "what does this tell me about living agape"

How's that for an introduction?

David

The biblical stories are stories with a moral. They probably have some historical background, but shouldn't be regarded as history. The moral of each story has to be discerned by the reader and contemplator, and may well be different from reader to reader. We should not be overly concerned about what the original writer may have meant but what the story means to us, in the context of our life and time.

As I just wrote on a different thread, Christ, to me, is the spirit of unity, oneness, and unitive love. Jesus attained, preached, and practiced the Christ consciousness, but so can everyone. This, indeed, is what makes us Christian. But others, too, can act the Christ Consciousness, they just have different names for it, like Buddha Consciousness, Enlightenment, Samadi, Satori, Nirvana, Kybria, etc. 

I agree. The Biblical stories are myth and contain inner truths about what makes us humans. The Adam and Eve story, for instance, is a lesson about attachment and not so much a historical representation of an actual event.

The Christ Consciousness, referred to above, is to me the coming about in full circle of the Adam and Eve story. The Christ Consciousness is all about detachement and the giving up our lesser will to that of our inner and greater God's will.

My mom was a story-teller. She told them to family and friends while I was in the womb. She told them to strangers while we walked or biked along the way. She sang songs too! Like her mother, she could recite extensive passages from the Gospels, Epistles, Isaiah and the Psalms. Her telling of those stories, and the singing of those songs, shaped my religious consciousness. Her teaching was my primary influence until about the sixth grade. This was not instruction - it was inspiration. Strange as it sounds.... I wanted to be like my mother when I grew up. In fact, It is becoming clear that my own telling of stories offers a way to honour her; as Jesus honoured his father.

I encourage grandparents to tell stories to their grandchildren at every opportunity. Stories about their youthful experience and stories learned in the Church. I assure them that there is no need to be concerned regarding the details of the story. As long as the primary elements are presented clearly the child's imagination will find opportunity for involvement. The key component of this story telling is the love of God working in the grandparent's heart. The words, gestures and expressions are vessels to carry the love across - that love, in those stories, is the gospel.

"Attachment?"  To what?  An apple?  If you want a story of "attachment", read "Old Yeller".

And if they are myths, why start injecting "God" into the equation again?  I'm with you on the myth part, but modifying Adam&Eve and Jesus from actual original sin and actual vicarious redemption to stories of attachment and detachment is a remarkable bit of revision.

Why do you feel the need to do this? I'm still comfortably, happily, and thankfully in the realm of believing that the events in the Bible really took place as stated.

I believe that he is the second person in the Holy Trinity, the God-Word made flesh. I believe that he is Lord and Savior.

Er... read Paul's letters?

He is the one who died for all to make the potential for salvation a reality.

That said, and to be fair, you're out of your gourd.  You may have compartmentalized your faith and walled it off from common sense and self-examination, or perhaps you lack the ability to examine any claims at all.  I don't know which.  But if you actually believe in the stories of the bible are true, with no backup and, indeed, all the information we have available to the contrary, then you can be as comfortable, happy, thankful, and wrong as you want.

And vicarious salvation still doesn't make any sense.  No instance of religious sacrifice makes any sense whatsoever, and Jesus is no different.  You can kill or have killed any number of people or animals, but it won't affect you in a positive way.  Not one iota.  Vicarious salvation is a primitive and stupid idea.

The apple is symbolic of our physical form. Once the apple was consumed, as opposed to being strictly observed, then mankind began to identify with the form, as opposed to the formless spirit. This was the beginning our suffering.

The Buddha says that it's our obsession with attachment that causes all of our pain and suffering.

The Buddha's Four Noble Truths:

      1. Life means suffering.

      2. The origin of suffering is attachment.

      3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.

      4. The path to the cessation of suffering is an eight-folded path to enlightenment.
 

This seems to me to be the crux and solution of our problems. The Crucifixion, also known as the Great Renunciation in the east, seems to be the solution to our problem of attachment.

How did you write that without your self-respect throttling your brain in retaliation?

Your reasoning is no better than Jae's, which is about the best thing I can say about Jae.

OK, so a guy died on a cross, and something was renounced, ending our attachment.  To what?  Certainly not wooden crosses, as Jesus was supposed to be very much attached to one of those.

Serious and sincere:  AMEN!

I believe that there is such a thing, an entity if you like, in nature called the Human Soul. And that this entity, at a certain time in history, began to express itself in physical form. It was the "coming of mind" expressing itself upon the animal kingdom and thus bringing about the next kingdom of nature, the human kingdom of 'thinkers'.

And, I believe, that myths like the 'Garden of Eden' story survive in time for a reason, and that reason is that there is a element of truth wrapped up in the symbolism and allegory of the story.

If you don't believe this, then that's fine by me. I couldn't care less.

I think you're giving the writers and editors and translators of the bible a lot more credit than they are due.  I think you're so eager to see some greater message in what is obviously a story of very limited value, that you'll dissect it until you think you see some amazingly complex meaning.  That said, you're not the only one doing this.  I think the following image sums things up best:

While you, conversely, are just as eager to see nothing at all. So much so that you'll dissect every imperfection until you can see nothing else.

Let me bring one line into a clearer focus for just a moment:

"a story of very limited value"

A concise, somewhat terse, criticism of indigenous culture at encounter.

A curt, costly, dismissal of shaping and sustaining myths.

  This is taken from

ah. I see that you worship Paul. 

If Genesis is metaphor, why can't anyone agree on what the metaphor is?  You'd think that, with all the years we've had to study it, we could have arrived at some agreement by now.

By all indications, Genesis attempts to answer the question of where we came from, and it fails miserably in its attempt.  We don't have all the answers to this day, but we do know that they aren't in Genesis.

Sure, it's myth, and it has shaped history to some degree, but it's not because of some greater meaning - it's because people believed it despite it being a load of bs.  And just because people have believed it and held it holy for a long time, does not mean we should continue to hold it in that regard.

"metaphor" is actually a poor word, although its the one we use most often. A better term is mythos.  

I realize you don't like, or recognize for the most part, that term chansen. As with the literalist fundies, that's your choice.

Mythos, however, like art, means different things to different people because it's viewed through the lens of their own experience.

For those who require everything to have just one right answer, that's an absurdity. And, so far as I can see, it shall remain so. After all, if you don't like Picasso, you don't see any "reality" in those whacky abstracts he painted do you? And if you "get" Picasso, those same paintings are invaluable. (That's an analogy, btw - smiling)

Is that the question you think it answers? You see the problem with trying to make mythos into science then.

It isn't metaphor.

I disagree.

What other answers do you seek?

So now it's not "metaphor" - it's "mythos".  How much further behind vague wording are you prepared to backpeddle?  Better than "mythos", is there perhaps a word in Swahili that more accurately captures the essence of belief in God?

This is getting more and more ridiculous.  You are so desperate to give Christianity some reason to continue to exist and propagate, that you've now retreated behind the idea that it is like art - different things to different people.  And, handlily, damn near impossible to define.

Really, we don't have all that much to squabble over.  Neither one of us believes the bible is either history or science.  IIRC, your approach to the bible is that it is a record of those who were trying to come to terms with "God", and if I've got that somewhat correct, I have no issue with that, either.  But none of that gives us any reason to believe in a god, or worship in any particular way, or hold any particular beliefs about  how this supposed "God" wants us to behave.  These were simply primitive people who wrote stuff down, borrowing heavily from older myths, for a number of different possible purposes, ranging from the implementation of a code of ethics to a desire for power and influence.

Personally, I have as much interest in following the writings of new religious leaders like Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard, as I do in following the writings of older religious leaders.  It's all the same forumula of a few bits of common sense, intersperced with religious dogma that people should be ashamed for believing.  Believing the bible is inerrant is obviously ridiculous to both of us, but calling it "mythos" and trying to raise it to the level of "art" is almost as bad.  To that end, every novel could be ccalled "mythos", and there is nothing to distinguish the bible from other books with stories containing a moral message.

Fine, then God created the Earth billions of years ago, then appeared a few thousand years ago to tell desert-dwelling people how to behave.  Makes perfect sense.

Jae, you're surrounded by people here who would love nothing better than to have the bible be inerrant, or at least have some of it's central claims corroborated by history or archaeology, but even they can't make this claim.    That's why we're now talking about Genesis as mythos, and not even metaphor.

Jae, instead of reading the bible again and again, try reading the writing on the wall:   Your bible is a book of stories - nothing more.

 Hi Crazy:

I've read the responses.

May I recommend to you: Marcus Borg's 'Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time' and 'Reading the Bible Again for the First Time' are good places to start. then get into John Dominic Crossan and ... so on... this is a topic for some serious scholarship.

Thank you Mike. I have both of them and will go and read them again with a different eye.

No hansen, there are only words that capture small aspects of it. That's the point.

Hardly "desperate". lol. But I realize you feel better when you characterize it that way.

amusing. I've said all along - as has every "liberal' here, more or less - that faith is different things to different people. And yet you feel compelled to try to make this a "retreat". To me, realizing faith doesn't fit into anyone's straightjacket is pretty much the opposite of retreat.

Not "handily" ... but you're beginning to understand.

Correct on both counts.

As to the first, I'm not at all concerned about "belief in a god". Especially the kind of "god" that you and the literalists are concerned with - I don't believe in that god either.

As to the second - nope, no requirement to worship any particular way, or any way at all.

As to the third - for me, as you well know, the apparently universal existence of the "do unto others" principle, including as a genetic predispositon, is all of the "reason" I need.

Mythos is more than a "moral message", although it may indeed contain that element. Its intent is to take us "out of ourselves" - to think in terms that are more than material.

And I agree, there are more things than the Bible that can do that.

Really? Do you think so? Billions of years ago? Wow. From what I read in the Bible, I would estimate the Earth's been around only about 6,000 years.

Stories, chansen? Yes, I agree. True, amazing stories.

[quote=jae]

Really? Do you think so? Billions of years ago? Wow. From what I read in the Bible, I would estimate the Earth's been around only about 6,000 years.

[quote]

Surely, you jest.

Look, that claim simply isn't worth the effort of refuting any more.  It's been done to death.  If you truly believe that, there is simply no helping you.

No, trace the ancestry back. I'm a young-Earth creationist. You?

And... nothing less. It seems to me that we are each and all somehow shaped by stories. Stories about what makes life meaningful and satisfying. We may think of the manifold adverts by which consumer culture is shaped and managed. Each such advert a concise story told to entice the engagement of imagination and so reach the will.

It is not a matter of turning to stories or not as much as it is a matter of which stories we turn to. The stories told by the architects of the secular state? The stories told by the indigenous peoples of all the earth?

I don't see the basis of your claim, chansen. Why do you assume that we would love the Bible to be inerrant or corroborated? Actually, I grew up in an environment in which the Bible wasn't considered inerrant and wasn't considered historic - in fact I grew up in an environment in which it wasn't believed or read at all. I didn't come to faith on the basis of believing in the inerrancy or historicity of the Bible, so that view of Scripture would be of no value to me at all. I think, in fact, that if the Bible were "inerrant" I would take my chances without the God often described in it - a bloodthirsty God who asks one nation to slaughter other nations (and sometimes its own people) and who demands blood sacrifices as payment for sin and who condemns people to eternal damnation for breaking the rules? Most secular nation-states aren't even that unjust. That would be a horrible God to believe in, although obviously that picture of God has appealed to some people in history. I don't talk about Genesis, for example, as mythos or metaphor because its stories can't be corroborated by history or archaeology. I speak of mythos and metaphor because that's what gives the stories power for me. I believe in God and believe that we can learn much from how God has been perceived. I find the Scriptures of other religions fascinating. I find the atheist viewpoint fascinating - because they all deal with the same question of how God has been perceived. I suppose that I could have chosen to be a universalist, except that divine incarnation makes sense to me, so I choose to believe in Jesus as God Incarnate - not in an exclusivist sense which says that you're condemned to hell if you don't believe in him, but because I believe that the Incarnation of God in Jesus is the sign of divine love for creation. I believe there's some historical value in the Bible. (I don't think, for example, that you would deny the historicity of Paul's existence, and the fact that the Bible contains letters that were written by him, and that deal with real situations and questions that arose in the early Christian church. Or maybe you would?) But I don't believe (and never believed) that the Bible's power was found in that.

As to crazyheart's question which opened the thread, I often tell people who are struggling with the Bible that they first have to set aside the two "wrong" questions that people often want to find answers for. Some approach the Bible as a history textbook and ask "what happened?" Some approach the Bible as a science textbook and ask "how did this happen?" I don't think these stories were ever written with a view to answering those questions. I think the proper approach to begin with is to look at the Bible as, for lack of a better word, a "purpose" book - "why did this happen?" That's the approach that has helped me to develop my personal view of and relationship with God.

Blessings, Steven

 Mike, Stephen, George and others have provided excellent responses hansen, so I won't bother adding anything about your erroneous statement other than to ask -

Why do  you feel so compelled to try to maintain its fiction?

Science advances by the willingness to modify theories as new knowledge is gained. And yet, time and again, and in spite of the occasional grudging admission that you and I (and others who hold faith stances similar to mine) have much more in common than we have in opposition, you trot out nonsense like the above.

You complained a while back that I never seem to acknowledge when you recognize the commonalities I mentioned. However, I'm sure that you're aware that by writing this you make the claim that I'm among those "who love the Bible to be inerrant or hiystorical". A statement which may bolster your beliefs, but which, like jae's adamant denial of the reality of sacred text, does nothing to bolster your credibility. It just cements your identification as a fundy.

"mythos, not even metaphor" demonstrates a lack of understanding of the term. It makes it seems that metaphor claims the higher standing, which is incorrect.

Given the title that CrazyH used for this thread, however, you've raised an excellent issue. I don't have time to respond in the depth that I'd like at the moment. Karen Armstrong, in her introduction to "The Case for God", provides a very accessible explanation of mythos, placing it as the essential balance to logos.

Mythos is not intended - in fact, is incapable of - explaining the "how" or "when'.

Which is why those who try to make sacred text into a history book are, quite rightly, laughed at by those who use our capacity for logos - reason - to determine that the earth is billions of years old, or that the canonical gospels are not historical transcripts of speeches.

At the same time, however, those who rely solely on logos, and who believe that everything can be explained mechanically, chase an ever-receding chimera of their own. Each question answered leads simply to another layer of the unknown.

Wish I had time to continue. Perhaps someone else will jump in and expand. But thanks for bringing this up hansen. If nothing else, like good ol' Geo, you've given me inspiration for a new column (and I still owe him one - maybe I'll have it done by the next time we see him online)

David

I am reading in Sociology just now. The author is speaking about the Promethean myth by which much of of modern enterprise is informed, consciously or unconsciously. He moves from the Promethean myth to consider Atlas, who bears responsibility for the world on his shoulders. Then, speaking about the place of myth, he writes:

Our stories rise up from the depths of experience and memory, as indicators of that which we have learned and that to which we aspire. Stories about Jesus, Buddha, Zoroaster, Marx and many others, offer us opportunity to examine and test alternatives. Those who want to silence such stories are quite often deeply committed to some story of their own which does not relish the entertainment and engagement of alternatives. 

Wow. That's the first time I've heard that opinon expressed.

That's a manufactured relevence don't you think?

You say 'all' can achieve that.  As in 'all can get a Ph.D in philosophy?

I think 'few are chosen'...

(Many are cold, but few are frozen)

I can hear the yin

I can hear the yang 

All you have to do

Is give the bell a bang

How much further does one have to go to achieve the  precision necesary?.

You fall down on his one.

That is a possibility, and as you know, irrelevant

Chasen, you are off your game..

Is that your problem?

Yer back on track...there is never a reason to believe in a God...or to doubt. We are primitive people writing stuff down exactly as you say. My grandfather was awed by the electriuc light, and radio, the automobile..

I am awed by the fact that my $400.00 computer has three thousnad million bytes of RAM...

As far as smart goes we aint beat Plato's Socrates...

Just slightly off topic to what authorityy do you turn? (Other than wife...or cat

My great granson will laugh at the stupid iPad...

Wow..." I prefer "Humpty Dumpty"  To "Paradise Lost"

OK, I take that back, Early Joseph Smith had some ideas I agree with - he was in some areas a cosmic modernist...

L. Ron Hubbard...The Ultimate Modernist at hog twaddle...

(I read his stuff in Astounding (Science fction monthly.) And know Judith Merral...l 

Hmmm. Come to think about it they had something in common: They both borrowed from the Masons! I just realized that....

Not only IS it Art, but it has caused a world-wide wave of art treasures - you are trying to deprive it of having artistic merit? You consider yourself an art critic?

Yep, and therefore nothing to distinguish a canvas of mine from one of Salvador Dali.

Yep...it's all art. You don't like Dali? Hell, then you might not like the Bible!

Just realized that this might have sounded as though I were referencing GeoFee. If so, my apologies. No intention to create a comparison between GeoFee and Geo/snip/etc. My bad.

Hi Happy Genius:

What is enlightenment?

To me, enlightenment is knowing that we don't know. Any dummy can be enlightened, but it takes a smart kind of dummy to get a Ph.D in Philosophy.

To be more precise, I consider enlightenment to be the experience of the ultimate state of being which, to me, is a state of nonduality, or synthesis. IT can only be experienced in the pure, unconceptualized experience. The speculations about IT are not IT.

The TAO that can be named is not the TAO.

-Lao Tsu

The wise are ruthless;

They see the people as dummies.

The ten thousand things are ruthless;

They see the wise as dummies.

-Lao Tsu

Getting IT

IT is we; we are IT.

We can't comprehend IT without experiencing IT,

But we can experience IT without comprehending IT—

For we are IT!

IT reveals everything;

IT explains nothing.

The interpretations

Of ITs revelations

Are our creations.

-Hermann Harlos

I truly admire your facility with words and your abandonment of nuance and subtilty...

Clearity of opinion thy name is chansen!

I truly admire your facility with words and your abandonment of nuance and subtilty...

Clearity of opinion thy name is chansen!

No, you ase acceptng the very faulty scholarship of Bishop Usser.

13,500,000,000 years. Suck it up

I feel some empathy at your feeling of loss when you come to an understanding of science

and happy to think that you will realize they are not opposed...and will be pleased at your much wider  view...and will enjoy your bible more...

Cheers!

[quote=Rev. Steven Davis]

I don't see the basis of your claim, chansen. Why do you assume that we would love the Bible to be inerrant or corroborated? Actually, I grew up in an environment in which the Bible wasn't considered inerrant and wasn't considered historic - in fact I grew up in an environment in which it wasn't believed or read at all. I didn't come to faith on the basis of believing in the inerrancy or historicity of the Bible, so that view of Scripture would be of no value to me at all.

[quote]

My up-bringing and  subsequent view as well.  (Nice to hear!

 Religion and politics were never discussed in my (Grandfather's) house...(A good thing for me - whets the curiosity )

You say 'all' can achieve that.  As in 'all can get a Ph.D in philosophy?

I think 'few are chosen'...

(Many are cold, but few are frozen)

It's what happens when one day you suddenly realize that you could be all wrong!

The way to do is to be.

...uh...thanks for being ...uh...precise

The wise are ruthless;

They see the people as dummies.

The ten thousand things are ruthless;

They see the wise as dummies.

Water is the grestest good: it refreshes the ten thousand things...it does not strive -and  goes where man can not.