Did Church fathers and Jesus see the Bible as metaphor?

by leavingwt 22 Replies latest jw friends

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  GLTirebiter

  Seeing "the Bible" as a single work to be read literally is a fallacy, a fallacy that dilutes comprehension of the texts.

  It is an anthology of many works, written in different eras, using different styles for different audiences and purposes, in the cultural context of the time each book was written. It has literal histories, it has historical legends, it has theological and philosphical studies, it has morality tales.

  Some is literal, some is metaphoric, some is philospohical. "All scripture is instructive," but only when read with the literary and cultural context in mind.
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  Borgia

  LWT wrote quoting:

  " “So the people of this time will be punished for the murder of all the prophets killed since the creation of the world, from the murder of Abel to the murder of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the holy place” (Luke 11:50-51).”

  Unquote.

  In and of itself, this statement is somewhat peculiar . Abel, lived well before the flood (an event also mentioned by celebrated Jesus) Why would a just God, who allegedly institued the law: that a son should not be punished for the sins of the father, require Jesus's generation to suffer for murder perpetuated in the past before they were born and had not even remotely any part in it?

  The statement itself contradicts the Mosaic law. So, since we can't have contradictions, and Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, it cannot be taken literally but allegorically. Jesus as the embodiement, the final emandation of all the prophets, to be killed and the retribution would be required of that generation committing such deads.

  So, my take on it is: the statement cannot be used to support an historical Abel.

  And really, I have no problem calling the devisors of the gospels cavelier as to Jesus's alleged historical perception, not even going into the issue of Jesus own historicity.

  Cheers

  Borgia
• 

  WTWizard

  I believe Jesus would have seen most of the Bible as symbolic. However, it was at least 40 years before anyone wrote it down, and anything could easily have corrupted their memory. Including Paul, who is the father of Christi-SCAM-ity (like it or not). Including their own memories of life itself.

  Then, by the time the Catholic church finally finalized the LIE-ble, they had the opportunity to further corrupt it to fit their own nefarious agenda. The Protestants, some of whom may well have been sincere in fixing the errors, more likely only made an even bigger mess instead of fixing the one that the Catholics (and Paul) made.

  As Jesus was an apostate Jew, he had to have known that much of what was written in the LIE-ble was fictitious. He did his best to expose, not only the fictions in those accounts, but the corruption that was ongoing in his day. Just as Satan did his utmost to free us from Jehovah, Jesus did what little he could to free us from what was in that fable book so well known as the Bible. Jesus knew what parts of the Bible were simply corrupt, and did what he could to fix them (only to have Paul, and later the Catholic church, corrupt his own sayings and make an even bigger mess out of it).