Comment on Reading the Bible purely as fiction is quite entertaining

• FishFace@piefed.social ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You asked

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  • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Tell us more about the historically-accurate talking donkey and the historically -accurate description of an angel with a million scary eyeballs & feathers, and how a virgin woman somehow historically got pregnant, and how did Noah historically fit SEVEN PAIRS of every animal in existence onto a handmade boat, how did he keep them all fed & hydrated for 40 days, and how did the feline species not devour all the rodent species while they’re all cooped up together in a small space for 40 days? Historically please tell us. Remember, “history” implies that the story is factual. Like it REALLY happened.

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    • FishFace@piefed.social ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      1. When you read a document as history, you absolutely should not have the mindset that everything in the document is true. If you read the historical documents that were used to convict Albert Dreyfus, you should bear in mind the possibility that they were forged… because they were. But they’re still historical.
      2. There are over 2 billion Christians in the world who believe the Bible to be more-or-less historical. It is unlikely most of them believe in the literal truth of all of it, but that’s still essentially how they read it. The OP shouldn’t have asked the question if they didn’t want to hear an honest answer.

      If you think that because I answered “as history” to the question “how else would you read the Bible” that I must believe in its historical truth (either in the normal manner of a Christian, or in the insane manner that everything in it must be completely true) you’d be wrong. I just answered the question.

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      • WR5@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        If I’m understanding your position, I think a better way to word your answer may have been “as an historic text to provide context for religious beliefs”. “History” comes with the implication that it is truthful to events in the past, not that it was just “written before right now, even if it’s fiction”.

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    • MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The history isn’t the stories. It’s who wrote them, why and what the stories meant in their lifetimes and social context.

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• MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The history of the Bible is really interesting. Not saying the stories are true but more about how/why they were composed. Especially when looked at in the context of the Ancient Near East.

  I believe certain texts/stories had been floating around for centuries but Jewish leaders decided to make an official text after returning from Babylonian exile in the 500s BC.

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