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Comment on Reading the Bible purely as fiction is quite entertaining

LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨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 ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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 If you read the historical documents that were used to convict Albert Dreyfus, you should bear in mind the possibility that they were forged… because they were.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.

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 ⁨21⁩ ⁨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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  - FishFace@piefed.social ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That would have been reasonable but I wanted to also encompass the way in which a Christian would read the bible, because asking such a question needs to have that pointed out. I have close friends and relatives who are religious, and don’t want to people to essentially deny that they exist.
    
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    WR5@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That may be a righteous conviction, but it doesn’t make the document “history” by virtue of no one knowing the events of prehistoric times of, say, Genesis. For instance, would you consider the Iliad or the Odyssey to be history? They have vast historical and cultural importance, but the stories as read do not provide a factual history of events as we understand them.
    
    I’m just trying to convey why people people disagree with you and what position you are hopefully trying to take is they contain historic importance but do not themselves contain a “history” any more than other religious texts or even an X-men comic may.
    
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MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨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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