RE: [TruthTalk] Fw: Rikk Watts on Genesis 1

[ShieldsFamily]

Caroline, I can’t really agree with most of what you have said.  So maybe I’m just being intellectually honest with you? Izzy     I thought, surely Izzy jests! which is why I replied in kind. Watts is not saying the bible isn't true or looking for reasons to not take it literally. Believing the bible is literal is the simplest approach and Occam's razor favours the simplest approach. The only reason theologians abandon it is because they could not be intellectually honest and take it literally or pretend that things like language, culture, myth etc. does not matter.   That's why I say it was merely intelligence. We know Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings but not literal promises we get to hold God to. We know Psalms is Israel's songbook and it contains some pretty raw things said against their enemies and that we're not allowed to pray or think same way because of the new command Jesus gave us to love our enemies. Even the Chicago Statement of very conservative inerrancy acknowledge the presence of hyperbole in Jesus' statements and also that inerrancy does not apply to any translation.   Approaching the bible as truth in history, poetry, wisdom literature, biography and prophecy does not hurt a person's faith or relationship with God. It makes both stronger and richer. It is the product of our scientific age that we've understand truth only as scientific or mathematical and lost the beauty of truth in other forms.   Love,   Caroline