Re: [ZION] scriptures are not secular?

[John W. Redelfs]

After much pondering, Marc A. Schindler favored us with:

People think Churchill's remark that sometimes a truth is so precious that it has
to be protected by numerous lies is a cynical reading of history, but there's a
lot of wisdom to that. It doesn't matter when Jericho's walls came tumbling down.
It's pretty certain that they didn't tumble when Joshua's account said they did,
but so what? That's not the point.

I think it makes a lot of difference whether or not Moses was a liar. It also makes a lot of difference whether or not we may rely upon the Bible for anything. I understand the qualifier in the Article of Faith. But if the story of the wall tumbling is not to be taken literally, perhaps we shouldn't take the story of the Israelites in Egypt seriously either. Maybe the resurrection of Christ was just a figure of speech.

I think we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water when we start labeling as figurative those things that might be literally true. And we need to remember that just because something is symbolism, doesn't mean that is not also literally true. Literal facts can serve as symbols.

I would like to see a thread on how we separate the figurative from the literal in scripture. Do we just automatically assume a thing is only a figure of speech if it doesn't fit in with our naturalistic interpretation of the human past?

John W. Redelfs [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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"Atheistic humanism is the opiate of the self-described
intellectuals" --Uncle Bob
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All my opinions are tentative pending further data. --JWR

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