If the Bible is primarily metaphorical or allegorical, it's a work of fiction.

[MineralMan]

The Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy are also works of fiction. What's the difference? Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels is also a work of allegorical and metaphorical fiction. How is the Bible better than that?

Some people who are Christians agree that the Bible is not meant to be taken as non-fiction and that it is metaphorical in nature. Other Christians claim it's "God's Own Truth." Clearly, the second group does not have evidence on its side.

So, if it's not a work of non-fiction, where is its value as a guidebook? Where does the salvation come from? What does it really mean? Both the Harry Potter series and Lord of the Rings are full of moral truths and lessons. They're pretty much the same truths and lessons as are in the Bible. In fact, a lot of fiction has those truths and lessons in it. That's because they're logical, recognizable, and about as universal as any thing is.

So, why is one work of fiction so important. Time? Well, yes, the Bible's been around a long time, in one version or another. But truth? Is fiction truth? Is metaphor reality? Is allegory equivalent to actual events?

Food for thought...

[Fullduplexxx]

1. keep swinging away don

[MineralMan]

2. Don?

[demosincebirth]

5. +1000

[DFW]

3. I think the whole question was best examined in this (admittedly fictitious) scene:

[MineralMan]

4. Very good, indeed!

[AZ8theist]

16. My absolute most favorite scene in the entire series of West Wing!!!! nt

[DFW]

17. I have many

But that one is definitely in the top ten, maybe top five. Sorkin is one BRILLIANT scriptwriter, but it was perfectly cast and acted, too.

[AZ8theist]

20. I have many as well, ...

But the put-down of a sanctimonious "Dr Laura" lookalike was AWESOME!!!!

[LongtimeAZDem]

29. I think CJ and the General is a little better, but this is close :) /nt

[RKP5637]

6. IMO it's for sure some of it was LSD inspired and/or written by psychos. And then there are the

books/portions they threw out. ... like today, propaganda meant to inspire certain behaviors. I love it when someone tells me they read the entire bible. In my world it's like DUH! One guy told me he read it three times. DUH!

[FBaggins]

7. Reductio ad absurdum

The bible isn't a single book (actually... the name makes that clear), and different pieces have different proportions of readers believing that they are metaphor/inspired.

Some of the books are clearly historical, others are poetry. Some pieces of other books are considered by some to be allegorical, but that's entirely different from saying that they are "fiction". Comparisons to Tolkien/Rowling books are laughable of course - particularly in the case of Tolkien (as is an implication that metaphor and "God's own truth" are the only options on that spectrum).

Of course... Guinness ranks it as the #1 selling nonfiction book of all time. So there that.

[Major Nikon]

10. So which one(s) don't include hocus pocus?

[MineralMan]

12. An excellent question.

"And his days were 900 years..."

[Major Nikon]

15. Or...

[MineralMan]

23. Well, I saw a talking mule on TV.

So...

[Major Nikon]

24. Might be from the other side of the gene pool tho

[Act_of_Reparation]

11. Which ones are "clearly historical"?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[MineralMan]

13. Another excellent question.

Where are the records of the "plagues" of Egypt?

[FBaggins]

38. The point you're missing...

... is that a historian getting facts wrong does not move his published history text from non-fiction to fiction.

[MineralMan]

39. Oh, my...

OK, then. Real good, then...

[Act_of_Reparation]

40. Yes, explain to us dummies what history is.

History, by my reckoning, is an attempt to chronicle antecedent events to provide understanding for those who were not there, particularly future generations. There isn't a single book of the bible I've read that even remotely appears to serve this end. The ultimate goal is not historical understanding, but promulgation of religious belief. These are not historical chronicles. They are myths with real historical figures as characters. If we are to consider Exodus historical because Pharaoh was a real guy, we may as well move "Cold Mountain", "Dances With Wolves", and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" over to the non-fiction section posthaste.

[MineralMan]

14. What's absurd is any claim that any part of the Bible

is actually historical or factual. Show your evidence. Babel? Jonah? Patriarchs living hundreds of years? It is to laugh.

[AZ8theist]

18. Ah, c'mon, Mineral!!

The burning bush and the talking snake HAVE TO BE REAL, amiright??!?!?!

[MineralMan]

22. Well, there's that.

But it was a "serpent" so it might have been, you know, a dragon. They're real, too. See Harry Potter.

[LakeSuperiorView]

21. While they have found towns mentioned in the bible, Nantucket also exists,

so surely there was a white whale. Sherlock Holmes as well as Harry Potter must have existed as the streets of London are known to many.

[Major Nikon]

25. Jesus metaphored over the Sea of Galilee, which does exist

Right after he metaphorically filled the bellies of a 5 thousand with a couple of fish and a dozen bagels.

[LakeSuperiorView]

27. What, no cream cheese?

[Major Nikon]

30. There had to be metaphorical condiments to go with the metaphorical lox.

Wouldn't be kosher otherwise.

[MineralMan]

33. The schmear goes without saying.

A little lox couldn't hurt either.

[DFW]

19. I already dispute the "nonfiction" classification

Of course, Guinness can call it what it wants. But they might as well also call the Harry Potter series "nonfiction," as far as I'm concerned. It won't change my perception of either.

[Major Nikon]

28. Easier to pretend talking snakes, donkeys, and bushes are real

...than offending the privileged majority by calling it fiction.

[edhopper]

31. History?

in the sense we can believe is accurate?

[WhiteTara]

8. There you have it. Fiction guarded

by Power. The power lies in people believing that work of fiction and taking it as gospel. I see so many Egyptian, Greek and even older myths used as the foundation of the story. Without the "stolen" stories of others, there would be no bible.

[malchickiwick]

9. More analogous to the Iliad & the Odyssey, IMO, but certainly you are correct.

The difference being that we have exact replicas of precisely what Swift, Tolkien, and Rowling put down on paper, while those other works began as oral stories only written down after many centuries (in ancient languages) and come to us only after multiple translations.

But fiction? Indubitably.

[handmade34]

26. historical fiction...

with excellent marketing...

[edhopper]

32. God did not write

Harry Potter.

[MineralMan]

34. Thank goodness. God spoke Elizabethan English.

Nobody would have read it.

[edhopper]

35. And it was after the great vowel shift.

So we can pronounce it.

[guillaumeb]

36. Food for thought?

No, simply leftovers.

[MineralMan]

37. Nothing wrong with leftovers.

Waste not; want not.