-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Literal or allegory?
- Thread starter gnostic
- Start date
Buttercup
Veteran Member
do you want to have a mod delete the thread and start over or should we just answer as is?Damn it. :verymad:
I press the wrong button before I could finish it.
I was going to include:Joseph's 7 year famine.
Moses' plagues in Egypt.
Parting of the Red Sea
Joshua and Jericho.
Buttercup
Veteran Member
I don't think they can fix a poll. Quagmire might be able to help you. This is a great idea for a thread and the ones you left out should be included.
gnostic
The Lost One
The problem with the poll is that it don't take into account of who find the bible to be historical true and that some if not all can be taken literally.
Why do you think some, most or all of the bible can be taken literally?
Do any of you think any of the narratives in Genesis, Exodus, gospels are historical? Which one is historical?
Why do you think some, most or all of the bible are allegory?
Why do you think some, most or all of the bible can be taken literally?
Do any of you think any of the narratives in Genesis, Exodus, gospels are historical? Which one is historical?
Why do you think some, most or all of the bible are allegory?
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
None of them.
Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
Allegory exists in all stories; it is put in by the audience. Some writers go out of their way to exclude any allegorical elements from their work, but it is still found. I believe that Tolkien stated he did not put allegory into the Lord of the Rings stories, but we still read it into them.
We make our own connections to the stories we experience. That is why allegory tends to be a relative creature.
We make our own connections to the stories we experience. That is why allegory tends to be a relative creature.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
I agree (sort of). Allegory is an interpretation, and some texts resist it. Some texts are intended to be allegories of other texts, social situations, etc.
blackout
Violet.
I voted them all in as allegory.
Allegory is present in all of life...
be it fact or fiction.
Now, how many of these "events"
actually occured "historically"...
how would I know?
I may "choose" to believe that
some of these things actually happened.
I LIKE the idea that Y'shua was real.
His LIFE story ENCOURAGES my own personal
greater vision.
His story brings out the "Christ" in me.
But I do not in any way NEED "his"story"
to have been a "historical" accuracy.
I love the story.
I love Y'shua in the light of his own story.
My own story is formed largely
out of what I love so very much about his.
He is my favorite "hero".
(Then there is Don Juan and Don Genaro.
fact? fiction? who cares.
They have all given rise to a much greater life in me.
They have helped rip the veil of illusion in my life...
The improbable possibility in God IS real!
and that is the only thing I REALLY know for sure.)
Some of these stories listed here,
just seem to be way too
"realistically silly" to have been anything other than stories.
Yet they make AWESOME allegories!
These stories have no other benefit for me personally,
besides their rise to allegory in me.
I most often find allegories
to hold the deeper meanings.
They are so often the entire relevance of an event,
or a story.
They give rise to the deep.
Allegory is present in all of life...
be it fact or fiction.
Now, how many of these "events"
actually occured "historically"...
how would I know?
I may "choose" to believe that
some of these things actually happened.
I LIKE the idea that Y'shua was real.
His LIFE story ENCOURAGES my own personal
greater vision.
His story brings out the "Christ" in me.
But I do not in any way NEED "his"story"
to have been a "historical" accuracy.
I love the story.
I love Y'shua in the light of his own story.
My own story is formed largely
out of what I love so very much about his.
He is my favorite "hero".
(Then there is Don Juan and Don Genaro.
fact? fiction? who cares.
They have all given rise to a much greater life in me.
They have helped rip the veil of illusion in my life...
The improbable possibility in God IS real!
and that is the only thing I REALLY know for sure.)
Some of these stories listed here,
just seem to be way too
"realistically silly" to have been anything other than stories.
Yet they make AWESOME allegories!
These stories have no other benefit for me personally,
besides their rise to allegory in me.
I most often find allegories
to hold the deeper meanings.
They are so often the entire relevance of an event,
or a story.
They give rise to the deep.
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
I voted them all in as allegory.
Allegory is present in all of life...
be it fact or fiction.
Now, how many of these "events"
actually occured "historically"...
how would I know?
Allegory is not the only way to derive meaning from a mythological text...
This is the definition of allegory that I use:
"A form of extended metaphor in which objects and persons in a narrative, either in prose or verse, are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. Thus it represents one thing in the guise of another--an abstraction in that of a concrete image. ...
www3.telus.net/eddyelmer/Tools/litterms.htm
The more general definition of allegory in wikipedia does fit all of the texts, but the more specific definition fits none of them.
blackout
Violet.
Well I extend Allegory, and Symbolism to ALL OF LIFE.
By my own defining... and authorization.
When I finally laid down everything I ever thought I knew...
and told God I needed to hear Him speak...
that I needed to be able to go straight to him for truth...
He lifted my reality...
and spoke to me in all of creation.
In the symbolisms of things...
in the arrangement and meanings
and personal "history" of those things in my life.
An "orchestration" beyond compare.
Everything in the physical world
is a potential symbolism for "other things"...
meanings, concepts, understandings
in the Life of The "Spirit".
This understanding then brings rise to new realizations
in our world as physical beings.
No, of course
Allegory is not the only way to derive meaning from any-thing.
(be it a text, or a situation, a "coincidence", a dream, whatever...)
We all derive our own meanings... of everything...
based upon our own "upheld" BELIEFS.
We gravitate towards our own symbolisms...
and chosen meanings.
Make no mistake.
Everything we see is a symbolism of something.
If we are "clinicaly minded" we see things "clinicaly".
If we are "cynicaly minded" we see things "cynicaly".
If we are "sinicaly minded" we see reality in "terms" of sin.
Doctrinally minded people "read" life by the lights of their chosen lamps of doctrine.
Some people rely on eXperts for their whole reality authorization...
and never see anything for themselves.
Some people need to prove everything to themselves.
Yet it's funny how so few seem to agree with them....
with their "proofs". (as if it matters)
I am an improvisational artist.
It is how I live, and create,
and see, and READ LIFE.
Dynamic newness in each and every moment!
In every encounter of life...
be it "text", or "actual".
event... or person.
Yes it is true.
some things are hard core "true" or "false".
But it's so exhausting trying to prove any of it.
I believe the towers came down by explosives/demolition for example.
You may believe they were brought down by an airplane and it's jet feul.
It used to matter to me so much.
But now I say, eh. What does it matter.
No matter what IS, in fact, the "true story"...
people are always going to see whatever it is they are inclined to see.
They will read THEIR OWN story there,
and nothing will ever change from/in it all.
I would say that my favorite non-allegorical,
"practical" lesson from the NEW LIFE story of Y'shua is...
if you want to bring about the "impossible"...
in a world that loves "laws"....
start by loving yourself and others into the totality of living Love that is God.
(I would say that interpretation is pretty surface,
but then who knows? you might find that crosses over as allegory?)
Jesus broke the laws regarding what is an isn't possible!!! wooo hooo!
So I say that he was in fact a law breaker and a rebel.
Every "solid" illusion is displaced in the face of true, total and limitless love.
All of life speaks of deeper things. This is what I see.
For me heaven is not some far off place.
Eternity is NOW.... I read all of life by the light of that lamp..
In the story of YOUR OWN life...
your need for a text to be historically true...
may still just be an "allegory" of something deeper...
about you.:rainbow1:
By my own defining... and authorization.
When I finally laid down everything I ever thought I knew...
and told God I needed to hear Him speak...
that I needed to be able to go straight to him for truth...
He lifted my reality...
and spoke to me in all of creation.
In the symbolisms of things...
in the arrangement and meanings
and personal "history" of those things in my life.
An "orchestration" beyond compare.
Everything in the physical world
is a potential symbolism for "other things"...
meanings, concepts, understandings
in the Life of The "Spirit".
This understanding then brings rise to new realizations
in our world as physical beings.
No, of course
Allegory is not the only way to derive meaning from any-thing.
(be it a text, or a situation, a "coincidence", a dream, whatever...)
We all derive our own meanings... of everything...
based upon our own "upheld" BELIEFS.
We gravitate towards our own symbolisms...
and chosen meanings.
Make no mistake.
Everything we see is a symbolism of something.
If we are "clinicaly minded" we see things "clinicaly".
If we are "cynicaly minded" we see things "cynicaly".
If we are "sinicaly minded" we see reality in "terms" of sin.
Doctrinally minded people "read" life by the lights of their chosen lamps of doctrine.
Some people rely on eXperts for their whole reality authorization...
and never see anything for themselves.
Some people need to prove everything to themselves.
Yet it's funny how so few seem to agree with them....
with their "proofs". (as if it matters)
I am an improvisational artist.
It is how I live, and create,
and see, and READ LIFE.
Dynamic newness in each and every moment!
In every encounter of life...
be it "text", or "actual".
event... or person.
Yes it is true.
some things are hard core "true" or "false".
But it's so exhausting trying to prove any of it.
I believe the towers came down by explosives/demolition for example.
You may believe they were brought down by an airplane and it's jet feul.
It used to matter to me so much.
But now I say, eh. What does it matter.
No matter what IS, in fact, the "true story"...
people are always going to see whatever it is they are inclined to see.
They will read THEIR OWN story there,
and nothing will ever change from/in it all.
I would say that my favorite non-allegorical,
"practical" lesson from the NEW LIFE story of Y'shua is...
if you want to bring about the "impossible"...
in a world that loves "laws"....
start by loving yourself and others into the totality of living Love that is God.
(I would say that interpretation is pretty surface,
but then who knows? you might find that crosses over as allegory?)
Jesus broke the laws regarding what is an isn't possible!!! wooo hooo!
So I say that he was in fact a law breaker and a rebel.
Every "solid" illusion is displaced in the face of true, total and limitless love.
All of life speaks of deeper things. This is what I see.
For me heaven is not some far off place.
Eternity is NOW.... I read all of life by the light of that lamp..
In the story of YOUR OWN life...
your need for a text to be historically true...
may still just be an "allegory" of something deeper...
about you.
:rainbow1:
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
ok..... {edit} .... that was really wierd...
blackout
Violet.
BruceDLimber
Well-Known Member
Hi!
For the record, we Baha'is view the Resurrection of Jesus as true, but spiritual rather than physical.
Best,
Bruce
For the record, we Baha'is view the Resurrection of Jesus as true, but spiritual rather than physical.
Best,
Bruce
*Paul*
Jesus loves you
:biglaugh: I can't frubal you again but that is twice you have cracked me up in half an hour.
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
I ticked most of them....including the last.
as I don't see any biblical story as likely to be the exact truth.
Some have much truth in them, but at the best they are inexact retelling of the what happened.
and at worst they are the best guess of stone age tribesmen about the early world.
as I don't see any biblical story as likely to be the exact truth.
Some have much truth in them, but at the best they are inexact retelling of the what happened.
and at worst they are the best guess of stone age tribesmen about the early world.