Kantian Naturalist and I have been hopscotching from thread to thread, discussing the nature of religious language. The main point of contention is the assertoric/disclosive distinction: When is religious language assertoric — that is, when does it make claims about reality — and when is it merely disclosive, revealing attitude and affect without making actual claims?
I’ve created this thread as a permanent home for this otherwise nomadic discussion.
It may also be a good place for an ongoing discussion of another form of religious language — scripture. For believers who take scripture to be divinely inspired, the question is when it should be taken literally, when it should be taken figuratively or metaphorically, and whether there are consistent and justifiable criteria for drawing that distinction.
.. alternatively, God has bloody huge cubits.
FWIW, I’d stake God’s cubits against any challenger’s.
It literally occurred insofar as we are reading literally. And yes, on my literal reading, it literally occurred. On the other hand, still reading literally, the date is literally impossible to determine.
Assuming that there are no gaps in Bible chronology (there’s a gap after the time of Abraham that can be bridged by tradition confirmed by Josephus, so no holes are left, says your picked literalist source), the entire chronology still relies on our modern archaeology dating events like founding of Solomon’s temple and exile to Babylon, which different people put on different dates. Any way you look at it, we are on extratextual grounds.
Insofar as we are on extratextual grounds, we are not talking literally any more. When we agree that we are not talking about literal reading anymore, but about extratextual speculations, then we can continue.
There’s also this conclusion in your literalist source, “The placing of a catastrophic global flood in the year 2304 BC means that all civilizations discovered by archaeology must fit into the last 4,285 years.” Do you agree with this?
Erik,
Is it literally true that all humans are descendants of Noah?
Thanks in advance for an unambiguous response.
Thanks for this. It made me realise something very important. We don’t understand the word “literally” the same way after all. You take it to mean “corresponding with outside things one to one” whereas I understand it what it literally says: letter by letter.
Literal means true to the text. Extratextual is not literal. The text’s relation to ontology is dependent on the genre. You treat scripture like a shopping list. I treat it like scripture. And if you think this answer is ambiguous… thanks again for the input.
When I said that to read literally means to have no hermeneutics, I meant that literalists tend to acknowledge just one kind of hermeneutics to the exclusion of others to the point of denial of any hermeneutics at all. Some end up concluding that to interpret means to misread. “The Bible means what it says and it says what it means.”
By the way, often enough a clear grasp of something coincides with a clear grasp of another thing. The concept of parent makes sense in conjunction with the concept of child, etc. Similarly, one becomes aware of one’s own manner of interpretation only after learning about multiple manners of interpretation. But you knew this of course.
Correct.
That’s right. And in Vedanta the same perspective is called the theory of name and form, which was applied as a technique of linguistic analysis millennia ago. In Europe the same technique was discovered first by the writers of Port-Royal Grammar and eventually established as classical structuralism a century ago.
I disagree that there’s a sameness to all Western philosophies. Some are better than others. Essentialism is handily better than atomism or relativism. Nominalism is worst. Monism is decidedly different from dualism. Etc.
Ultimately, the difference of Vedanta and Buddhism is difference in name only, but when you read literally, there’s an important difference. The bottom line of Vedanta is Self (spirit). The bottom line of Buddhism is no-self.
Neoplatonism is spiritual monism. Its metaphysics are identical to Vedanta. I’d argue that the theory of emanation and the theory of interdependence only have verbal difference, no essential difference, but someone else might argue differently.
Erik,
So basically your claim boils down to “Sometime in the indeterminate past a flood that may or may not have been global in scope may or may not have eliminated all but eight human beings on the entire planet, or some portion thereof.” You have a bright future with the Discovery Institute.
Is it possible to determine within some range of error? In the past 5,000 years? 10,000? What do you believe based on your reading of the text?
I’m not the one claiming that the biblical flood story is literally true. You are. Your refusal to put a date range on the supposed event suggests that you know that the scientific evidence does not support your beliefs.
Would you agree that, since the story is about humans, it must have taken place sometime in the past 200,000 years?
Do you know what extratextual means? Evidently not. We have a different understanding of “literal” after all.
Aha!
So when you say that the Flood story is ‘literally’ true, you mean that the text in Genesis is true to the text in Genesis, and you are making NO CLAIMS WHATSOEVER about its relation to reality.
Fair enough.
Thank you for the clarification.
DNA_Jock,
Facepalm
DNA_Jock,
That seems to be what he’s trying to retreat to, but Erik has already made a stronger claim:
So Erik, when do you think the flood occurred? I’d also like to know the answer to DNA_Jock’s question: Are all living humans direct descendants of Noah?
You’re right that Erik’s remark was silly. The claim that some text is “literally true” is a claim about its truth conditions. It is saying, that is, that the way the world has to be for the text to be true is roughly how it would be if each term is understood as it would be by someone accepting the expressions as they are ‘commonly understood.’
Take, for example, “John picked up a big tomato at the grocery store.” For it to be literally true, he’d have to go to the produce area, grab a larger than average red fruit and lift it up. OTOH, It could be figuratively true if John got the phone number of the overweight check-out girl.
So Erik is basically weaseling here, and Gregory, as usual, is sucking up to him.
I challenge you to find me saying that anything is literally true.
This is a genuine misunderstanding, guys, and I’m sorry about it. Patrick thinks I said something that I have not said. I have talked about literal meaning, literal level and literal reading, not literal truth.
I will talk about extratextual verification of the events described in the text when I feel like it. The point is that this will be extratextual discussion then, beyond literal.
Until then, find where I said the flood story was literally true. Hopefully you will find it.
Erik,
Right here:
Care to support or retract that claim?
Patrick, you lack the sophistication required to to distinguish between historically reliable and “of course it happened,” and literally true. It really depends on what the meaning of is is. I did not have sects with that YEC.
You atheistic Texas kissing gun toting Americans just don’t get it.
petrushka,
If we had taglines in this forum, I’d make mine “I did not have sects with that YEC.”
For a bunch of people who think they have a monopoly on virtue, there aren’t many theists around here that I’d buy a used car from.
The thing is, it was a littoral flood, it just flooded the beaches. So no big deal.
Literal isn’t literal, littoral is literal.
Glen Davidson
Actually, what I was saying was silly/weaselly was this:
As explained above, whether or not one takes this or that text to be literally true, a literal reading involves a truth-condition claim. It is not a “letter-by-letter” claim, whatever the hell that would mean.
Sorry, Patrick, but this statement stands by itself. In that statement, I provide support for the Biblical flood story by reference to flood stories in other cultures. It’s already support for the Biblical flood.
Eearlier I have also referred to the ice age as support for the flood story. And to the fact that there’s overabundance of oceans on the planet compared to land. All this is extratextual support for the flood.
So no, not retracting anything. If you find nothing to refute in this material, not my problem.
Actually, you seem to treat it more like fan fiction. If all scripture is only a literary genre, I don’t think there would be thousands of sermons being preached weekly about how to get to heaven and what said scripture tells us we should do — or force others to do on its behalf.
1.taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.
I think it is abusive or other people’s time and good will to have a secret, uncommon definition and defend it without exposing it.
That’s simply pure bullshit.
Read my first post in this thread. I was open about all my definitions and perspective from the very start. You just keep failing to acknowledge it.
Erik,
My comment, as you well know, was referring to this comment of yours:
I linked to where you said exactly that.
The rest of your comment is, as petrushka so delicately put it, “pure bullshit.” If you don’t want to defend your claim that the biblical flood happened, just say so. Rhetorical tap dancing like this just makes you look as lacking in intellectual honesty as some other theists around here.
OK, as you have directed us there, here’s your first post on this thread, Erik. In it you say that while you take the literal interpretation of the Bible to be the “least important” of these three–Literal, Figurative and Esoteric–all three interpretations are “true at the same time.”
Now you say that you never said that the Bible was literally true. I’m curious: which of your two conflicting claims is supposed to be taken figuratively/esoterically or should both be so taken?
Is this your first post on this thread? It seems top me that you draw the rather standard distinctions between literal and figurative, literal and metaphorical.
I am not aware of any common usage of “literal” that means something other than”taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.”
Well, I lost my resolve to continue my Internet fast — though it is almost 4:15 pm here.
I don’t think Erik’s position is problematic. The literal interpretation of a text is true insofar as it specifies what the text actually says on the plane of literal interpretation, and likewise for other texts. A literal reading of Moby-Dick will say that it is true that the Pequod sailed from New Bedford. And it is also true that Moby Dick contains a great many factual assertions about whaling, though it is fair to say that treating it as only about whaling is missing out on some rather important themes.
Also — a general request — could we all bear in mind that Erik isn’t American, doesn’t live in the US, and has a very different cultural perspective than the majority of non- and ex-Christians in this discussions? And also that Erik should not be held responsible for defending any remarks made by evangelical pastors on the Christian Right. So far as I can tell, at no point has Erik suggested or endorses “thousands of sermons being preached weekly about how to get to heaven and what said scripture tells us we should do — or force others to do on its behalf”. That’s just not his game.
In fact, if memory serves Erik once said that the Bible is not his favorite piece of sacred writing. Given his philosophical orientation towards Vedanta and Neoplatonism, I’m not surprised!
Kantian Naturalist,
Yeah, that’s ok for fiction, KN. If Erik will concede that the Bible is fiction, I don’t think he’ll have any trouble with anybody on this thread. But he has said it is literally as well as figuratively and metaphorically true. Nobody says that about Moby Dick
Also, re Erik’s relations to the evangelical right, I think he made his positioning quite clear with his posts regarding gay marriage.
ETA: I don’t like ‘positioning”–but I’m guessing everybody knows what I mean.
walto,
Isn’t there a literal meaning to a work of fiction? If someone asserts that Ahab represents alienation, that’s an interpretation that might or might not be true — but if someone asserts that the Pequod sailed from Philadelphia, that is just false.
Just to note, Erik hasn’t said that the text is literally true — he said that the literal interpretation is true. I’m not sure if there’s a distinction there but he seems to be drawing one. I’ll leave it to him to tell us what that distinction is.
And Erik’s positioning on gay marriage was based on his theory of meaning — that the meaning of “marriage” cannot be changed by mere social convention — rather than based on what the Bible does or doesn’t say about gays and lesbians.
I can’t believe educated people can be so stupid.
If I say “Melville describes Moby Dick as one mean MF,” That is not literally what the text says. I am being figurative. The novel literally says something like that, but in different words.
If I ask if Moby Dick is literally true, I am asking whether it is actual history. I might also be implying a question as to whether it is verifiable history. The history part is quite different from the “facts about whaling” part. It does not take a rocket scientist or a philosopher to separate the story part from the description of New Bedford or the description of rope.
It is also possible for a story to be prettified history. It is possible to weave fanciful material into a historical context. In which case it is not literally true.
One can also draw distinctions between floods and earthquakes, which are common, and Noah’s Flood, or Gilgamesh’s flood. The question being asked by 18th century geologists was not about the allegorical or parable interpretation of Noah, but about whether there was evidence for a global flood.
I’m special that way. Just ask Gregory. 🙂
I don’t think that Erik cares about that, and I’m not sure why he should.
I took Erik to be saying three different things:
(1) the Flood as described in Genesis is partly based on something that actually happened;
(2) There are spiritual truths to be gleaned from the Flood narrative;
(3) (2) is more important than (1).
I myself think that (1)-(3) are true. I don’t know if he would agree with my way of putting it or not.
Hah–that’s like the ‘doubtful/dubious distiction! Are you on a retainer?
Oh, I remember his ‘arguments’ quite well.
KN, I don’t think anyone misses Eric’s preference for an allegorical reading. That’s a given. The stupid part is the abuse of language. Reaching its apex with oceans as evidence for a global flood. Or perhaps ice.
The message I take away is that theists simply don’t give a damn about personal honesty.
I asked several times what religious or spiritual message we were supposed to derive from the flood story and was ignored in favor of Eric’s idiosyncratic definition of literal. We have been assurred that literal history is of little importance, but we have been offered nothing in lieu.
Kantian Naturalist,
I don’t know where you get that interpretation. What he actually said was:
I pointed this out in response to his challenge:
He has yet to address the discrepancy.
He also wrote, contra your interpretation and the comment in which he posted his challenge, that:
How is “literally in context” distinguished from figuratively?
petrushka,
Good point. That “though in context of course” parenthetical leaves a lot of wiggle room. How much wiggling before literal becomes not literal is a question for one’s conscience, I suppose.
And who is at fault for that?
Grammatico-historical Exegesis, The Four Senses, and Paul’s Hermeneutics
I’m not aware of any founding prophets in the Abrahamic religions who spoke in rarefied language. Certainly the ordinary believers resist the notion that Moses, Jesus et al were weasels. Jesus, in paticular, passed up an opportunity to Humpty Dumpty the writings attributed to Moses.
Note that there is no “figurative sense” nor any “metaphorical sense.” That’s because they are subsumed under the literal sense.
If I wanted to argue with Erik I’d argue that the literal sense is the most important. 🙂
But that would not be the same argument that, for example, Patrick is making.
Joe: Man, I really took a bath last week in the market.
Bob: Really? Did anyone there actually see you taking a bath?
Joe: No, but I literally took a bath.
Bob: How hot was the water?
Joe: It wasn’t literally in water.
Bob: But you said you literally took a bath. How could you literally take a bath without water?
Joe: I was speaking figuratively.
Bob: So you lied. You didn’t literally take a bath.
Joe: No. I quite literally took a bath. It was bloody.
Isn’t it clear that in that dialogue, “literally” is misused by Joe? A bunch more of that kind of misuse and what happened to “virtually” will happen to “literally.” It will mean, roughly, “figuratively”–or what “non-literally” used to mean.
I think your excerpt from the Catholic catechism:
makes a lot of sense. You do the best you can, using all the information you can bring to bear, to figure out the literal meaning of the text. Only then can you start farting around with it (to make it “true” even if it’s not really true). The claim that the text is literally true means that the literal translation you have worked out corresponds with the facts.
It’s really not so complicated how this stuff works. (Much harder to actually get at the literal meaning, of course.)
I guess that explains a lot.
I eagerly await the correct reading. I even look forward to finding out what spiritual lessons are intended by the flood story.
Don’t ignore any shipbuilding lessons your parents give you?
When the Nazis ask if you know any Jews, turn them in and save your family.
petrushka,
The late and sorely missed Sir Pterry includes in his Discworld pantheon the goddess Resonata.
Mung,
I’m making the argument that Erik said this:
Please demonstrate how to spin that as anything other than a claim that the biblical flood really happened. Literally.
I have some fondness for weasels.
http://itatsi.com
Patrick, you, like keiths, have consistently failed to defend your interpretation of the text as THE ‘literal’ interpretation. Erik has tried to point this out and it seems to me like it’s been ignored or misunderstood by most of those commenting.
I understand that it can be a bit confusing. To you and many others figurative or metaphorical is an antonym of literal.
literal
Heck, there are even ‘literal’ translations of the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic texts of the Bible. As opposed to what? A ‘spiritual’ translation?
I’m trying to get at the fundamental misunderstanding here. What you mean by ‘literally’ and what Erik means by ‘literally’ are very likely not the same.
In biblical hermeneutics the literal sense is not opposed to figurative language or metaphorical language. It’s not even opposed to spiritual. This duality you’re looking for doesn’t exist.
If this topic persists for another couple days I may travel down to my storage unit and pull out various Jewish and Christian commentaries on Genesis to see what they have to say.
For your consideration:
Allegorical interpretations of Genesis
Jewish commentaries on the Bible
It’s stupid to ignore this, the history of western science and the enormous impact (christian) geologists had in their time, solely for the sake of propagating some idiosyncratic use of the word “literal”, as Erik does.
It’s not just stupid, it’s hogwash. IF by “literal” Erik only means (as he said) reading letter-by-letter without searching for meaning nor correspondence with reality, then he’s full of it.
No one who calls themselves a biblical literalist means it that way. When people say they take the bible literally, what they are saying is that the bible is actually true in our real world, every word in its most basic sense understood as real, not as allegory or metaphor.
It’s a fact that, prior to good 18th/19th century geology, everyone was a literalist about Noah’s flood. They believed that it had actually happened, in our real world’s recent past, literally covering all the mountaintops and literally killing every human except the Ark survivors. They may also have believed the story carried a moral, a message about wages of sin or about god’s rainbow promise or whatever.
But any moral or spiritual or non-literal scriptural “meaning” of Noah’s flood is completely pointless if the actual Flood never happened. What could possibly be the point of god’s rainbow promise not to get angry and send another flood if it never sent a flood to begin with?
Why would anyone self-identify as a christian with a scriptural basis as stupid and pointless as that?
Let’s try another approach.
“I am the vine, ye are the branches.” – Jesus
Joe: That’s literally true.
Bob: Please provide objective empirical evidence that Jesus was literally a vine and his disciples were literally branches.
Joe: The literal meaning of the text does not consist of a claim that Jesus was a literal vine and the disciples were literal branches of that vine.
Bob: Then it’s not literally true.