--- Glenn Morton <glenn.morton@btinternet.com> wrote:
(snip)
***end of old post***
I think you should have the courtesy to withdraw this
criticism and
admit
you erroneously represented my position.
glenn
BN: My point, which is still valid although
admittedly made tendentiously is that there is no such
thing as a literal interpretation of a text. Outside
of 2+2 = 7 or the atomic weight of Krypton is 127.6,
it is hard to say what statements are clearly false.
The bowl of the sky may be read by some as false,
others as a metaphor. Adam may be read as a personal
name or a generic term for man. The six days may be
read as days or aeons.
I do not think I have entirely misrepresented your
position. I think you try to make truth claims such
as the atomic weight of Erbium = 167.26 out of things
that are a lot more subject to exegesis than a claim
about an exact property of something, if you see what
I mean.
I did not mean to be at all insulting (although the
Ugaboogah example could be interpreted as insulting by
others), as in science and in literature, one tests
the veracity of a statement by trying to push it to
its extreme limits. At the extreme limits, I don't
think the necessity of "truth" claims that you try to
make hold up. You seem to agree by trying to
differentiate cases. We disagree as to how far and to
what extent something can be read as a truth claim. I
think demonstrably false truth claims tend to be more
like 2+2 = 7 and the atomic weight of chlorine = 28.
They have to be contained within a defined system that
requires precision. One last example from history, do
you really believe that the mice gnawed through the
Assyrian bowstrings when they marched against Egypt?
Herodotus records that Sennacherib marched against
Egypt. During a certain night, field mice supposedly
invaded the Assyrian camp and gnawed the quivers, bow
strings and leather shield handles, thus disarming the
military force. As a consequence, many of the soldiers
were killed and others fled (ii.141). If this is
false -- that the Assyrian military defeat was due to
field mice, does that mean the battle did not happen
or that the Assyrians did not lose? Of course it
doesn't.
We also disagree on the extent to which something in
one book of the Bible being demonstrably "false" would
have on undermining other texts (or even the same
text, cf. Herodotus' mice) in the Bible.
I think that is a fair assessment of where things
stand.
Humbly,
Blake
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