"There is no doubt that the bible is one of the most precious parts of the world's literature. As a history of the struggles and aspirations of a most interesting and gifted nation, as a tradition of their religious thoughts and feelings, as a document of human weakness and strength of beauty and brutality, it has perhaps no equal in the literature of any country. As such it will always yield plentiful fruits to those who study it and it will always widen our human understanding and outlook. But to accept every word of that Scripture as not only divinely inspired, but as God's own word, is an absurdity which should be incompatible with modern thought."

"We must not underestimate the influence which even to-day the Old Testament has on Christian mentality; many of its conceptions concerning God and the wrold, man and woman, evil and sin, have, through many centuries of Christian tradition, been woven into the very texture of our thoughts, unconscious though we may be of the fact." (1aa)

Using Both Discretion And Discernment

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17 This text, 2 Timothy 3:16, much beloved by fundamentalists, does not occur to today's reader that when written, the author was referring solely to the Hebrew Scriptures. At that moment in history, no Christian writings had obtained the status of Scripture, and the New Testament itself had not yet come into being.

The difference between what many to believe the "inerrant word of God," and the what can be perceived as the word of men who have experienced God, allows great difference in our ability to see beyond the letter. Yet, for those literalists, who insist that each and every word is a divine supernatural transmission, one has to question what this means? Does it mean that every word should be taken literally? Does this mean that every story, every account, every command, every rule, every thought interjected in scripture, should be regarded as completely accurate, coming from God's mouth?

One must not use the scriptures as the drunk uses the lamppost-- for support rather than illumination; rather, one reads those inspired words with the very fallible apparatus of fallen human beings. - PETER J. GOMES

Does this mean that God's word is all completely 100%, word for word, literal truth? If so, it would mean every writer, all 40 of them, (or is it under 20?) would have never, in one small iota, interjected their own humanity, thoughts, opinions and perspectives in any way, shape or form into the words they subjectively wrote down, what they considered to be objective truth, under the inspiration of God. It would also have to include that the human language is capable of explanation of teachings, concepts, ideas and abstract paradox truth in complete accuracy, even though human language, as we know it, fails to capture all facets of meaning even in the most elementary translations from one to another. For the bible literalist, this supernatural divine Spirit would have to be so strong on each writer that they would be so completely overtaken, that they would be totally removed from their own thought patterns developed in life, that are made up from their personal experiences and backgrounds, removing them from any self taught knowledge, individual personal growth, perception and perspective on life, bringing them solely to God's thoughts, down to the smallest word, in a trance beyond human thinking. Common sense and more importantly, Godly discernment can tell a person that this is not the case.

According to Christ:

"Your word is truth" John 17:17

While this may be true, King Solomon wrote, pertaining to Godly wisdom:

"Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you." Proverbs 2:11

And Paul further wrote:

"I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say." 1 Corinthians 10:15 "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14 "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God." Phillipians 1:9-11 "But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil." Hebrews 5:14

The writers of the Bible were men who came from different places and different backgrounds. They had different tribal codes and different prejudices, all resulting from different upbringings, different life experiences and even different languages and cultural patterns, that are no doubt, reflected in their writings. The message they wrote is of their journey and walk with God, and behind their literal letters of subjective truth, lies the ambiguous nature of the objective truth. However to simply state that the bible is the "word of God," in a literal sense of every word and statement being totally infallible, as coming directly from God's mouth, is to neither be "sensible" nor use "discernment," blindly loosing proper perspective and failing to use one's own "perceptive powers to distinguish right from wrong, which enables those to digest the solid food that belongs to mature people," both balancing them and making them "become full grown in their powers of understanding," (Hebrews 5:14-16)

God's Word is the Word beyond the words of Scripture, beyond the formulations of tradition, beyond the human attempt to capture or to literalize. It is rather the Word, that by the grace of God, is perceived as Spirit beyond letter. - JOHN SPONG

When taking the bible, or any other book for that matter, and labeling it as "the word of God," making it infallible, refusing to see any human interjection from various writer's individual backgrounds and unique personalities, that may or may not slant the story, elaborate on, enhance, expand and bend on, opinionating the information, is to blindly move into the spirit of legalism. Laws, rules, commandments have value, but their worth comes only from looking on with flexibility, bending room, even to be broken, depending on each individual circumstance that takes on a unique character. To put the blanket label on the bible as "the inerrant word of God," suggests to many that the book itself is infallible, with every single word being of a divine nature. The book itself can be of a divine nature, the message can be God-breathed in the glimpses of spirit that are perceived behind the fallible letters of men, but inspiration was given to men, imperfect men, who had different personalities, different life experiences, even different values and prejudices and under what they perceived to be the direction and influence of God's spirit, wrote down their interpretation there of. In doing so, they undoubtedly, interjected their unique, individual angles, outlooks, perspectives and even cultural differences in their writings. It is only then, that we, fallible men and women, read their words and interpret according to our unique tribal, cultural, political an social patterns.

Reliability of literal word-for-word infallibility should be questioned, as stories were passed on for centuries by word of mouth before ever being written down. Social, cultural, religious and tribal prejudices clouded all stories and accounts.

The bible, being "God-breathed, " written by men, who had unexplainable experiences with God's spirit in their journeys, resulted in their human attempt to write what they considered as inspired by God, containing their own human (fleshly) thoughts are interjected in scripture. Many statements are clearly those of human thought, shaped by male patriarchal society and political reasons. The writer of 14 letters of the New Testament, Apostle Paul, a former Pharisee and legalist, who was converted from the legal codes of the Jewish system to the spiritual law of the Christ, was one writer who many times fell back in the "war that was within him," his strong self loathing to his being a super Christian in zeal, interjecting his human thoughts with blanket legal and restrictive statements. (1 Peter 2:9; Romans 7:19-24)

Many Accounts of God And His People Did Not Follow Each And Every Word, Law & Rule In A Literal Way Literalism Does Not Bring Us Closer To God

What makes the bible such an unusually interesting and unique book is the overall theme of mercy and compassion over the strict enforcement of laws, rules and regulations. There are countless stories written in this book of God's people breaking the very literal laws, and God spoken rules, they spoke about, all without punitive judgment. Justice and mercy were put above the law breaking, with the consideration of the individual circumstances of the situation and forgiveness took place. A thinking person cannot deny the scores of blatant contradictions, mythological thinking and lack of modern day knowledge that disproves many of the claims, stories and accounts, as many of the written stories go against the very teaching of reading of the laws set forth within and the enforcement of each and every word, rule and law that the bible literalist claims to be followed.

For instance, it is written in Deuteronomy that anyone who commits adultery face serious punishment. It is also written that a person who commits murder would suffer death. Yet one of God's kings, King David committed both crimes and did not receive death, but was forgiven. He was punished and disciplined for such heinous actions, yet far from what was written. No where were the literal words of what was written carried out: a prime example that the bible is not a book to be read with each and every literal word, law and rule to be fundamentally obeyed. The obedience goes not to strict fundamentalist enforcement, but to true justice that weighs each and every individual circumstance, always exhibiting mercy and forgiveness above sacrifice. This is true justice with balance and maturity.

Some other examples are King David's eating of the sacred show bread, clearly breaking the law and yet becoming exempt from the previous written words against his actions, just as King Saul and his men, hungry from battle, ate unbled meat. The best example is that of Jesus Christ. Here is a man that blatantly broke the law in more ways then one and was exempt from ALL punishment. It appears that Jesus was far more universal than fundamentalists would ever dare admit. As an example was the fact that he performed works of healing on the Sabbath. It was clear to all those fundamentalist bible readers, those who took each and every word from the bible as literal, that Jesus could not be the messiah, after all, he broke the law and the messiah could not break the law. Yet Jesus' actions of healing persons on the Sabbath were Gods very actions. How could this be? This was because the bible are experiences of men that are subjective to human explanation, something that can never capture the experience of God as mans words, not meant to be read and obeyed in literal terms with black and white meaning. God's living word lives behind the letter, bringing universal justice, aligned circumstances that come into consideration, applying mercy over sacrifice, empathy and compassion over law following, love and charity over religious obedience. This is how the book called the bible was written and meant to be read, man's words who journeyed with God. Something most people fail to do.

The Ten       Sometimes even the most straightforward moral directives are, on further study, not so simple after all. For example, most people believe that the Bible states without equivocation, particularly in the Ten Commandments, that murder is wrong ,stealing is wrong. There is no question here about the meaning of these biblical imperatives, right? Wrong! Commandments What the Bible really says is that these things are wrong for a Jew to do to a Jew, but a close reading of the text will reveal that when Jews dealt with their enemies, then lying, killing, stealing, and raping were all acceptable forms of tribal behavior. In war the common pattern was to kill men, claim the booty, and kidnap the women for sexual sport and servitude.

In the Exodus account of the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh, Moses delighted in bearing false witness, promising Pharaoh that the Hebrews would only go a day's journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to their God (Ex 5:1ff.). Neither Moses nor Pharaoh really believed that story. When the escape from Egypt did occur, the Hebrews robbed the Egyptians blind-and they did it gleefully (Ex 12:36). When they were on the other side of the Red Sea, they rejoiced to see the Egyptians dead on the shore (Ex 14:30). You shall not bear false witness! You shall not steal! You shall not kill! Not applicable, the Hebrews would assert, except in intra-Jewish relationships. - JOHN SPONG (9)

When Did God and Jesus Become One? The Myth Grows Larger With Each Account

Order of Writings:   Apostle Paul = At Resurrection   Written before all the Gospels, Paul did not explain or justify the presence of God in the person of Jesus, but simply proclaimed salvation in His resurrection.   Mark = At Baptism   Mark explains that God entered Christ at Baptism. Labeled as "adoptionism" and condemned as heresy. For two decades being the only Gospel in existence.   Matthew and Luke = At Conception   Twenty to twenty-five years later being written, Matthew and Luke added that God entered Christ with the "Holy Spirit" used to conceive and impregnate a virgin.   John = From The Beginning of Time   John dismissed the virgin birth narratives and substituted God in Christ with the divine logos from the beginning of time. Who is right? Perhaps they all were. Who is literally correct? Perhaps no one is, nor can anyone ever be when trying to capture God or the Christ in the vehicle of human words. This is the problem with literalism. We will never find God in the Bible, nor in a church, nor anywhere separate from ourselves. But living inside us, in our silence, there is a knowing, a love that comes from our nothingness that we conceive from ourselves and for others. This is something we can only find hidden within, where faith is made, trust is formed, and strength is achieved, through the Spirit of God that supplies a peace that excels all thoughts. God is not found in biblical quotations, but in the peace, joy, love and compassion we develop from reading scripture with the Spirit that rests within. This is our only avenue to look beyond men for reliance on anything and everything, but God alone. Truth can only be found with an awareness behind the motives, background and historical reasons behind writings, yet it goes far beyond that, to the Spirit of God that lives within us, revealing our hearts that are willing to rest in His strength. John Spong relates:

"There may be an eternal objective truth beyond all of our words, but the minute that truth is spoken by a human being who is a subject, it ceases to be either eternal or objective. It becomes then truth compromised by time, concept, vocabulary, history, and prejudice.  Both the sacred Scriptures and the creeds of the Christian church can point to but they can never finally capture eternal truth. The attempt to make either Bible or tradition "infallible" is an attempt to shore up ecclesiastical power and control It is never an attempt to preserve truth. Indeed, those who would freeze truth in any words, concepts, or creed will guarantee a time warp that will finally doom that truth to extinction. Only truth that is freed from its capacity to time and words and allowed to float in the sea of relativity will survive the ravages of subjectivity. Only truth that can constantly call out new words capable of lifting yesterday's experience into today's mind-set will finally survive. The formulations of today or tomorrow will be no more eternal than the formulations of first-century people. This is not a plea to give up inadequate ancient words for ultimately inadequate modern words. it is to force upon us the realization that all words are, in the last analysis, inadequate. Truth is never finally found in words. Truth is always beyond words. Yet there can be no truth for human beings unless we us words first to understand it and second to convey it. So we mortals live with our subjective truth in the constant anxiety of relativity. That is all we can do and that realization strikes a mortal blow at the traditional excessive claims of all religious systems."

Literalizing Text

Prophets of Old Were Not Predictors of The Future

Excerpt from John Spong's, "Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism:"

Contrary to the way the prophets were understood in early Christian history, they were not predictors of the future, Jerry Falwell has written:

"I believe the Bible is God's word also because of fulfilled prophecy. Dozens of predictions are made in the Old Testament that were fulfilled in the New Testament in every detail. There are so many cases of fulfilled prophesies in the Bible that only the atheist or agnostic would believe them to be merely coincidental. Over two dozen prophesies have been fulfilled relating to the death, burial and resurrection of Christ alone. At least twelve of those are found in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, which was written several hundred years before Christ was born! Fulfilled prophecy is an indisputable evidence that the Bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

That quotation will hardly stand in the world of biblical scholarship. What this pastor calls fulfilled prophecy represents one of two things, both of them far removed from what he claims. 

1. Either the Christian author was writing the story to conform with prophetic hints (Did Psalm 22 predict the events of the cross, or did the Gospel writers pattern their story of the cross after their very familiar psalm).

2. Or the author was employing a dreadful  and disturbing method of wrenching Holy Scripture out of its context in order to make it serve Christian missionary aims.

The servant passage of Isaiah, the son of man passages of Ezekiel and Daniel, the triumphant passage from Zechariah, the shepherd and Bethlehem passage from Micah all became vital and valuable tools for understanding and interpreting Jesus in the Jewish context. In each instance Matthew altered the original meanings of these texts to suit his own needs. His zeal overwhelmed his rationality. JOHN SPONG

For example, the Matthean words "He shall be called a Nazarene" (Matt. 2:23), a quotation not easily identified with any verse in the Hebrew text, was made by the author of this Gospel to refer to citizenship in the town of Nazareth. This suggestion is about as farfetched an idea as one might imagine. In Matthew's eagerness to fashion his story to his Jewish audience, he violated the meaning of his Hebrew text time after time. The enigmatic text in Isaiah 11:1, for instance that referred to a branch out of Jesse could hardly be used to undergird the fact that Jesus went to live in Nazareth, yet that appears to be the way Matthew used it. That word that is translated "branch" in Hebrew is Nazir. It can mean a number of things, but to make it refer to a citizen of the town of Nazareth is not one of them. Nor can the Hebrew holy man called a Nazarite (Num. 6:2, 6-8: Judges 13:5, 7, 16:17), and defined as one who did not cut his hair or drink wine, be related to living in Nazareth. The details of the crucifixion and burial were not predicted by Psalm 22 so much as they were deliberately shaped by that psalm. The servant passage of Isaiah, the son of man passages of Ezekiel and Daniel, the triumphant passage from Zechariah, the shepherd and Bethlehem passage from Micah all became vital and valuable tools for understanding and interpreting Jesus in the Jewish context. In each instance Matthew altered the original meanings of these texts to suit his own needs. His zeal overwhelmed his rationality. (14)

For reasons now lost to us, the first Christians were convinced that Jesus was the Christ. But he came from Nazareth, and the scriptures foretold that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem. How did each of the evangelists deal with this? Marks ignores it altogether. John refers to the discrepancy (John 7:41f.) but leaves it unresolved, preferring to draw his readers' attention away from Jesus' earthly origins to his heavenly ones (cf. John 1:14; 3:13; 16:28). Matthew says that Jesus' parents lived at Bethlehem up to the time of his birth, but moved to Nazareth later to avoid persecution by the Herod family. (Matt. 2:1, 22f.) Luke says that the family lived in Nazareth, and were only in Bethlehem at the time of the birth because of the census (Luke 1:26; 2:4-7). The point I am making is this: none of the evangelists believed that Jesus was the Christ because they knew he was born in Bethlehem. They thought he must have been born in Bethlehem because that was one of the criteria for being the Christ which they already believed on other grounds. So they made Jesus fit the criteria of their saviour. Naturally. (14a)

John Spong has much to say, as an example:

"In the torah there are two creation stores that vary in detail and contradict each other in order (Gen. 1:1-2:4 and Gen 2:5ff). These stories cannot be harmonized. Poor Moses contradicted himself radically in the first two chapters of the Torah. He also seemed not to know the nationality of the people to whom Joseph's brothers sold Joseph, who took him down to Egypt. In one version it was the Midianites (Gen. 37:25), and in another version it was the Midianites (Gen. 37:28). They are not the same. Moses, as a single author seems to have been quite confused"

If this were not enough, there are three separate and distinct versions of the ten Commandments in the Torah that cannot be reconciled (Exodus 20, Exodus 34, and Deuteronomy 5). God was portrayed, of one seeks to maintain a literalism about Holy Scripture, as terribly inept. He (and it was he) could not even get the essence of the divine law clear. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, God was portrayed as not knowing what was going on those two cities, so he had to send divine messengers to bring him a report. This is hardly a portrait of divine omniscience.

If one doesn't read the Bible constantly, these issues can be ignored - lost in ignorance. But if one does read the Bible regularly and seriously, these issues are disturbing and unavoidable. They call into question so many of the attitudes upon which our faith is built. When these attitudes, based on a literal view of Scripture, begin to shake, our faith also shakes, and we either refuse to look again at the Bible and continue our religious game of "lets pretend," or we walk away from this resource for the faith of our fathers and mothers and conclude that religion as we know it has lost its power and is dead. If we fall into the former camp, the voices of the television evangelists who traffic in certainty, who claim biblical authority in the hope that no one will challenge them, might compel our attention and our response. But it will not last. Religious hysteria always burns itself out in emptiness. If we are in the latter camp, we live in world of dreadful transcendent emptiness. We enter the pathos of a modern poet who suggested that God is dead and modern folks gather nightly at the divine grave to weep, (14B)

 

Why the Miracles?

Beyond the supernatural miracles of walking on water, controlling weather patterns and healing blind persons, beyond virgin births, angelic pronouncements and cosmic ascensions, even apart from the literal interpretation of the resurrection itself, the last dying words on the cross, the entire birth story, the existence of Joseph (the father of Christ), the existence of Judas (the "Christ killer." having anti-Semitic meaning of his existence), records a story of symbols, symbols that have meaning far apart from biblical literalism. Apart from all the inaccurate and contradictory stories, brings the real meaning and intent of Jewish midrashic writing. Apart from literalism records a man who lived, loved and became someone who crossed the lines of monotheistic prejudices, ripping apart tribal barriers, overstepping the social, cultural and religious customs that bound persons into exclusive segregated communities. This man Jesus, spoke to women, to lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans, Gentiles and all those considered outcasts in their theistic society. He went so far as to eat meals with these people, a practice of hospitality that had much meaning in that time era. This was a man who entered into the transcendental experience of love beyond barriers, living in fullness and having the courage to be beyond tribal prejudices. Apart from the human mythological theistic interpretations, which are nothing more than the creations of men, is the Christ experience of agape love, giving of life with the courage and power to be all that a man can be, that of God, something we all have within ourselves, that is of ourselves.

Why did Mark, Matthew, Luke and John describe Jesus as they did? Were they simply under such euphoric idealism that they ignored reality, inventing stories that defy physical reality, acting as deception? This is not the case. And since this is not the reason, then why such miraculous stories of those such as a transfiguration, temptations by the Devil in the desert, walking on water, healing the blind, resurrecting the dead and feeding 5,000 on a few loaves of bread? There is an amazing answer that was formulated from a series of attempts by various theologians, B.W. Bacon, Austin Farrer, later scrapped, until Michael Goulder's thesis and later, John Shelby Spong's continuation of Goulder's analysis. Yet this thesis is not widely accepted as of yet among the mainstream theological community. That is, the seeing of the Gospels through Jewish eyes. It is here that one is revealed the midrashic method of description that correlates the story of Jesus to conform with the Jewish calendar and subsequent Jewish festivals that are so intrinsically bound to liturgical readings read in Synagogues each Sabbath, covering each (originally lunar) year.

In Mark one finds the parallel to Jewish liturgical readings in relation to Jewish festivals, but not covering the full year, while Matthew adds additional midrashic writing to fill the remaining Sabbaths of the year. In Luke, there is the parallel to the first five books, the Torah, which are read each Sabbath as liturgical readings, the order and parallel are much too coincidental to be mere speculation. In Acts there is an amazing parallel with the Gospel also written by Luke, that parallels both Peter and Paul's events with those of Jesus. All of this supports the validity of midrashically designed material that removes all literalness of the actual events, not being eye witness accounts and certainly none containing the unnatural miracles of magic that biblical literalists and fundamentalists so readily believe.

In Spong's Book, Liberating the Gospels, a full analogy on this thesis is presented. Each account from the birth narrative to the last night and the claims of resurrection appearances are all explained in detail to the symbolic stories the Jewish writers have taken from their treasured and sacred stories. There are also much more earlier and detailed writings of Michael Goulder, however his books may be out of print. Spong's thesis is an extremely enlightening look, an eye-opener, at why the Gospels were written and how they fit into the Jewish teaching and framework of liturgical life. The writers of the Gospels did not write valueless fair tales, nor did they invent futile words of mythology, yet the accounts of Christ simply were not literal, as were never written as attempts to be so, but stories that repeat earlier accounts in the Hebrew scriptures and are written to be related to former characters and festival activities, all following liturgical Sabbath readings, now retold under the fulfillment of Christ, acting as midrashic (not literal) stories for liturgical purposes. The virgin birth, the resurrection, the ascension and the Pentecost experience are not literal accounts:

"The words, the actions, the dialogue from the cross may be an accurate interpretation of the meaning of Jesus' life, but these words are not literal history describing objective events. Is the gospel story, with these familiar details, then all made up? Are these accounts then nothing more than myths and fairy tales, legends and fantasies similar to those that have marked the exploits of other gods and heroic figures in the history of the human imagination? Is the Christian faith built on this kind of fragile sand?

Believers post these questions with great anxiety and not infrequently with revelatory anger that betray the fragility of their religious convictions. The answer to this anxious query however, is no. These are not fairy tales created out of the subconscious imagination and related to nothing that is real. That does not mean, however, that these details are literal facts of objective history. These accounts are illustrative rather of the process by which the life of Jesus was incorporated into and interpreted by the traditions of the Jewish past. This was the Jewish account of the Jesus "who did for our sins according to the scriptures." This was the faith affirmation of Jewish people driven by their experience of meeting what they believed to be the living God in Jesus of Nazareth and understanding that experience by references to their Jewish past in which they believed that the living God had regularly been active and present. The early Christians both applied these stores of the Jewish past to Jesus and expanded these stories into liturgical episodes, for that was the only way their vocabulary allowed them to speak of the holy God. And it was the holy God that they believed they had encountered in Jesus. So when they wrote the story of Jesus' crucifixion, they did so without knowing any firsthand details, since Jesus had died abandoned and alone. But they also wrote it with their Hebrew Bibles open to those passages they believed to be God's unique son and emissary. They worked out the details inside the faith conviction that what they now had come to believe Jesus was and the role they believed he had acted out were in fact signaled in the Jewish scriptures. Above all, they searched the scriptures for validating words and phrases. Jesus did not fulfill the scriptures in some literal way, as we once thought. Rather, the first Christians, who were also Jews, had their sacred scriptures opened when his life was being interpreted, and the specific details of his life and death were actually written to conform to the ancient texts." (14c)

Stories Passed On With Word of Mouth For Centuries Before Being Written

The questioning of total infallibility of scripture reflects on the accuracy of every literal word and every story told. The fact is, many of the stories written down were passed on for centuries by word of mouth around campfires and family gatherings long before ever being written down. Any story, God inspired or not, let alone in the hands of men, regardless of having God's spirit, can and will be changed after a relatively short time period, due to human memory, lack of adequate listening, distractions of the mind, pressures of daily life, hardships that put stress in life and many other external circumstances that perfect adequacy and infallibility can not be strictly maintained, especially by imperfect men, regardless of having God's spirit.

Peter Gomes relates;

"The Bible is divine, yet it has come to us in human form. The command of God are absolute, yet the historic context of the writings appears to revitalize certain elements. The divine message must be clear, yet many passages seem ambiguous. We are dependent on the Spirit for instruction, yet scholarship is surely necessary. The scriptures seem to presuppose a literal and historical reading, yet we are also confronted by the figurative and nonhistorical, e.g., parables. Proper interpretation requires the interpreter's personal freedom, (as well as the writer's), yet some degree of external, corporate authority appears imperative. the objectivity of the biblical message is essential, yet our presuppositions seem to inject a degree of subjectivity into the interpretive process." (1a)

Typical Biblical Contradictions

"For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten Son." John 3:16 "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 John 2:15 The same Greek word for "world," cosmos, is used in both instances, contradicting in both praising and condemning the love of the world. Only with convoluted and theological pretzel twisting does this, along with countless scores of other texts, bring direct meanings to words and texts that fallible men have contrived, written and interpreted.

The birth of theism and subsequent written accounts of this deity were contrived from the Jewish people, with fears fought back at the unknown, to keep their nation and identity separate and distinct from all others. To conform to the divine rule of monarchy and prevent assimilation with other faiths and cultures by strict adherence to the letter of the law and callous uncompromise to the mercy of foreign elements that lived within, swaying back and forth in directions. Fear, fantasy, prejudice, and magic all fed the nationalistic imperatives of many a days and influenced much of the writings contained.

This is the result of the birth of evolution, the birth of self-consciousness. Rather than face fear with the courage to transcend in spite of, fear is avoided with the illusion of both theism and it's subsequent accounts of a father figure in the sky, acting as a divine cop, keeping law and order with mercy and punishment. This is the result of Sigmund Freud's explanation of man's trauma and Paul Tillich's shock of non-being, that is, the anxiety apart from the animal, that of self consciousness and the trauma leading to hysteria that accompanies such.

"We See In A Hazy Mirror"

Addressing Paul's words at 1 Corinthians 13:11-13:

"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:11-13

Paul's acknowledgment of himself and the Christian congregation of only having knowledge in part and only prophesying in part, until Christ, the complete arrives, implies that scripture will always be open to some degree of interpretation, until the complete, the Christ, arrives. Another reason not to take every word as a literal word directly out of God's mouth when reading scripture, for this would be both unbalanced and disharmony with Paul's above words.

Paul himself, made admission to the "evil that lives within him," his weaknesses and frailties, recognizing his tendencies to turn back to his Jewish past of legal interpretive views, traditions and formalities based on men, all conforming with the letter of the law, blocking the Spirit that can only be accessed through humility and withdrawal from the ego, looking within to rely on the strength of God that comes through unconditional love.

The Church's Exclusive Hold

The bible, after it's completion, was held exclusively by the Catholic church. The original Hebrew language of the Old Testament was a dead language and the Koine Greek of the New Testament was no longer in use, nor the common language of the masses. The bible was then translated into Latin, which became a language foreign and unknown to the masses. Only the Universal Catholic Church had the power to take the time, effort and knowledge to read and understand the Latin scriptures, giving them an exclusive hold and ownership of all that was written. Amazingly, from thousands of ancient manuscripts, the bible has retained much of it's original content, however to completely rule out any additions or removals of scripture would be both unrealistic and unlikely, as this can be seen with the following spurious passages:

"For there are three that bear record in Heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one." 1 John 5:7 "When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it. Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either. Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God." Mark 16:9-20. The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.

Some very popular Christian writings, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas, were not finally included in the canon of Scripture. At least one book that was included, the Epistle of James, was, according to no less a Christian figure than Martin Luther, a serious mistake.

The Bible Cannon

There were in time far more than the four Gospels that now adorn Bibles. There was the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of James, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Hebrews, and many others. but in the middle of the second century, a group of Christian leaders, under pressure from a man named Marcion, sat down and decided what books would be included in the volume that would be known as sacred Scripture. They chose Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John from among the available Gospels, Acts from among the various books depicting the early history of the Christian church, and the body of epistles by Paul (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, and Colossians) and others, like Ephesians, Hebrews, Timothy, and Titus (written probably between 70 to 90 C.E.) that they thought were Pauline but that in fact have turned out, in all probability not to be. Then a series of letters claiming to be by Peter, James, John, and Jude were added (probably none of them were authentic). Finally they chose the Book of Revelation with its vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, written in the persecution of the tenth decade of the Christian era, to close their sacred story. The New Testament had come into being. (9b)

This means that there were many additional writings that at one time were considered as much inspired and valuable as what we now have today. And yet almost two hundred years later, it is decided what to include and what to omit. How can we call the Bible "God's Word," as an infallible writing, when we reject so much other writings that have been removed by the decisions of men some two hundred years later? How can we reject the other Gospel accounts if we literalized what is in the current cannon? Did God some how supernaturally inspire this group of men in the second century to omit and choose what letters and accounts must be included and what must be omitted? Did these men loose all of their humanity, their frailty, their cultural, social, political and mostly religious perceptions under the hand of God to pick and choose what is infallible and what is not?

To believe this, is to trust in illusions. It is always safe to live within our illusions, it is always secure and carries much certainty from which we can build on. A turtle can choose to live in a bucket or choose to live in the ocean. The ocean is free and natural, but it is dangerous and large. Its space is so vast that it brings ambiguous open vulnerability, natural predators and insecurity. Yet there is where it can live in freedom and reality, there is where it can progressively grow. However in the bucket, although having no freedom, exists safety, certainty and the vacuum needed to live half-awake in existence apart from courage and reality. Those who wish to grow, mature and evolve in higher consciousness will leave the bucket into the vast sea of relativity. Those who wish to live in a vacuum, forever subject themselves to their own illusionary thinking, will remain in the bucket.

Translations and Translators

This raises the question of whether the translator should "inject his opinions" into his translation. This can be answered in the affirmative, on the ground that it inevitably happens anyhow, so that the translator who supposes he "maintains neutrality", merely channeling ideas from the source language to the receptor language without influencing the result, deludes both himself and his readers. For English expresses the translator's opinion. A translator ideologically committed to not intruding his opinions does so in spite of himself, but without taking responsibility for it. (1)

Therefore, a translator should decide what a word or phrase means (in his opinion!) and then convey that meaning as clearly as possible. For example, in the case of upo nomon, precisely because wrong meanings have been conveyed in the past, the translator of the Jewish New Testament translates this expression into the English words "perverting the Torah into legalism and not simply law or torah and considers it his responsibility to convey what he believes to be the one and only correct meaning in an unmistakable way as possible. Even when a Greek expression seems vague, capable of more than one interpretation, the translator should not transfer the ambiguity into English but should decide on one of the possible interpretations and render that one well. (In editions that supply alternative readings, the ambiguity can be discussed in a marginal note.) (2)

On the other side of the picture, this approach opens the door toabuse. Therefore, it must be stressed that the fact that the translator's opinions will necessarily be reflected in his translation does not mean that he should exploit his role, illegitimately swaying his readers toward a partisan position. (3)

While the New World Translation of The Holy Scriptures, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, does have some credible scholarship, its interpretive slant being bias, brings definite exploitation in the rendering of the Greek words and phrases in regard to the divinity of Christ and other areas as well. In this translation the word proskuneo is rendered "obeisance" when applied to Jesus and "worship" when applied to the father, solely depending on the translators (Frederick Franz's) discretion. Other words are added and inserted in {brackets} that simply are not in the original text. In many of the New Testament scriptures, where there are direct quotes from the Hebrew scriptures that contain the tetragramaten, the tetragramaten is then deliberately added, when the writers of the Christian Greek scriptures did not include it. Many of these verses that formerly applied to YHWH, now apply directly to the Christ, and to insert the tetragramaten is these places is to translate a bias rendering, injecting man made interpretation and diminishing the role given to Jesus Christ. (Matt 4:10; John 4:24; Heb 1:6)

There are of course other translations that claim neutrality in their rendering and yet when translating words, choose the best match that supports their belief in doctrines such as the trinity, a literal burning hell, an invisible presence of Christ, the continuance of a physical nation of Israel in God's plans, & etc. The translator will translate the Hebrew and Greek words and phrases to the English equivalent that conveys best their opinion and sways in their direction, regardless of being a literal or paraphrase translation. This is why more than one translation should be used in study.

Hermeneutics - To Interpret

Hermeneutics: to interpret.

Exegesis: reading meaning FROM text.

Eisegesis: reading meaning INTO text.

Peter J. Gomes states,

The technical term for the interpretation of scripture is "hermeneutics," from the Greek hermeneuo, "to interpret." The term itself is so daunting that it tends to be used only in professional academic circles. The Concise Dictionary of Christian Tradition defines hermeneutics as:

"The science of interpreting (especially) ancient literature. It covers both the analysis of the text in its context and presuppositions of the interpreter who lives in a different context from the original author. As a subject it has become of great importance in recent times to theologians who are particularly conscious that the horizon if understanding of biblical and ancient writers and their own are widely different."

Closely allied to the work of hermeneutics is the equally technical and off-putting term "exegesis," defined by the Concise Dictionary as:

"The act of explaining a text, e.g., a book of the Bible. The general rules that govern the explanation are provided by hermeneutics, and so exegesis involves the application of these rules to particular passages or portions of books. It is reading the meaning from the text, not reading a meaning into the text (eisegesis). As such it is of fundamental importance to all Christians involved in the explanation of the Bible in the modern world."

Everyone who reads the Bible, whether they acknowledge it or not, does so within a hermeneutical theory, for interpretation is what we do when we read. When we try to make sense of something, even when we say it does not need to make sense at all, we apply either explicitly or implicitly a theory of interpretation to which we submit the meaning of the text. The so-called higher criticism of the bible is often charged with imposing external, rational, or other human criteria upon the bible and thus either obscuring or perverting its clear sense and meaning, but even this criticism of criticism is in itself an unavoidable hermeneutical theory. There is clearly a period in history that existed before the rise of the nineteenth-century phenomena of literary and historical criticism of the texts and contexts of scripture. But there never was a period in which the Bible lacked for interpretation-which is by definition the application of a critical faculty to the text and context-and so the illusion of a pre critical period in the study of the Bible is just that, an illusion.

It is a comforting illusion nevertheless to those who wish to believe that what the Bible means is what they believe it to mean, and that while others may interpret by means of impositions, interpolations, and bits of intellectual sophistry, they themselves are free to submit themselves to the authority of scripture, convinced that what it means now is obviously what it means then as well. American fundamentalism is generally thought to be a rejection of criticism, that is, interpretive theories that undermine their convictions about the authority of scripture. Those convictions, often described as a view of the Bible as "inspired, inerrant, and infallible," themselves constitute a formidable hermeneutic. It is of course within the circle of this hermeneutic that fundamentalists have developed their own comprehensive theories of interpretation with which they require the Bible to be read. A monument to this effort is the Schofield Reference Bible, which in its efforts to make sense of every verse within the assumptions of its theological theories leaves nothing to the imagination or to chance. The "high view of scripture," which is one of the distinctives of evangelical Protestantism, is always faced with the problem of whether interpretation can be distinguished from the Bible itself, and which one determines correct belief and behavior. The very conception that biblical interpretation must be the same as what the biblical writer intended, a version of original intent, is itself the imposition of a hermeneutical principle upon the text without which is impossible to understand the text in the "correct" way. Religious traditions do not come to texts empty-handed, that is to say, without the presuppositions of the tradition itself, the assumptions of the community if interpretation to whom the texts belong.

This may seem like just so much literary theory, which destroys the intimacy between the reader and the text, and which, in its secular context, has done so much to turn departments of English into antagonistic militias of deconstructionism. but Roman Catholics, for example, do read the Bible in a different fashion, that is , with different experiences and expectations from say, Scottish Presbyterians, and Anglicans read the same texts quite differently from American Southern Baptists, and Jews read the Hebrew Bible in a way quite different from Christians who regard the same set of texts as the Old Testament. Thus, it is not merely a case of conflict between a historical understanding of a text and its contemporary interpretation that may be at odds with that historical understanding, but rather a conflict between interpretive principles both explicit and implicit between the larger culture and the particular community of interpretation, that is, the tradition, and within the tradition itself. Thus, while the Battle for the Bible is a very trendy slogan, what is really going on, and has been for as long as there has been a diversity of opinion about the Bible, is the Battle of the Hermeneutics, although such a non pleasing title would do little to sell books or make news. When someone says a version of "I know nothing of exegesis, eisegesis, or hermeneutics, I know only Jesus and God's word," they may sincerely believe that to be the case, but they are equally wrong, not necessarily in the interpretation, which of course must rest upon the merits, but in the assumption that they do not appropriate these technical terms, which seem to alien to piety, every time they read the Bible. (7a)

God's Word

"Alive and Sharper Than Any Two-Edged Sword"

In Hebrews 4:12, the writer describes scripture as:

Belief, in the end, creates formulas and fixed patterns for living. It provides us with ready responses to whatever situation may arise. Thus we are never free to act in the fullness of any moment. Life is infinite and its unfolding; it cannot be met with formulas and scripts. Belief is a tether that keeps us forever in the tiny circle of our vanities. (8aa)

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Hebrews 4:12

That "word," of course, does not refer simply to the text of scripture, for "scripture" then would not have meant the New Testament as we know it. That word is interpreted by men to mean the whole disclosure of God, apprehended by the aid of the Holy Spirit, witnessed to by prophets, apostles, and martyrs, made manifest in Jesus Christ, and mediated to the faithful in all ages by the sacraments and by tradition reason, and experience. This is the claim of Christianity. (8a)

This means that behind the letter of the text is the spirit that animates it, the force that gave it and gives it life. Thus, there is something always elusive about the Bible. This fixed text has a life of its own, which the reader cannot by some sample process of reading capture as his or her own. This dynamic quality of scripture has to do with the fact that while the text itself does not change, we who read that text do change; it is not that we adapt ourselves to the world of the Bible and play at re-creating it as in a pageant or tableau "long ago and far away." Rather, it is that the text actually adapts itself to our capacity to hear it. Thus we hear not as first-century Christian, nor even as eighteenth-century Christians, but as men and women alive here and now. We hear the same texts that our ancestors heard but we hear them not necessarily as they heard them, but as only we can. Thus the reading and the hearing of scripture are for Christians in each generation a Pentecostal experience, as described in the Book of Acts. (8b)

Yet with each generation, our interpretation changes according to the time era we live in, complete with our current social, political and cultural prejudices. As we see through the eyes of perception molded by our empirical selves, that which associate with meaning. In turn the bible has been used to support slavery and segregation, only to be used to support equal rights of minorities and those oppressed, all according to the time era it is interpreted. This is not a magic holy spirit, but people who read into words with preconceived ideas and cultural frameworks that change from generation to generation.

The internal lenses we see from are always filtered from conceptual structures and formulated patterns that become fulfilled as we read into the bible. Belief, in the end, creates formulas and fixed patterns for living. It provides us with ready responses to whatever situation may arise. Thus we are never free to act in the fullness of any moment. Life is infinite and its unfolding; it cannot be met with formulas and scripts. Belief is a tether that keeps us forever in the tiny circle of our vanities.

 

God's Word ?

The Beginning and The Final "Word"

The bible, like many other ancient books, the Koran, Vedas, Cabala, Confucius & others,

I have never met God by retreating form life. I seem to meet God only when I enter deeply into life. That is the God that I confront when I look deeply at Jesus of Nazareth. When I enter this experience, I turn to the words of Scripture and to the phrases of the creeds and I no longer find the sterile choice between literalism and nothing. I find rather an expression in dated words and time warped symbols of the same reality that I am in touch with today at the edges of my human limits and in the dawning moments of a transcendent awareness. Then suddenly the ancient biblical story becomes my story, and its ancient symbols interpret my life. I know then that I have touched divinity, a divinity that is the same yesterday, today, and forever I breathe that divinity in and I worship its source and I commit myself anew to live "in Christ," as Paul would say, by living, loving, and being, as one who has been transformed by the infinite and eternal presence of God. Christianity becomes for me not an empty and outdated set of scriptural and creedal concepts but a new adventure in living as I walk side by side with the Christians of the ages who, with me, have journeyed into the meaning of God. - JOHN SHELBY SPONG (16)

contain truth with non truths. Many cultural, social, religious and political reasons lie behind the words being written. Much of the Hebrew Scriptures have stories with strong elaboration's, additions and unnatural occurrences, many being more than one account of the same story, written at a different time period, then blended together, such as the two creation accounts, the three accounts of the ten commandments, the two accounts of King David, the four gospels and so forth. Much of the history is in line with archaeological evidence, backed up with ancient findings of both other ancient religious writings that had contact with the ancient Hebrews and artifacts found. A study beyond supernatural reveals the human slant supporting various cultural and political causes.

Inspiration of God can be seen with faith, a faith in an overall theme that outside of literalism, revealing compassion and mercy and the inner transformation of men and women to become in unity with God. Like all other religious writings, beyond the letter, there is an unexplained experience worth observing, learning, knowing, despite the many contradictions that come from both the writers and interpreters. Beyond the letter of those fallible men who wrote their God experiences, to the unexplainable Spirit beyond, where the truth and peace of God exists within ourselves and our unconditional love is where we find truth, the love Jesus taught us about. Some of the most bizarre stories of the Hebrew scriptures actually run the same theme, despite their blatant contradictions and gross exaggerations and overall failure to live up to the standards of both the Jewish God, Yahweh, the God of justice and the Christian God of love. Some of these stories question the personality of God, which could be theorized as one of a developing nature, growing in wisdom, as he interacts with his reflective "image," mankind. Yet much of it shows the Yahwist's of King David's time and the Elohists (the captive Jews in Babylon), share conflicting stories that later were sewed together in an attempt to harmonize and keep the Jewish faith strong. The teachings of morals, as in many other ancient religious writings are of a high value. The teaching of Christ, faith and agape love, goes beyond the fabric of human society and human (fleshly) comprehension, yet at the same time is simple enough for a non intellectual to understand. Truly a spiritual teaching and not a human (fleshly) teaching, not one of the human ego, but grace, also known as unconditional love, requires our awareness of God's Spirit to truly comprehend and in turn to live it.

According to Bible theology:

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word." John 1:1

The Word's of Men Elevated As God's

Every Word, Statement & Story Literal Unconditional Wisdom Has No Reference Point Objective Truth Is Beyond Explanation

Truth Lives in Insecurity

With ambiguity, uncertainty and insecurity, comes the courage to fully live, fully love and be all that we can be in spite of the anxiety of the unknown. Or, we can hide our fears and cover over them with supernatural explanations of the bible being a book beyond men, with neurotic security, but with limited courage to be. We have the choice for interior security of protection with limited courage or to live dangerously in uncertainty with the courage to both love fully and to be all that we can be

Having no fixed reference points, with an open flexibility of interpretation appears to remove the foundation teachings of stability, morality and the very core teachings, yet this is the nature of the unconditional, it simply has no fixed reference points. The primordial unconditional is force of the universe, the energy that holds the cosmos together. It is existence.

Balance of teaching and morals that puts mercy above sacrifice, justice ahead of law, understanding of each individual circumstance in proper perspective, neither stiff as a board, nor bendable as a blade of grass, but somewhere in between.

We cannot know Christ without knowing ourselves, our awareness. In Jehovah Witness language - we cannot be non-anointed Christians that follow an anointed "slave class" to enlighten our hearts for us. We must have our very own personal intimacy that only comes from our consciousness level accepting God's Spirit as living within our own hearts with truth. The only way we can exhibit the "fruits of the Spirit," is with the Spirit." The only way we can obtain the "gifts of the Spirit," is with the Spirit." The only way we can truly understand the bible that was written under Spirit inspiration, is to know ourselves, to approach God with humility in the quiet darkness of our hearts. It is here we find God's Spirit within, with our faith and willingness to enter into ambiguous areas.

Reading the bible behind the letter is to do so with God's Spirit, going behind what is written, learning from experience, using the human writings of scripture as a flexible measuring rod. As theologian, Jack Deer, relates:

"There is another way we acquire more theoretical than experiential knowledge of the Bible. When we make the goal of our lives to know the bible, we exalt knowledge over experience. When we think the key to life is how much of the Bible we know, it becomes more important to us to know than to experience. The truths of Scripture can only be fully known through experience. We don't experience the biblical truth of humility by reading about it and acquiring a theoretical knowledge of humility. We actually experience humility when we do what the Son of God did as he voluntarily gave up his high position and took on the form of a servant (Phil. 2:5-11). The Christian who makes acquiring knowledge of the Bible the key to life will be more concerned to give a good explanation of humility than to actually participate in it. Paul warned us about this danger when he said, "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up" (1 Cor. 8:1). Unbelievers continually mock Christians for their hypocrisy and harsh public treatment of one another. But isn't harshness the inevitable result of exalting doctrine over behavior? If the church became more concerned to experience the life of Jesus, they might stop hurting each other and stop boring unbelievers." (4)

The Best Interpreter of the Bible Unexplainable Experience

The bible deist is one who believes in a religion of morality based on natural reason, not on divine revelation, that the bible is based on academic knowledge of God and not on divine revelation, that the bible alone interprets itself for the best meaning. They both literalize the bible as the "word of God" and they believe that the bible is the only way God speaks to man, nothing outside of this can be trusted. They reject the spirit that lives behind, above and beyond the bible, from the depths of men who contain this life force of God. His Spirit is the "teacher," the interpreter and the revealer of truth. Without our awareness and perception of this Spirit, this one universal energy force of life, that of unconditional love, internally dwelling in our hearts, beyond our intellectual reasoning, revealing the interpretation to us, the bible remains a academic, intellectual and closed book to God's spiritual realm and our involvement there of. Jack Deere relates:

"One of the most serious flaws of bible deism is the confidence the Bible deist places in his abilities to interpret the Bible. He assumes that the greater his knowledge of the Bible, the more accurate his interpretations are. This follows logically from a hermeneutical axiom the Bible deist often quotes: The Bible is the key to its own interpretation. In other words, the Bible interprets the Bible the best. Wrong! It takes more that the Bible to interpret the Bible. The author of the Bible is the best interpret of the Bible. In fact, he is the only reliable interpreter. And if the Spirit's illumination is the key to interpreting the Bible, isn't the Bible deist's confidence in his own interpretive abilities arrogant and foolhardy? How does one persuade God to illumine the Bible? Does God give illumination to the ones who know Hebrew and Greek the best? To the ones who read and memorized Scripture the most? What if the condition of one's heart is more important for understanding the Bible than the abilities of one's mind? Is it possible that the illumination of the Holy Spirit to understand Scripture might be given on a basis other than education or mental abilities?" (5)

God experience that consists of prelanguage, is the author of life and the only reliable interpreter of scripture. This spirit of life force is beyond the letters of men, is that which lives within us, and is needed to reveal balance and maturity, patience and wisdom, to correctly understand words that were written by fallible men inspired by experiences they perceive to be of God. Taking a more fundamental biblical literal view, William Law relates: