In fact, a very snappy tune to play on a high whistle.
I wonder how much of this is in the translation. If I were to compare the Authorized Version with the Good News for Modern Man I might make the same analogy between the two, though the little cartoon pictures in the Good News Bible are kind of nice.
The Community of Christ, which is the branch of Mormonism that was led by Joseph Smith’s descendants, rather than Brigham Young, have used the Joseph Smith version, while the Brigham Young followers have maintained the Authorized Version as their official translation.
Interesting point of view. Do you consider all poetry to be fiction? Or just Biblical poetry? 
Rod
I’m glad you like my book; I consider it my greatest achievement.
Cheers,
John
PS: 
Actually, I didn’t really mean that quite the way it sounded; sorry. I’ve always been under the impression that poetry was simply another way of communicating through the written word, truth or fiction by arranging one’s thoughts or ideas according to a rhythm or metre. Simply because a thought is communicated through poetry doesn’t by definition make it fiction. For instance, if I may borrow from a source close to home:
Wave
My Child -
Born to me by water
And by water
Carried away. (D. Wisely)
I don’t think all poetry is fiction.
Rod
Wow, John…you’re quite the talent…very inspirational! 
Hey, y’all.
Poetry is really not fiction or non-fiction, even though a particular poem can present a narrative that is a piece of fiction. It’s not really non-fiction either.
I’m not really that comfortable thinking of ANY of the Bible as “fiction,” although I would be quick to add I do not believe everything in the Bible describes events that actually occurred as presented. I’m just not sure it would be true to say that much, if any, of the Bible fits the modern idea of the fiction genre. It is certainly true that the Bible contains a range of genres. Poetry, stories that were orally transmitted before being put to writing, laudatory biographies, lists of laws and geneologies, myths (in the best sense of the word), and on and on.
My belief is that we run into all kinds of problems because we want to appraise the Bible based on modern and Western ideas related to history and journalism. These would have been entirely unknown in Biblical times. Stories were told then to teach morals, to transmit cultural values and, yes, sometimes to relate what were believed to be true accounts of real events concerning real people.
In our times, we are accustomed to thinking something must be truth or fiction. We say something is true if it really happened exactly as told. We tend to dismiss everything else. Regarding the Bible, I’ve learned that (with all due respect) Biblical fundamentalists and agnostic/atheists have something in common: They tend to be Biblical literalists. On Christmas Day, I heard a fundamentalist Bible-school guy on Larrry King say that there is a war going on between those who accept the Bible as true and those that don’t. But then he went on to make it clear that the only way to understand the Bible as true is to accept every work of it as historically and scientifically accurate. This position is startling to me. When you listen to the arguments of some atheists and agnostics, they often have a similar idea. If we’re supposed to believe in the Bible, we’re supposed to believe it’s historically and scientifically accurate. Then they point out some of the more obvious ways that it’s not. And then they go to, “See, the Bible isn’t true.”
How about the parables that Jesus told?
You nailed it though. Our ideas of fact and fiction are messed up.
Great example. Those are stories told to teach a moral lesson. They are “fiction” in the sense that they have characters, narrative, plots. I know I’m putting an awfully fine point on this. I’m not objecting to the application of the term “fiction” because I think the parables are stories about actual people and actual events. I’m objecting because I think parables are a different genre from fiction. But, like I say, it’s a pretty fine point. I think part of what I’m thinking is that, in this context, “fiction” could be a bit dismissive.
I think it’s important to note that in His parables, Jesus drew from his experiences to tell the story. So in that way, even though the people and places may not always be actual, the circumstances surrounding the people and places were.
Some could be; some for sure are not. But in that context, it doesn’t matter. The point is the teaching, not if they actually happened or not.
It goes the other way too: just because it has a teaching, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Even though the so-called Western world inherited so much from the Bible, we should remember that the culture that created it was very different from ours. I find parallels in the stories told in Zen Buddhism.
My God! You just set’n yourself up for a good time?
Then, [u]here[/u]. Enjoy!
We don’t know that any parts of the Bible are fiction, or just how many of the people living in that era were exactly any dumber than we are.
Here’s a list of the largest villages in America–fishing for your soul:
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html
Seems like it was Tolkien who said that it was myth that happened to be true.
For me, this is just essential to reading the Bible and thinking about literalism.
This is a primary theme in the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I feel compelled to recommend it.
To my thinking, there are parts of the Bible that are meant to be taken literally, and other parts that are meant to be taken figuratively. For example, when it says that Christ was born of a Virgin, I take that as literal, but ,when it speaks of the woman clothed in the sun giving birth, in Revelation, and the dragon, I see this as symbolical, conveying truth in the language of symbolism.
I’ve heard it said that every book of the Bible can be taken absolutely literally (within the historical cultural context of the day - much of which obviously still resonates very poingantly today), except that of Revelation, which is obvious full of metaphors, and fantastic imagery. My own Bible study seems to corraborate this.
Also, one cannot claim the Bible to be ‘fiction’ unless quite nearly all historical documents be considered ‘fiction’ as well. The Bible (The New Testament especially) has a embarrasing amount of manuscript authority over all other documents of antiquity, most of whose authenticity wouldn’t dream of being challenged by learned historians (including the works of Thucydides, Aristotle, Ceasar, and Homer, for example).
Cheers,
- Ryan
I have to say that is inconsistent with my reading and studies. The Gospels, for example, have different timelines for the ministry of Christ, rather different accounts of the Nativity (which are entirely absent in John & Mark). We have two different creation accounts. I don’t want to pile ont with all the examples of problems with literal readings, because I don’t think that’s the point really. But, I’m certain that if you distribute the beliefs among Bible scholars on a continuum from Literalism to whatever the opposite of that would be on the continuum, the position you’ve mentioned would be very far toward the Literalism end.
Of course, there are all kinds of attempts to harmonize all of these apparent inconsistencies, but these proceed from the presumption that the Bible is scientifically and historically accurate and then does whatever it has to do to harmonize the problems.
I think some bibles, including the RSV, or RV, use “young woman” instead of “virgin.” Which would you prefer?
You must know that translators have the ablility to shape our perception.
Actually, I believe the visions in the book of Daniel are written in the same sort of symbolic imagery as the Revelation, and the same can be said of other prophetical books in the Bible. The poetical books, such as Job, also teach much by the language of symbolism.
So… how many times DID that cock crow, anyway?