Comments on: Riffs 06:30:07: Mark Shea on Measuring Doctrine by Poetry

By: 1dayin7

1dayin7 — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:55:33 +0000

Geeze.

The main problem here is that modern people have forgotton the point of poetry is mainly to convey truth that is too broad for mere logic (poetry can be intensely logical but it is plainly more than that, it’s *personal*).

The Bible’s meaning is “plain”, but acquiring that meaning in the first place is not just ABC-123.

How many people really take seriously the dicta that the Old is in the New etc, or that you have to take each single word in the context of the whole???

By: gabriel

gabriel — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:37:38 +0000

While I largely agree with your comments, allow me to quibble over “This is my body”. I think the context of the scriptural passages about the eucharist indicate a literal meaning- particularly John 6, where the disciples essentially ask if Jesus is speaking metaphorically.

By: Bob Sacamento

Bob Sacamento — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:26:04 +0000

Is all theological language poetry? Of course not. Is some theological language- Biblical and elsewhere- frequently poetic? Yes. Not completely poetic, but having more in common with poetry than with technical description.

Thanks again, Michael. This one piece of information, that I came to understand much later in life than I should have, is the one change in myself that forced me to re-think whether I was evangelical or not. (All the other changes came inside the evangelical movement itself.)

By: Nicholas Anton

Nicholas Anton — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 05:53:59 +0000

I am a literalist when it comes to Biblical interpretation, including the first five chapters of Genesis. To believe otherwise would leave us floundering as part of an infinite nihilist equation. Yes, Genesis does teach creation and not evolution, as well as the historicity of Adam and Eve. The whole redemption story throughout Scripture is based on that thesis.

Nevertheless, I also believe that poetry and figures of speech are used throughout Scripture. I would not even object to calling Genesis a poem (it fits within the broad definition of the term) as long as we recognize it, as the Old Testament prophets, Jesus and His Apostles did, as literal and historical.

The allegorical method as introduced by Philo (20 B.C.-50 A.D.) and brought to its climax by Bernard of Clairvaux was however not in general use by the Old and New Testament writers. Why should we then imposer it on Scripture?

I however tend to shy away from a simplistic overuse of stereotypical concepts and static dictionary based meanings of terms. While a word may have identical meaning whenever used, it need not, and frequently does not. That is why no two people will say the same thing with identical words. That is why every author has a style of his/her own. An understanding of context, both literary and historical, and language is critical to our understanding of any literary work, including Scripture. Even so, a clear understanding of what has been said or implied in Scripture is quite possible.

By: Michael Spencer

Michael Spencer — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:59:04 +0000

The word “literal” can’t be used in literature to simply equal true. I can write a poem where every word is false by science but the entire poem is true. Forcing the word “literal” into places like Genesis 1-3 is just a bad choice. Say real. Say historical. Say actual. But literal means the stars really fell from the sky, and when you teach ESL students as I do, that’s a needless distinction.

By: jmanning

jmanning — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:40:07 +0000

Scripture interpretation (different genres) is my field of study in school. Yes Genesis is poetry. Yes apocalyptic imagery is not literal. And prophecy is usually cosmically viewed impressions of an actual event.
But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t literal. They are figuratively painted to be literally heeded. No one who knows hermeneutics would argue that Genesis is poetry, the problem is when we say that poetry can’t convey actual truth. To say Genesis “is poetry, not science” is true. But to say that the author’s intent was to convey an impression of events is false. Genesis is directly a pollemical poem at the surrounding deities of the Canaanites, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, etc. All of their creation accounts were turned on their head by Genesis. The Egyptians for example, believed the sun was first….look at Genesis…God says “let there be light”, not the sun “Amon Ra”. The sun isn’t created until much later, kind of as an after thought. The Spirit of God direct the waters to part, not as in the Baylonian myths of the chaotic sea. Genesis is arranged as a theological poem that counters all the surrounding nations creation accounts…it was meant to be taken literally in the sense (Egypt, your god i.e. the sun is our God’s lackey in our creation account). When we do damage to Genesis, we do damage to its intent as a pollemic.