Literally Not True: 2 Biblical Facts as Metaphors

I believe a lot of things in the Bible are, literally, not factual. I know this because I prayed and God told me. For me, Christianity is about symbolism. I have a sneaking suspicion the authors of the Bible felt the same way. The Bible is full of dream interpretations, parables, poetic metaphors, and strangely detailed stories depicting apocalyptic horse chariots, plagues, dying cows, golden idols, coins, numbers…lots and lots of specific numbers.

Heck, the entire depiction of Jesus’ life might very well be symbolic. (I know–I’m a heretic.) None of us know for sure what the original intent was of the Biblical authors; therefore, we–religious folk and heathens alike–can debate and decide for ourselves how we want to interpret the Bible and its contents. We get to decide what meaning the Bible has for us in our lives, if any. We can decide whether to interpret it symbolically, literally, or anything in between.

Just know that if you choose the wrong interpretation, you will burn in Hell for eternity.

Just kidding.

The movement to interpret everything in the Bible literally is relatively recent. Perhaps because of this, or, more likely, just the sheer amount of time that has passed since its origin, I think much of the symbolism in the Bible has either lost its original meaning entirely or is simply too difficult to interpret correctly in modern context. Oh well. Symbols change over time. Growing, evolving religions give rise to new symbols with new meanings that replace old, outdated ones. The Bible is a living text.

The old symbols and stories of the Bible don’t have to die though. Nor do they have to become historically true facts to have meaning in our lives. We can still gain wisdom, truth, and knowledge from a thousands-year-old story without believing it actually happened. Many Biblical “facts” have deeper meaning for me as metaphors than as true events. Here are 2 of my favorite examples:

1. The Virgin Birth

The meaning of female virginity is one of those things that hasn’t changed much in prudish society over the years. Despite arduous efforts to de-stigmatize female sexual pleasure, virginity still represents the purity, virtue, and innocence of an “untainted” woman. Biblical narrative has it, the Holy Spirit swooped down and got Mary pregnant without “defiling” her. Oh, how miraculous! With God, anything is possible, including an intact hymen at the time of birth! Yes, a virgin birth is miraculous and special and supernatural. But, for me, when taken literally, it’s the first story to ever perpetuate the myth that nothing good can come from female sexual enjoyment–like God could not even have been bothered to let Mary enjoy the process of depositing his son into her womb. Oh, the horror!

Why it’s better as a symbol: Nope, Mary was not a virgin in the literal sense–I believe she is one of billions to experience God’s perfect reproductive miracle that is having sex, becoming pregnant, and carrying a healthy baby to full term. Seems unremarkable to anyone who hasn’t experienced it themselves, but Mary’s case was extraordinary. Her child’s legacy was to be the most influential representative of God recent civilization has ever seen. So, if she wasn’t a virgin, then what could her virginity symbolize? For me, it’s simple. Her purity, innocence, and “virginity” are revealed through the fact that Jesus was nobody at the time. Just another baby. An unremarkable baby. Precious to her alone. She knew nothing about his future, his ministry, his status. Can you imagine the insufferable mother of someone who knew her kid was the Messiah? Her virginity is an important symbol of her innocence and naivety that her child would ever be anyone in the world.

2. Baptism

That beautiful ritual with the pouring and sprinkling of the water. Whether you’re leaning over a bowl of holy water or being thrown convulsing into a body of water, the essential element–the most important symbol–is the cleansing, life-giving water. According to Biblical narrative, Jesus himself was baptized with water by John, and the Holy Spirit was all like *flit flit flit* “This is my Son who I like…why are you baptizing him? He is without sin.” *flit flit flit*

(The above narrative has been altered to include sarcasm.)

Why it’s better as a symbol: OK, here goes–I don’t think Jesus was perfect. The story of his baptism is immediately followed by a struggle in the wilderness, where the devil is like “Do magic,” and Jesus is like, “No thanks, but I’ll keep following you around for 40 days.” Do I think it literally happened? OK, maybe he was baptized, especially since that was a common ritual at the time. But unless someone discovers “My 40 Day Wilderness Experience: Written by Jesus Christ,” the entire story, for me, serves as a metaphor for the journey we all take: Our new beginnings, our struggle in the “wilderness,” our aimless wanderings, and our inevitable return to a community of “angels,” where we renew our commitment to the purposeful journey.

Our baptism ritual is not a literal forgiveness of all future sins–it’s the symbolic beginning of a journey in faith. A beginning that makes no guarantees about making life any easier. We can choose another journey, we can ignore the journey completely, and we can most definitely give into despair in the wilderness. But baptism is as much about cleansing as it is about having a community of people to return to after our wandering “in the wilderness.” The story of Jesus’ baptism and our own ritual of that symbolic story gives us reassurance that we can return to a community of supporters, no matter where the journey takes us.

Full disclosure: This list started out as 10 Favorite Untruths, then it went to 5, then 3, and now, I’m throwing in the towel and calling it 2. Hardly a list. The point is, the Bible is so FULL of symbolism, that I could spend a month writing about all the things the different stories mean to me. These are just 2 examples, but almost every passage I read means so much more when I bother to think about the symbolism and the poetic meaning behind it, rather than convincing myself that it actually happened. I’ve given up on the latter. And that’s the fun/scary thing about the Bible, or any religious text. The authors are long dead, so we can interpret it however we want! We can use it for nice things or mean things, and we’ll all think that we alone are right in interpreting the word of God.

It’s Baffling to Believe and Delightful to Doubt

I am constantly amazed/baffled by faith in God.  I have some faith in God and I at least believe in God’s existence, but I wouldn’t call my faith strong or unwavering, by any means. There are people that have much stronger faith than I do, but I am baffled because I can never predict who they are.  They come in all different backgrounds, races, creeds, education levels, and socioeconomic statuses.  There is apparently no rhyme or reason to who has a strong faith in God and who doesn’t.

It seems I often times meet an intelligent, highly educated, skeptical person who I think is most certainly not religious–an atheist even–and next thing I know, he or she is talking to me about how God put dinosaur bones in the earth for people to find, because the earth was created 6000 years ago.  The same thing happens when I meet someone who dropped out of a conservative, small town high school, and I think probably goes to church every weekend, and they’re suddenly telling me why there is no God, and providing me with well-researched scientific evidence to back it up.  

It’s easy to say that God does not exist, because there is a lot of easy evidence that suggests it.  I mean, if we believe in the God of the Christian bible, he supposedly hasn’t physically shown up for the past 2000 years, and yet there are many who profess their faith and belief in the imminent physical return of God.  I suppose, in their minds, it’s normal for God to only show himself every couple of thousand years or so.  In my mind, I wonder what kind of God would ever leave in the first place.  How can I be expected to believe that the revelation of some island-dweller named John, who had an apocalyptic vision 1950 years ago will come to fruition, when my brain is telling me that if it hasn’t happened already, it’s probably not going to?  Or better yet, what if it has happened and we all missed it because we were too busy arguing over whether the vision should be taken literally or figuratively?

What really gets me is that some of the most skeptical people in the world who need facts, hard evidence, and proof for every event or statement in their life can believe everything written in a religious text, literally, word for word, when it has little to no evidence to prove its authenticity.  As far as supporting evidence goes, the various books of the Christian Bible are a skeptic’s nightmare .  Some lack original texts, most are written by no known historical figure, no one can agree on when they were written, the church admits to additions and revisions being made, and other manuscripts written about the same events at the same time have been considered “bogus” by religious authorities.  Yet many people have no doubt whatsoever that the words contained inside the very book they are reading are absolute truth–the words of God himself.  The alleged 40 different authors that penned the various books of the Bible are believed to have written the words they heard directly from God, and, apparently, no one since those 40 original authors has had the privilege of hearing and writing the words of the Lord, so as to make further contributions to the Bible.

I know that it all comes down to faith.  And I think I can understand why so many people believe in its absolute truth.  The message of God is usually one of hope, certainty, and joy.  In a world where we have to question almost everything–the motives of others, the truth of the media, the intention of our leaders, the horrible actions of terrorists–it is comforting and reassuring to unfailingly believe in a message that gives us hope.  A scientist from NASA may ask questions every single day of his life and may form evidence-backed theories about climate change, molecular structure, and the Big Bang, but, at the end of the day, he can put aside all questioning and doubt and pray to a God that he has no proof exists, but knows exists, in his heart.

As for me, I’m going to continue to question, doubt, and explore.  Perhaps one day I will be in a position where I don’t want to question; maybe one day I will be able to throw away all my cares of seeking evidence and proof, and declare my unwavering faith in God. Perhaps I will reach a point where life is so overwhelming that I will need to feel the comfort and reassurance that comes from relinquishing all doubt of a higher power.  I am not in that position now, however; and I am happy, healthy, and content on this exploratory spiritual journey of mine.

“I Don’t Think Mary Was a Virgin” and Other Reasons Why I Go to Church

There are many reasons why I want to find a church to attend in my community.  I want to make new friends, get involved in community outreach and service, and find a place to hear a good spiritual message and some music once a week.  There is one problem, however, that has prevented me from really committing to finding one:  I don’t buy into all of the Christian notions of what God is and what Jesus did.  When it comes time to recite the Nicene creed during the service, I sit in silence because I can’t profess with my fellow congregants to believe a laundry list of things about Jesus and God when I don’t actually believe it.

There are many Christian notions of God in which I do believe, and then there are things that I think are only believed today because Christianity has the distinct advantage of being 2000 years old and easily separated from our modern way of life.  It’s somehow easier to believe that a virgin gave birth to a baby when it happened 2000 years ago, instead of last week.  It’s somehow easier to believe when it was 2000 years ago that a man was crucified, rose from the dead, and then physically rose into the sky on a patch of cloud, while two visible angels dressed in white spoke to the lowly humans down on Earth.  Can we imagine that happening today?  Absolutely not…well, I certainly can’t.  If I saw someone floating in the sky today, I’d wonder when his parachute was going to open.

All of these fantastical and scientifically impossible things that are written in the Christian Bible seem probable, only in the setting of 2000 years ago.  It’s easier for us to picture people rising from the dead, fish and bread miraculously multiplying, or someone walking on water when we can imagine it in a time and place so outside of our own.  Most of us can barely picture what life was like 2000 years ago, and more of us still can’t even agree on an accurate depiction of what Jesus may have looked like, but when we read these stories about miracles, we create a picturesque historical setting in our mind with an environment suitable for these impossible events.  Jesus’s time is so separate from ours that we can, with no difficulty, instantly believe everything written in the Bible, simply because it’s been believed for 2000 years now, and perhaps “God showed himself differently back then.”  People wait for the day when Jesus will physically come again, because, if we can imagine Jesus ascending into the clouds 2000 years ago, we can certainly picture his descent to Earth in our modern day setting.

But what if none of it was meant to be taken literally?  What if the writers of the Bible wanted to exaggerate the works of Jesus so that people would be more apt to listen to the good news?  In other words, who wants to hear some boring story about a man giving comfort to sick people, preaching words of wisdom, and telling us that we should be nice to others?  We want to hear something amazing!  We want our savior to be some kind of superhero–someone capable of doing things that the rest of us can only dream of doing.

Early converts thousands of years ago converted because Christianity was radical, new, and spectacular–something more special than the traditional religions of the day.  Maybe the early founders of the church found a way to portray Jesus in a miraculous and supernatural way, so as to amaze people and capture their interest.  Instead of waiting for people to come find out about Jesus, they sought to find a way to engage the minds and spread the news to those who worshiped elsewhere.  Followers of Christ knew that no one would talk about a child who was born illegitimately to a young woman and her fiance, so they told a story about a child who was born of a virgin that spread like wildfire.  They knew no would care about a man who fed 10 people with 2 fish, so they told a story of a man who fed thousands!  They told stories of Jesus that left people in awe, inspired them to help others, gave them hope from their suffering, and converted people to followers of Christianity.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.  We are an excitable species.  When we’re passionate about something, we get excited, and we want to share that excitement, but the real story seems too boring so we embellish it.  The two inch minnow we caught becomes a 2 foot walleye, which, when told by others, becomes a 10 foot shark.  I think the story of Jesus took the same route, and it shows that people were so excited about this person, they couldn’t help but exaggerate his works so that others would follow his teachings.

Perhaps early Christianity needed the exaggeration in order to gain followers, but I don’t need it today.  There was a time and a place for the impossible miracles of the Bible, but I don’t have to believe those to know that Jesus was a savior.  For me, the true message of Christianity lies not in the miraculous and improbable list of “core beliefs” that we so monotonously recite every Sunday, but in what Jesus taught and what he did to help others.  The stories of his attitude to the poor, the sick, the suffering, and the outcast are truly inspirational, no matter how embellished they are.  The radical message that he delivered in such a time of conformity to old tradition would light a fire in anyone, regardless of his or her beliefs.

And that’s why I want to go to church.  I want to serve my community and have a collective spiritual experience with them.  I want to try to live the way Jesus did, and, in order to do that, there is absolutely no requirement that says I have to believe everything Christianity teaches about him.

 

Our Return to Paradise

I am not a Biblical literalist.  I have not read the equivalent of The Bible for any religions other than Christianity, though I am very interested in doing so (I imagine it to be a huge undertaking).  But based on the contradicting statements and conflicts that arise between people using scriptures from their faith’s written word, I think that to take the Bible literally would mean to live with inner conflict and confusion my entire life, particularly in reconciling the vast difference in practices and law between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

I think to take religious written word literally is to approach it with immaturity, and I don’t mean to offend literalists with this statement.  I only mean that when we read a scripture and apply it to the world that surrounds us, we are doing something that we’ve practiced since childhood.  We learn what is right and wrong at an early age because someone teaches it to us–if we are religious, that moral foundation of right and wrong is reinforced by what scriptures teach us:  “Thou salt not steal, Thou shalt not kill, etc…”  

Unfortunately, not everything in the Christian Bible is as straightforward as the ten commandments.  There is a lot of other stuff to sift through, including a full history of the Isrealite people, a creation story, a flood story, a gospel story, a history of the founding of the church, and a revelation of what the end times will be like.  As a child, it was easy to believe the story of Adam and Eve was literal truth.  In my imagination, it was entirely plausible for God to create a man and a  woman in paradise and to tell them that they could eat from any tree except for one.  And, of course, it made sense to me that a talking snake could come slithering up and tempt them to eat from the forbidden tree, giving them knowledge of sin, and thereby forcing God to banish them from paradise forever.  It made perfect sense to young me because God (the authority figure) told them not to do something, and they did it, so they had to be punished for it.

As an adult, it is quite obvious to me that the Christian creation story is not how it literally went down.  So, the question becomes, how can I, an intelligent adult woman, get any sort of new meaning from a story that so imaginatively taught me, as a child, about original sin and obeying God?

I think the answer can be found in entering into the spirit of the author.  Instead of thinking about Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark, and the history of the Isrealites as being outside ourselves or as being something that happened thousands of years ago, we can step inside the mind of Moses and critically think, “What message was he trying to convey with this story?  Why would Moses choose to write about history in this way and what was he trying to teach people about God and themselves?”

If we think like that–if we step into the spirit of Moses and all of the authors of the Bible–and realize that these written works were how they prophesized and how they taught people about God in relation to themselves, the scriptures of the Bible become clearer and more applicable to the human spirit and the presence of God among us.

Through the spirit of Moses, Adam and Eve becomes not a story about the very first humans on Earth, but an allegory for the birth of every single one of us.  Just as God forms Adam from clay, our bodies are products of the earth and of evolution, but we are also born with the spirit of God inside of us (God breathes life into us).  We are born into paradise, but, through the “forbidden fruit” of our experiences and our choices, we are given knowledge of good and evil.  Once we have seen and experienced evil, we are “banished from paradise”–it is impossible to return to an innocent mindset where there is no evil.

But we can try…  And I think that is what living with God is all about.  We are born into paradise with the spirit of God inside of us.  Our first experience with evil opens our eyes to the darkness that’s also inside of us.  And we have a choice to make:  The more we practice in the light, the closer we return to paradise.  The more we reject the light inside of us, the further we get from paradise during our lifetime.  But no matter where we end up in life, no matter how far or how close we end up coming to paradise, when we die, the dark, destructive, “human nature” side of us dies, too and becomes the dust of the earth.  But the light–the breath of God–inside of us returns to paradise.

 

(This post was inspired by the writings and ideas of George Fox and the early teachings of the Religious Society of Friends.)