N.T. Wright and Pete Enns: What Do You Mean by Literal?
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- In this video Conversation, senior biblical fellow Peter Enns asks Rev. N.T. Wright to respond to a reader question about science and faith. Specifically, the reader asks, "If you take Genesis in a non-literal fashion especially the creation stories, why take anything in the Bible literally-such as the Gospels? Do you take the Gospels literally?"
Great Q&A. I have several friends who love to say, "the Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it!". Of course that settles next to nothing except perhaps the dubious usefulness of carrying on any discussion with my friends.
True. You’d love Michael Bird’s book - 7 things I wish Christian’s knew about the bible.
I so appreciate Wright's willingness to engage a question without bowing down to easy, pat answers that give a soundbite to make people feel better. Nuanced answers may not satisfy the comments section on UA-cam, but they are almost always more correct than answers with no nuance at all.
What a good teacher, Wright is.
Meh
Wow, someone who actually took the time to read "The City of God." Thank you.
A pretty long-winded way of saying that he doesn't take Genesis literally.
I think that's where deconstruction of the legitimacy of the Bible begins in the modern era, undermine the historical nature of Genesis.
The Key to understanding the Bible is what did Jesus say, "you must be born again" the Spirit of God speaks to the believer and when
I read Genesis, God tells me He created the Heavens and Earth in 6 Days and ceased from His work on the seventh, I just believe Him
When He tells me He created male and female I don`t question if there is a third kind and this even unlocks The Book of Revelation to
make it easier to understand. Jesus is coming back soon for His Born Again Church, I will be a part of that Bride, James in WA ST
As an atheist and a former believer of the grand theory of evolution, people like Wright annoy me with their collaboration with the likes of Charles Lyell's uniformitarian model for everything which was Lyell's way of undermining the authority of Biblical history and The Gospel.
I think his comments are misleading in many ways. First, he dances around about the meaning of literal so that he doesn't have to address Genesis as literal or figurative.
Second, his definition of literal is slanted for the same reason. Literal/figurative is the normal contrast, not what he said.
Third, literal or figurative is not determined by what one believes the "writer intended to do by this story". Literal or figurative is determined by the use of the words. There is a marked difference, for example, between a fable, a parable, and a figurative description of a person such as the lover in Song of Solomon AND the history recited in Kings, Chronicles, the Gospels, and Acts.
When we look at the history recited in Genesis about Abraham, about Jacob and his sons, about Joseph in Egypt, the story is recited the same way as creation and Noah's flood. Furthermore, when we see Adam mentioned in the same breath and in the same way as the rest in the genealogy of Jesus and in another place in the same way as Jesus Himself, the Bible shows us it speaks literally of him, Noah, and creation itself.
I don't think Tom is denying or has ever denied that Adam was a real guy.
I don't buy it.... most people reading the bible don't think the same way as Wright. In addition, you would think that the bible is suppose to have a trans-formative effect in the hearts and minds of those who read it. But if that were true, we would have the entire population of the world reading it. It all comes down to interpretation and even if Wright's interpretation of Genesis was authentic, so what? What difference does it make considering the way the world is right now with so many problems? Why do we subject ourselves with this arrogant idea that we can know who God is by mere interpretations of the bible? Ascetic monks spend their entire lives in prayer, meditation and contemplation supposedly to find communion with God and it is only with this kind of rigorous discipline they MIGHT reach higher levels of spiritual awareness. It is the kind of experience that goes beyond all categories of thought. So what makes us think that we can achieve this level of awareness by merely reading the bible on Sundays? As long as we talk and analyze ad nauseum ABOUT the bible, we will never have transformation. Unwittingly, for too many people, reading the bible has becomes an end in itself instead of the means to and end: an ever increasing awareness of ourselves.
Who most people? And who cares about that. What did the original author mean to the original listener.
Many of the great Christian thinkers, theologians, writers as far back as Augustine have actually read Genesis not too far off from this. Young Earth Creationism is actually a more recent view from the past 150 years from an ultra literal reading of the text.
Many of the Christians at the time Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species accepted Darwin's discoveries as a newly discovered law that did not conflict with the Bible or God as creator. Darwin himself did not (at least originally) think his discoveries were anti God or answered whether a God existed or not. It wasn't until later when people started using evolution as a way to discredit God that some Christians took an ultra literal reading in self defense and out of fear of evolution.
As far as getting to know God through the Bible, the Bible itself indicates that just reading it won't get you very far. The pharasees spent most of they're day memorizing scripture, especially the law. Jesus told them they did not understand it or even know God at all. It has nothing t do with how often you read it or how much time one spends in a church/temple/mosque ect. it has to do with being "poor in spirit" as Jesus said. People who are poor in spirit are humble and gentle, compassionate and surround themselves with people to practically love and learn from. They don't hide away from society to fill their minds with knowledge of God for themselves.
@@joshuaWEC *"the Bible itself indicates that just reading it won't get you very far"*
Ok, but it seems the vast majority of Christians don't know that and it all comes down to interpretation. N.T. Wright said it himself
*_"So when we say is Genesis to be taken
literally and what I want to say is that doesn't settle ahead of time the question of WHAT it actually refers to and when we are reading ANY text it ought to be an open question WHAT does this text intend to refer to and HOW does it intend to refer to it"_*
I agree with that wholeheartedly. I believe the interpretation of the Bible is extremely crucial if we are to gain some spiritual awakening. But there are too many pastors and preachers out there who, even with the best of intentions, are not interpreting the Bible correctly because THEY have not had the depth of spiritual experience that even comes close to who wrote the Bible. Pastor Matt Chandler found out the hard way and kudos to him that he admitted he made a mistake in his interpretation of the Bible aptly calling it "moralistic deism" that "does not transform" -his words.
www.zeitverschiebung.net/en/difference/city/5206379/city/1275339
I truly admire Chandler for his self awareness and honesty. His is a lesson that we should be very very careful when reading the Bible. As for myself, I prefer not to read it because the field of psychology, especially from Ken Wiber and others, offers a new ways of looking at spirituality and in ways that is relevant to the immediacy of our lives.
ua-cam.com/video/uOAtecsIes/v-deo.html
@@joshuaWEC....young erath creation was believed by the early church fathers, so you are promoting historical revisionism - a lie. Repent and do not do it again.
Makes you want to read more about what he says on a bunch of contentious topics...
Is it an open question as to whether Gen 1&2 is referring to creation in 6 actual 24 hour days? Is it an open question as to whether God intended the Jews to rest on the 7th-day 24-hour sabbath? I think not.
Pamela if you seriously want to learn and honestly want to know about the Subject, Please read the textbook on Dr Fee and Dr Stuart, "How to read the Bible for all its worth", or take Hermeneutic Class in the good seminary, who teach bible properly not doctrine. God Bless
Dang, what a scholar. Has to completely deconstruct the question itself so he can answer it
Or maybe more truthfully put: dang, what a question. It has to be completely deconstructed so that it can be answered...
Anyone who is well familiar with genesis would know that it is not possible to give a simple yes or no answer to the question. How literarly genesis should be taken has been pondered at least from the times of Augustine. But then we come to the post-modern era, where youtube commetators, even though they never read one book about the subject, think themselves to be more informed than scholars. I suppose the virtue of humility has lost its value. How ironic that the same people who demands a literal reading of the Bible are often the last ones to apply the message in their life.
@@joakimrantanen3401 very well said!
@@joakimrantanen3401.....and before Augustine, how did the early church fathers treat Genesis and more specifically the account regarding creation. Did they believe it was a creation week, did they believe Adam was literally the first human being. Did they believe the Bible was straight forward and that God spoke the universe into existence in a very short time, almost instantly. 🤔
@@1969cmp Well, firstly I should point out that I am not an expert on the subject. My reading is out if curiousity of the subject, not a professional academic undertaking.
However, I am quite certain that there is not one unanimous understaning about the interpretation of the Bible and Genesis in particular. On noteworthy example of an earier church father is Origen (c. 185 - c. 253), since he wrote plainly about the subject:
The following quote is from wikisource, a free translation from the greek (DP IV.2.16):
"For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? and again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally."
What I just heard was: "yes, genesis is literally to be understood metaphorically."
Essentially, yeah. The language of the creation story in Genesis is clearly metaphoric language, though it is referring to the actual creation of the heavens and the earth by Almighty God. And the problem with those who twist that metaphoric language into a literal account of natural history is that they become blind not only to what science teaches us about natural history but as well to the deeper and more profound truths revealed in the Genesis story itself.
A literal truth in a literary story in a way people could memorize. Don’t discount or dismiss the culture or was written in
@@TheSkepticalHumanist it's not metaphoric language, it's quite detailed. And the rest of the Bible treats it as historically accurate.
The language in Genesis is Historical Language!!!
@@dahelmang *What is Mytho-History?:* ua-cam.com/video/DIQIRLQTrH0/v-deo.html
*Literary Styles in the Bible:* ua-cam.com/video/oUXJ8Owes8E/v-deo.html
NT is amazing
From the Oxford Dictionary. In a literal manner or sense; exactly.
‘the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the roundabout’
‘tiramisu, literally translated ‘pull-me-up’’
Makes more sense than interpreting the bible "as is"
Wright makes a very informative point as always!
I’m literally confused
He literally didn't answer the question being asked.
Actually, he did. Literally perfectly.
Evan Wickham It was a joke. The question asked was "Do you take the Gospels literally" What he answered was "What does literal mean" and "How do you interpret Genesis"
That's not his fault though - the fault is in the wording of the question. Richard Rorty suggests that there are two kinds of language that have characterised academia in the last hundred or so years: the language of symbolism and the language of scientific observation and the language of scientific observation has come to dominate what most people mean when they use the word "literally". Thus, much of the Bible is written in the language of everyday observation (such as passages in Joshua that say "the sun stood still") rather than the language of scientific observation which has only really flourished in the last 200 or so years.
Genesis is not meant to be a science textbook, it is meant to outline how God made the earth his temple to a group of people who lived 3500 years ago. It's thus deliberately poetic.
@Daniel Stowers after say nothing with a lot of words, can you please tell us what was his answer. Your answer or response about the sun standing still is observation, so yes the writer told what he observed. We still do that today incidentally when we refer to the sunrise or sunset. There was no need for his response to be nuanced, everyone knew that the question was relating to the six days as mentioned in Genesis and the story about mans creation and fall.
You need to be a better listener. When awaiting an answer be open to hearing something you where not expecting
Something that unsettles me in my faith is the complexity and disagreement therein.
It is, of course, entirely in keeping with the rest of humanity. But it’s hard to reconcile when there are a billion different slivers of Christianity, all claiming truth with varying amounts of fervour.
You are nor alone, brother.
We should literally interpret the Bible metaphorically!
....and thus it can mean almost anything the reader want to it mean....
No, we should interpret each part of the Bible according to its literary form and intent. Jesus tells a parable, we understand it as a parable. Same gospel says Jesus rose from the dead, then He really did.
@@TheLlywelyn The Bible states at least seven times that God repented. Does God repent?
@@davidpinheiro9650 Does a perfect, infinite God "repent" like flawed humans, from making mistakes or randomly changing His mind? No, of course not. Can an infinite God who is both just and merciful find grounds to shift from one to the other without contradiction? Yes. If someone's interpretation reduces God to a little man in the sky, then they are fumbling around way below the beginnings of comprehension. I find the rest of scripture gives ample grounds to comprehend this.
@@TheLlywelyn So you should NOT "interpret each part of the Bible according to its literary form and intent". You will have to use other strategies, such as looking for other seemingly opposing passages and trying to reconcile them, or using reason and giving them greater or lesser priority, or looking for the most popular approaches or those that have become orthodoxy on your particular branch of christianity. This is all added to the fact that there are different Bibles, with different numbers of books and chapters, with different translations, that use different sources, and we do not have the originals, and the old copies have many differences between them and there are parts that were clearly modified and others clearly added.
Did he ever really get the question answered?…
That's how Tom rolls. He always spends ten minutes saying, "Well, what do we mean by that?" and always ends with, "So, what we find is that it's much more complex than we thought," without ever giving you a straight answer. Always.
How can he come to this interpretation of Genesis 1? So the chapter is concrete (historical) or, metaphorical (figurative) or both? What hermeneutical principles does Rev. Wright apply to Genesis 1?
He explains it clearly in his book on the subject, written with Walton- the lost world of Adam and Eve. It’s hard to deny the hermeneutical integrity they are teaching there. And it becomes clear we have NOT been interpreting it properly for hundreds of years..
@@marycollis6900 Read McQuilken's Understanding and Applying the Bible and then apply the hermeneutical principles therein.
@@marycollis6900.....so, Moses, Jesus, The Apostles, Polycarp and Irenaeus were wrong to interpret a literal creation week and a literal first human being who was created out of clay, Adam. Remember many false doctrine will arise deceiving many including compromise with what is an essentially and anti-Biblical worldveiw- the grand theory of evolution and Lyell's uniformitarian theory on everything.
Cheers, former atheist.
Does anyone know if Pete is part of the Emerging Church Movement?
A whole 46 seconds of a 4min29sec video taken up before getting into anything. Almost makes you give up on watching.
It wasn't Tom. It was the long introduction before Tom.
Theology is a good way to make a better than decent living and endows its proponents with loads of theories to fall back on. Men like this flirt with the bible and take what they want from it, schmooze the rest. Who has the guts to reject it all?
So what if Creation is a temple story - why should that mean the six days weren't six days?
John Edwards They can. But not necessary. And as far as we can reveal from science, they weren't.
@@odd_bird please explain how science disproves the six days of creation as told in Genesis.
@@jonpool9030 There are plenty of methods corroborating Earth age is much older than literal understanding of Bible implies.
@@odd_bird first off there's no method of calculating age past 15000 years accurately ok so it adds lol guessing wrapped in scientific jargon.
Jon Pool
Even if that’s true 15000 is way older more than young earth creationists allow for.
Well said...
I believe in two contradictary things. One: I believe that we can use as much as we can from science and evolution, except of the creation of humans, which must have been done directly. And number two: To not take anything away, or add anything. A type of poetic creation, poetic truth a la C.S. Lewis (as video mentioned about the Parables, it makes no sense to discuss the details, open for the risk of fairy tales).
God not only directly created the first man, Adam, He also created all the animal kinds. None of the animals evolved from a common ancestor millions or billions of years ago.
Just as the Nachash said to Eve in the Garden, "Yea, hath God said...?" in order to cast doubt on God's Word, men today cast doubt on God's Word by teaching others that God didn't REALLY create everything in six days, by claiming that the writer of Genesis wasn't trying to describe what LITERALLY happened; that they didn't understand science, and they weren't trying to give a scientific treatise anyway.
Maybe these doubters should begin by candidly stating that they don't believe that God-inspired His Word.
Well, if they don't believe that it was 6 literal days from Genesis One, then how about if it's directly from God's mouth AND written with the finger of God?
Through Exodus and Deuteronomy, we find that God both SAID and WROTE the following:
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For IN SIX DAYS THE LORD MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
To take the Bible literally means we aren't postmodern deconstructionists. We look at the genre and interpret it appropriately. The genre of Genesis is history.
Spot on. At some point in time and not billions of years ago, The Lord created the heavens and the earth. He created the first human pair, Adam and Eve and all humanity are descendants from this couple.
Similar to a koan. It means what it means. It is a teaching story.
....teaching what....
Yes, E.E. & Genesis contain beautiful symbolism, but that doesn't mean they are not also wrong about the way the world is. The texts can be poetic, and mistaken. They just can't allow themselves to acknowledge that Genesis isn't the product of omniscience.
More confusion on a clear subject.
He's playing like Bill Clinton:"That Depends on what IS, IS".
My feeling is similar, but I must hear more from dr. Write to decide.
@@kamilziemian995 Your sincere heart will lead you to the Truth. But you Maybe surprised. Like what they SAID in "Planet of the Apes"(1968):"Don't look for the truth Taylor, you might not like what you FIND".
Exactly. Everyone knows what is meant by asking "Do you take [Biblical story x] literally?". It's just a shorthand way of asking "Do you think it actually happened in the past - like if we could go back in time in a time machine, could we view the events play out as tangibly described?". Wright dances around and never really answers the question about what he thinks, though by doing so he subtly hints that he doesn't take Genesis literally. And good on him for that!
@@scottbignell Some believe in theistic evolution so they Don't accept a literal creation in 6 Days. Young Earth creationists BELIEVE in literal 6 day creation AND the universe is only 6000 yrs Old. Hasn't the Church Modified it's views HISTORICALLY to incorporate science? At one time many Christians believed the Sun and planets went around a stationary Earth. But most Christians do NOT today.
@@scottbignell If this is true his stance is more close to "deceptive" that to "subtly". But, I don't know enough to say that it is ture.
He got the parable of the rich and Lazarus wrong. Its meaning is not merely "give to the poor", but that the Word of God alone is sufficient and powerful to turn incredulity into faith...
or maybe you got it wrong
For an infallible work of god, that book is sure convoluted and confusing. It's like god is saying, "Pick and choose what you want to believe out of this and for what you don't understand just make something up." I would think that if jehovah was as smart as he claims to be, he/she/it would come up with a book that made more sense and fewer contradictions and by that I mean, how is an all powerful god not able to destroy chariots made of iron (Judges 1:19)
4 years later answer. That passage doesn't say God was unable to destroy those chariots.
What a bunch of double-talk!
Good God... Imagine some apologist for Babylonian religion sitting down with the Enuma Elish, and saying, "well, it would be wrong to think that the author wanted us to think Marduk was really battling Tiamat, or that the Earth was really a flat-disk or the skies held back water... its so much more sophisticated than that."
@TerraFirma92 @TerraFirma92 Greetings. But God himself wrote on the tables of Moses: "On six days I created the earth". What do we do with the tables. Genesis is not the only account of the "six days". Yet I remember a mystic. I reject intelligent design and fundamentalism as fairy tales. But I maintain a conservative mysticist: I do not understand it. I cannot add anyting, I cannot take anything away.
What a bunch of waffle; he totally avoids the question, which is: what is his justification for saying Genesis is poetic writing to be interpreted symbolically (God didn't create the world in 6 days and place Adam and Eve in it, it's just a metaphor for his close relationship to the world), but everything in the New Testament is factual (Jesus rose from the dead and ascended and will come back as judge and raise the dead and create a new Earth) and people who disagree are wrong.
Well for starters they're two different genres of writing (one's a highly stylised possibly liturgical poem; the other falls more easily into the genre of ancient 'biography.) One makes no claim to historicity; the other makes a claim to at least some historicity. Of course, none of that proves that the gospels to be accurate history...
I'd say this answer is as slippery as a politician's who doesn't want to give a straight answer, and that it strikes me as a typical theologian's tactic to start analysing the language of the words in the question rather than answering it. "Do you take the gospels literally?" "I want to say the world literal is confusing.... (waffles for four minutes). No it isn't, it's a perfectly normal English word which we all understand.
When you say that his answer is slippery, do you mean that literally?
Steve Thomas 😂 straight for the throat
I think that Genesis is fully true, it's just not the whole story. Genesis 1-11 is an oversimplification of how the world as we know it came to be. There's nothing in Genesis that is WRONG, it just leaves out a lot of complex details that 99% of people reading the Bible wouldn't understand and aren't relevant.
For example, Moses, who wrote Genesis said that God made the world in 6 days. Moses ALSO says in Psalm 90 that a day for the Lord can be like 1,000 years.
So the sky really is a hard dome rising up from the earth supported by mountain pillars with windows that let the water above the dome come down to earth occasionally when it rains?
@zappo1355
If that apologist can make a good case, then so be it.
To sum up what I understood: is Genesis a concrete story? Answer: it does not matter.
Colossians 2:8 - Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Why am I not surprised that they would invite the likes of NT Wright as their latest poster child? It took him 3-4 minutes just to say, "no?"
As a non-Calvinist, I'm liking you reformed folk more and more these days.
Welp, that was a whole bunch of nuttin'
They had Moses and the Prophets, which was all they needed to know Christ. This was no parable, but stated the truth that the hearers had the Law and Gospel previously proclaimed to them. Perhaps the Very Reverend, Right Reverend etc. C of E "scholar" should mind his exegesis a little more closely.