A post today by a good friend of mine, Mark Smart, hit the nail on the head with what I believe a healthy biblical understanding should be (but often is not).
Please take a (small chunk of time) to read it. Its a medium read, but well worth it, and very well thought out.
Oh, and here’s the comment I would have written, but I didn’t want to sign up for a blogger account to post. (and yes, I sent my comment to him, just to chat about things).
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I love this. I’ve often battled (as we’ve talked about a few times already), with the overly religious stance of biblical inerrancy, or more specifically, literal interpretation with the stamp of biblical inerrancy to seal the deal (although I know this is only a small discussion in the big picture of your post).
An example I’ve often come back to that helps me understand the scriptures (in a healthy light) is the relationship between a painter and a painting. When a (great) painter experiences something, then reproduces it, even if he/she is talented in photo realistic reproduction, its still not the same as looking at or experiencing the real thing with your own eyes. I (we) see everything through a lens. Same as the writers of scripture.
(sometimes) Paintings to me take me into a place of wonder and experience. They tell a story of something deeper and mystical, or an experience, spoken through visual language. Sure, paintings can be cheap and meaningless as well, but there are some that really grab me; those are the special ones; paintings that connect me to the thing the artist experienced.
So yeah, I would think this topic could easily go into the fact that scripture isn’t God himself (although a lot of churches worship the bible [father, son, holy bible]), but a picture of a deeper experience and truth, expressed through the words of people that experienced it, in the best way they knew how.
So I agree, if we look at the bible as anything but an expression of something deeper, meant to draw us into experiencing and knowing God himself, I would say that our understanding of the meaning is very skewed.
“these details were ultimately unimportant to the end purpose of why it was being written.”
