Reply #47: Um, exactly which prominent scholars are you talking about? [View All]

[Bake]

I know a bit about NT scholarship, and I've read Rudolf Bultmann, among others. I don't know of too many who refer to the Gospels as "allegory." Bultmann used the term "myth" IN ITS TECHNICAL, SCHOLARLY SENSE, NOT IN THE POPULAR SENSE (i.e. "that it's false").

Your post makes it seem that everybody who studies the NT categorizes it as allegory. I assure you there are tons of serious, respected scholars who do not.

I also take issue with your lumping of the entire Bible into one category of "not to be taken literally" and using Methuselah as an example. The Bible is a collection of writings from various times over thousands of years, written for different purposes. Sort of like a library. There are parts of the OT that are considered decent historical documents, verified by archaeology. Some parts were never meant to be taken literally, like the first 11 chapters of Genesis. When you come to the New Testament, you've got similar distinctions. Nobody reads the Gospels the same way they read Revelation (and if one more person calls it "Revelations" I am going to scream). For that matter, anybody who KNOWS anything about the NT knows you don't read the Gospel of John the same way you read the Synoptics--Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

To put it bluntly, you know not whereof you speak.

Bake