flooding and scripture

Jack Smith · 21 Dec 2010, 21:15 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com (Jack Smith)
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:15:00 -0500
Subject: (urth) flooding and scripture
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Forgive me if this discussion of Biblical literalism is getting off-topic.
 The relevance to Wolfe, I think, is how Christians and Christian writers
regard the holy scriptures.

Marc Aramini views Protestants as reading the Bible in a literal fashion,
while Catholics read it figuratively.  James Wynn says that in his
experience both Catholics and Protestants lack skepticism about Genesis.

It seems to me that the main Christian tradition has never favored a literal
reading of scripture.  But I don't have the evidence at hand to back that
up.  Let me just give the view of my Presbyterian Church:

"The Scriptures,  given under  the guidance  of the Holy Spirit, are
nevertheless  the words of men, conditioned  by the language, thought
forms, and literary fashions  of the places  and times at which they were
written. They reflect views of life, history, and the cosmos which were then
current. The church, therefore, has an obligation to  approach  the
Scriptures  with literary and historical  understanding. "

   " Scripture is not authoritative for any and everything, in any and every
question. It is not an encyclopedia of information about every area of human
knowledge and understanding. So, for instance, it is not appropriate to go
to the biblical sources for scientific understanding of such things as
biology, astronomy, the structure of the universe, or historical knowledge
in general. "

*Presbyterian Understanding and Use of Holy Scripture*,   1982

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:12 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>  James Wynn-
>>>
>>> "Literal-mindedness" and a lack of skepticism about Genesis is not really
>>> a small minority among _observant_ Christians, Jews, or Muslims in my
>>> experience, including observant Catholics. And for many of those
>>> "anti-evolutionists", Science is their day job, just not their religion. And
>>> perhaps that's all we need know about Wolfe's Christan beliefs and why
>>> tBotNS could be interpreted as potentially violating them: SF fantasy is his
>>> day job.
>>>
>>
>> Gerry Quinn-
>>
>> I don't really follow.  Do you think Wolfe is a Bible literalist?  I would
>> find it easier to believe he is a crypto-communist!
>>
>
> It's true. You've failed to follow.
>
> That thread was regarding why and whether "The Book of the New Sun"
> contradicted Christian theology. What I said was that there is no reason
> Wolfe would have necessarily felt compelled to have Severian's futuristic
> world align with Christian theology. So, the basic plot and setting of the
> novel is irrelevant.
>
> u+16b9
>
>
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>

-- 
Best wishes,
Jack
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