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From: ix415@sdcc6.UUCP (Rick Frey)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Whats wrong with this eqation? (Paul=Jesus)
Message-ID: <2016@sdcc6.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Apr-85 19:59:31 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcc6.2016
Posted: Fri Apr 19 19:59:31 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Apr-85 06:04:06 EST
References: <765@ccice5.UUCP> <700@mako.UUCP> <560@teklds.UUCP> <5194@fortune.UUCP>
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Summary: Double Standard with a purpose

In article <5194@fortune.UUCP>, brower@fortune.UUCP (Richard Brower) writes:
> >
> >The epistles are not the writings of Paul but of God Himself.
> >
> >About the quotes regarding braided hair.  I think the principle there
> >is not to look like prostitutes, because they were the ones who wore
> >all the jewelry and braided their hair.....it's not that women can not
> >braid their hair.  [Karen]
> 
> What?  Do I see Karen saying that Paul didn't mean what he said?
> How do you determine that he didn't mean what he said here, yet
> he meant every word and moreso when he mentions homosexuality?
> Do I percieve a double standard?  [Richard Brower]

No you do not perceive a double standard, you perceive an unfortunate
side effect of the imperfections of human language.  Human language is
at its best imperfect and full of pictures and analogies that must be
agreed upon as to their meaning.  When I say I walk down the street am I
really walking down?  Don't streets for the most part run on the
horizontal plane?  But because it is so much easier to use pictures and
analogies that have commonly understood meanings, human language can
often be misunderstood and misrepresented when these pictures are taken
literally or when literal words are taken as pictures.

The Bible uses both of these types of speech acts.  When Christ said he
was the bread of life is He saying that He is a gian loaf of wonder
bread?  Of course not, he's most likely referring to the common memory
that the Jews shared of getting manna from God during the exodus, bread
from heaven.  That's what Christ claimed to be.  Are we using a double
standard when we say that Christ wasn't speaking literally?  Maybe, but
the Bible isn't intended to be taken as literal truth in every
situation.  When Satan tells Eve that she won't die from eating the
fruit of the tree in the Garden of Eden, was that true?  When Pharoah
tells Moses all the bad things he's going to do to him do they ever
happen?  One has to look at the Bible with an intelligent eye, trying to
decide what is to be taken literally and what is figurative.

This, however, leads to one huge problem, that you correctly pointed
out, where does one draw the line between saying one example is
figurative whereas the others are literal.  The best guideline to follow
when one is presented with just such a translation problem is to try to
decide if the point is a moral rule or something that was most likely a
guidelines for the times.  In the case of eating pork, as well as in
braiding one's hair, it doesn't seem to unreasonable to say that God
isn't morally concerned with what we eat or how we array our hair.  In
the case of homosexuality, however, the issue is not so clearly defined.
Many people happen to feel that this is a moral issue and that Paul's
teachings (along with the old testament teachings) combine to say that
homosexuality is a sin.  Some feel that it can be treated just like the
braiding of hair and that the proscriptions against it were just for the
time.  That is the gravest danger in Biblical interpretation.  One
cannot say that every word in the Bible is to be taken literally, but
what the next step after that is in Biblical interpretation is a very
fuzzy issue.
				Rick Frey (ix415@sdcc6.UUCP)