Comments on: Literal Or Proverbial. How Do We Find Out The Differences?

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 05:52:40 +0000

(That last one was by me)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 21:37:40 +0000

Bret,

You’re right — I did miss the fact you take all scripture stories literally. Reading back through your post I see that line now, but so many of your questions seemed to be asking which way we should read them, literally or proverbially.

Forgive me for missing your point — I guess I need you to clarify a little. You say, “Where the line gets fuzzy is when it comes to prophecy and interpreting doctrines and such.” So are you asking only about taking prophecies and doctrines (NOT the stories) literally or symbolically? In that case, I’d probably stick with my original comment: try it both ways and see what you can gain. I agree it can be confusing if looked at in the wrong way, so in answer to your last two questions my best guess is this: we’re probably to search the prophecies and seek revelation to understand them, always remembering “interpretations by the prophets themselves” trump our own.

I probably ended up not really answering anything at all, didn’t I?

By: Bret

Bret — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 01:10:30 +0000

Amy,
Thank you, but I think you may of missed that I believe the fatc that all the stories in the scriptures actually happened as they say they do, it’s the prophetic talk that I get confused by. Yeah, a lot of it can be looked at both ways but a lot of it can confuse you if you look at it the wrong way.
Rusty,
I’m pretty sure the existence of Paul Dunn is proverbial. I’ve never seen him before…

By: don

don — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 23:28:59 +0000

I agree with you Bret. I think that most “born agains” take the scriptures more literally than we “Mormons” do. I think maybe we are afraid to take them more literally than we do.

I also think we can learn alot from our “born again” brethern, especially when it comes to the Bible.

By: Rusty

Rusty — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 18:48:19 +0000

So are Paul Dunn’s modern stories literal or proverbial?

By: Amy

Amy — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 16:11:12 +0000

Bret,

This is really a fascinating topic. I don’t know that I can answer any of your questions, but thanks for asking them all. My personal feeling on the matter is basically summed up in your second paragraph:

“I’ve found wonderful truths when [taking the scriptures literally], but I’ve found wonderful truths when doing the opposite as well.”

It was a high school teacher who first put into my mind the idea that Jonah may not have literally been inside a big fish. Since that time I have discovered such an occurence is actually possible and has even been documented in the 20th century. But what I decided was that it probably didn’t matter too much, as long as I believed the concept symbolized by the story (Christ’s resurrection).

As you said, you can find wonderful truths looking at scripture stories literally as well as allegorically. So why not do that with every story? Even so, my guess is that we’ll be surprised one day to find how literal most of them are.

(A great help to me are the Old Testament student manuals, which sometimes affirm the literal validity of specific stories, based on New Testament/B of M/D&C verses in which Christ refers to the Old Testament story as a true happening.)