Did Augustine read the bible literally?

To start this off, and for the record, I say that he did read the bible literally.

The key question is whether or not someone has read Augustine. The rest follows.

>2 timspalding: I have read Augustine, hence, I say that he did read the bible literally.

In a pig's eye.

>3 zangasta:

On which of Augustine's works are you basing this conclusion? One of my favorites is De doctrina Christiana, which involves quite a bit of figurative application of biblical texts. The City of God also does not lack for metaphorical exploitation of the bible, as well as imaginative interpolation of metaphysical ideas.

When you talk about a document of the size and scope of the Bible, nearly anyone who reads it will read some portions and aspects of it "literally." But if you're trying to identify Augustine with 21st-century biblical inerrantists, you probably haven't given the former's works enough consideration (or sufficiently appreciated the lunkheadedness of the latter).

>4 timspalding:

Nope, at my desk here. Have you read Augustine? If so, what?

>5 paradoxosalpha:

:-) I kinda wish you hadn't given me an answer like that before Tim had a chance of committing himself beyond apparently disparaging my honesty. However...

My question isn't "Did he exploit metaphorically or apply figuratively or interpolate imaginatively?". (Did I manage to keep my tongue straight enough for all three?) It is " Did he read literally?" You're implying that he did not read entirely literally, though you don't seem to be quite committing yourself... Care to do so?

I'll refrain from answering your second paragraph fully, but, no, I am not attempting to compare him to current, or even somewhat recent, mammals.

I'm sorry, is the point that Augustine sometimes read "literally"? Okay. Great. Beer time.

>7 timspalding:

Yes, Tim, it does come across as somewhat disingenuous when people insist that Augustine read the bible metaphorically, when what they mean is that he read Genesis literally, and he read the account of the sun standing still for an hour of extra slaughter literally, but he read some parts of the bible metaphorically on top of reading it literally. Does that make any sort of sense to you?

I wish to make myself clear here. When I say that Augustine read Genesis literally, I am referring to the fact that he wrote that there is a solid structure over our heads, separating "the waters from the waters". I don't blame him for not knowing better than people around him at the time. I distrust people who for some reason would hide his mistake from me.

>8 zangasta:

If you'd like to redefine words, be my guest. Most people think that, when people talk about someone reading the Bible "literally," they mean that the person basically reads it all literally, like a modern fundamentalist might. They don't mean they sometimes read it literally. I believe that, say, Jesus visited Jerusalem, um, literally. That does not mean I read the Bible "literally."

If your point is that he read it in a variety of ways, then you are correct. But if you think people have misled you, trying to tell you he only read it "metaphorically," it is merely because you didn't understand what they were saying in the first place.

>10 timspalding:

Once again, the great Timster knows what people had inside their skulls. This time, people he has no idea who were.

I rarely find myself in complete agreement with Tim in this group's threads. But this is one of those times.

Right, two people who never saw the discussions I had, know what my interlocutors had in mind. I must indeed be mistaken.

>13 zangasta:

If you mean something else, you need to clarify what that something else is. You can't expect us to share an indictment (or offer a defense) of your unnamed and absent interlocutors unless you represent them to us. We're just responding to what you wrote here.

Where is Nathaniel when you need him?

His posts ## 5 and 7 in this thread might be worth a glance, where he quotes Augustine's The Literal Meaning of Genesis.

>15 John5918:

Those two look similar to passages in his Confessions. Be that as it may - how does it affect the following?

"At a man's prayer the sun stood still, so that a battle could be carried through to victory (Josh. 10:12 ff.): the sun stopped but time went on." Confessions, pg 238, Augustine; tr. Henry Chadwick.

"An extraordinary wonder is the physical heaven, the solid firmament or barrier put between water and water on the second day after the creating of light, when you said 'Let it be made' and so it was made." Confessions, pg 250, Augustine; tr. Henry Chadwick.

Augustine made no qualifying remarks upon the first.

He did waffle on a bit surrounding the second, but I was left with the impression that he meant it quite literally, ie any non-literality referred to other parts. (It is after all in my best interest to have as accurate an understanding as I can. And I encourage anyone to numb their minds by reading it for themselves.) I do not remember the waffle.

It is interesting how we can hold a literal and a mythological reading in our minds simultaneously.

I teach a Sunday School course and we are reading (slowly) Genesis 1-11. We started off discussing the documentary hypothesis, correlations with Enuma Elish, other mythologies. We have discussed cosmology and evolution, and the image of the universe that is portrayed in Gen 1 of a dome holding back the waters above.

And still in the class the question comes up as to the reason Yahweh Elohim put a tree of knowledge in the Garden that would cause Adam to disobey the single command not to eat of that fruit.

>16 zangasta:

I don't understand why you care about these particular statements of Augustine's, which show him to be no more enlightened than his contemporaries on the subject of natural philosophy. Is someone of any relevance treating Augustine as a scientific authority?

Augustine's hermeneutical efforts are not, in my opinion, accurately characterized by a blanket indictment of "literalism."

>18 paradoxosalpha:

I don't blame him for not knowing better than people around him at the time. I distrust people who for some reason would hide his mistake from me.

What exactly is the difference between "hermeneutical efforts" and divination?

>17 richardbsmith:

Mmmm, it is a rather interesting question to ponder: If they didn't know right from wrong before eating of the tree of the knowledge thereof, how would they know it to be wrong to eat thereof?

>19 zangasta:

There's no need to trumpet or to hide his "mistake"; it's just what any reasonable person would expect of someone in his historical circumstance.

Hermeneutical efforts have only the remotest conceptual overlap with divination. The former is simply the work of interpreting an existing text. The latter is an attempt to "tell the future" through magical procedures.

>20 zangasta:

A topic for another thread perhaps. : )

And the Christianity through scripture course opened today.

>21 paradoxosalpha:

Divination: "the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers"

How is divination not a case of hermeneutics, "a method or principle of interpretation"?

How is hermeneutics, in the form practiced by Augustine in his Confessions, not a practice seeking to discover hidden knowledge by the aid of supernatural powers?

>21 paradoxosalpha:, >23 zangasta:

I meant to add: Have you read his Confessions? Have you seen how he keeps on and on about asking his imaginary friend, with or without quoting scripture, for help to understand? (When he's not asking said friend to help stop his nightly emissions...)

>23 zangasta:
As I said, there is a "remotest conceptual overlap," but you will rarely if ever find the words used in contexts where they are interchangeable on a practical level. Hermeneutics is about the interpretation of texts, and most divinatory practices interpret other phenomena (and for other purposes), supernatural aid notwithstanding. There are some cases of divination through textual means, but bibliomantic sortilege falls outside of the sphere usually denoted by "hermenuetics" in both medieval and modern discourse.

The point of greatest intersection is probably certain forms of kabbalistic exegesis, such as notarikon, temurah, and gematria. But even those would express a sort of particle/wave duality: serving as hermeneutic tools when seeking certain sorts of answers, and divinatory tools for entirely different types of questions. To return to the original topic, these techniques are about as far from "literal" reading as one can get.

>24 zangasta:
Yes, of course I have read Augustine's Confessions.

>25 paradoxosalpha:

I'd like to see someone like Ann Taves do the evaluation.

Nothing "of course" about it. Plenty of those who show an interest in religion have probably never even heard of them.

Whatever the ins and outs of this, I'm glad that I came across those passages. Next time the issue comes up, I can attempt to clarify with my interlocutor what exactly they are saying. Sounds like a good thing to me.

>26 zangasta:

It's "of course" not because everyone has read Confessions, but because I don't go weighing in with opinions on authors I haven't read, and that's almost certainly his most-read work. I had already specifically mentioned having read On Christian Teaching and The City of God.

bibliomantic sortilege falls outside of the sphere usually denoted by "hermenuetics" in both medieval and modern discourse

My favorite theory on the Gospel of Thomas is that it was designed for bibliomancy. Anyway, they did it with Homer…

Virgil is great for oracles.

It's just fortunate that when Augustine heard "tolle, lege," he didn't pick up some passage about killing Cananites, or whatever.

Ah, yes! Augustine the kledomantic adept.

Godfrey Higgins refers to: "Augustine the glory of Africa, who says he saw men in Ethiopia without heads, but one eye in the breast.”

Higgins, Godfrey (2014-05-19). Anacalypsis (Kindle Locations 6031-6032). Jazzybee Verlag. Kindle Edition.

>33 quicksiva:

Oh dear... He saw them himself? I was aware that he discusses the possibilities of Cynocephali in City of God, but to claim that he actually saw phantasms himself... tut, tut.

Although portrayed as “unique divine revelation,” Christianity was neither “new nor strange” but had existed “from the beginning,” as declared by Church fathers Eusebius and Augustine in a moment of inspired candor that likely revealed more than they intended. These comments by the Church fathers were apparently meant to demonstrate the eternal nature of the Christian faith but, in actuality, explained why, if Christianity constituted “unique revelation,” so many of its tenets could already be found around the known world for centuries to millennia. Indeed, as we can see from the numerous correspondences, if Christianity is to be considered “divine revelation,” then so too must be the important Egyptian religion upon which much of the Christian effort was palpably founded. In reality, since it preceded Christianity by millennia, the Egyptian religion could lay claim to being the original “divine revelation,” closer to the truth and less corrupted.

S, Acharya; Murdock, D.M. (2011-01-29). Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection (

For paradoxosalpha :
http://www.homeromanteion.com

>35 quicksiva:

<Speechless>

On the Allegorical Nature of Genesis by Godrey Higgins

“M. Dupuis, in the first chapter of his third volume, has made many curious observations on the book of Genesis, tending to prove that it was an allegory descriptive of the mythology of the oriental nations in the neighbourhood of Palestine. That is was allegorical was held by the most learned of the ancient fathers of the church, such as Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, as it had been by the most learned of the Jews, such as Philo, Josephus, &c., so that its allegorical nature may perhaps be safely assumed, notwithstanding the nonsense of modern devotees.

The following extract from the work of Maimonides, called More Nevochim,* exhibits a fair example of the policy of the ancient philosophers :
"Taken to the letter, this work (Genesis) gives the most absurd and extravagant ideas of the Divinity. Whoever shall find the true sense of it ought to take care not to divulge it. This is a maxim which all our sages repeat to us, and above all respecting the meaning of the work of the six days. If a person should discover the meaning of it, either by himself or with the aid of another, then he ought to be silent : or if he speak of it, he ought to speak of it obscurely, and in an enigmatical manner as I do myself; leaving the rest to be guessed by those who can understand me."** * Pars. II. Cap. xxix. ** Dupuis, sur tous les cultes, Vol. III, p. 9, 4to.

… To admit the accounts of Genesis to be literal, would be to admit facts directly contrary to the moral attributes of God. Fanatical as the ancient fathers were, their fanaticism had not blinded them, as it has blinded the moderns, so far as to admit this. But the story of the garden of Eden, the trees of knowledge and of life, the talking serpent, and the sin of Adam and Eve were allegorical, redemption from the atonement from the consequences of his allegorical fault could not but be equally allegorical. This, it is evident, instantly overthrows the whole of the present orthodox or fashionable scheme of the atonement— a doctrine not known in the early ages of the religion, but picked up in the same quarter whence several doctrines of modern Christianity will be found to have been derived.

… In reasoning from cause and effect, this seems to be a necessary consequence. From this difficulty arose a great mass of contradictions and absurdities. It is impossible to deny, that it has always been a part of modern corrupt Christian religion, that an evil spirit rebelled against God, and that he having drawn other beings of his own description into the same evil course, was, for his conduct, expelled along with them from heaven, into a place of darkness and intense torment. This nonsense, which is no part of the religion of Jesus the Nazarite, came from the same quarter as the atonement. We shall find them both in India.”

Higgins, Godfrey (2014-05-19). Anacalypsis (Kindle Locations 847-863). Jazzybee Verlag. Kindle Edition.

To admit the accounts of Genesis to be literal, would be to admit facts directly contrary to the moral attributes of God

Well, this is based on assumption, rather than knowledge. I'm with Stephen Law when he concludes that the preponderance of the evidence* is for an evil god, one who allows the minimum amount of good to accomplish the maximum amount of evil.

Maimonides was hardly an "ancient", but no matter. It's odd that in 1263, 59 years after Maimonides's death, Jews were apparently being accused of reading Genesis too literally, according to the 1986 TV movie The Disputation. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't explicitly lay out the details, but I assumed it might be from a base similar to what has been laid out about Augustine above, with the christian vexation stemming from Jewish obstinacy to retroactively read "Jesus" into the literal story. And of course it is only a movie...

Whoever shall find the true sense of it ought to take care not to divulge it.

I wonder. Could any of the nonsense of modern devotees possibly stem from this reticence? Could this possibly be an admission that the tithers were being deliberately kept in the dark?

But the story of the garden of Eden, the trees of knowledge and of life, the talking serpent, and the sin of Adam and Eve were allegorical, redemption from the atonement from the consequences of his allegorical fault could not but be equally allegorical.

The plot sickens.

Just what exactly does Higgie baby mean by the word 'modern'?

Too much to disentangle here.

________

*When disregarding for argument's sake that the preponderance is for there being no god/s whatever.

None of my remarks should be misconstrued as opinions on the intentions of the original writers/editors of the writings in the bible. I am here only interested in how Augustine, and to some extent others, judged the writings.

"And so, we may naturally expect that in 1976, the same criticisms will be justly applied to many a scientific discovery, now deemed conclusive and final by our scholars. That which is now termed the superstitious verbiage and gibberish of mere heathens and savages, composed many thousands of years ago, may be found to contain the master-key to all religious systems. The cautious sentence of St. Augustine, a favorite name in Max Muller's lectures, which says that "there is no false religion which does not contain some elements of truth," may yet be triumphantly proved correct; the more so as, far from being original with the Bishop of Hippo, it was borrowed by him from the works of Ammonius Saccas, the great Alexandrian teacher. This "god-taught" philosopher, the theodidaktos, had repeated these same words to exhaustion, in his numerous works some 140 years before Augustine. Acknowledging Jesus as "an excellent man, and the friend of God," he always maintained that his design was not to abolish the intercourse with gods and demons (spirits), but simply to purify the ancient religions; that "the religion of the multitude went hand in hand with philosophy, and with her had shared the fate of being by degrees corrupted and obscured with mere human conceits, superstition, and lies: that it ought therefore to be brought back to its original purity by purging it of this dross and expounding it upon philosophical principles; and p. 444 that the whole which Christ had in view was to reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the wisdom of the ancients." *

It was Ammonius who first taught that every religion was based on one and the same truth; which is the wisdom found in the Books of Thoth (Hermes Trismegistus), from which books Pythagoras and Plato had learned all their philosophy. And the doctrines of the former he affirmed to have been identical with the earliest teachings of the Brahmans--now embodied in the oldest Vedas.

"The name Thoth," says Professor Wilder, "means a college or assembly," ** and "it is not improbable that the books were so named as being the collected oracles and doctrines of the sacerdotal fraternity of Memphis. Rabbi Wise had suggested a similar hypothesis in relation to the divine utterances recorded in the Hebrew Scripture. But the Indian writers assert, that during the reign of king Kansa, Yadus (Judeans?) or sacred tribe left India and migrated to the West, carrying the four Vedas with them. There was certainly a great resemblance

Blavatsky, H.P. (2008-02-24). Isis Unveiled (Kindle Locations 8288-8301). . Kindle Edition.