What I am proposing is not whether or not these stories really happened. All I am saying is that when it comes to the Bible, most Christians suspend all belief. No matter how bizarre or far-fetched the story, the general opinion is that it really happened. Since it's a Bible story, it's not all that strange or outlandish. The reader's assumption seems to be that it's no big deal because God can do anything.
I don't ever argue the Bible with anyone. It's a losing proposition. The person I'm arguing with leaves the conversation more convinced than ever of his own opinion and I leave wishing I'd never been born. It just doesn't accomplish anything good to lock horns over beliefs about the Bible. But...
A few months ago I did just that. I argued about the validity of a particular story in the Bible. It didn't end well. Before my friend stood up from the restaurant table and just angrily walked out, I had asked him, "So if the story is within the leather covers, you believe that it happened just like that?" And he said "Yes, I do." It went downhill from there.
"In the beginning was only Tepeu and The Feathered Serpent. These two sat together and thought, and whatever they thought came into being. They thought Earth and there it was. They thought mountains, trees, sky and animals and each came into being. And then they thought man out of clay." You will immediately recognize some similarities between this American Indian myth of creation and the story from the Book of Genesis. And yet for most people, they would say that this account is very strange and totally unbelievable. In thousands of other American Indian legends, animals have human and even god-like characteristics. And we say "That's just too strange. That can't be the way that it happened. These legends are just fairy tales."
Yet when we read equally bizarre stories in the Bible, we have no problem believing that they are true.
In 2 Kings chapter 2 is the story of a group of children who mocked the prophet Elisha. After making fun of the fact that he was bald-headed, two female bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of them to death. No one involved seemed to think it was out of the ordinary for God to do this and most modern readers apparently think the same thing. The moral of the story seems to be 'Don't make fun of preachers or God will mutilate a bunch of children !" Maybe it happened just like that, but shouldn't we agree that the punishment was rather severe for the crime? And does God really kill children?
In Ezekiel chapter 4 is one of the most bizarre stories in scripture. To make a point about Israel's unfaithfulness ( a very common theme in the Old Testament), God told Ezekiel to lie on his left side for 390 days. That's a month over a year ! And then to lie on his right side for 40 days. I don't know about you, but lying on my side for more than a couple of hours would get to be quite painful. But the story gets worse. God told Ezekiel to only eat a certain bread and that he was to bake that bread over human dung. When he protested, God told him that he could use cow's dung instead. Much better.
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is one that reads like Aesop's Fables. In Numbers 22 Balaam's donkey saw the angel in their path, but Balaam did not. Three different times the donkey stops and three different times Balaam beats his donkey. So at this point we have a donkey that recognizes angels. That's pretty strange. But also at this point the donkey speaks to Balaam, "What have I done to you to make you beat me?" And then as if this is nothing out of the ordinary, Balaam answers his donkey "Because you have made a fool out of me. If I had a sword I would kill you!". So now we have a man and a donkey carrying on a conversation as if it's all to be expected in this situation. That Feathered Serpent in the creation myth is looking more and more possible, don't you think?
In 2 Kings 6 a prophet had borrowed an ax to cut trees to build a meeting place. The ax head flew off into the river. Elisha simply threw a stick in the water and the ax head floated to the top. None of the prophets seemed to think this was odd. And neither do the readers of the Bible. This piece of iron just floated on the water like you would expect.
There are a multitude of stories to choose from, but I'll rest my case with just one more. In Genesis chapter 6, just before the Great Flood, we read the story of the Nephilim. The story says that angelic beings were sexually attracted to human females. They came to earth and mated with these women and their offspring became a race of giants--the Nephilim. I'm not making this up. Go to Genesis chapter 6 and read the story for yourself. Angels +women=giants.
Stone Coat is the mythological rock giant of the Iroquois. He was twice as tall as humans and his body was covered in rock hard scales that repelled weapons. Stone Coat also ate people. Some say that Stone Coat was human but was cursed and became a cannibal monster. I'm not saying that Stone Coat really existed, I'm just saying that this story is just as plausible as any of the above. I'm also saying that if this story was bound by the same leather as the above stories, most Christians wouldn't think it was all that bizarre.
That friend who walked out on me? We're still good friends. But we don't argue about the Bible. I will conclude by saying that no matter what happened or didn't happen in the stories I have referenced, we can all agree that "God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform." That's not in the Bible.
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