It seems so strange to me, that so many people here on a folk music forum, are so insistent that ancient writings must be taken literally - particularly ancient religious writings. And then the thinking seems to be that if what is expressed the writings is not the literal truth, then the writings must be dismissed as totally invalid.

One would think that we, of all people, should be able to understand folklore. Almost all religious writings are steeped in folklore. And these writings often give deep insights into the human condition of their time - even though they rarely express the literal truth.

Do we really think that the Greeks and the Egyptians and the Celts and the Native Americans took their myths literally? I don't think so. Why then, do we think that those in the Judeo-Christian tradition took their writings literally? The rabbinic tradition of discussion and debate over every aspect of scripture and tradition, is certainly strong evidence that first-century Jews didn't have a rigid, literalist view of their scriptures and traditions.

And literary evidence is clear that the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, was written and rewritten many times over, over a period of many centuries. If these people took their scriptures as literally true, why did they rewrite them so often?

Yes, I'm sure that people two millennia ago had primitive ideas about the origins of the earth - so they told stories to illustrate their ponderings about their origins. But why must we think these people took these mythical stories literally? I think that ancient peoples understood their myths and their folklore and their literary devices far better than we do. Yes, there have been literalists all through the ages, but I think our modern age has spawned a far more rigid form of literalism. Until not too long ago, only intelligent people could read. In much of the world nowadays, literacy is almost universal, even among incredibly stupid people. And those incredibly stupid people have given birth to an incredibly stupid form of literalism.

But I think that the ancient religious writings generally came from people of wisdom. And if we view these writings as the writers intended, we can find profound wisdom in them - even if we do not profess the same beliefs they had.

-Joe-